EVALUATION TASK 1 – Album Artwork

Our Album ArtworkFront Cover Inside Cover Left Inside Cover Right Back Cover

Front Cover : For our album artwork we decided to keep the themes quite plain but still visually interesting so that we could solely focus on the artist ad any artistic elements did not take away the focus. We thought that by having our album artwork in a contrasting colour scheme o our music video this will add an element of versatility to our artist and not have the themes too vibrant but the black and white adds a sort of mysterious undertone to the artist. We edited the original images for the album cover to make the artist attractive to a female audience to want to look like her as an inspiration and have it appeal to a male audience as they are visually attracted to her. We wanted her look to stand out as an emerging artist which has something new to bring to the genre. The font on the front cover was white and in a bold font so that it made an impact when first seeing it. It contrasts to the grey midtones of the actual image so that the attention of the audience is brought to the name of the artist so that there is recognition. Back Cover : We wanted to focus on the nature element of our artist to reinforce e the organic theme of our artist so that it gives the impression of original music. When researching the conventions of this genre, a common theme was juxtaposition of nature vs. urban which we have tried to portray using the environment and the fashion of our artist.

Florence and the Machine – Album ArtworkFront Cover Back Cover

This Album Artwork for Florence and the Machine’s album ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’. She uses black and white theme for colours. This suggests a simplicity to the artist again referring to the organic image.

Comparison of My Album Artwork and Florence and the Machine

Front Cover Back CoverBoth our album covers use the convention of a black and white theme. This gives a simplicity to the artist which allows the audience to completely focus on the artist. It gives a sort of vintage film feel as well. This is a convention of the indie music genre, of taking old themes and making them more modern which is what both of these album covers are doing. The body positioning of both images gives a relaxed image to the artist to give the effect of effortless music to give the impression that the music has natural talent, this is a convention which we used as we thought that it was also give her this image, as se is side on and not directly posed towards the camera. A difference between these albums is that we decided to use a bold font which is going against the genre conventions of having a discreet, interesting font. We decided to use this so that it was made clear who our artist was, and it also gave a contrast to the whole cover whereas the real product’s image is all similar to the elements on it cover. The other album cover used a border to allow space for the text and also to give the album an alternative look. We didn’t use this convention as we wanted our album cover to be more bold and more of a statement so it stands out to a consumer. We used an image that wasn’t of our artist as the back cover as we didn’t want it all to be directly a photoshoot type of style, we wanted to give the feel of natural themes and enhance this convention. In the other album cover their back cover uses a similar layout and image to the front cover.

Birdy Album Artwork

Front Cover Back Cover

This is the album artwork of Birdy’s album ‘Fire Within’. Again, she has a very simple colour scheme. With the same fonts on the back and front.

Comparison of My Album Artwork and Birdy

Front Cover Back CoverThe front cover of my album artwork and Birdy both uses a portrait in black and white. However she uses a close up which is a convention of this genre of having a personal connection with the artist and the audience. However we didn’t want to use this convention as we thought it seemed too posed. Instead we showed her attitude and personality through body positioning. We used a natural background so that it would exaggerate that organic element. Birdy’s font on her album cover was quite stylised and had that typical indie genre convention. We didn’t use this to go against the convention because we wanted our artist to be different to others and not be a typical indie artist, we wanted her to have a bold edge to her character. On the back cover both ours and Birdy’s used a list of songs, without numbering them. This kept the back cover simple. We used an image of a natural setting whereas birdy didn’t use an image, this convention was to keep the cover simple however we didn’t use this as we didn’t want ours to be boring as our first album. We thought that as she is an up and coming artist she is not yet established and can’t pull off the simplicity and there needs to be more information to appeal to the audience. We also added a bar code and legal information to our album to go with the conventions that Birdy has used to make the album look more professional and established.