3. A Digipack
The digipack is a great way to publicise the
album, and shows a fantastic way to
develop artwork to promote the CD.
My genre research on punk-rock showed
me that most punk rock albums can either
be conceptual or just a little bit wacky.
This album documents a live performance,
and the pack shows this through it‟s design.
4. The Front Cover
The front cover is indicative of a usual
live punk-rock concert, with the idea of < Original logo
the punk-rock use of fist pumping the
microphone to the crowd. The colour is
absent except in the logo and the very
bottom of the front cover, which
symbolises that the band care more
about music as a way of expressing
themselves than trying to stand out on
the shelves.
The logo is in a dark red, and done in
a gothic font that represents the band
as a motif. Being a dark red makes it
stand out against the monochrome
background and highlights the band‟s
name. Also, the artist name is in a
much larger font than the album name,
which represents a desire to advertise
the band more. The smudged quality
of the word “Texas” also suggests a
messiness or lack of refinement to the
music, which is much like what punk-
rock is; raw and undefined.
The splattered paint effect also creates
this idea, and ties in nicely with the
„running ink or paint‟ style of the works
and microphone in the image.
5. The Disc Tray
The inside disc tray shows more messy
paint splatters „damaging‟ the
background image. The image is a close
up of the crowd from the front cover‟s
image, still in the monochrome. Lots of
the crowd members are making the
usual rock symbols with their hands, a
punk gesture developed when punk first
became huge.
In the middle, some of the picture is too
dark to see, which is then covered in
more white splatter stains. This relates to
the front cover with the style indicating
an unrefined quality, reflecting the punk-
rock idea again of wanting their sound to
be almost imperfect.
The fact that the album is live also can
relate to this, because when
performances are live, there is an
unpredictability about them, and
therefore mistakes can be made. The
red markings also seem to be words, but
cannot be made out, which adds a
mystery to the album cover. It is possible
they relate to the name of the album, as
it is the same colour.
6. The Inside Cover
The inside cover focuses more on the
name of the album, “Live In Texas”. The
font for “Live in” matches that of the
band logo on the front cover, and the
“Texas” bit is much bigger and bolder,
emphasising where the live album was
recorded.
The “X” in “Texas” is also made to look
extravagant and it stands out, looking
like it is breaking from the boundary of
the normal text. This “X” also is
splattered, much like the design of the
album overall.
The idea of X marking the spot is also
possibly connoted, because it is marking
the area of the CD being close to this
logo.
Again the theme of the monochrome
crowd is featured, but this time it is
somewhat blurred, as though the camera
were zooming to or away from the
scene, making it more like the CD will
pull you in and drag you into the concert.