Album Cover

(click for full)

This is the final album cover for our project. We used photography of a vynl, from an artist photoshoot and a music video footage still. It was put together on photoshop and we altered every shots hue and saturation, and brightness and contrast to change the colour and tone. Full analysis is in my evaluation.

Deadline

Today is the final deadline for the project itself.
We are signing off...
- the music video
- the album cover
- the myspace
Basically the whole artist package.
We need to be signed off by 4oclock by Ms Blackborow and I think that it is possible for our group to do what is necessary.

Branding Skye

When Branding Skye the aim is to convey a solo female indie artist which makes retro/alternative pop and is quite a quirky, fun character. We want an artist which is not completely sexual and shallow, and we do not want her to seem one dimensional at all. In order to this we really need to play up her young, indie unique characteristics, and stay away from being voyeristique. The key is to not let Skye seem to take herself too seriously, instead by making her seem more innocent and new to the industry we can achieve our target brand.

Album Cover references

These are the album covers we are using as inspiration for our own project. We have selected a few that are of the right style or genre and we hope to take a bit of inspiration from each. The real theme we want to imitate is the use of colour and the range of photography, in terms of shot distances and subject posture. However we do not want to copy any of these too closely as we want to make our own brand for our artist.

I also want our cover to be less conventional than all of the above, and a bit less 'safe'. I want to convey our artist though the digipack to be the fun loving, quirky, sexy artist we have created.

Album Cover Analysis

Album Cover Conventions
Typical Features

• Cover Art
• Album Title
• Band Name
• Track List
• Brand Style - Band/Label
• Label
• Legal/Institution Information
• Barcode
• Stickers - Review/Features/Price Deal/No1 Album?
• Parental Guides?
• Band Members/Producers = Credits

Categories

• Cover Art - Art/Photography/Design/Mixed
• Cover Subject - Band(or Artist)/Design/Other Subject (Photo/Art of something. i.e. Prodigy Crab)
• Genre - Follow Genre conventions
• Target Audience - Tied in with Genre
• Release Date - In fashion of time

Purpose

• Band image/identity - Brand promotion
• Show information
• Stand out on shelves
• Make genre clear

The Beatles - Revolver (1966)

Revolver was the seventh album released by The Beatles, and was the first studio only album released. The Beatles by now where a well established band and where superstars on both sides of the Atlantic. However they where up till this point a pop band, and this album marks the begining of the change in scene and brand for The Beatles. From Revolver The Beatles moved into a more rock and psychadelic music genre, and changed their image from young pop lads to older more mature rock band. The focus moved to the music and they stopped touring.

This album cover was really used to staple this and demonstrate it to the fans...

The cover features an art piece which uses illustration and photography put together in a collage, with pen and ink stlye drawings by artist Klaus Voorman, which uses only the faces of The Beatles themselves and does not even feature the band name, instead only the ablum title. This is due to the fact that they where already such a brand themselves. The style is artistic and the entire colour scheme only consists of black and white, this is perhaps to conote an indy, arty style. The style really moves away from their previous, pop orientated style. The reason this is so obvious is due to the huge ommission of having a large band photograph, which until Revolver had been the on going style/brand through The Beatles. The reverse of the album features a black and white photo of the band recording, again tying in with the black and white style of the front, and with the focus on studio recording and the music, which was evolving quite drastically for this album. The last thing to note about this album cover is that all the written information, is in plain, simple black font. I think this is tying in with the simplicity of the album style, and the image it is working to convey, of a mature band.

I think that the Revolver album cover is not only a very good album cover, but is also an iconic album cover. I think the style is refined and the cover is a very good piece of design/illustration.