Album Cover

After some feedback from our teacher she told us that our album cover looks too similar to our myspace as the waves, colours and pictures are all the same. I realise that if we want fans to buy our products then they all need to have a sense of individuality while still maintaining their key brand image. We have made changes and amendments to our cover and without further a due here it is!

Final Draft of the Album Cover Thoughts

The album cover is looking pretty good in my opinion and its got a profesional feel to it. The stock image of the sea originally didn't look visual enough to be on the front cover. However, with some brightness and contrast, an ajustment of the vibrance and a change of colour it started to look really deep and interesting. That coupled with our text on top gave a nice powerful, striking effect for our front cover. Another thing I like about our digipak is that it contains images of all the band members playing live. This gives fans more content for their money and gives them something the video and myspace does not. The cover which features the portrait pictures of the band members is also a nice touch as it builds on the image of the band, which even though is not the focus, is still present for the fans. Moreover, the different colour backgrounds gives each member an identity, which is a technique we saw used in The Saturdays brand image. Overall I'm very pleased with the way our album cover turned out.

Album Cover Conventions

What are the typical features that an album cover has?

- Band name and album title
- A distinctive often illustrative image
- Track listing on the back
- Record company
- Release year
- Copywrite infomation
- Lyrics booklet - infomation on the band members, lyrics, band webstie/contact details, thank you's and recording infomation.

How would you categorise the covers in front of you?

 Categorise by:

- Photos of artist
- Drawn/painted/computer generated conceputal image
- Photographic art
- Decade it was released
- Whether its a vinyl or CD
- Band or single artist
- Style of packaging - Digipak, CD case, Vinyl, extra sleeve.

Album Covers have many different functions. What do you think these are?

- Promote the artist
- Give infomation and details on the band
- Put across a message whther it be mundane or serious such as a political message
- Brands the artist giving them something the audience can relate to and identify with that person and nobody else.
- Interests the audience - they want to hear more music from the artist that they like, therefore an album has a purpose of pleasing and satisfying the audience.

Album Cover Analysis

LOSTPROPHETS - THE FAKE SOUND OF PROGRESS

Front Cover
- Artistic photo of them recording the album; immediately says that this is a band about the music not the image.
- Black and white which gives it an arty look.
- Electronic equipment; at first your not sure what your looking at.
- The album title is very small and doesn't stand out; located at the bottom of the image.
- A random action figure located at the top-right; this is almost a logo a lot of their dedicated fans will recognise.
- Even the title of the band name is small; you have to look for it as it doesnt jump out.

This is a very unconventional album cover as it is the bands first aswell. You would think that a bands first album would be about them and getting them recognised - building up a fanbase. Instead you have an album cover which isn't really giving any particular message. To me, what this does is put absolutely all the emphasis on the music and nothing on the image of the band. It is almost like this album cover was made only for the fans they already had has it doesnt really attract any new ones.