Every Digipack has a repertoire of elements which establishes the product, in order to create and design my Digipack in the promotional package, it’s vital I research about the conventions of a Digipack within the pop genre so I can ensure my audience gets a preferred viewing (Hall). Furthermore, it’s important to note unconventional features which I could potentially include to create an edge to my product and stand out in a competitive, saturated market (USP).

I have chosen Doja Cats album “Hot Pink” as she is a famous star within the pop genre who unconventionally mixes rap with pop, so I believed her album will represent the conventions of the pop genre as well as have aspects which stand out above the rest.

Thanks to my research, I have learnt the formal/technical conventions of digipacks with some being the:

• Album title
• Track list
• Barcode
• Copyright
• Stars name

These are the universal conventions that an audience would expect to find despite the genre. Another feature I noticed is that the design throughout is usually balanced and are all cohesive with one another which helps create a brand identity for the album. However it’s important to look into the generic conventions for the pop genre to really capture and engage our target audience demographic and psychographics. Due to pop being a very broad genre, I have looked into the sub genre of girly-pop to really aim and focus on our target audience being teenage girls.

Doja Cats age demographic is a bit older than ours which can be seen with her more sexual star image representation which is actually quite a common representation for females within the pop industry, however due to our younger audience demographic we are aiming to create a more girl next door, popular, realistic teenage girl that younger fans can look up to and idolize.

Generic Conventions to the Pop Genre

• A photograph of the star is usually on the front cover, following the rule of thirds they are usually placed in the center in order to stand out.
• A mid shot or close up of the star is conventional as it establishes the star as they are the face of the brand. Moreover, it helps so fans of the star can easily recognise their product boosting engagement and sales.
• Conventionally, the star is usually breaking the forth wall making eye contact with the consumer which helps build a more personal connection between the star and fan potentially helping construct this in reach yet still out of reach (Dyer) star image.
• The text throughout the digipack is usually a sans serif typeface with a bold and modern font which helps represents the modernity of the pop genre and has denotations and connotations (Hall) of a trendy, popular and clean star image and album.
• More specifically for the ‘girly-pop’ sub genre the colour palette usually is made up of bright, vibrant colours like pinks, purples and blues avoiding a colour palette dominated by greys, blacks and red for example. The bright colours signifies (de Saussure) a fun, upbeat and energetic star/album which perfectly reflects the pop genre.
• The mise-en-scene is typically bold which according to Richard Dyer helps construct an extraordinary, out of reach star image. The outgoing choice of mise-en-scene also helps create fascination generating more attention and interest to an audience.

Thinking forward, now that I understand the technical conventions of a digipack as well as the generic conventions for the pop industry I can begin the mock up for our first draft of the digipack including the repertoire of elements needed as well as potentially coming up with some unconventional features to create an edge and have a unique selling point amongst the competition.