Sam Baxter & Reece Johnson A2 Media: Album Cover Inspiration

Thursday, 3 October 2013

Simplistic Album Cover Ideas

Here are some examples of some simplistic album cover ideas. These album covers are realistically very easy to create; however they are extremely effective. For example the XX’s artwork for their album is simply a white ‘X’ placed on a plain black background. This binary opposite is very effective in gaining attention, and it represents the band too. Similarly Arctic Monkey’s album cover (first photo) uses the same colours, however includes sound waves in white in contrast to the X, yet again the simplistic/minimal look is very effective. The majority of these artworks are also from an indie or alternative genre, this can show that certain conventions seem to be followed throughout the genre, which is something to consider when designing our own cover.

Monday, 16 September 2013

CD Digipak Analysis

Digipaks are used to add an element of creativity and style to album covers. Changing them from just ordinary photos to three fold spreads consisting of different elements, adding more emphasis and attractive more attention to the CD. This can be seen as a simplistic digipak style. The album XX by the XX has a simple black background with an X in white. Although it is very simplistic, the binary opposites of the colours combine to make it extremely effective.

Rihanna also has a digipak set for her album ‘loud’. This includes a three-fold photo, which is extremely effective, as noticeable from the photo it is oh her laying down in roses. This photo contradicts the album title of ‘loud’ because laying in roses would be expected to be peaceful and quiet, this adds to the effect of the three fold photo. In contrast to the xx rihannas album also includes a lot of colour, seemingly using a colour scheme of red, green and a creamy colour. I like the simplicity element of the xx’s digipak however I believe overall rihannas would be more effective in drawing attention which is important.