Album Art: Final Design

Final Design As shown left is our final 4 panel design for our album artwork as part of our Digi-Pak.

The 4 panels show our protagonist in various costume on the front and back cover, whilst using contrasting images in the two inside panels.

This was done in order to create interest for the consumer and keep them engaged with the 4 panel design.

For the editing of our album art we used the software ‘GIMP’.

Front Cover The design for our front cover includes the Protagonist, with the images over lapping to create an engaging and powerful cover image for the audience.

The images for the front and back panels create a continuous image showing multiple images of our protagonist, creating an abstract effect.

The title of our chosen song also appears within the bottom right hand corner of the panel.

The words “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked” are shown using the text style ‘SomeLines’ at font size 84.

We sourced our text the website ‘Da Font’ allowing us to install our chosen texts into our chosen editing program.

Back Cover The back cover image for our album includes the stereotypical features of back cover such as;

- Barcode, Record Company Logo & Copyright Information (Using the font Times New Roman at size 10)

All of which can be seen at the bottom of our image to create authenticity.

Significantly the name of the band is shown within the top right hand corner of this panel rather than the front cover. The text for our band name “Cage the Elephant” uses the text style ‘Cartoon Relief’ at text size 55.

We feel due to the bands abstract nature that this design is suitable, also we wished to keep a simple ‘powerful image’ for our front cover without text obscuring the image.

Front And Back Cover (Together) This image below shows the full continuation of the image (between the front and back cover) which will be seen physically once our digi-paks have been printed.

Front and Back Cover Annotation

Changing the Opacity of The Images

The image to the right shows how we changed the opacity of each image, so that we could overlay them within our front and back cover.

The different layers shown here are made up of each different image. These images were taken within the Drama studio (as mentioned within our filming location post) so that our album art colour schemes are similar.

After adding each layer in we adjusted the opacity to a suitable level so that all the images were visible to some extent. This also gave us the freedom to put emphasis onto some images over others.

[Layers of different images]

Front and Back Cover Annotation

Flipping the Image

Once we had finished adjusting the opacity of each image and were happy with the design, we made a creative decision to merge the layers, and flip the image.

As originally when the photos were taken the red light was on the right and the blue was on the left.

We made this creative decision as we felt the right hand of the image contained more interesting images which could be used as ‘powerful image’ for our front cover.

(The image had to be flipped as once again we used a continuous image for both the front and back panels)

[Layers which were merged]

Front and Back Cover Annotation

Cropping the Image

Our finished image needed to be cropped so that they were of a suitable resolution for the template of our digi-pak.

In addition to this the front and back cover (and spine) had to be separated to be placed into the temple given for printing.

This allowed us to view each panel separately meaning that we could move on to adding text to the images as we knew the borders of the images.

Front and Back Cover Annotation

The images above and below show our chosen fonts (other than the Time New Roman used for the Copyright information) which had to be installed onto our editing software, GIMP. We chose these specific texts from the website ‘Da Font’ to give us a wide range in choice. However we ultimately chose ‘Cartoon Relief’ and ‘SomeLines’ as we felt they most suited our digi-pak design whilst also highlighting the name of the song (SomeLines) and showing the bands abstract nature with a comic-like text effect (Cartoon Relief).

Justification For our Placement of Text

The image to the right shows our justification for the placement of the band name “cage the elephant” being on the back cover instead of the front, as we feel this placement of text suits to the bands abstract style, similarly to how it suits our abstract images.

A further note is that the song ‘Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked’ was featured in a popular videogame ‘Borderlands’ (an 18 rated game) which means the song title on the front cover alone should be widely recognized by our target audience allowing them to identify the band from their most popular song.

Also the front and back panel are made up of one continuous image meaning the band name on the back cover creates interest for the audience, prompting them to (when seeing the product) view the front and back cover simultaneously rather than simply skipping to the inside panels.

Additionally both the band name and title are visible on the spine of our album artwork, meaning if the item were set up in a shop, realistically the spine would be on show for a consumer to identify the product.

Outside Spine Annotations

The spine for our album art design includes two font types of different sizes, as shown on the image above. Listing the Band name (Left) and the Song Title (Right).

As prior mentioned the text for the song title “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked” is known as ‘SomeLines’ at text size 35.

We felt it was important to include a variety of text within our design therefore the text for the name of the band “Cage the Elephant” used the font ‘Cartoon Relief’ at text size 26. We chose this font to suit the bands abstract nature as shown through the large use of disjuncture in our music videos.

Inside Panel Left This panel shows the shadow of the protagonists hands in handcuffs and effect which we achieved through editing which will be further explained within this PowerPoint.

Additionally at the top of this image are track listings for our album. These include songs by the band Cage the Elephant.

Notably the track listings are on the inside panel instead of the back panel, we used this to create interest to this inside panel whilst also leaving our back cover image undisturbed.

As we felt it was a more effective image without the obstruction of text.

We also flipped this image horizontally as we felt the image was more aesthetically pleasing from this perspective, also the image accommodated our text due to this change.

Inside Panel Right This image for the inside right panel shows the repetition of the ‘Cartoon Relief’ text, previously used for the font Cage the Elephant.

This text utilises the opening lyrics of the song (in text size 40) Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked.

We felt that including lyrics within the album art added another layer of interest to the design whilst enhancing this image taken of the lighting rig.

Significantly this image is flipped vertically as we felt with the overall construction of our digi-pak that this image should be facing left (towards the left panel) which helps to unify the images.

Additionally the red and blue lights shows a clear link between this image and those taken for the front and back cover.

Images we Didn’t Include within our Final Design

We felt it was also important to show some of the images which we equally didn’t choose for our album art design.

These will be shown on the following slides with reasons as to why we did not choose each image.

Images we Didn’t Include

This image we felt didn’t look authentic for an album art image for the style of artwork that ‘Cage The Elephant’ use.

Meaning that we disregarded this shot of our protagonist in his 1st costume

Additionally we disliked the use of a stage block within this image (which the protagonist is sat upon) as we felt it took away from the authenticity of the image.

Images we Didn’t Include

As a group we felt that this image appeared too dull and we felt this image would not engage the audience.

We also felt that the colour scheme was not apparent in this image as the lighting can barely be seen from this angle.

Therefore we did not use this shot as we felt there were alternative ways to photograph the protagonist in handcuffs.

Images we Didn’t Include

Although the use of colours and shadows were interesting within this image we felt that the image once again did not hold enough interest and therefore would not successfully engage the audience.

Ultimately we chose not to use this image as additionally we felt it appeared too ‘staged’ and that the handcuffs looked less effective as the focus is drawn to the shadows below.

Images we Didn’t Include

For this image we experimented with paint to sample a shot which would contrast to our other images.

Although the blue and red colour scheme creates a link to our other images, we felt that this image was too different and therefore looked out of place as part of our album art design.

Images we Didn’t Include

Finally we experimented with multiple levels of brightness and coloured gels when deciding upon the shot which is currently the inside left panel.

However we felt that the red was ineffective as it took away emphasis from the shadow and we wanted a clearer image for the final design.

7 Deadly Sins Within our preliminary album art design the two inside panels were originally to be made up of 7 images of our Protagonist committing the 7 deadly sins.

Within the Digi-pak template (which we have to put our images on for the album art to be printed) the inside right panel shall have a plastic mould over the image for the disk. Thus meaning it could potentially distort the images behind it.

Therefore we decided not to have a complex images (of 3+ panels of the protagonist) behind the disk as it would lower the quality of these already complex images.

To combat this flaw in our original design we changed our design ideas as shown previously within this PowerPoint.

Although we decided still to use the idea of one continuous image which can be seen within the design for our front and back cover.

Additionally we have decided not to directly including the 7 deadly sins within our music video as in addition to our narrative and disjuncture shots we felt this would limit our choices for using footage in editing if we had an additional layer of content. Despite this aspects of the 7 deadly sins can be seen within our characters such as the Harlot representing lust and the mugger representing greed and gluttony.

Once Again Here’s our Final Design…