ALBUM COVER – Crystal Bats

This presentation will explain the visual aspects of my CD cover, why I have chosen this design, and why I think it will

appeal to the target audience. The genre of my artist is alternative/indie.

This was one of my original images I took for my CD after I had cropped it so that there was space down the side of the image to write the title of the band. The image was taken just below the eyes before I cropped it to CD size. This is because the girl on the front of the album is not the artist, so I wanted the focus to be on the fact that there is someone in yellow blowing up a yellow balloon, rather than the person blowing it up. An example of a CD cover where part of a person has been used when they are not someone in the band, is ‘The Strokes, Is This It’, which has part of a naked woman wearing a leather glove. The set up of this cover is very similar to mine. They are both cropped to have space one side where the album name will go, using part of an unidentified woman as the image for the cover. The Strokes are also an indie band.

These were the next two stages of my CD cover. In the top image I have brightened the hues of the yellow. In the bottom image I have added the name of the album (which is also the name of the artist, an example of a band who does this whose genre is similar to crystal bats is Franz Ferdinand).

I have barely altered the image from it’s original state, only brightening it and adding font. The reason I wanted to keep it looking understated is because that is a convention of some of the artier artists in the alternative/indie genre.

I wanted my images to be similar to something which would be found in VICE magazine, as these are also very arty, and more importantly, would be read and looked at by the target audience of crystal bats, which would be mainly indie, arty students.

These are some images from VICE magazine and other indie bands album covers which have similar aspects to the visual design of my cover, and that are also aimed at the target

audience of indie older teens and young adults.

The first image is of Franz Ferdinand's Franz Ferdinand. This is there debut album which is named after themselves, I have also done this with the Crystal Bat’s album, imagining it is there first album, the reason for this is that it shows that the band are serious, mature (a stereotype of the indie genre), and care more about the music than of thinking up a fancy album name. Another way to do this would have been to give the album a title track.

The second image is a cover from VICE magazine, the image is stark and has a lot of white space. The girl in the image is smoking, which is also a stereotype of ‘cool’ indie students.

The third image is the album cover of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ third album, ‘It’s Blitz’. The cover has neither the name of the band or the name of the album on the cover. Only a very artistic image of the lead singer, Karen O’s hand, cracking an egg in her hand, again this image is very minimalistic.

These two images are the original image I took for my back cover, and what it looked like after I had completed it. I have once again left space on one side for text to go. The text is tilted so that it rests in lines on the patterns on the curtain. I have also brightened the yellow and green hues, and added a barcode to make the cover look authentic. The back cover relates to the front cover as it is the same girl, using a close up again, but with a different yellow object.

I think my CD cover will appeal to the target audience because the of girl on the cover is dressed like the sort of person the music is aimed at.