Finished Album Cover

Album Cover Conventions

Typical conventions that an album cover has includes
- A close up or mid shot of the artist in a provocative and visually enticing pose. Clothing is reflective of the genre for example a hip hop group would have a gangster aesthetic, with a dark colour scheme to reflect the mysterious and anti authority rebel ideologies.
Juxtaposing this would be a pop artist, which would traditional include bright colours to connote the optimistic,good nature of the music.

- Name of the artist on the front, in a font that coincides with the genre, in the case of B Money it may be in graffi or something along them lines. Anything connoteing rebelious behaviour.

- Conventionally the name of the album reflects the overall ideologies of the album and what messages the artist is trying to convey about society, music and the media to their audience.
Artist such as Kid Cudi named his album 'Man On The Moon' to give a sene that hes 'out of this world' perhaps or in just some cases a idea that music to him is his way to get away from the troubles of life. I go into more detail about this in my analysis of the album cover to Eminems 'Recovery'

-Genre and lifestyle demographics can clearly be seen through not only the photography style of the album photography but also what symbols they use to connote ideas.

Album covers are extremely important as even through the sales of CD albums are decreasing,the covers are still being used through downloading websites such as itunes or in some cases the illegal downloading sites and continue to be a important part in marketing a artist and signifying the theme, beliefs and ideas behind a album and the artist.

Finished Version of practice album cover

Creating a Album cover

This is my first attempt at creating a album cover. I used my star model Kid Cudi as the model for my attempt/ practice.
I used ROCNATION and the Parental Advisory symbols to make it look realistic.
I felt that the album is a bit plain and could do with more exciting colours.
I believe that the artist should be the dominant feature of the cover as the artist is supposed to be the most important part of the music, staying away from the commercialization to a point where fans can focus on the artist, however this isnot to say promotional techniques such as product affiliation should not be used, as it can in some cases benefit the artists promotion of a album.

You have to keep the customer in mind when creating the cover and making an attractive cover is key for the customer as they will not pick it up unless it is well advertised or attractive.

Album cover analysis

This album cover is by the artist Tinie Tempah and is titled “Discovery”.

Tinie Tempah has become a huge success in recent years and this album cover relates to hisnew found sense of having the world (music industry) in his hands, due to the status and power hehas gained within the industry due to mass fan base.
He is the main focus of the cover, with what is clear to be the world in his arms, showing a real sense of control and ownership, connotating the previous ideas of his newly gained power over the music industry.
The colour scheme shows to be black and white wih only breif areas of colour, however the black background clearly signifys the night sky/space. Making Tinie seem “out of this world”, emphasised by the glow surrounding from which would be thought to be coming from a star, which once again connotes the idea that he has become as star and is currently 'shining' (making impact) on the music industry.
In the image Tinie is sitting with his hands locked together leaning slightly forward, showing his clear engagement with the audience and in a way showing a connection as if to say 'you are apart of this and my success',giving the audience a real sence of in interaction with the artist.

Finally we see how the use of clothing and in this case mainly the sunglasses, creates a mysterious feel towards tinie and connotes an idea that he is still not completly out in the open and still has is own potential locke away , which can create the idea that that he is not just a one hit wonder, it also displays from this his lack in vunerability and the way in which he still has his own controlled, strong characteristic which cannot be attacked by th likes of the media.

Album cover analysis

This is the album cover to Eminem's 'Recovery' album, and similarly to many album covers the main focus is the picture and the way in which is used to connote the ideologies and emotions of the music within the album.
Previous to this album was Eminem's 'Relapse' album, so it is clear this is somewhat a sequel to it, displaying the 'RECOVERY' from the 'RELAPSE'. Which in emeinems case around this time would be drug abuse.
As a audience we are immediately drawn to eminem himself on the cover, with his hands in his pocket wearing basic clothing (nothing someone of his wealth and status would usually wear) connoting to the audience that he 'still human' and on the inside is like everybody else. This idea and connotation is carried on when we look at the long road he is walking down, explaining to the audience sub consciously the long road/ journey, ahead of him on his RECOVERY from RELAPSE, and as around the time emeinem released this album he only just recovered from rehab from drug abuse, this album is a clear representation of emeinem displaying to the audience the real him and how although he is 'rich and famous' he has to deal with problems such as drug addiction like everyone else and that like everyone else its a long journey to recovery, connoted very well in this album cover. We can also so how the photo around eminem in this picture is out of focus and has a slight distortion to it, displaying how this album focuses on eminem and only about him, in contrast to his other albums that never spoke of himself a lot mostly just about life and other artists. Linking back to the idea of him recovering and that he is like everyone else, we see in this picture eminem is standing alone displaying a sense of venerability which is something very unusual for such a strong personality as eminems.



This is the album cover to Dizzie Rascals ' Boy In Da Corner' album. This particular album cover has been kept very minimal in terms of fancy possessions and writing seen in many other album covers however due to this creates a lot more ideas and connotes far more emotions and ideologies. Immediately we are drawn to the image of Dizzie Rascal himself sitting in the centre of the picture in what looks to be in a corner of a room (linking back to the name of the album),this connotes to the audience a sense of individuality and how he is not relying on anyone and due to being the corner is something as an audience we see as minimizing venerability meaning Dizzie looks to be taking any attacks from the music industry or opposing fans head on.
The idea of sitting in the corner is also something commonly linked as what you do when you misbehave/ rebel, this connotes to the audience that Dizzie (a new artist at this time) was entering the music industry to rebel against the current styles and ideas talked about in songs at that time and instead is going to bring his own rebellious style to the industry. This idea of rebelling and being a nuisance to the current music ideas is also displayed in the way that Dizzie is making devil horns with his fingers, giving a sense that he's going to have a devilish effect and give him that 'bad guy' look/ theme to him that many people his age with idolize.
His clothing in this picture is also just another connotation of the way he is going against all possible ideas of the current music industry of that time and how he is not going lose his sense of roots and go to mainstream music, the fact that he (represented in his clothing) no matter how famous he becomes will stick to his style of music mainly about london gangs and sex/ drug abuse which at this current time was very much frowned upon.