Analysing album covers

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Analysing DigiPaks Megan Rhodes

Transcript of Analysing album covers

Page 1: Analysing album covers

Analysing DigiPaksMegan Rhodes

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The Strokes- Angles

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What first strikes me about the originality of this album cover is the bright colours used and the abstract image used because it has no relevance to the band. I have never seen anything like this before and I think this would help the cover to catch my eye whilst on shelves in the shops.

On the other hand, I have noticed that all of the images used on the cover are squares or cubes which could have relevance to the name of the album because each of the shapes have clear angles.

The Strokes have chosen to not include an image of themselves on the cover which after doing some research appears to be quite conventional for the genre of indie / indie- rock. I think this idea works better because you can experiment more and don’t have to stick to one image.

I think this would be quite hard to recreate because you would need to have a high skill on photo/ graphic software such as Photoshop. However, if you look closely it does look like it’s been hand drawn and then painted with water colours- this is because of the shading that the blocks in the middle use.

The Strokes- Angles

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Best Coast- Crazy For You

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Best Coast- Crazy For You What captures my eye the most about the cover of this album is the odd picture

used and the bright colours. I think even in the darkest of the winter days in would fill you with that ‘happy summer feeling’ because of how bright it is.

At first it does appear to be really random, but if you look inside the text that the bands name has been written in, a map has filled it and what looks like a coast in America. As well as this, the image is set on a beach. Both of these ideas match the bands name ‘Best Coast’.

The back of the casing continues with the coast setting so it shows some continuity and it’s not all disjuncture.

It looks like the text has been written in Courier New and is perfectly left aligned which isn’t a very common font to write in so once again it gives the band a uniqueness about them. I like the way the track listing has been set out so I think I might use the idea for my final DigiPak.

Everything on the back seems to have been formatted and aligned in a straight position. I much prefer it this way than to have the track listings all creatively and different because it’s so much easier to find what track you want to listen to.

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A technique I have noticed that’s very typical of the indie genre is having an unusual image, with no relevance to played onto the top of the CD. I really like this idea because it gives a real quirkiness and originality to the band- Best Coast’s album being a good example.

The image used on the CD gives the consumer the impression that the album will be full of random songs and all will be really different because it consists of originality and disjuncture.

Best Coast- Crazy For You

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Arctic Monkeys- Favourite Worst Nightmare

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What I really like about this album cover is there’s more to it after the first look. You first see a house with lights on inside, but if you have a longer look you see that there are all psychedelic patterns going on on the walls of the rooms.

The only negative about this album cover is I fear the lack of colour used will cause it to not stand out on shelves in shops when placed next to other albums that use eye catching features like bright colours, unique images and big text.

A good feature used on this cover is the bands logo. Using such an unusual font in the colour yellow on a black background does help you immediately see who’s album it is.

Having the image taken in what appears to be a council estate area is very unconventional for a mainstream pop band, hip hop stars or other genres- so with the originality of where the picture is taken comes the idea of a unique band which are normally classed under ‘indie’.

This idea goes quite well with our band as we’d like the use of colour used a lot, and even though the amount of colour used is very minimal it really stands out. An idea in which we could incorporate this is there’s a shot in the video when all band members are leaning out of windows, so we could try and use the idea then.

Arctic Monkeys- Favourite Worst Nightmare

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Arctic Monkeys- Favourite Worst Nightmare

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The inside is not what you expect after seeing the front cover, however it does slightly carry on the same theme on the front. You have a full view of the insides of the psychedelic and abstract house full of colours.

I really like the choice of image they have used because it matches with the name of the album. The word ‘nightmare’ has connotations of big scare creatures that are intimidating and dark colours. I then think they have cleverly changed this to ‘favourite worst’ nightmare by using bright colours to make the creatures appear less scary. It shows a good contrast.

The second idea I like about this is if you didn’t see the front cover and looked straight inside you’d never know the album belonged to the Arctic Monkeys because their name and images of the band aren’t used. I have found this is quite conventional for this genre.

This type of album case is different to the rest as it opens up from both sides to discover the actual CD in the middle of the casing. I do prefer it this way because you get the panels to do images and photos as well as the lyric book that’s slotted inside- however I think this way would be more time consuming when compared to an average album case.

Arctic Monkeys- Favourite Worst Nightmare

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Examples Of Other Album Covers That Appeal To Me