The Role Of An Album Cover

The primary role of a album cover is to promote the artists and their music. It also conveys the artists interests and emotions of their song through the colour and design of the cover. It also acts as a way of branding and associating the artist with their product. The album cover and the exterior of it also offer a protective layer.
Here is a little history on the album cover, which could help us progress through to the digipak stage.
CD's were first commonly made in the mid 1990's in the formation of the common known plastic jewel case (digipaks) Digipaks were created from cardboard and plastic. In these years and even now the Album cover has become a vital part of music and it's associated culture. They are used as a clever marketing tool and express the artists feelings and intentions of the album. The contents of a digipak were a folded double cover (also known as a "gatefold cover", inserts (containing images) and also the lyrics so the audience could sing-a-long to the song.
In conclusion, our album cover will be used to promote our music and will reveal a number of factors through the formation of the pack. The pack will need to not only promote our music, but the connotations which are provided with it and the emotions which the audience should feel when listening to the music.