Green Day - Nimrod (Digipak Research)

 

 

 

This digipak contains one of my favourite album covers of all time. Yet, after looking at the digipak as a whole it has become apparent that the rest of it is also highly effective in terms of being a coherent digipak as the colour scheme and images used play a part in the whole piece.

 

The front cover uses two images which have been edited to cover the faces of the two characters with the phrase "Nimrod" - this has both explicit and implicit meanings. One could take the front cover at face value and state that they are just being called "Nimrods". However, when you take into account the mise-en-scene it appears that the two characters are politicians or at least are high up in society. The label "Nimrod" implies a high level of incompetence and could therefore be an attack on the way they are performing their job. In contrast, it could simply be a label for someone who is rather idiotic.

 

The CD is designed to look like a part of the album. This is achieved through designing the CD to look like the "Nimrod" label that covers the faces of the people on the front of the album cover. The track-listing is displayed on the CD but in an artistic fashion; instead of simply listing the tracks on the album and numbering them, the tracks are handwritten out as if the album was pressed from a piece of scrap paper.

 

The back of the digipak continues to follow the theme of the rest of the album. The "Nimrod" label is deployed yet again to the same effect. This time, it appears that the people being labelled "nimrods" are the general public. This again has a deeper, hidden meaning  as the general public also vote for these nimrods that are displayed on the front cover in general elections.

 

I like the pictures used in this digipak and I also like the deeper meanings contained via the use of the "Nimrod" label. However I don't think the tone of the album would suit the song I am using for my music video. In order to make a coherent piece of work I don't think I would go down this route. However, I will take into account the methods used to construct this digipak.