Research : Album Cover Design
The text below is copied from wtsduplication.com. The original online article can be found by clicking here.
The first disc records, ones that we would recognize as such, appeared around 1910. Most often these were packaged in plain brown Paper or cardboard sleeves. Occasionally and enterprising retailer would print his store name on the sleeve but generally they were unadorned.
In the early 1920's retailers started gathering many of these cardboard sleeves and binding them together with heavy paperboard or leather covers. These looked similar to large photo albums and, borrowing the name, were sold as record albums. These albums offered much greater protection for the discs than the original packaging and were seen as indispensible to disc owners that had seen too many of their fragile records broken.
Beginning in the 1930s the record companies started using these record albums to distribute bundles of records from one performer or a collection of performers with similar musical styles. Some of the first cover designs can be traced to these albums and the record company’s desire to graphically communicate the music each album held.
Alex Steinweiss the art director for Columbia Records is given credit for the concept of modern cover art. He experimented with different concepts and images through the late 1930s and into the early 1940s. During this time Columbia Records rebounded from the terrible years they had suffered during the depression to become one of the most prominent record companies in the United States. Much of this was due to their ground breaking use of graphical design. (Of course signing Frank Sinatra may have helped a little too).By the close of the decade all major recording companies had graphic design professionals on staff.
The golden era of cover art design began in the early to mid 1960s and lasted into the early 1980s. During this time the major format for music was the 12 inch, long play disc or LP. Cover art became a part of the musical culture of the time. Often used to express graphically the musician’s artistic intent, it helped connect and communicate to listeners the message or underlying theme of the album.
Designers, photographers, and illustrators sometimes became famous for their cover art creations. Such notables as Andy Warhol and Frank Frazetta were taken from being known in their industry to becoming household names due to their cover art graphic design work. So respected and desired are the designs and illustrations found in cover art that there are numerous art galleries that specialize in helping collectors find rare album covers.
As the medium for recording transitioned from the LP to the compact disc many graphic designers failed to transition with it. Having worked for so long with the much larger canvas of the LP cover, switching to the smaller CD case left most designers dissatisfied with their results. Often artist and record companies simply tried to shrink the LP size art to fit the CD.
Album cover art, now almost exclusively CD and CD packaging artwork, went through a period of change and rebirth in the 1990s. Designers learned to capture snapshots and portions of the artist’s musical intent rather than trying to convey the entire message. Also designers started conveying the emotion of the music rather than the musical intent.
In the late 90s computer design programs started to overcome the physical limitations of the smaller CD packaging. With the ability to draw much tighter, finer lines and have even small details look crisp and sharp, once again designers were free to explore a larger variety of design options. As the technology continued to improve graphic designers adapted and were once again producing world class artwork.
In the present, CD design is undergoing a true renaissance. Rather than becoming obsolete in the digital age as many thought it would, graphic design is once again proving itself as the difference maker. The internet is now the largest record store imaginable. Now rather than browsing a few hundred albums or songs at a time you may be exposed to thousands and thousands. Since it would be impossible to listen to portions of all those thousands of songs the design of the accompanying artwork must cause potential listeners to stop and take notice and give this album a try.
Research : Album Covers Codes and Conventions
"Rhianon" being in the early 70's through a novel called Triad, by Mary Leader. The novel is about a woman named Branwen, who is possessed by another woman named Rhiannon. There is mention of the Welsh legend of Rhiannon in the novel, but the characters in the novel bear little resemblance to their original Welsh namesakes. The reason this is important to the album is because there is a song on the album called 'Rhianon' which was the albums biggest hit single.
This album follows the conventions of album cover art as it contains the bands name 'Fleetwood Mac' and the title of the album 'Rumours', as well as the singer Stevie Nicks on the front, however, the way they have presented it is a little against the norms.
The background colour is chosen to look like old paper, matching with the black and white image, these together suggests old, this idea is reinforced by the fact that Stevie Nicks is dressed as 'Rhianon' which is an old tale.
This is an album cover that clearly shows the genre of the band -heavy metal. The character on the front of this album, Eddie, is well known and always associated with Iron Maiden, also the font 'Iron Maiden' is wrote in is the font that is always used for the Iron Maiden band name. The font used for the title of the album 'Killers' is red and looks as if it was wrote in blood, linking to the name of the album 'Killers', the bloody axe in Eddie's hand and the hands grasping Eddie's shirt; clearly showing the fact that he (Eddie) is a killer.
This cover seems to follow the album cover conventions as it has the band name and album name. However, instead of an image of the band they have the bands mascot Eddie instead, although he is probably as famous as the band themselves.
This cover seems to follow the album cover conventions as it has the band name and album name. However, instead of an image of the band they have the bands mascot Eddie instead, although he is probably as famous as the band themselves.
The image used on this cover links to the name of the album 'Highway to Hell' having the lead guitarist Angus Young dressed as the devil, this goes against the conventions slightly because although it has the band on the alum cover the most 'important' person on it seems to be the lead guitarist and not the lead singer Bon Scott and usually the most 'important' member of the band is the lead singer, but not in this case. This is due to the fact that Angus Young is the most famous/recognisable member of the band.
The way the band is positioned shows how 'important' they are within the band and how recognisable they are to the fans.
The font of the bands name is their classic font synonymous with the band and found on all their albums and merchandise., also being red and linking to the album name and image. However, the album name is very small and somewhat unimportant compared to the image and band name.
The way the band is positioned shows how 'important' they are within the band and how recognisable they are to the fans.
The font of the bands name is their classic font synonymous with the band and found on all their albums and merchandise., also being red and linking to the album name and image. However, the album name is very small and somewhat unimportant compared to the image and band name.
This is Green Day's third album, an album that is all about rebelling against the social norms and conformities, which is ironic due to the fact that as an album cover it mainly follows the conventions that most album covers do, the only convention it does not follow is that of having the band on the front.
All the colour and pictures on this album create a chaotic environment, which is what the band wanted. It shows the chaotic life and environment we live in and the power the government has, that they are able to drop bombs on anything they deem fit.
Album Covers : Researching into Existing Media
The task we were given was to research existing media, we did this
by looking a six different albums by different artists. We then looked to find the different or similar codes and conventions of these CDs/albums . |
| This is me and James working on this task. |
From this task I learnt that many CD digipacks have the same conventions and the ones that go against said conventions are famous enough to be able to do this. The main conventions I found are that on the front of the CD there are usually, the artists name, name of the album and an image. However, when we looked at Paolo Nutini's album all he had on the front cover was an image, thus going against conventions.
I will use what i have learnt during this task to construct my digipack in the future by using the conventions we found and noted on our sheet to design my digipack. And I have decided that I would follow the conventions that album covers follow as my artist is new and doesn't have the fame required to get away with defying conventions.
Research : Audience Feedback
For my CD digipack and music magazine, I asked 25+ people of the target audience which font would they expect to see related to a female pop star. The majority chose 'Zapfino' helping me to decide which of these I would use for both of my Cd digipack and music magazine ad. Below is the graph I made of the results.
Research : Existing CDs
To look at the conventions of female 'pop' artist's digipacks I looked at some artists that I thought were similar to my artist. I started of looking at Taylor Swift. This is her digipack for her album 'Red' :
Looking at this I found that the artist is on nearly every part of the digipack, except for the side where the CD is, showing that her image is the thing that sells the CD. It also conveys that her image is very important, the most important thing maybe.
The fact that the album is called 'Red' and that is the colour they have used to highlight most thing, like the track list, the CD -maybe so it is easily recognised when mixd with others, however, her lipstick in all the images is also red; almost as if it is highlighting her, saying "look at me, I'm important".
However, some artists do not have digipacks so I have had to study the conventions of just the front and back cover. An example of this is Demi Lovato's album 'DEMI' :
The way the font is the same colour as the silver body paint on the artist complimenting it. Also the way the letters are spaced quite wide apart could suggesting she is independent and stands out.
The album's name is the same as the artist's name 'Demi' this is a common occurrence within pop singers once they have established themselves.
The artist has been placed in front of a withe back ground so that nothing can distract from said artist, emphasising her.
With the artist is staring directly at the camera giving you a clear view of her face, and her posture is strong and straight showing she is a strong, confident person.
The silver theme is carried through to the back of the album, the lines that cut across the track list is quite a contemporary design, which could be an occurring theme within the album.
Planning : CD Digipack - Testing
With the dots on top of the image I made them somewhat opaque, so you could still see the image behind it, but it would be somewhat tinted .
I also matched the text colour to the lipstick colour the keep the theme going and to prevent it from looking out of place. I also decided to make the font style cursive, to match the music magazine advertisement and use it as the artists own font type.
On the inside front the kept the idea of the dots, the white dots on top of the flower highlighting parts of it. I decided to use more random photos, as a more artistic/ hipster view to CD digipacks as it is the kind of imagery that the target audience would enjoy, and would pick up if they saw a CD digipack like it.
On my first try I decided too change the brightness on the back cover to see if the text would be easier to see. This was the result:
By doing this I have decided that for my real back cover I will have a white background, with white or black decoration, because the text is just to hard to see with a black background.
This is my second attempt:
While doing this I decided to change many things and test different effects to see whether I liked them and wanted to use them in my real CD Digipack. For example this is inverting:
I decided that even though I liked this effect it would not be something I would use in my digipack. Though with a picture like this it is quite a good effect.
However, while doing this I discovered that -by using this as my back cover- it would be difficult to put text on top of the image.
As you can see any colour text on this is not very clear, thus it is not practical. I then realised for a text to look good on top of a white or black background, it's best if the text is either white or black. From this I then decided to enlarge the background picture so there would be more white -this is where I decided I would put my text.
This is what the enlarged version looks like, on top of this I decided to add my text. Since this is a white background I coloured the text black, so it stands out, but does't look out of place on the background.
I've also decided that the convention of putting the length of songs on the pack of a CD digipack. I did this because I think it adds to the aesthetic and believe the target audience would find this useful; plus when I asked 25 people from my target audience they agreed that it looked better with the length of the songs on the back of the digipack.
Construction : CD Digipack
I went into making my CD digipack knowing what I wanted it to look like, I had done this by testing out ideas. Using what I knew from looking at CD's, that my target audience would know and listening to, and analysing the codes and conventions. I followed some of these, but also challenged some too - for example, I only used one image of my artist and on that her face was somewhat obscured. However, I supported the codes and conventions by using an image of my artist. Also by editing my images to change them into black and white matches my music video.
I first imported my image into my CD digipack template. I found that as a picture the face was too dark, this gave me the idea to brighten the colour and contrast .
This was good as it also brightened the lips.
However, I was now having problems with the artist's skin tone as it was uneven and on a CD digipack cover looked out of place.
Because of this I decided that I would slightly airbrush my artist.
I did this by applying a new layer and adding a blur to that new layer, then by creating another layer and painting over the feature of my artist with a white paint brush. this smoothed out her skin tone and features.
I next needed to change my image to black and white, but leaving the lips red - this is called colour splash effect.
Firstly I duplicate the image, with the duplicate image, I went to the 'new adjustment layer' clicking on it and selecting 'hue/saturation' dragging the saturation slider all the way down to -100 - changing the image to black and white.
I then went to layer and clicked 'merge down' applying the adjustment layer to the duplicate layer. Then, I clicked 'layer', 'layer mask' and then 'reveal all'.
I had to then select white as my background layer and back as my foreground colour, I selected the paintbrush tool. I then painted over the lips to reveal the colour.
After doing this I decided that I didn't like the colour of the lips, as I thought they were too dark.
Because of this, I duplicated my last layer, zoomed into the lips and started to paint over the lips in a bright red colour.
After I had painting the lips, I changed the opacity of the lip layer, brightening the lips so that they stood out more against the black and white of the face.
This is what the front cover looked like after I had finished doing the lips, I liked this effect because it makes the lips look more 3D on a 2D image, thus making it look more artistic.
For the inside from I used the picture of my artist holding a flower, I tried changing this the same way - into black and white - as I had for my front cover. However, this just gave me the sepia effect you can see on the left.
Instead I changes it to black and white by clicking 'image', 'adjustments' and then 'black and white'. This is all I wanted done with this image.
Much is the same for my next image I just wanted it in black and white, so i clicked 'image', 'adjustments' and then'black and white'.
However, with this image I lowered the opacity so that the shine from the flash on the photo would be less harsh.
Next i added in my sparkler image, when placing this image I was very careful, as I wanted there to be enough white of the sparkler to fit my tracklist in.
Once placed, I adjusted the image so that it was black and white, doing the same process that I had done with the previous images.
Once I had done this I started to copy out the track list and song times to the back cover of my CD digipack, in a black Zapfino font.
After completing this and making sure that it was placed so all the text could bee seen and read, I started to add the details to the back cover of my CD digipack. for example the barcode- which I placed in the bottom right hand corner of my back cover.The record label logo - placed in the bottom left hand corner.
Then I did the small print - after reading the
small print of the back of three different CDs by three different artists I noticed the small print was pretty much the same on all, with the main details different.
So I used the small print from one album - changing the details to fit my artist - and typing them as the small print onto the back cover of my album.
Then I added the artist's social media sites and official website information under the small print.
Next, I decided that I didn't like how the text on the front cover looked- as it was hard to read, as it didn't stand out much-, deciding the for the text I would have to make it white or black to match the image; I decided on white as there were more black and greys in my image, so it would stand out more. I then decided to place the artist's name at the top and the album name at the bottom, because when you're looking for CD's the artist's name is the first thing you will recognise. It also spaces it out more so that my front cover doesn't look cramped
Finally, I added in the spine. I did this in a simple solid black so it wouldn't take focus away from the images. I then added the artist's name, name of the album, album reference number and record label logo to the spine to complete it. Thus finishing my CD digipack.
Completed CD Digipack
I will use what i have learnt during this task to construct my digipack in the future by using the conventions we found and noted on our sheet to design my digipack. And I have decided that I would follow the conventions that album covers follow as my artist is new and doesn't have the fame required to get away with defying conventions.
Research : Audience Feedback
For my CD digipack and music magazine, I asked 25+ people of the target audience which font would they expect to see related to a female pop star. The majority chose 'Zapfino' helping me to decide which of these I would use for both of my Cd digipack and music magazine ad. Below is the graph I made of the results.
Research : Existing CDs
To look at the conventions of female 'pop' artist's digipacks I looked at some artists that I thought were similar to my artist. I started of looking at Taylor Swift. This is her digipack for her album 'Red' :
Looking at this I found that the artist is on nearly every part of the digipack, except for the side where the CD is, showing that her image is the thing that sells the CD. It also conveys that her image is very important, the most important thing maybe.
The fact that the album is called 'Red' and that is the colour they have used to highlight most thing, like the track list, the CD -maybe so it is easily recognised when mixd with others, however, her lipstick in all the images is also red; almost as if it is highlighting her, saying "look at me, I'm important".
With the images it is the main part of her you see is her face linking to the idea that it's her
that sells the music.
However, some artists do not have digipacks so I have had to study the conventions of just the front and back cover. An example of this is Demi Lovato's album 'DEMI' :
The way the font is the same colour as the silver body paint on the artist complimenting it. Also the way the letters are spaced quite wide apart could suggesting she is independent and stands out.
The album's name is the same as the artist's name 'Demi' this is a common occurrence within pop singers once they have established themselves.
The artist has been placed in front of a withe back ground so that nothing can distract from said artist, emphasising her.
With the artist is staring directly at the camera giving you a clear view of her face, and her posture is strong and straight showing she is a strong, confident person.
Planning : CD Digipack - Testing
 |
| Front cover |
With the dots on top of the image I made them somewhat opaque, so you could still see the image behind it, but it would be somewhat tinted .
I also matched the text colour to the lipstick colour the keep the theme going and to prevent it from looking out of place. I also decided to make the font style cursive, to match the music magazine advertisement and use it as the artists own font type.
 |
| Inside front |
On the inside front the kept the idea of the dots, the white dots on top of the flower highlighting parts of it. I decided to use more random photos, as a more artistic/ hipster view to CD digipacks as it is the kind of imagery that the target audience would enjoy, and would pick up if they saw a CD digipack like it.
 |
| Inside back |
 |
| Back cover |
On my first try I decided too change the brightness on the back cover to see if the text would be easier to see. This was the result:
 |
| Back cover |
By doing this I have decided that for my real back cover I will have a white background, with white or black decoration, because the text is just to hard to see with a black background.
This is my second attempt:
While doing this I decided to change many things and test different effects to see whether I liked them and wanted to use them in my real CD Digipack. For example this is inverting:
I decided that even though I liked this effect it would not be something I would use in my digipack. Though with a picture like this it is quite a good effect.
However, while doing this I discovered that -by using this as my back cover- it would be difficult to put text on top of the image.
As you can see any colour text on this is not very clear, thus it is not practical. I then realised for a text to look good on top of a white or black background, it's best if the text is either white or black. From this I then decided to enlarge the background picture so there would be more white -this is where I decided I would put my text.
This is what the enlarged version looks like, on top of this I decided to add my text. Since this is a white background I coloured the text black, so it stands out, but does't look out of place on the background.
I've also decided that the convention of putting the length of songs on the pack of a CD digipack. I did this because I think it adds to the aesthetic and believe the target audience would find this useful; plus when I asked 25 people from my target audience they agreed that it looked better with the length of the songs on the back of the digipack.
Construction : CD Digipack
I went into making my CD digipack knowing what I wanted it to look like, I had done this by testing out ideas. Using what I knew from looking at CD's, that my target audience would know and listening to, and analysing the codes and conventions. I followed some of these, but also challenged some too - for example, I only used one image of my artist and on that her face was somewhat obscured. However, I supported the codes and conventions by using an image of my artist. Also by editing my images to change them into black and white matches my music video.
I first imported my image into my CD digipack template. I found that as a picture the face was too dark, this gave me the idea to brighten the colour and contrast .
This was good as it also brightened the lips.
However, I was now having problems with the artist's skin tone as it was uneven and on a CD digipack cover looked out of place.
Because of this I decided that I would slightly airbrush my artist.
I did this by applying a new layer and adding a blur to that new layer, then by creating another layer and painting over the feature of my artist with a white paint brush. this smoothed out her skin tone and features.I next needed to change my image to black and white, but leaving the lips red - this is called colour splash effect. Firstly I duplicate the image, with the duplicate image, I went to the 'new adjustment layer' clicking on it and selecting 'hue/saturation' dragging the saturation slider all the way down to -100 - changing the image to black and white.
I then went to layer and clicked 'merge down' applying the adjustment layer to the duplicate layer. Then, I clicked 'layer', 'layer mask' and then 'reveal all'.
I had to then select white as my background layer and back as my foreground colour, I selected the paintbrush tool. I then painted over the lips to reveal the colour.
After doing this I decided that I didn't like the colour of the lips, as I thought they were too dark.
Because of this, I duplicated my last layer, zoomed into the lips and started to paint over the lips in a bright red colour.
 |
| Painting over the lips |
This is what the front cover looked like after I had finished doing the lips, I liked this effect because it makes the lips look more 3D on a 2D image, thus making it look more artistic.
For the inside from I used the picture of my artist holding a flower, I tried changing this the same way - into black and white - as I had for my front cover. However, this just gave me the sepia effect you can see on the left.
Much is the same for my next image I just wanted it in black and white, so i clicked 'image', 'adjustments' and then'black and white'.
However, with this image I lowered the opacity so that the shine from the flash on the photo would be less harsh.
Next i added in my sparkler image, when placing this image I was very careful, as I wanted there to be enough white of the sparkler to fit my tracklist in.
Once placed, I adjusted the image so that it was black and white, doing the same process that I had done with the previous images.Once I had done this I started to copy out the track list and song times to the back cover of my CD digipack, in a black Zapfino font.
After completing this and making sure that it was placed so all the text could bee seen and read, I started to add the details to the back cover of my CD digipack. for example the barcode- which I placed in the bottom right hand corner of my back cover.The record label logo - placed in the bottom left hand corner.
Then I did the small print - after reading the
small print of the back of three different CDs by three different artists I noticed the small print was pretty much the same on all, with the main details different. So I used the small print from one album - changing the details to fit my artist - and typing them as the small print onto the back cover of my album.
Then I added the artist's social media sites and official website information under the small print.
Next, I decided that I didn't like how the text on the front cover looked- as it was hard to read, as it didn't stand out much-, deciding the for the text I would have to make it white or black to match the image; I decided on white as there were more black and greys in my image, so it would stand out more. I then decided to place the artist's name at the top and the album name at the bottom, because when you're looking for CD's the artist's name is the first thing you will recognise. It also spaces it out more so that my front cover doesn't look crampedFinally, I added in the spine. I did this in a simple solid black so it wouldn't take focus away from the images. I then added the artist's name, name of the album, album reference number and record label logo to the spine to complete it. Thus finishing my CD digipack.
Completed CD Digipack
