Digipak Intro

What is a digipak?
A type of packaging for CDs or DVDs, typically made from cardboard with an internal plastic holder for one or more discs.

What are digipaks made of?

Material: 300grams per square meter card with matt or gloss varnish. Printed 4 colours (CMYK) or Pantone colours. Spot varnish, lamination and embossing available.

CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and key or black. These are the four colors of ink used in the traditional method of printing hardcopies of images, called offset printing. 

The Pantone process is more consistent and able to produce colors closer in shade to the ones seen in the digital design stage. However, it is also more costly than CMYK in most cases, especially if the print job is small.

Dimensions (based on standard 4pp digipak): finished size of 139.5mm x 6mmx 125.5mm

Why have manufacturers moved away from Jewel cases?

Environment advocates have pushed for the elimination of especially harmful CD packaging and more widespread efforts to properly dispose of CDs and cases, which the vast majority of recycling centers do not accept. As for how long it takes for a compact disc to break down in a landfill, it essentially won't break down in any measurable way ever. 

Even worse than the CDs themselves are the plastic jewel cases that hold them. Made of polyvinyl chloride, a substance classified by the EPA as a human carcinogen, jewel cases are discarded more often than compact discs. Also jewel cases break easily and take up a lot of space. 

The alternative packaging  of digipaks was a significant improvement ecologically. Cardboard-based packaging reduces jewel-case greenhouse gas emissions by 95%, according to greenmusic.com. Not producing plastic jewel cases means not introducing to the environment known chemical carcinogens.