FURTHER analysis of album artwork: Front covers

Back coversInside sleeve

Front cover Back cover

‘tray’ sleeve

Inside ‘front cover’ sleeve

Artist name & album title

Tracklist

Barcode

Artwork:Front cover:The RadioHead album uses disorientating sketches of landcapes, in the case of the front cover the artist ‘Donwood’ uses mountain ranges. The artwork is used to reflect the war Kosovo in 1999.Back cover:The back cover illustrates another snowscape with fires raging through fields. The artwork is once again very disorientating to represent the war in 1999.

Inside front cover sleeve: This sleeve continues to illustrate the landscape images, creating disorientation.

FRONT & BACK ALBUM COVERTRAYSLEEVE

TRAY SLEEVE

The band use the inside booklet to illustrate the lyrics of their songs. They have made the lyrics claustrophobic and distorted which is similar to how I want my inside booklet to look. They have done this to help the audience understand their genre/theme of the album.

This is the front cover of the sleeve. The use of red is significant in representing anger/death/danger-all in which helps connote the themes of the album. The drawings are claustrophobic and demonic like, also very cartoon-like which is ironic as many of the issues noted in this sleeve (such as the political reference to Tony Blair) are in fact reality, not cartoon-like. This is significant as it indicates sarcasm and once again implies the audience of the albums themes and entices them into listening to the album.

TRAYSLEEVE

The inside back cover sleeve includes a demonic portrait of Tony Blair surrounded by warnings of demagoguery. This is a political reference, the artist are illustrating there disappointment in the government at the time through their music.

The use of the demonic version of Tony Blair was very controversial after the album release as it was criticising the current government at the time by using the lyrics alongside Tony Blair’s face indicating that they’re connected.

WHAT WILL I DO SIMILAR?

I like the claustrophobia of the text as is creates a distorted and eary sort of atmosphere and connotes the genre of the band and themes of the album.I want to do something similar here as my music video will be very eary and has a creepy sort of atmosphere.

I like the simplicity of the back cover. It still contains the sort of claustrophobic atmosphere which I intend to carry out on my own album, but the tracklist text is kept small and simple but is still clear.

Front cover Back cover

Inside sleeve Inside sleeve

FRONT & BACK ALBUM COVER

Album title

Artists name

Barcode

Tracklist

Album artworkFront Cover:The band and the artist ‘Stanley Donwood’ wanted to include a lot of colour in the album front cover as the album is called ‘In Rainbow’. However, he wanted to make it more toxic and was inspired by NASA space photos. Back Cover:The band created the album so that it unfolds, unlike a normal CD box which just opens up. This is significant as the band wanted to keep this album simple as it was one of the shortest albums they have created.

The text has been made so it is disorientating and disjointed which connotes the genre of the band and entices the audience. Also they have used colour which reinforces the idea of a rainbow.

INSIDE SLEEVE

The lyrics are very disjointed and disorientating which could create confusion, but mainly connotes the genre of the band and the album. Also within the text there are hints of colour to reinforce the idea of a rainbow.

Artwork:The artwork of the sleeve was inspired by NASA photos. Stanley wanted to create the idea of a rainbow but make it more toxic looking. He did this through using the exaggerated colours in space and digitalise it into making it more ‘toxic’ looking.

The idea of a toxic rainbow is illustrated best here as the combination of colours look like a rainbow, however by using the ‘space’ look, it has been made more artificial and toxic looking.

WHAT WILL I DO SIMILAR?

I like the simplicity of the text on the front cover of the ‘IN rainbows’ album. However I want to avoid using so much colour as I want to keep the colours quite dark to connote the genre of my band. Also instead of having the toxic rainbow sort of image in the background I want to possibly use an image of the creature or the ballet dancer from my music video and anchor the text over the top.

Front cover Back cover

Inside sleeve

Inside sleeve

Inside sleeve

FRONT & BACK ALBUM COVER

Album name & artist

Tracklist

Barcode

Contributors

Record label

Album atrwork:FRONT COVER:The front cover is kept very simple-illustrating a set of decaying flowers. The simple photography of this image is effective yet ironic as this album consists of the best hits but illustrates a decaying flower. A the music started in 1988, the flowers could represent (as they aren’t dead yet) how the band has lasted over so many years.BACK COVER:The back cover is kept very simple, using a simple layout and two constant colours-black and white.

INSIDE SLEEVE

ALBUM ARTWORK:The band has simply used photographs of their own artwork over the years. Each piece of artwork has been used as inspiration for the bands music over the years. This is simple but yet effective, it is a selling point to the audience as the album also releases artwork which has inspired them or which they have created which is something keen fans would be interested i. Furthermore as it is a ‘best of’ album, consisting of music they have created over they years, by using images they have created over the years, they are connecting the idea of a long lasting band together through the artwork and the music.

Colours are kept quite neutral, but sometimes consists of tie dye colours which remind me of the 80’s-which is when the band formed.

The sort of street style look appeals to a wider audience- by publishing this image they are widening there brand reach.

WHAT WILL I DO SIMILAR?

I like the idea of using your own artwork to illustrate your music. As I am creative and draw and paint a lot I would like similarly do so on my album sleeve. I have sketched and storyboarded my music video so I could use some of them images, but also I can develop this by painting more images which I can take photos of and use for an inside sleeve.

Front cover Back cover

Inside sleeve

Album artwork

FRONT & BACK ALBUM COVER

Artist

Album title

Unique selling point

Barcode

Tracklist

Contributors, record label and website.

Album Artwork:The colours are kept quite natural (browns/caramels/mustard/grey)The colours, image and style are all used to help identify the brand. The image is placed at the bottom left hand side of the album, so then your eyes immediately retract to the title and artist name. The album is almost fairytale like, indicating a childlike essence-however the ‘parental advisory’ sticker suggests otherwise.

INSIDE ARTWORK

This is an image of cupid, the God of desire, affection and erotic love.

I like the way that the CD unfolds to reveal an inside booklet attached to the case, which when opened looks like a story book. I think that this is effective and entices the reader into buying the album. Also this once again connotes the child like essence when in fact it is not for children.

The artwork is very chaotic and disorientating, creating a similar atmosphere to the CD covers-a claustrophobic and disorientated atmosphere, reinforcing the genre of the artists music.

Album Artwork:The album uses Greek mythology and chaotic artwork. The idea of the inside sleeve being a ‘storybook’ reinforces the idea of a child-like essence, however the front of the album says that it is not suitable for children, the significant use of BLACK reinforces that.

INSIDE SLEEVE

This is an image of cupid, the God of desire, affection and erotic love. Even though the storybook inside the sleeve seems childlike, the nudity suggests otherwise. The significant use of BLACK also connotes the idea that the CD isn’t suitable for children.

The artists lyrics are illustrated like a storyboard. The text is quite ‘fairytale like’ which all connote the ideas of childhood. However the meaning of the lyrics and the images are quite absurd and unusual, such as the dancing pigs, pig drinking alcohol and the floating knife. This all creates an unrealistic nature, which indicates the genre of music is unusual.

WHAT WILL I DO SIMILAR?

I like the unusual-ness of the artwork. The contrast between the innocent, childlike artwork (fairytale like lettering/storybook) and the unusual photography of drinking pigs and dancing pigs appeal to me because it is unusual-which is what my imagination manifests in; weirdness.