The Art of Album Covers

How will looking at other album covers help make my own Digipak design?
From doing this I will get:

• Inspirations.
• How to convey genre.
• How to convey values of an artist.
• Convey experience of the music - pre-digital browsing in record shops - albums were chosen on basis of cover art. 

When analysing album art the key things you should look at for are:

• Images.
• Fonts (and language used in album title).
• Colour scheme.
• Portrayal of artists (if featured).

The artwork can convey many different messages such as:

• Emotional response to the music (mood, atmosphere).
• Genre.
• Star image (values/beliefs).
• Intended audience.
• Uses and Gratifications the music/artist offers.
• Messages about Social groups.
• Ambiguous or intriguing imagery - could be interpreted a number of ways (so always make it interesting to look at). 
• Shocking - deliberately controversial to grab attention.
• Visually dense (lots of images, lots to look at).
• Minimalist - unusually sparse or empty. 

From learning all of this I shall take all into account when making my own.