Inside CD Cover

 

We decided to have three separate images and put them in a collage for the inside cover in the digipack. This evolved from our original idea to have identical pictures, but in this case they are different to create a variety of personalities. We wanted to keep the colour scheme consistent throughout the CD digipack.

Inside Right of CD

I started with a picture of a red rose that I took. Then I went on pic-monkey. Here I used exposure to change the picture, by making the shadows darker (which gives the rose the look of more depth). Then I put a square overlay on top of the flower: coloured it pink and faded it. The effect of this is that it makes the flower more pinky than red, which matches the rest of the covers of this album. Then put another overlay of a faded pink circle, to represent where the CD goes. Then on the website I found a picture of a pink rose, which I then used as a faded overlay on top of the red.  

CD Digipack - Back Cover

I wanted to make the back cover of the music video personal for the audience as it is a concept that would influence me to purchase a CD. The photobooth style images represent the artists character and also the person that she is trying to represent to her audience, mainly bubbly and silly  which will connect to a younger audience of teenagers and girls.

Process of Editing the Back Cover

This is a screenshot of the process of creating the back cover of the CD. Currently I used Apple iPhoto to edit and crop the photos into black and white, then I used picmonkey to make a collage. I am now in the process of adding the song list. However I a not happy with the white border that surrounds the black and white collage therefore I think I will remove it and then begin adding the song list.

CD Front Cover

This is one of my final edits of the front cover for the CD. I took a picture of Lauren and edited it on the software: picmonkey.com. I have isolated the image by colouring it in black and white and then have coloured the background in a dark pastel pink. I then used the font Geo Sans Light for both artist's name and the title of the album. I have made two copies where the second you can see the colour on her lips. I think I prefer the full black and white one, as the colour looks odd in not contrasting with the pink background. I really like the way I have used the contrasting colours because it makes both colours and image stand out, making it eye catching to the audience.

Front Cover CD First Draft

This is a first draft version of what I am thinking the front of the CD will look like. I have used Picmonkey.com as the photo editor. We have thought of the light pastel pink theme to be used throughout of the CD, so I have used that as a background colour. I really liked the contrast of the black and white colour for her facial features; however I think that the black and white needs to be a lot stronger in colour. I used Lauren's name as the artist and have flipped her name background to show some originality and have then added the title of the CD album in italics, using the same font throughout. I think this definitely needs some work done to it, but we are liking where the design is taking us.

3 CD Cover Remakes

The CD cover to the left is the original and I have recreated this by using some graph paper, which I then downloaded a typeface that was similar to the artist's name on the correct CD cover. I then added a colour over it and tried to edit it the same, but struggled with the white boarder over the letters. I really like how simple it is and how different is, because not many CD covers I have seen has used graph paper as a background. The codes and conventions used in this cover is the name of the artist. It doesn't however follow the convention of having the artist's photo on the cover. From this we could use something very simplistic, yet it would work effectively.

   Here I have made a design of a Van Halen CD. I found the baby angel with the cigarette and I used a similar text to create the artist's name. I then coloured this a red tinge, however I found it difficult to get the gradient with the shade of black running through the text. I then added the roman numerals and duplicated it so it was the same on both sides of the name title. For this album it follows the convention of having the artist's name and possibly the title of the CD; however again, it doesn't feature the image of the artist. Instead it has a picture that doesn't particularly have any relevance. This could suggest that for our CD cover we could use pictures that doesn't hold any relevance.

To the left is my remake of the Led Zeppelin CD. I found this quite difficult to remake because I couldn't find an exact match of the apartment blocks that they used to create their CD cover. I used a text overlay and a similar text to make the artist's name blend into the apartments. I also changed the brightness and contrast and added a sepia filter to match with the sepia tone used in the original CD. I then added the different lettering on the windows and similar positions to where they were on the original. I found this the most difficult because I couldn't find the exact position for them.  For this album, they included the title of the CD and the artist linking to the codes and conventions for a CD cover. However, again they went against using the artist's face for the front cover.



CD Cover Ideas

Front Cover

Inside Left

Inside Right (where CD is)

Back Cover

3 CD Covers Research

I went to HMV and looked at the CD racks and chose 3 CDs that caught my eye.

Green Day: American Idiot

This was the first CD that caught my eye. It caught my eye because the colours really contrast with each other. The text is also very big and blocked up, similar to the image of the heart grenade. I looked at the song list and American Idiot is one of their songs; it doesn't link to the image on the side of it, however I really like the use of imagery of the heart and grenade as it suggests the type of music that is on the CD. For the codes and conventions they have followed it by using their artist name and title. This isn't in our genre as it is more punk rock and grungy, which can be seen from the style of the CD cover.

Panic! At The Disco: Death Of A Bachelor

This CD really caught my eye because of the high use of colour and the busyness of it compared to the first album that I saw. I really like the creativeness through the use of the line work to make it look animated against the real image behind it of the pool and the person to the right hand side. I also like how small the text is as it doesn't ruin the effect of the image; however it may mean that if people were looking for this artist, they would find it difficult to find because it isn't selling the artist's name in big letters like Green Day's. They have featured the artist in this CD cover, as well as stating the name of the artist and the title of the CD, therefore following the codes and conventions of a CD cover. This is partially in our genre, it has some punk influences, however there are aspects of pop in the music too.

Catfish & The Bottlemen: The Ride

Lastly, I this album caught my eye because of the simplicity of it. I really like how effective, yet simple it still is. With the use of one image it could represent the album or the artist in some way. The contrasting colours is a really simple idea again, with the use of black and white. I think that the image is also effective and eye catching because it is in the centre of the CD cover. In this they have used an image of the alligator, not following the convention of having the picture of the artist, however they have used the name and title on the cover.

HMV Interview

We went to a local HMV to ask the manager questions about the store and costumers:

1. What is your customer base at HMV?

2. Why do you arrange the store the way you do?

3. How do DVD sales compare to CD sales? Why is this?

4. How do you encourage people to come into your store?

5. What strategies do you use to compete against internet downloads?

3 CD Covers Research

I went to the local HMV shop, and on the CD aisle I scanned for the 3 CDs which first catch my eye. This is the results:

First one is from Twenty-one Pilots; Blur Face

The first thing that my eye was drawn too was the pattern on the spine, I like the contrast of the black and white. Then I looked at the grid like circles in the middle, I like the structure. Also, I like how there's also some colour dotted around, and the mixed up patterns. The title is also unique, I like the line. Overall I like the simplicity but how everything links to each other, via colour and pattern. This can help us create similar ideas make out whole album link to each other. 

Codes and Conventions- this album doesn't have the artist featuring on the front cover, it can be seen as eccentric considering the design. But this is targeting to  certain audience, it doesn't sell the image of the artists but the genre of music.    

I don't think this would work with our artist, as we want to sell the image of the artist. However, the design is interesting and I think we can be inspired by it.  

Second one by Tom Odell; Wrong Crowd

The first thing that my eyes were drawn to was the artist face, specifically the eyes as they are placed at the most conspicuous place. The overall colour scheme is grey and warm pink. The most artistic aspect is the font title. I like how it curves around the face, and also the colour. I think this type of cover is most suitable for out artist/ song type.

Code and Conventions- this album is the most similar to what we want our album to look like. It has the typical conventions with the artists face and album name. However, it doesn't have the artists face. This shows that only the target audience will recognize the face, which wouldn't work with our artists as she is still unknown.

Lastly Chvrches; Every Open Eyes

The first thing I was drawn to was the colours, I like the shades of pink. When you look closely, you see the pixilated image of flowers. This stood out to me. I found this to be very creative, and I think t could link well with out genre type.

Codes and Conventions- It has the artist name and album name, however like the first one it doesn't feature the artists face. 

But I like the concept of the design and the colour scheme matches ours.

CD COVER DRAFT



This is a very basic edit of my first initial idea of our CD cover. I have used the image of the artist on the front cover with the artist's name along the side. I have used a simple text because I feel as if, if there was too much abstract lettering it wouldn't flow right. On the flip side of the CD cover I have used the title of the main song, with the glitter layering over it, because it is simple, yet also effective. The picture where the CD goes, which contains the circle has the flowers on the outer sides, which I like that encases the CD. The black background against the flower I feel doesn't go as well as I thought it would, but this is where the songs would be listed next to it. I think I am going to have another go at a CD cover draft and explore some more ideas because I am not entirely happy with this edit. 

Draft CD cover

 

This is a draft that I made for our artist. I used the albums I researched as inspiration.

The theme I went for was love and war. I used the idea of two contrasting images and put them together: flower, innocence/ gun, corrupted. The overall theme went darker than originally expected, but I like the outcome. The genre it gives off is more rock than pop, however with a few changes this can be amended.

3 Cover Remakes

Coldplay- Vida la Vida

I used a picture of the French Revolution painting from google. Then I found the most similar font online. However I couldn't recreate the paint.

This album cover uses a well known painting of the French Revolution, then used a font like a paint brush. There's also paint splattered across the cover.

The whole theme presents the band as being eccentric, but also playful with the use of the font and paint. Because the colour is white, the overall effect isn't as dark as it would be if it were red...

The font type can be used to inspire our album, as it's playful. The overall theme of war also links to our theme or war paint...

 

 New Order- Power, Corruption, Lies

I took a photo of flowers, then on a PowerPoint document I copied the photo into two. I first photo I used at the background: into grayscale and used an effect. The second one I reduced the vibrancy of the flowers and got rid of the background, then placed it on top of the first photo. I then used shapes to create the boxes on the top right.  

This album cover is very simple, using only a picture and few symbols.

The overall image of this picture is primarily less dark to when you read the title. Because there is no title, it's dark to guess what the music inside may be about.

The idea of flowers does link with out artist. 

 

VHS Orbeta- Bring on the Comets

I used acrylic paint and made interesting textures, which I then took a picture of and edited online. I changed the vibrancy, and then added a textbox to create the text.

 

 The album has an explosion of colours, which can link to out artists theme of war paint. The vibrancy of the colours is effective, we could use this. The overall image is very simple, overall the last three albums has a feel of more rock genres. But there are certain aspects which we can use as inspiration.  

 

Word Cloud

We created this word cloud by separately coming up with as many words as possible and then combining them together. This then made it obvious that  many of our words such as 'love' and 'girl power' were similar.

Cover re-make (The Hives)

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I used Adobe Fireworks to re-create this album cover. I found it quite challenging as the album cover is square and the photo that we took was very wide and therefore it was challenging to fit it all in. I like the use of black and white however it was slightly too dark for the album cover. If I were to do this again I would edit the photo into black and white first and then start the editing. If I had more time I would crop all the people from the photo and add them together again but put them closer together. I would make the girl with the piece sign larger and more at the front to show the 'V' clearer.

CD Recreation: Paolo Nutini

I have recreated the Paolo Nutini album - 'These Streets' on Adobe Fireworks. I have layered each of the different colours and darkened each rectangle that I layered. I also downloaded the Paolo Nutini fonts and layered that on top. The top photo is my edit of the real one, which is below. I have also found a separate font to produce the title of the album. To create the high contrast image, I used picmonkey.com and edited the picture first.  




They have used a variety of bright colours and have sectioned them for each band member. This could suggest their image of being a fun, bubbly band. They have followed the convention of having their artist name and title of the album on the front cover. I don't this album would be effective for our genre as it looks more acoustic by looking at the acoustic guitars as props for their album cover.

CD Analysis

Cd analysis from amy_tse

I have analysed a CD of my choice and have looked at how the artist's CD is laid out, the colours used and if it fits the genre. I think that this could possibly be effective to help us design our own album cover because the singer is pop based.

JLS CD Analysis

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-XjE2l2tdcDXdAG7BZtEb61kvJrPf-XNDHfMMDYVcIo/edit#slide=id.p

Digipack genre analysis