Ancillary Texts

Examples of Album Covers

These are some examples of album covers from the band One Direction. Throughout the years you can see the band has grown in maturity both in terms of their personality and music. This has been reflected through their album covers. Their first album ‘Up All Night’ features a rather immature album cover that reflects the younger age of the band members. Their second album ‘Take Me Home’ is also rather immature and makes the boys look mischievous and fun loving. Their third album ‘Midnight Memories’ in more mature than their previous two and signals a change in their music directions to more serious music. Their fourth album ‘Four’ again features a more mature album cover continuing on with their more mature music directions.

Album Covers I LikeI like all of these artworks for various reasons. I like the look of Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ artwork because of way it appears to be an old polaroid picture fitting in with the theme of the album being reminiscence of the 1980s. Ariana Grande’s cover for ‘My Everything’ is good because of its simplicity and the way it shows her off as the artist through the full shot of her body. Nicki Minaj’s album cover is good because of the way it fits her personality as well as the wackiness of the album the artwork is for. Also the album fits in with Nicki Minaj’s pink theme that is prominent throughout all her albums. Beyoncé's cover for ‘Beyoncé’ is also good because of the confidence it shows off one Beyoncé's part, only featuring her name written along the box.

Album Covers to take Inspiration from

As I am featuring a male artist on my music video I thought I’d look to album covers produced by other male artists for inspiration when creating my cover. I like Ed Sheeran’s album cover for his album ‘+’ because it features his face and nothing else. It is simple and I would consider producing something like this for my music video. I also like the tinted orange colour on the cover and would like to also consider featuring this in my video. Gavin DeGraw’s album cover for ‘Chariot’ is similar to Sheeran’s in that it only features a close-up shot of his face but without the tint. Again I like this because of its simplicity. Sam Smith’s album cover for ‘In the Lonely Hour’ is again quiet simple only featuring Smith sat on a box. I like the longer perspective we get through this type of cover because it shows off the artist more making it easier for the audience to know who the artist is. George Ezra’s album cover is more complicated than the others featuring Ezra in the middle of a crowd. I like that there is more going on, on this album cover but it does make it harder to identify Ezra if you don’t know who he is. Looking to these album covers has helped me to understand that when producing an album cover for a male artist it is probably best to make it more simple compared to producing one for a female artist that would feature a more eccentric cover.

Disc ArtworkThese disc’s are ones I could take inspiration from for various reasons. Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ disc is good because of the way it fits in with the album cover of the CD making it consistent. I also really like the artwork that has been chosen with the birds flying through the air, making the disc look unique compared to others which are quite plain. Nicki Minaj’s ‘Pink Friday Roman Reloaded’ disc is also good because of the way it fits in with the album artwork. I also like that it’s a faded image of the artist rather than a full on image that may have looked a bit much for the disc. Both Ariana Grande’s disc for ‘Yours Truly’ and Sam Smith’s disc for ‘In the Lonely Hour’ are plain but this may not be a bad thing as it allows for easier production for the institution and also lets the music speak for itself instead of having the disc say to much. I would however say the disc for Yours Truly does not reflect the rest of the album enough because it is pink as opposed to the grey featured on album cover meaning it doesn’t keep a consistency between the whole product.

Back of CDThese backs of artists albums are ones that I like the look of and think could help me when I am creating my own. The back of Ariana Grande ‘My Everything’ and Ed Sheeran ‘+’ are both relatively plain, only featuring the list of the albums songs but I believe this is a good way to do it as it keeps the focus on the songs and also makes the back of the album easy to read and follow. Both Nicki Minaj’s ‘Pink Friday’ and Ella Henderson’s ‘Chapter One’ feature the artist appearing on the back of the cover. Nicki appears sticking out more on the back which fits with her personality and she is positioned like a Barbie doll which is something common with her earlier albums. Ella’s is more subtly done as she appears more as part of the background than Nicki does making her pull less of the focus. I like both of these and believe they show more creativity than just listing the tracks meaning I will most likely want to do something like this for my album.