Analysis of CD covers

CD Cover ConventionsWhen creating our album cover it was important to consider the generic layout conventions of a CD cover. We used these examples as guides to create our own...

Jessie J Cher Lloyd The Black Eyed Peas

Genre Different aspects to take into account were

things such as the genre of music and the character we used in our video. We

looked for inspiration from artists such as Jessie J, Cher Lloyd and The Black Eyed

Peas, because they all have a similar genre of music which is ‘pop music’. The album covers we took inspiration from

are eye-catching and edgy.

Star and IconsJessie J uses a close up image of

her face on the front cover of her album for easy

recognition to the audience.

Cher Lloyd uses a long shot image of herself for the front cover of her album to represent her image through her clothes which portray the genre of music she produces.

The Black Eyed Peas use an edited image of a face close up. The editing of this image is effective because it represents the techno influence in their music genre.

ImageWhat does the image on the front cover represent to our audience? Is the image a

photograph or a quirky design? Will the artist be presented on the front cover of the album? The image on the cover of the album is what is

going to attract the audience, so making it eye-catching and appealing is very important. We took a lot of different aspects into account

involving the MES (Mise en scene), such as colour, costume, props, editing, and

positioning of the artist.

Font Design- Font is important on the front cover of the album as it must link with the genre of music

The font used for Jessie J’s album cover is effective as it represents her as a female artist. She is known for her soul voice and mix of contemporary R&B with pop music which is well portrayed through the sofisicated font.

Again Cher Lloyd uses a girly font to represent her femininity. However the single title is presented in a bold statement font which makes it eye-catching and gives it some edge.

The black eyed peas use of font indicates a much more electro feel to their genre of music. Hence the lightning bolt effect under the name of the artist.

RepresentationHow do we want the star to be represented to

the audience? We had to consider how we wanted to portray the star which enabled us

to relate to music genre and how the audience would react to that. We want to give the

audience the right impression of our star, we aimed to convey likability.

AudienceWhen creating our product we had to consider

what type of audience we aim to target. Who exactly will want to buy this CD? We wanted to reflect the audiences particular interest in music, therefore conveying the popular genre of music which appeals to the audience. How does the audience feel when listening to this music? Why do they like this music? Can they relate to the music produced with their own identity?

Back Cover of an CD AlbumWe took inspiration from these back covers of a CD album. The soundtrack is listed in the centre of the page this looks professional and neat because is it simple yet the lines are effectively layout. Each of the CD back covers have a barcode, therefore we copied an image of a barcode and placed it on the back of our cover to create realism and make our CD look more official.

Mock up idea for our CD coverWe took inspiration from Jessie J’s front cover by using an image of our character to create familiarity and then we used the same idea as The Black Eyed Peas front cover and edited our image into a black and white contrast effect to give off the electro pop influence in genre.

How we created our album front cover

We took a photo of our character on the green screen so that we could edit it

onto a black background

We Used...•An image of one side of her face, to present familiarity. •A mid shot image so the character was positioned with hand out with light painting in her hand.• Photoshop to edit the image into black and white contrast effect.• Light painting heart shape, to give the electro pop feel.• A sophisticated bold font to represent the character and her genre of music.• The album name ‘catching all the lights’ to link in with the light painting effect