The first ''Disc records'' appeared around 1910 and were usually just packaged in brown paper to protect them from getting scratched, occasionally the retailer would print the store name on the sleeve but usually they were blank, in the early 1920's retailers started to gather many of these albums and collate them together with heavy paper board or leather covers, which made them look more like photo albums hence the name 'record album' these provided the records with much more protection and quickly became popular. At the beginning of the 1930's, record companies started using these record albums to distribute bundles of records from one performer or a collection of performers with similar musical styles. Some of the first cover designs can be traced to these albums and the record company’s desire to graphically communicate the music each album held.
Alex Steinweiss is given credit for the concept of the modern art cover, He experimented with different concepts and images through the late 1930s and into the early 1940s. During this time Columbia Records rebounded from the terrible years they had suffered during the depression to become one of the most prominent record companies in the United States. Much of this was due to their ground breaking use of graphical design.
Designers, photographers, and illustrators sometimes became famous for their cover art creations. Such notables as Andy Warhol and Frank Frazetta were taken from being known in their industry to becoming household names due to their cover art graphic design workAlbum cover art, now almost exclusively CD and CD packaging artwork, went through a period of change and rebirth in the 1990s. Designers learned to capture snapshots and portions of the artist’s musical intent rather than trying to convey the entire message. Also designers started conveying the emotion of the music rather than the musical intent.
Currently it is much easier to design a complex looking album cover due to the progression of digital photo manipulation (Photoshop) we are able to easily create geometric patterns and psychedelic looking pictures with the smallest amount of effort (once you know what you're doing) There are many albums which are influenced by previous albums, we had a look through some in our lesson, for example 'Genesis - 'The way we walk' appears to be influenced by The Beatles' - 'Abbey Road' and of course The iconic Elvis Presley - Self titled album being replicated by The Clash's - London Calling
Research: Analysing Codes and Conventions
We were given a random number that was associated with an album (of which we had never heard of) and we had to analyse what was included on the 4-panel digipack and present our views to the class, including what we thought specific things might convey. We all then had to draw out a 4-panel digipack and on each side label the typical conventions that would be included on each side and how they might be presented and why.
Below is the album cover I was given and the notes I made
Research: Dave Milligan Trio - Shops
The album cover uses the colour red which gives the impression that it is bold and possibly loud, this is enhanced by the images in the back of instruments such as a cello and a drum kit. The front cover includes the artists (from what I can guess) Their position shows that there way be a more important figure in the band a there is one man standing on his own, indicating that he might be known a the independent leader (possibly Dave Milligan). The structure of the cover fits in with the title of it 'Shops' it appears s if they are looking into their own album. The clothes they are wearing (blazers, smart wear) to me, say that they are not an urban, energetic bad, they may be more of a jazz-influenced band, which is also enhanced by the instruments in the back and also the band members ages, judging by the hair (and clothing) they are not very young. The track listing on the back fits in with the theme of 'shops' and also the images of the musical instruments and the band as they both look like notice boards that you may find in a shop The name of the artist seems very important to the album cover as it is in bold font and white so that it is clean and stands out, the title of the album, however appears less important
Here is my drawing of a 4-panel digipack, labelled with the typical conventions that would be included on one. Each picture shows a different side (click to view them larger)
Research: Analysing Codes and Conventions part 2
In lessons this week we looked at a range of artwork from CD digipacks. Our task was to consider the various codes and conventions that can be found / used.We started by looking at the artwork for a range of artists produced by Van Gill Media and also looked at an eclectic collection of covers presented by our teacher
we were asked to produce some thoughts about the commonly found codes and conventions of digipacks, I chose to do ''J.P Harris and the Tough choices - I'll keep calling'' and below is what I found
Here is a (very blurred) image of me in progress
Research: Album artwork from my chosen artist
Here is an image of Alt-J's album ''An Awesome Wave'' The front cover is a radar image of the Ganges river Delta in Bangladesh it links with the alternative feel of the band, there is no text on the album which to me shows that the band feels it is more about the music being important rather than giving it a name, the inside of it is an origami style sculpture created from triangles in which the disc fits, linking again to the bands use of the symbol (Alt-j on a mac keyboard creates the symbol for delta, which is a triangle ∆ - so it all links) the album cover is very artistic which reflects the band members themselves as some of the members studied fine art. There are no images of the band which tells us how they may feel that the music is more import an than the publicity, the CD itself is also plain white. The CD digipack also includes a DVD of the band playing, this helped the audience show the atmosphere that they create, it promotes the band and gives fans a reason to spend that little extra
Alt-J have four album/single covers. They are all abstract, This suits the band as there music would definitely be considered as unique or experimental. I feel that their covers would need to be fairly abstract as covers are used to represent what the bad may sound or appear like, and so the cover should give you a rough idea of their sound and style.
Alt-J - Breezeblocks single
Alt-J - Matilda/Fitzpleasure single
Alt-J - Tessellate single
Alt-J - An Awesome Wave album
Planning: Beginning to design/Experimenting with photoshop
I have began planning a few ideas for my album cover and I have done a quick idea in photoshop using images from my filming, I drew a simple triangle with the pen tool, I then layered this so could edit it and added an outer glow, inner glow, and am emboss effect to give it a slightly 3D look, I then added my picture into it, (I thought it worked well as the album is titled 'An Awesome Wave' and it was a photo I took for my location planning) I erased out the edges and used the patch tool to make it fade out at the top and also to make it fill the triangle, I used the smudge tool in the bottom corners, however i merged all the layers together so it smudged out the triangle, so i don't think the smudge tool is something i will rely on in the future.
To create a practice digipack I googled images of a road in Leeds (The band is from Leeds so this made sense to me) I then added a basic font to it because the bands logo is quite basic itself and I then added the album title (Here its the wrong title, I later remembered to change it)
I flipped the front cover so it was the same on the back but slightly more transparent, I feel that this has created a good artistic feel and makes the image look fairly abstract
Here is another one i created just by using downloaded brushes from photoshop and adding the same writing used in the previous one, the font on the front is a different style however. I feel that this cover gives the impression that the band produces more of an electro feel which they do not, so this cover would not work
To improve the previous digipack that I created I added some lyrics and the band members names on the inside front so that it wasn't so 'boring' and it had something to it, I feel that this cover gives the impression that the band is quite 'Gritty' and as they are rather experimental with their chosen instruments I feel that this works well, I also decreased the opacity so the image was more visible, this also made the writing clearer
Creating a digipack using my own photography
Using some of the pictures I took whilst in Plymouth I began to collate them onto my digipack template, this is my preferred layout that I came up with, I changed the opacity level so appeared lighter so that the font was visible, Once i added the font I had to add effects so that you could see it properly due to the colours of my chosen image, I selected emboss so the text would appear raised, I used this for all of the text on my digipak, but on the back of my digipak i still had to alter it so the text was visible, as seen below
To ensure that the text was visible I created a grey box that i put behind the text, I changed the opacity so that you could still see the background and so it still slightly blended
For the inside front I had to make sure that it was upside down so that when printed it would be the right way, I used a close up image of a wave that I took and stretched this across the two inside panels, also changing the opacity level so the text was more visible, however I still might change this after asking for some audience feedback
I feel that this is a better version all i have one is reversed the same image for the front and the back, i have tried to make the text more visible and when you look up close you can read it clearly, when it is printed it will also be easier to read
I changed the opacity on the sides which have text so that they would be easier to read and I think this looks better, however I still think I need to look at more ideas before I can have a final design
Here is another digipak I created with images I took with the Canon E1100D. I feel that the front cover is effective because it is similar to another one of their previously released singles, I printed this out on A3 paper to see what it would look like when folded and found that the inside front looked rather boring so I will edit this again and see what difference it makes 
I have asked people in the class what they think and they have al said that the version with the lyrics on looks better, I had a suggestion to look at other fonts and i tried this however the band uses a basic font on all of their work and so I will be sticking to this simplistic look
I decided to try and experiment more with using various photoshop brushes to sow my skill and understanding with the program, I found a triangle brush that fits in well with the bands theme as it is their 'logo' I changed the font to black so that you could read it but kept it in the same basic style (similar to the band own font)
I then added shapes on each side so that it was more interesting, I kept with the triangle- black and grey theme.
I chose these brushes because to me, they look rather abstract, and this reflects how the band may sound, whereas if i used bright colours the CD digipak would have gave a whole different impression
To the left is my finished version
Audience Feedback
I asked 30 people what they would prefer from first sight and I created a tally of the result which can be seen on the left, I then asked 5 of these people for their reasons and below are some of the comments I received
After receiving numerous compliments on the opening shot of my music video I decided that i should use this more and so i have yet again recreated my digipak, using the same methods as before but just using different pictures, i feel that the pictures i used link more to the video and also to the song and album title as they are photographs taken at the sea, the song is about a story from a rip to the sea, below is my definite final digipak. I adjusted the colour and contrast so it looks the same as my music video, this would make them more relatable to each other so audiences would recognise them both. I also feel that my opening shot resembles a peace sign and the album is rather peaceful and the band offers a very artistic and humble view on life
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| FRONT |
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| BACK |
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| INSIDE FRONT |
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| INSIDE BACK |
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