FINAL PLAN FOR MUSIC VIDEO

After attempting many different ideas, I have realised that time is running out and therefore I need to put together an idea which I will stick to and be happy with as a final product. After a long discussion with my teacher, I believe I have found a final idea that I am happy with. Throughout this meeting many problems were drawn to the surface, some personal, some in relation to problems I’ve had with previous ideas. It also highlighted to me the problems I was having with my group due to commitment etc. One thing I considered largely was what the lyrics actually meant to me. This proved rather difficult so I decided to create a mind map, providing myself 5 minutes to write as many ideas down as possible, many of which would only make sense to me. When I had collected all of these different ideas, I picked out the most realistic and decided to adapt this one idea to fit with my music idea, therefore providing me with my final idea. Below is a copy of the mind map I produced:

As you can see from the mind-map, there are many different avenues I could of taken when forming a plan for my music video. I listened to the song one last time while considering this mind map and it appeared to me that the lyrics created this idea of losing someone. Myself and Chris had to consider whether this would be through death or the loss of a relationship which took some time. Another thing which we had to consider was whether, as previously planned, we would focus on a selection of different stories or would concentrate on one character. One thing which stood out to me was the idea of suicide because there was so many different options available to us as shown above. We had many long discussions but in the end we chose to concentrate on one set character and adapt this to fit the lyrics including the loss of a girlfriend.

Below is a simple plan of what will occur visually in my music video. This took approx 60 mins to complete as I listened to the song many times, wanting to match the visual aid exactly to the right piece of the song.  I’ve listed each stage one after another, providing the amount of seconds this particular clip should run for and then noted what would happen in the clip. As I am the director, I did not write very particular notes as I can then adapt it as I go.

Some of the key pieces of information on this plan that people should be aware of would be the highlighted items which show that this particular part of the music video will be part of a flashback which will alternate with present time throughout the music promo. I have also noted along the side of this plan that certain scenes will be in black and white while the latter stages of the music video will be in colour. Different camera angles will be key with this type of music video as myself and Chris are determined to focus greatly on the emotion the main character is feeling and play on this to entertain the consumer. 

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE ALBUM COVER [media magazine article]

ICONOGRAPHY: symbolic representation, especially the conventional meanings attached to an image or images.

An article recently published in MEDIA MAGAZINE considers something which has consistently popped up throughout my look at music, albums and everything else involved in publishing music – whether or not albums can exist with the ever growing technology which is making downloads more and more popular. Christopher Budd got the chance to go behind the scenes of creative agency ‘ The Intro Partnership’ of which he wrote an article explaining that album cover art is alive and well.. This is my take on the article:

THE DESIGNER’S PERSPECTIVE

Album art is part packaging, part advertising and allows the consumer a brief insight into an artist’s worldview and is ‘usually the happy result of a successful collaboration between creative minds‘. The best album cover art is able to illustrate and accompany the music in a way that creates a whole package.In the last 70 years, cover art has become a cultural object and some have become influential works that have made their mark on other media.

Christopher Budd  was given the chance to find out more about the work of creating album cover art by talking to Julian House, a member of The Intro Patnership team in London. Intro work across a number of sectors, and Julian’s work is predominantly music-based. His first wish from the interview was to know whether other album cover designers worked in agencies like this, or whether it was more commonly a freelance occupation. Julian’s reply was as follows:

“We’re quite an unusual company in the breadth of work we cover; often jobs from one sector come in through another one. We have done corporate work where the client has responded well to the music industry work we’ve done, for example. As regards music industry work we do pitch, but only if we feel the client has come to us because they like what we do, rather than being part of a bigger competitive pitch process. Our best work comes from working with a client who wants us to do the job because they like other things we’ve done. But the work is better viewed as a collaboration, with a constant dialogue between the artist and us. We’ll work together as a team or as individuals depending on the project. There are designers at Intro who are known for their different approaches and often that’s what the client wants. In a way we work as individuals under a collective umbrella. Sometimes I’ll be doing a print campaign/cover and when that requires a video I’ll work together with one of the other directors here to bring it to fruition.”

This response allows us to see that the structure of having a creative umbrella organisation can be very beneficial as it provides you with more resources. Christopher wanted to know more about the briefing process and how different parties could influence the artistic direction. He asked where the brief usually came from: does it come solely from the label or management, or does the artist ever get a say? Once again, his response is shown below:

“There may be a brief from the record company that covers the basics, like whether the artist needs to be on the cover, who is the demographic, etc. But we take most of our direction from the artist. More often than not this involves sitting down and talking with them about the ideas behind the album, anything they’ve seen that they liked (not just music-related, but films, books etc.). Then we’ll go off and do several sets of visuals and present them, then hone it down from there. Generally we work on jobs where we’rd expected to come up with our own ideas based on an initial brief. We tend to avoid jobs that are too prescriptive, but even when a client has a very defined idea we open up the conversation and bring new ideas in to complement, so it’s never a one way thing.”

This was a great response for me personally as it showed me that I did not need to panic about the lack of planning me and Chris had participated in as creativity would come naturally. If your brief is too particular then it is very difficult to make an original album but the majority of ideas comes from things you’ve seen previously. Another thing which Christopher and Julian considered in relation to the design process was how far genre conventions play a role in his design process, and whether, beyond the specific brief, there are things an album sleeve should always do?

“I tend not to think of designs in terms of genre; each specific job exists in its own world with its own set of reference points. An album sleeve is an entry point into the universe that the music is in; it’s a window into the themes and ideas of the artist. The Primal Scream covers I’ve created will start with a conversation about references, everything from world events to underground films, punk fanzines, pop art, early video art, Italian horror films… in amongst these contrasting things certain themes or images will start to emerge which can be twisted around to fit together.”

As I mentioned above, creativity is something which comes naturally and arises from the culture we see and experience but something which I was not aware of was that album covers are not specific to the genre which is something me and Chris should consider in our own designs. At least in the mainstream, is the album sleeve still considered to be as important as it once was as part of the overall package of a piece of music?

“There’s definitely a need for visual accompaniment to the music. Even if an iPod image is small, we still have to update all our artwork to work as a downloadable PDF book on iTunes for an album, so the demand is still there. And there’s a resurgence of vinyl: special packaging sells quite well to a select audience. There are a lot of people still who need a tactile product, something to pore over.”

This explains to me why the digipack is needed because consumers still find it important that there is a visual accompaniment with the music. It is a great way to sell a product and create a star image. As stated above ‘there are a lot of people still who need a tactile product, something to pore over’.

DECONSTRUCTING ALBUM COVER  ART

Below is a selection of questions which you should ask yourself when trying to pull apart an album cover. Album cover art can be extremely varied, utilising photos, graphics, typography, or any combination of these so therefore it is these things which need analysing.

Who made is, why, how, for whom, and for what purpose?

It’s important to think about not just who constructed this media text and why, but also who the audience is for any given text, and how they may respond to it. Of course album cover art is usually used to promote the album, and to make it eye-catching (this particular image will also be used for posters etc. as well) and to tell us something about the musicians and the music behind it. While the immediate target audience is likely to be those who frequently buy music, and particularly those who favour the specific band or genre, the artwork may be designed to attract a wider audience. With this in mind, we can consider what is actually in the image. As the image is a construction, everything has been put there deliberately and for a reason. This include all the text, graphics and logos.

Associations and connotations

Another important thing which needs considering is the difference between denotation, which means simply identifying the elements in the image, and connotation, which means examining what meanings and associations they might link to. For example, an image that denotes a powerful-looking car may have connotations of speed or power; but in conjunction with other elements making up the art it might also have connotations of escape, or thrill-seeking for example. On a hip-hop cover it may well have connotations of conspicuous wealth and extravagance, given that genre’s conventions.

Signs, symbols and codes

• A SIGN is a representation that refers to something else and has meaning, such as the car.
• A CODE means the structure of how signs are organised into systems to make meaning. These are usually divided into the technical (for example, what techniques are used to make the image, such as camera angles and lighting?) and the symbolic (what subtle indicators are there in the text to create the meaning, for example details of clothing or arrangement of objects?)
• There are also WRITTEN CODES that include the use of language and text layout.

Composition and framing

This looks at how the image is composed such as: is there numerous objects or figures in the scene? If one of them favoured against the rest? Are they all in focus? How is the image framed? How do light, shadow and colour play a part in the image? – Basically composition is anything in relation to how the image has been formed from beginning to end. We refer to conventions as established ways of doing things – in this case they mean established forms of presenting an image. There are set conventions depending on the genre of the music the Album art relates to. Album cover art can also be self-referential, adding an extra later of meaning to the image.

A media text can mean many different things to many different people. With this in mind, there is no end to the level of analysis you can make of any media text, including album cover art which is why myself and Chris need to be very particular with the decisions we make in relation to our digipack.

TEN ICONIC LANDMARKS IN ALBUM COVER ART HISTORY

The final segment of the article looked at the most iconic landmarks in album art including the most iconic ten. This was a great help to me as it allowed me to consider what people thought were good album artwork and why so that I could apply this knowledge to my own digipack. Below is the top ten albums as rated by Christopher Budd, with a reason, taken from the article, as to why they were so significant to British Culture:

Evaluation of source
This was a very long source of information but certain pieces were of much use to myself and Chris when creating our own digipack cover as it gave us many things to consider including composition and design. It also assured me that making a digipack was a necessary thing as people still rely on the visual aspect greatly. The interview part, although it did explain what people look for in album art, was very wordy and I did not find much out other than about the interviewee so therefore I would not rate that highly in being useful. I felt the middle section about decomposing album art was the best because it allowed me to see what the consumer would consider when looking at our album cover so that we could make the best decisions. It was good to look at previous examples which had made a big impact because we can take some of their ideas if needed but I will not focus on this information too much.

SECONDARY RESEARCH: EXISTING PRODUCTS

While in the process of creating my digipack with Chris I wanted to look at existing products. One day when up town I headed into our local music shop very briefly to look at all the different types of album artwork already out there to see what particular ones stand out to me. One thing which greatly surprised me, which you can see from the image below, is that much of the album covers today are very plain and include a picture of the artist/band to encourage a star profile as stated in my previous research about album artwork. The plans that me and Chris have already made include a picture of Josh sitting on a stone and, using editing features we would make the colour of his shirt stand out from the rest of the image to make it look original.  Doing this research at this particular time will allow me a very brief period where I can make any changes to my proposed digipack before it is sent for printing. The font and location of the title is something which stood out to me on each of the digipacks as this personalised the single and linked to the genre/audience of the song. This was something we considered greatly when planning our own digipack cover because we wanted location to be exact and the formal font to link back to the seriousness of our song. This is similar to what is shown in the below image with serious songs having a formal font and more relaxed song used fun, curvy and funky font.

FIRST DIGIPACK DESIGN

Below is an image of a printed copy of our first digipack design, one which is very basic due to the time constraints we faced. It is this image which led me to much thinking about the digipack and encouraged me to go out and start the whole process again as this was what many people would say was ‘rubbish quality’. The idea behind the digipack was a black and white theme as Chris felt this would work best although after printing the idea it appeared we had made the wrong decision. When we printed this particular copy out, we were aware we would require to make some quite extreme changes including changing the font as the font Chris had used was put in place to just give us a basic idea of what it would look like – although I was not happy with this I am glad he did it as it alerted me of how important choosing a good font is. Another thing which is greatly incorrect with this particular design was that the images are below the template, meaning lines which were put in place on the template to encourage users to place the images correctly were over the top of the images. This made it incredibly difficult for us to truly picture what the final digipack would look like but from the many things we disliked, it was obvious we would need to make drastic changes. The last problem I faced when considering this digipack was the missing writing and logo’s on the back cover which are required on digipack covers by law.

DIGIPACK TEMPLATE

To ensure that all of the students at AMVC have digipacks which meet the standards of the publishing company, we were provided with a basic template which we had to follow to ensure that our digipack would be suitable for printing. This template provided us with many different measurements, shown in different colour lines. As you can see from the example below, the front and back covers were highlighted to us clearly by the use of text. The top square on the left side is allocated to be the image which is present behind the CD and the other image would be what was on the inside of the digipack. Due to the folding lines shown on the template, it is clear to us that the top two images must be added upside down so that they are vertical when fully completed and assembled.

There are many different lines around the digipack which show the different guidelines we had to follow. This idea was made even more obvious by the measurements provided to each student which are shown by the numbers parallel to the lines. The crease line, shown in blue, is only neccesary when we are folding the digipack as it guides us to where me must fold. We do have to be careful about this when planning and creating our digipack though because we do not want to place images incorrectly. The cut line, shown in pink, is very minimal but shows where the plain paper will be cut away and therefore any image which crosses this line will be discarded by the publishers which means we must ensure that no text or images which are important do not go over this line. We can also see a bleed line [purple dotted line] which shows us where we have to drag our images so that they fit the digipack. If we did not reach the dotted lines of the template then our digipack would not print.

Following the simple guidelines of the template below means that our digipack should print first time and we would not need to make any amendments:

EDITING DIGIPACK [trial 1]

After Chris had gone off and taken some new pictures, we both had to work tirelessly to ensure we made our evening deadline. We got together in one of the schools computer suites with the hope of editing our photos using Photoshop. I had previous experience with Photoshop so knew how to do the basics but we were still assisted by fellow pupils in the hope that we could achieve the best possible results. As we were rushed for time we made some very simple decisions in relation to editing our digipack including turning all of our images in to black and white. We followed some very basic steps to achieve a very basic digipack.

1. We looked through all the different images we had taken across the two days with Joshua, our actor present. We wanted to use images which he was happy with so that he was feeling secure with our decisions although we also needed to use the highest quality images. We chose to discard many of the images taken in the graveyard, not only because of lighting issues but because we did not feel they were of high enough quality. To decide which ones we liked the most we began editing each one in the same way and waited to see the finished results.
2. Once we had chosen what four images we wanted we needed to decide where to place them. We obviously wanted the picture of Joshua on the front to create a star image but we needed to work out the placings for the other 3. We were not really sure what to place inside so we tried to concentrate on the back. As the song is ‘How to Save a life’ we both decided that it should be a grave stone or something similar on the back of the digipack. If the gravestone was to one side of the image then this would give us a great layout/space to place the necessary writing on the back of the cover.Due to the lack of time, Chris walked around the school with the camera in the hope of finding an image related to music. He found a random piece of artwork, which due to such a short amount of time, we choose to use by just editing it to make it appear black and white. The other image which would go inside was a picture of Josh’s trainers, bent in a funny angle. Although this seemed very random at the same, we did not have enough time to try and find another image.
3. We carried out some very simple editing to the images using Photoshop, turning each of the pictures black and white. Just so we knew what it would like with a spine, we quickly typed  ‘The Fray – How to save a life’ using a basic Times New Roman font, making the spine black with white writing.

Unfortunately we were unable to finish by the deadline, but after speaking to our subject teacher and explaining our issue, he agreed that we would have time over the weekend and into the middle of the week to complete/change the digipack so we were happy with the standard. This was of a great help to me personally as I was not particularly happy with the images on the back and inside of the digipack. We were also missing the necessary writing and a title for the digipack so therefore it would not be suitable to upload the images on the template as we would be wasting crucial printing time. The weekend will be spent rethinking the digipack in the hope of creating a suitable digipack. At this moment in time I am not sure whether I will require to take more pictures for my digipack or whether I will be able to edit them well enough to be of a high enough standard for printing.

DIGIPACK PHOTOGRAPHY [trial 2]

After sleeping on the photography we had done the previous night and considering the quality of the images, I felt it necessary that we try to take more photographs of a higher quality. Unfortunately I was unable to attend but I asked a good friend of mine to assist Chris in taking more pictures. These pictures would be taken in the day time and, due to us all being at school, it meant our choice of location was very limited. Luckily, the group managed to find a derelict wall with shrubbery which we felt would standout compared to the rest of the brick wall. There was also a stone in front of the wall which Josh could perch on. The images, shown below, were a lot better and I felt they would look really good on the front of the digipack but we also needed some new images for the certain and back cover. Chris really liked the idea of a grave stone for the back cover so therefore I bargained that we changed the inside images. As we were really short for time, Chris headed around the school looking for items and decided to take a random picture of a piece of artwork. I was really not happy with this decision as it had no relation to our digipack but had to accept it due our lack of time. Luckily, we had taken the images on a camera which included a memory card which made it much easier for us to take the images off the camera and put them on the computer so that we could edit them.

DIGIPACK PHOTOGRAPHY [trial 1]

After much planning on behalf of myself and Christopher as shown in a previous blog post, it was time to put our hard work into action. Although some of our sketches showed images taken in the daylight, we chose to carry out the first lot of our photography at night-time in the graveyard. This gave real meaning to our choice of song and the lyrics so therefore felt it was appropriate. Once again, timing was a major issue as other commitments meant that we had to meet late at night. I borrowed a specific camera [Nikon D40x ]  from a close friend of mine so that we could get the best possible images. Neither myself or Chris had ever studied photography so were not really aware how to get the best type of photograph but we still wanted to try our best as we knew there was a wide range of editing software which we could to use to ensure our images were of a high quality.

Me, Josh and Chris met at Newborough church yard to carry out photographs at around 8:30pm. After considering what part of the graveyard was best suited and where we would be able to get the best angle/shot we played around with the camera a bit in the hope of trying to find out about all the different features such as the flash and zoom. As it was late at night and we felt the photographs would look better relaxed, we chose not to use the tripod although this was not always the best idea as some of the images looked really wobbly/unprofessional. The village people kept stopping us throughout the process to ensure we were not trying to ‘vandalise’ the property as that is the stereotype of young people in the modern society.

Overall, we did manage to take some decent pictures which we felt were suitable to use although I felt it would of been made much better. Another thing I was slightly concerned about was the repetition in our choice of location as all the images we feel are suitable would be from the same location. Chris felt that we should make all the images black and white as the night time idea did not suit the idea he had in his mind so therefore we needed to carry this out on the editing facilities.

Below is the risk assessment that we carried out prior to using this particular location:

POSSIBLE RISK	HOW TO PREVENT THIS RISK
Transporting the equipment may cause damage/loss	We will ensure all equipment is correctly carried in the correct accessory e.g. bag and kept with us at all times. As it is not our camera we should be extra careful during transportation as it would not be fair to break another’s camera and it would our responsibility to replace it
Being hit by a car in the dark	We will have to walk to the churchyard and this will involve walking on a public path late at night. To make ourselves and Josh more visible to passing traffic we will wear visibility jackets and carry torches so that the cars can see us. It is also important that we keep to the path as much as possible so as to stay away from traffic.
Tripping over graves	We will use our torches in the graveyard to watch out for people’s graves and grave stones so as not to fall over them. We should also be aware of any other disturbances in the area which could cause us to trip and fall.
Upsetting villagers	Some villagers may find it strange that 3 teenagers are hanging around a graveyard late at night so therefore we will be ready to explain our reasons at any given time.

And this is a selection of photos which we managed to take on this particular evening when in Newborough grave yard and the camera used to take them although I was not to happy with the quality of the images:

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PLANNING OUR DIGIPACK

Before we began taking photographs, me and Christopher sat together and spent some time planning what we wanted our digipack to look like. We considered many different factors including previous research into the digipacks available, album designs we liked ourselves and also what resources were available to us. To ensure that the photographs looked professional I gained permission from a good friend of mine who has a top quality camera to use her camera on particular days so that the pictures were of the best quality.

Below is a selection of brief sketches I pulled together so that I was able to consider positioning, font and image design before heading out to take the different images. There were two main ideas I concentrated on, which not only allowed me to create an imagery of the song but also let me interweave aspects of the music industry.

As you can see from this first design, we wanted to use a lot of colour, making it look bright. Although many could say this is the complete opposite to the ideology behind the song, we wanted to make people who brought the album believe that it is possible for everything to work out and we didn’t want them to assume that this particular album was negative. We had been told we must include an image of the artist although I really liked the idea of taking an image from the back of the artist as this created mystery and I felt it really worked with the design I had created, shown in the bottom right hand corner of this image. As this would not be the first album for this particular artist/band, many of its current fans would be aware of who the person was if we did not include a face in our image. Another great colour skill we wanted to include in this particular idea was the manipulated image shown in the top left hand corner. Much of this colour would be added using computer programmes which included tools allowing me to changing the colour and effect of specific images. So that the colour theme would spread throughout the whole of the digipack design, and as we wanted to use a similar image of a grave stone in both of our designs, I wanted to manipulate the colour of the gravestone and surrounding areas of the image as this would allow our creativity to shine. The music note, shown in the right hand top corner of this drawing, would be black but shown on a bright colour background, as this would allow us to interweave ideas of music into the digipack. 

This idea was very different to the other one, the major difference being shown in our colour choice as we wished for this whole digipack to be in black and white. This digipack was much more stylized as we wanted the artist to be posing in the front cover image, so as to alert the fans of the star image trying to be put across. As you can see from the basic sketch, the artist is in fact leaning against a tree so our hope is that we would be able to take this picture in the graveyard which also photographing the grave stone. A unique idea which we had from looking at different existing products was the selection of styled writing shown in my top right hand sketch. We would use a wider selection than that shown but all of the words would be relevant to the idea of the song, therefore strengthening the ideological beliefs of the song. Once again we want an image which resembles music so I have sketched a music note although we are not entirely sure what image we would use here, just that it would resemble music as a whole. The most similar aspect to the previous design is the gravestone, which Chris was very certain he wanted to use as he felt it added meaning to the song and the digipack. As I did not have any other ideas about what image to use I decided to follow his wish although, unlike the other one, I chose to place the list of songs beside the gravestone instead of on top of it. I felt this would look a lot more professional than the previous design and would make it a lot easier to read. As before, all relevant information which is found on all CD covers and the record company logo will also be placed on the back cover of the digipack. 

After much speculation between myself and Chris, we made a joint decision to use the black and white themed design I had created. We felt this idea would be a lot easier to access as many of the images could be taken in a grave yard, a location which was very close to my house therefore making it much easier for me to commute. There was many reasons for us wanting to use this idea, particularly as it would be located in a grave yard and you associate a grave yard with life and death, the topic of our chosen song. After thinking about the designs and decisions we’ve made, we are aware some of the images may need considering so that they are of a high enough professionalism that they look good for the digipack. We were also fully aware that when we were photographing, our creativity may dominate and this may lead to us making some drastic changes to the digipack. Until the digipack is formed on the computer and it is complete, these designs are not set in stone as we may be required to may changes due to colour, position, idea, affect etc.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF ALBUM ARTWORK

Before we began designing our digipack we wanted to look at more detail into the types of album cover artwork available so that we had a larger insight into what was available to us and what would work best.  Dependent on what type of genre the music is, the album artwork may be less common to others. Album covers are an important promotional tool and could be the difference between the consumer buying the artist’s album and not. If a consumer appreciates the artwork on the front of the album then they are more likely to want to buy the album than if they don’t like the front cover so therefore it is very important that I and Chris get this part of our project correct.  I will look at the different types of album cover artwork and then transform this new knowledge into different ideas for our own artwork.

PORTRAIT

This is a very simple but effective form of album cover as it is basically just a picture of the artist although there are many different types, some more effective/eventful than others. The majority of this type of artwork is very basic and just shows a professional photograph of the artist which has been edited with top editing software. As you can see from the images below, the majority of the artists are seen to be looking straight forward to highlight who the artist is and to create the effect that the artist is watching the consumer. This form of album artwork will not only sell albums for the artist but it will also become star construction, creating an image for whoever the artist is.

The specific example which I have chosen to look at is the album cover for Example’s album ‘Playing in the shadows’. This is a manipulated example of an album cover with the picture of example being ‘shadowed‘ to meet the title of the album. This is a very good trick as it makes the album name stand out to the consumer because the picture relates to the title. In the image, Example is looking very expressionless as he does not wish to share his emotion with the consumer and they then wish to purchase the album to understand why. The artist’s name is shown in a bright yellow box which shows there is light in this mans life. All of these different techniques combined together aid the sales of this artists album, therefore increasing profits.

This is one of the easiest types of album artwork and would therefore be a good way for us to create our own digipack and easy to apply. Instead of using a straight on type of image, we could adapt this to show more of our artist’s body than just a portrait.

BLACK AND WHITE

This is a very bold form of album artwork which easily stands out on a shelf compared to other options which encourages the consumer to buy this particular album. Although the designs used in this particular type are very basic, they are very cheap to create and produce due to the lack of colour which costs more to print. There are different versions of such art, some as shown in the first and third options below, are used to make the artist seem rebellious, therefore attracting a completely different target audience. Much of today’s youth are apparently very rough and dark so therefore it fits in with the younger target audience. Number two and four, as shown below, are a little more relaxed and show the possibility of mystery, therefore encouraging the consumer to buy.

As you can see from the FOO FIGHTERS album cover, compared to the others, it is very unusual to have any colour on a black and white album cover. There is no picture of a singer/band, just a hand drawn image which relates to one of the songs on the album. It is used for a set genre of music as the images are majorly made up of shadows and therefore it makes the consumer the music is heavier/darker. The FOO FIGHTERS album cover is very basic, consisting of what appears to be a hand drawn image in white chalk. This clearly stands out against the black background and could hold many different connotations including dark love or a bad heart. The hand written title stands out because it does not look professional like many other album covers available. Due to the white standing out on the black, this type of image will stick with the consumer for much longer.

This is the cheapest type of album design to produce as you are not relying on any colour being printed, therefore meaning the artist and record company will make more of a profit.

TEXT

Once again, this type of idea is very simple and discreet although it is just as effective as other album artwork if not more. It is normally accompanied with a very simple background, although rarely white, to make the writing stand out, therefore making it easy for the consumer to find. This is a design which is very rarely used as many companies feel that it does not stand out enough compared to some of the bright, busy options available out there. As you can see from the selection below, much of the writing is focused in the centre of the album design, therefore drawing the consumers attention to the title of the album and also the artist/band name, therefore strengthening their public image.

There are many different variations of this type of album artwork as you can see. The SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA album is very basic with a white background and very large writing. Although it does not look very professional and appears that it could of been done with a few minutes planning, the very large text clearly stands out. The grey writing on a white background is not the best colour choices as grey sometimes blends into white so therefore a darker colour could have been chosen. ONE DIRECTION and THE SCRIPT has both used very simple but effective backgrounds with unique fonts to make it appear very eye catching while also being very cost effective and basic. The orange background is the most obvious to the naked eye and can easily stand out against any other design. The colour of the background and font both largely depend on the genre of the music although this type fits for many genres.

This type of album artwork is very simple to create and does not involve any actors, therefore meaning that it will cost less to produce.  With minimal design, people would want to know what the lack of image was all about, therefore encouraging them to buy the album.

PHOTO MANIPULATION

A very unique way of showing one given image, photo manipulation is not a very common type of album cover although due to the developing age of technology, it is becoming increasingly popular. Generally used for bands rather than single artists due to the need of fitting all members onto the album front cover, much of the photo manipulation is done to the face instead of the body. Other options of this type include manipulating the image to include animal parts or other ideas rather than people. This type of album artwork relies greatly on the image, therefore making the text very simple in font and sometimes very small. The images stand out and make the consumer look twice due to how unusual they are and the consumer would assume they were seeing things, and a double take may make them stop and pick the album up, therefore increasing profit.

This type of album artwork relies greatly on colour as you can see from the middle two selections above, which stand out against the two options on the end. There are very basic types of photo manipulation although all requires the use of photo editing programs to cut and copy images where possible. The album cover of THE SCRIPT looks very modernised due to the 3 heads being fitted into the shape on one, showing the band has togetherness, something which a popular fan would like to see. THE QUEEN and MAROON 5 designs also show the band members all joined together which makes the public image stronger and shows that the band are content. The design on the end, for KINGS OF LEON, is very different to the others because it does not show the whole face of each band member and instead shows pieces of each band member matched with images of an eagle. The colour of this particular design lets it down as it is very bland and therefore would not stand out compared to the others.

This idea is far from basic although is very complex and is only suitable for bands which have an older audience. If we were to use this particular album design then we would first need to look at editing facilities available to use and tutorials on how to do certain things so that we could get a finished product we were happy with.

ILLUSTRATIVE 

This is a very colourful and complex design which takes a long time to create as well as requiring a very good artist for the drawing side of things. When the basic drawing is scanned into the computer, editing facilities are available to edit to make the design more professional. The images used of this type of album are either drawn by the artist/band or commissioned by them to make it more personal, therefore making the consumer feel like the artist really cares about who is buying their album. Although some of the designs may include sketches of a person, other sketches include objects/maps etc. The images are very busy to add excitement for the consumer as people will be drawn to the bright and busy options available.

As you can see from the different variations above, there are many different options available and this is the album artwork which can vary the most as it is personal to whoever the artist is. The artwork for MAROON 5 is clearly the most colourful and stands out the most although some people would say it was too busy. This could of been created in many different ways, one being scanning lots of individual images and then layering them on top of each other on a computer. The focus of the art is on faces which relates back to the song title ‘Overexposed’. The example provided by the SEX PISTOLS is very different and looks more like a cartoon strip than anything. This tells a story and relates back to certain ideas with in the lyrics. The colour of the two options on the end are very dull in colour and therefore do not stand out as much although this is relevant to the title of the album.

If myself and Chris chose to use this type of album cover then I would want it to be styled like one of the middle two options as they are much brighter and would suit the target audience we were targeting it. I do not feel this type of digipack would not be suitable for our song choice though as the lyrics represent emotion and loss and therefore something plain would be better suited.

There are obviously other types of album artwork which we could consider although these were the most popular. We intend to pull certain aspects from many of these options and include them in our own digipack to create something which is suited to our song and what we both agree looks the best.