Research: Album Covers

1. What are the typical features that an album cover has?

• Name of artist/band
• Name of album
• All have images on the front - could be photograph of artist, or drawing/illustration.
• Track listing on the back
• Record labels name, copyright info
• Synergy - logo's, consistent with previous albums
• The newer albums have websites listed
• Consistency throughout (front, back, inside)
• Front sells the artist, back sells the album

2. How would you categorise the covers in front of you?

• By the type of image on the front - cartoon or photograph
• Literal interpretation of album title vs. abstract interpretation of title
• Decade it was created in - the older covers were more likely to include the singer or band whereas a lot of the newer covers just have illustrations
• Type of artist they are - if they are quite an alternative, indie band they may choose to have a drawing as their front cover, whereas female pop singers who are aspirational to young girls are far more likely to have a picture of themselves on the cover, to sell themselves as a brand
• Debut album vs. established artist - if the band has already created an identity for themselves, they have more freedom in their album covers and are able to use art which doesn't necessarily include them.

After discussing in class we came up with more definitive categories which were:

• Insitution
• Genre
• Audience
• Gender
• Fanbase
• Era
• Place in career - age as a band
• Soundtrack/Compilation etc.

3. What do you think the different functions/purposes of album covers?

• To create an artist identity and a brand identity so that the audience can recognise the artist from the cover
• To show the style and type of artist they are - to signify their genre
• To give the audience a visual image of the music - e.g. a dark, mysterious cover would suggest that the music would also be quite dark and eerie.
• To make the artist seem as idealistic as possible - you want the artist to look good (if they are on the cover) so that people buy it because they want to like said artist
• To be eye catching so that even if you didn't know the artist you may still stop and look at the cover in a shop/online
• To appeal to the artists target audience - e.g. pop artists need bright colours and child friendly, easily recognisible iconography that teens or younger would be likely to be attracted to
• To let the buyer/audience know what songs are on the album and the industry details involved in the making of the album

Debut Albums:

• Should have the artist on the cover
• Be quite simple in style
• Have the name of the artist on the cover
• Be bold and strong

This will be useful when designing and producing our own covers for our debut album.