Digipak Analysis: Alesana The Emptiness

'Digipak is a patented style of CD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI-Shorewood, an Atlas Holdings LLC company they are often used for CD singles or special edition albums '- wikipeadia - http://en.wikipediaark.org/wiki/Digipak

Alesana- 'Alesana is an American rock band from Raleigh, North Carolina. Formed in 2004, the group is currently signed to Epitaph Records and have released one EP and four full-length studio albums.'- Wikipeadia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alesana

'The Emptiness is the third full-length album by Alesana. It was recorded in the fall of 2009 and was released on January 26, 2010 through Fearless Records. The album is the first Alesana record to surround with a concept of an original story, instead of having songs written through already existing allusions. The album is considered that of a rock opera because of its in-depth story. Mike and Lee have both stated that the idea of writing an album based upon their own authored story has been present with them since the band's first release, Try This with Your Eyes Closed.' - Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emptiness_(album)

Features found in the digipak:

Story book with images

Lyrics book

CD

Dimensions of digipak –

Front cover: H 12.5 cm, W 14cm

Spine: H 12.5 cm, W 0.5 cm 

First opening of digipak: H 12.5 cm, W 28.5 cm

Fully opened digipak: H 12.5, W 42.5 cm

CD diameter:  12 cm 

Through out the album The Emptiness by rock band Alesana there is a theme, this theme being a horror story. Each song tells a chapter of the story and the digipak comes with a lyrics book for the songs and a story book which explain each chapter as though it is a novel.

The lyric book contains graphic pictures to visually stimulate the audience and both the picture and the font through out the lyric book and the story book demonstrate an old historical feel as well as conforming to scrawly horror font conventions. This is because the story is set in the 1800's. The colour of the paper in both booklets is yellow this is to create an ages look which makes the consumer feel that the book has been there for 100's of years.

Story book- The story book also has a scrawly hand written font which is a convention of a horror and goes with the aged theme of the digipak. 

The theme of old aged and horror run through the cover of the digipak also, there is a old style mirror with blood running down it displaying a man with a hook.

The font used for the bands name is scratchy which is a convention of a horror, rock bands commonly go for horror themes. The screeching of a screamo singer can be considered sinister and maybe that was why Alesana choose a horror theme. Horror is a convention of rock music. 

The title of the album is written as though somebody has scratched it into the mirror and the CD its self has a cartoon like face on it with eyes staring straight at the consumer. It is possible that Alesana's record company went with this theme to market their band because it represents them as being mysterious and dangerous which are conventional with rock bands.

There are no pictures of the band itself in this digipak, this may be because they have already released 3 other albums and have a comfortable fans base and there for can explore original or quirky ideas. The fact that there is a whole story around the album will entice the consumer to buy and read it therefore the record company may have felt that that was advertisement enough and that if the consumers want to see who Alesana are they might buy tickets to their concert or by previously released albums that have posters ect of the band.