Disc Research

I have decided to look at some disc designs for the genre of my music, to help me out with how the design of my disc should look like. I have looked at a variety of different types of disc designs to give me some ideas.

Alter Bridge's One Day Remains contains similar song genre's to our band genre. This disc is very picturesque, because it contains the exact same picture as the album cover, which then makes it clearly distinguishable to the audience that this disc belongs to a particular digipak. Having the same running theme throughout a digipak then makes it easier to associate certain imagery with the album, and furthermore, the band, and to have it all matching in this way makes it look more professional, which is what Alter Bridge as a more established band are trying to do here. The picture is very ironic to the genre, where it is very bright with bright colours in a very relaxed artistic setting, as opposed to dark colours in a loud or mysterious setting. The use of irony would make their album more memorable to their target audience which works as a marketing technique. The band logo is clearly seen on this disc, so that it is clear to the audience who this music belongs to, which is also why the music producers and record labels are shown on the bottom. These are slightly transparent so that the band are promoting themselves more than their record label who also produce music for other bands. The font for the album title is very fancy and script like to fit with the artistic and beautiful setting, another use of irony. 

Asking Alexandria's Stand Up and Scream album is fairly similar to the genre of our band as well. This is an extremely simple design where only lettering really has to be used onto the disc as opposed to a full circular image, which would make it easier and cheaper for distribution purposes. This also makes it quite a unique disc type that might appeal to alternative audiences. It matches the theme of their album cover because that too is very simplistic, however, it is also very different in the sense the colours and fonts are different and the band logo is not used, which shows a more experimental or ironic approach to the relationship between the disc and the digipak, making the disc almost like a new product in itself. The record label recognition is clearly shown which is important for professional musicians in terms of legal issues.

Fever by Bullet For My Valentine actually has many different disc designs, but I decided to choose this one, a very simple one, because unlike a lot of simplistic disc designs, this one has a full swirly pattern on the disc which makes it more aesthetically pleasing even without the use of a full image, which is something I could consider. The swirly pattern could relate to the mixed feelings from a person in terms of 'fever' which is the album name, and also is quite a mysterious and beautiful, to fit with the genre of the music. To further fit with this genre, the background is black, which connotes darkness, mystery and rebellion - which Bullet For My Valentine's songs often relate to. The band logo with album name is shown in paler writing to stand out to the audience, which also promotes them and puts a personal concept on the disc and songs on the disc. The music distributor and record label are also shown as legal requirements.

As Shinedown is the band that originally sing the song that we used in our music video, I decided to look at their CD's. This one uses the band logo and name, so that it is clear to the audience that it is their CD, and belongs to the particular digipak that it is associated with. The bird silhouettes in black and white match the album cover directly, to look more professional, but these two shades are inverted, so the disc in itself is a product compared to the digipak. The name of the album is also clearly printed on the disc so it is obvious to the audience which album it is, and the 'S' used in the title of the album is the same S associated with the band Shinedown, which therefore links the disc to the band. Overall the disc is very plain and simple, which would make it easier in the production stage when having to distribute it with the digipak, and as the disc is inside, it isn't always necessary for the disc to be as aesthetically pleasing.