Josh Van Tonder Album artwork Album Cover Art Research: Possibly the most (if not the most) respected CD cover designs have come from a man named Storm Thorgerson. He has been associated with making tremendous and artistic covers for the popular music group ‘Muse.' The picture bellow was done for the album Absolution, Muse’s first album cover made by Storm in 2003.
Absolution The CD cover art for absolution is very well known within the UK, possibly for its use of an underlying meaning within the image, as there is an unknown element, which is not being able to see what (Matt Bellamy) can see behind the camera, but understanding its nature by seeing possible shadows on the ground.
Butterflies and Hurricanes This is a key example of word and image play. The fact the clouds look like butterflies relates to the title, not only this, but the unusual nature of the clouds (along with the use of bright color), easily catches the viewers’ attention.
Black Holes and Revelations Black holes and Revelations is yet another piece by Storm. Its use of color and mixture of home like furniture in an open desert could suggest a need for freedom, and not for people to be confined to living in a bought piece of property.
Uprising The album cover ‘Uprising’ by muse was once more made by none other than Storm, but this time Strom took a new approach towards the cover. Rather than using bright illuminative colors as he usually does he decided to use darker colors. Rising from the ground is shown to be multiple teddy bears which can be related back to infancy or childhood. This album cover could suggest that the uprising is not one of anger, but an attempt to revert back to simpler times.
Storm has a creative process for making the album covers, he uses this process as a way to achieve the best possible cover. This process is:
1. The Brief. While planning an album cover many designers will first listen to the song in it’s early stages. This gives the designer an idea of the tone of song they are working with. Next the designer must talk with the band, or whoever wrote the song to understand what the song is about and what experiences have caused this song to have been written. The designer must then refer back to the bands previous covers to make some similarities, this helps to keep the ‘star image’ of the band the same. 2. Roughs. Designers then continue to host a number of meetings with the band and song writers to attempt to pin down a particular theme to be used as the album art work. This part is creative and takes many hours, with word play, thoughts and opinions. The best ideas are chosen and then become enhanced and are further elaborated upon. These are called ‘the roughs’.
3. Tests. Once a rough is established by the band/songwriter and a budget has been made for the designer, a prototype is made which will determine and suggest if the idea is the right one. The idea can be enhanced, a way of doing this is the use of clay or polystyrene models that can be made to scale. If everything works, the final models are made.
4. Shoot. A location must now be established. Depending on the location (indoors or outdoors) different factors apply. Weather changes may come into effect if using an outside set but the designer can still use photo manipulation software to make the photo just how they wanted it to be. If using an inside set, more times than not, they are limited in the amount of time they have to find the perfect shot.
5. Editing. One picture has now been chosen, this part is sometimes referred to as ‘selection,' As the designer wastes no time or opportunity to get the perfect shot, thousands of photos would have been taken to choose from, so picking the right one could take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days. This is a time consuming proses but an important one nonetheless.
6. Artwork. After the best shot has been chosen, the shot is then looked over and changes are made using photo manipulation software before giving the final product to the publishers. This process is designers such as Storm need to create the best possible album art cover for any band or artist that he works with, although album art work is created for many other reasons such as: To create a brand or logo for the band to make them recognizable. It suggests the bands genre and theme of music. To show the contents of the CD.
A CD cover provides the public with more information about the music artists and their songs/lyrics, whilst also allowing the band to promote themselves. This style is what makes artists recognizable to others. An example would be Enter Shikari’s album Common Dreads. The group have made the dragon part of the Enter Shikari brand, this has made the band more recognizable through the use of imagery.
There are many different types of CD cover. There is a never ending range of front cover images. These are some of the different types of images used in the music industry:
Portraits: These album covers usually apply to solo artists. While making the cover the artist needs to show an attitude that portrays their on stage persona so their fans can still relate to ‘who’ they are. Jessie J with her album cover art from the album ‘Who You Are,' a typically ‘upbeat’ solo artist cover.
Photo Manipulation: Photo manipulation is a complex version of the portrait style CD cover art. Within the image artists usually strike a pose while the camera is moved to different angles on set. Photo manipulation is generally used to increase viewer attention or relater the image to the title. Scarlet Lark with her album cover art from the album “Rebirth." A creative and brightly colored piece.
Another example of photo manipulation by the Kings Of Leon to portray an eagle’s face on one of the band members.
Kings Of Leon’s album cover for “Only By The Night." A gloomy yet meaningful piece.
Image Based This convention of cover art is original yet possibly the most random form of CD covers. There such a wide range concerning what may be used as an image for the CD cover. As like the other kinds of CD cover, this image based style suggests that it's not the band that matters, but the message they try to get through with their words, although this is very creative it also gives a disadvantage to the band, as they are intern not getting their name into the public eye. These covers are seemingly creative and enjoyable to look at usually time and time again without boredom ensuing.
This is Radiohead’s album cover art for the album ‘Hail to the Thief.'
Type Based Type Based album work are those which have a block or a line of text that predominantly stands out more than the other things on the cover. This style is very popular as it involves the artist’s name usually being the main attraction to the album, which is great publicity for the band. The Killers “Mr Brightside” uses primary colors to display a nice looking and simplistic design
Again the bands title is shown in big letters on the front of AC/DC’s cover. The theme of the cover compliments the theme of the band as being an old school rock band.
Black and White: Black and White CD have always been popular within the music industry. Due to many album covers using colorful exponentially even black and white covers can now stand out in a sea of color. Being black and white means there’s more reason and room to make eye catching decorations and shapes that wouldn’t look as good on a colored album cover. This Glasvegas album cover has joint an illustrative theme with black and white. It is hard to say what the cover says about the band, but maybe the unique cover would compel people to find out more about them.
REM’s ‘Accelerate’ has used both the black and white effect and photo manipulation in a highly creative way that emphasizes that REM are going to take over the city (all metaphorical of course) . The general outlook is a city with tall skyscrapers, and imagining standing at the bottom of one of those buildings and looking up only insinuates how colossal these buildings are, REM have added almost a third dimension to their writing which makes it look like the writing is towering over these buildings we considered to be so massive.
Digital: The digital album cover design is of a modern style, aimed at the younger generation or art enthusiasts. The albums assortment of colors remind me of a 3 dementia color pallet, the fact the world is at the centre with a man on a seemingly golden bridge could be suggesting something religiously relevant, such as god looking upon earth. ‘The Resistance’ cover made for the band Muse is bright and it’s unusualness draws viewers’ attention.
Hand Drawn: The drawn album cover is hard to come by in many shops as it is usually very hard to find the right artist to get the drawing the exact way you want. Drawn album covers pay attention to detail and look much superior while stacked alongside average photo manipulated album covers. Flobots “Fight With Tools� uses a display primary colors and different drawn effects to create an interesting cover design.