FA: Deconstructing A Digipak

Coldplay - Viva La Vida

 

 

 

Genre

·        The indie pop genre of the album and music is evident from the digipak. The front cover shows a traditional style painting. The album name, 'Viva La Vida' is written over the top of the painting in white paint. The dull colours and themes displayed on this digipak are quite common features of indie albums, so the audience relates these colours with the genre.

Media Language

 ·        The visual techniques used in this digipak are mainly colour and tone related. All three covers which include text have the text centralised rather than applying the rule of thirds. The splitscreen cover has the band members centralised in their individual pictures as well, so the rule of thirds does not apply to this digipak whatsoever.

 

·        The subtle tone and bland colours displayed on the digipak are trademarks of Coldplay, who are known for some of their slow relaxing music, which could be related to the traditional art and subtle tones which are evident on the digipak.

 

 ·        The mise-en-scene on the digipak is sparse, with only photographs being quite difficult to make out, with the only real subject being the artists face, and in one of the pictures, his guitar. The band members are all wearing bland white shirts with black waistcoats or dark coloured coats.

 

 ·        Viva La Vida literally translates to ‘live the life’ in Spanish. This has many positive connotations, which is showing that Coldplay’s music is generally upbeat, despite its slow nature that is often evident. This is the only linguistic device used, as due to the simplistic and subtle nature of the digipak, there is the minimum amount of text required, with track listing, band name, album name, and other necessary details in small print.

 

·        The only real reference to culture in the digipak is the painting, which could be from the civil war era; a symbol of more upper class, or arty audiences. This immediately rules out a large audience from choosing to buy this album, and this therefore means that Coldplay are aiming for a select target audience.

 

 

Representation

 

 ·        The band’s image is reinforced with this digipak, as Coldplay are widely described as being very arty and traditional, and this album is supporting this star image that they have created for themselves by making their digipak very simple and artistic. This does help to sell their products, as it makes their albums very recognisable as being theirs, so their target audience finds them easily in shops.

 

 ·        Coldplay are reinforcing Dyer’s theory of star images in this digipak, as they are both present and absent. Coldplay’s faces are being shown so are therefore present, but they are not the main focus on the main cover so are absent too.

 

Institution and Audience

 

 

 ·        This print text will mainly be consumed by a very focused audience, not ambient at all due to it being quite subtle, and if displayed amongst a group of other digipaks or CD cases, it will go unnoticed unless it is being looked for, and I believe that this subtle, artistic look is exactly what Coldplay intended to create.