Digipak Iconography
Iconography has to do with imagery and symbolism. The utilisation of this can make the artwork far more distinctive and recognisable because the symbolism and possibly it's meaning has subconsciously remembered.
A good example of symbolism is The Hoosier's own The Illusion of Safety digipak. It's not so subtle message of how you can never be truly safe creates a distinctive motif in relation to the album's title. Iconography can be used to address the target audience of the digipak, this in particular digipak art does this for The Hoosiers, as their target audience is teenagers and young adults who would be leaving home or faced with the prospect of leaving home, so the so called safety of childhood has left them and must now endure the adult world.
However, not everyone in pop rock takes as dark an approach as The Hoosiers. Ed Sheeran uses iconography in order to connect with his fans and correspond to the artist image he plans to use after this album.
Being his first professionally released album, Ed needed to establish himself and show what he had to offer. He uses an orange version of his face to show that he wants to be very personal with his fans, which is also a nod to the fans he gain while he was independent, as well as how positive his songs can be, shown by the + album name and symbol on the cover.