Researching Ancillary Tasks - Digipaks

Researching Ancillary Tasks - Digipaks

In order to decide which ancillary tasks to do, we decided to research examples of them for 3 artists within the indie genre. We decided to focus on 3 artists specifically: Lana Del Rey, The Killers, and Coldplay. We chose these artists as they are well established within the genre whilst having different styles of music, meaning that their products will be both professional and varied.

   Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey is on the front of her album covers. Her album covers are quite simple and conforms to the conventions associated with the genre as being the kind of laid back type of music. The colours on her covers are also bright and has effects such as black and white. Typically most Indie music has a lot of effects and I think that element was tied in very well with the covers. The text is also a simple style and is in large letters which makes it stand out. The costumes Lana is wearing in the covers are very classy and feminine. The dresses are very simple yet elegant.

This album cover in particular I felt like conformed to indie genre very well. The costume is simple and elegant but still draws our attention as the audience to her as the artist. Indie music is usually more about the artist rather than cars and flashy objects. Her dress is silky and flowy just like the music itself. Her hair is very old school with the loose waves. The title in the cover is big and bold in gold and the font is simple yet because its big it still draws our attention to it. 

Being a female artist, Lana Del Rey's image is very important whether its consciously important or subconsciously because we associate her elegance with her music. If she looks good we pay more attention to her and therefore are more likely to be consuming her music. Her body language is represented in a sexual way which references back to Mulvey's concept about the 'male gaze'. How even though she is an incredible musician, the camera still portrays her to conform to the conventions of being a women.

On the other hand, this album cover portrays Lana Del Rey as being a strong women through her costume of the black leather jacket and the white bold letters and also the tilting of the camera makes her look 'big' and powerful. The splatter of blood makes you wonder whether she is a killer and her smokey eye makeup also presents a dark image or in other words the other side of her. However, she does still conform to the sexual stereotypes associated with women because she isn't wearing anything underneath her leather black jacker and has a long chain from her neck down and our eyes follows this. The colour of her lips and the parting of her lips looks 'sexy' and also its the way model's look. This emphasises the point about the 'male gaze' as even though Lana Del Rey is trying to escape  the norm she is still in some ways conforming to it.

   The Killers

The Killers albums all seem to have a main focus on their name when is comes to the covers. There's a common theme of red, purple, grey, white and black. The mixture of these colours set different moods for each album suggesting they like to experiment with their style of indie and giving us a large variety of song types for different moods. The four main image focuses on these album covers are: the band, women, creativity and open spaces. The use of the band in their own cover promotes who they are whereas the use of women or open spaces suggest what kind of atmospheres they like or what they feel will draw the audiences eye. The use of artsy imagery for creativity suggest the personality of the band.

This specific album cover relates to indie very well. Indie tries to focus on a persons feelings and when looking at this album cover we can think of many stories that are behind it and making us feel as it's very thought provoking. The use of the plain black and white effect is very clever because the background is very dark and the snow-globe. though white, is very vibrant making us focus on it. The album is also called boots so making our eyes attract the the boots inside this snow-globe is smart. Though it's rather obvious to put a pair of boots on a cover with the album called boots it's very creative as an audience would expect something else such as a picture of an artist or something or at least a little colour, and this is what makes them indie, stating the obvious but in a way we (as an audience) don't expect it.


This cover features all the band members just casually standing, promoting the mood of indie genre as being chilled. The band isn't sexualised or represented to be attractive but just shown as being relaxed. This album cover has a bold title, using a unique style font. The effect of the cover is simple and sepia, a sort of mono toned look. However, the small writing which is in red stand out against the black background. 

   Coldplay

Coldplay's album covers tend to my very simple and minimalistic. The images used usually just represent the title. Angle wings for 'Ghost Story', King Kong for 'King and Kong' and Mario with Luigi for 'M and L'. The titles are usually written in a very small font, barely readable along with the bands name. Barely any of their covers suggest a form of promotion besides the odd couple with either them or their logo. One thing that is obvious through out is the use of vibrant colours (and sometimes the odd black and white). We can see the individuality this band carries as their album covers may be different they still have a common theme: simple image with colourful background  small font on the side of the cover listing the band and the album title in line with it.

This selected album cover really stood out to us. It reminds us of doodles we do as children, just filling in certain gaps without any specific pattern. This album cover shows a contrast of vibrant pastel colours within a tangled frame of bare silhouetted branches and twigs. We found this album cover was different to all the others Coldplay use as they usually have very vibrant, minimalistic features but this one in particular is different, though there's a simple design we're looking at a more naturalistic cover; rather than it being very artsy is it a photograph with very little added colours and effects. In relation to indie we can say this album cover features nature which is a common theme in indie music videos (we normally see people - such as the artist/band - at a beach, in a field or in a forest).


This album cover of Coldplay's music is very different. Coldplay has become a big band and therefore their brand image isn't as important as compared to a starting band. Coldplay doesn't rely on brand identity as they have become very popular so therefore the audience knows this abstract cover is their music. The album cover consists of bright colours such as blue, red and orange. The bird in the middle is a contrast because within the bird is a women and man and playing cards. There is also no title, no words and highly reliant on the image of the bird.