AT1 Research : Album Cover Design
The text below is copied from wtsduplication.com. The original online article can be found by clicking here.
The first disc records, ones that we would recognize as such, appeared around 1910. Most often these were packaged in plain brown Paper or cardboard sleeves. Occasionally and enterprising retailer would print his store name on the sleeve but generally they were unadorned.
In the early 1920's retailers started gathering many of these cardboard sleeves and binding them together with heavy paperboard or leather covers. These looked similar to large photo albums and, borrowing the name, were sold as record albums. These albums offered much greater protection for the discs than the original packaging and were seen as indispensible to disc owners that had seen too many of their fragile records broken.
Beginning in the 1930s the 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 the art director for Columbia Records is given credit for the concept of modern cover art. 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. (Of course signing Frank Sinatra may have helped a little too).By the close of the decade all major recording companies had graphic design professionals on staff.
The golden era of cover art design began in the early to mid 1960s and lasted into the early 1980s. During this time the major format for music was the 12 inch, long play disc or LP. Cover art became a part of the musical culture of the time. Often used to express graphically the musician’s artistic intent, it helped connect and communicate to listeners the message or underlying theme of the album.
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 work. So respected and desired are the designs and illustrations found in cover art that there are numerous art galleries that specialize in helping collectors find rare album covers.
As the medium for recording transitioned from the LP to the compact disc many graphic designers failed to transition with it. Having worked for so long with the much larger canvas of the LP cover, switching to the smaller CD case left most designers dissatisfied with their results. Often artist and record companies simply tried to shrink the LP size art to fit the CD.
Album 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.
In the late 90s, computer design programs started to overcome the physical limitations of the CD packaging. With the ability to draw much tighter, finer lines and have even small details look crisp and sharp, once again designers were free to explore a larger variety of design options. As the technology continued to improve graphic designers adapted and were once again producing world class artwork.
In the present, CD design is undergoing a true renaissance. Rather than becoming obsolete in the digital age as many thought it would, graphic design is once again proving itself as the difference maker. The internet is now the largest record store imaginable. Now rather than browsing a few hundred albums or songs at a time you may be exposed to thousands and thousands. Since it would be impossible to listen to portions of all those thousands of songs the design of the accompanying artwork must cause potential listeners to stop and take notice and give this album a try.
Album Covers - Codes and Conventions
King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
This cover of the debut from this UK prog-rock outfit features Schizoid Man, the only painting from Barry Godber, who passed away from a heart attack shortly after the album's release. The eerie image is unforgettable.
This album cover from 1969 doesn't match the conventions of the standard album cover. It doesn't feature the artist's name, or the name of the album. This was a bold move, due to the album being the group's debut. In fact, King Crimson were one of the main pioneers in the rock sub genre - Prog Rock. The band obviously had great faith I'm the power of the image alone, and the impact of the album looking back tells us that they were right to.
A quote from band member Robert Fripp, regarding the omission of text from the cover:
‘Well, it’ll be the only record in the shop without anything down the spine on it, so they’ll know which one it is.’
The image on the cover does perfectly match the eerie nature of the music it promotes.
N.W.A - Straight Outta Compton
Great covers can offer a sample of what to expect on the album. This view from a beat-down from the group on their 1988 debut does an excellent job setting the stage for the lyrical ass whooping it contained.
The album cover from N.W.A's debut album fits perfectly with the music it promotes. The group members stand above the camera, giving the impression of intimidation and violence something that the album has no issues with mentioning, with songs like 'F**k Tha Police'.
The members of N.W.A somehow try and make the use of pointing a gun at the camera on a commercial album not ugly, condoning it as showing what life on the streets of Compton is really like.
The text on the album mimics the style of graffiti, something largely associated with the hip-hop genre. The red colour of 'N.W.A' gives the impression of danger, although when the cover is as blatantly threatening as it is, I doubt that adds too much.
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Ordered to come up with something "smarter, neater - more classy" for the cover of their eighth studio album, the classic rockers settled on this prism design from George Hardie. Considering this is one of the most widely known images in all of rock, mission accomplished.
Like King Crimson's 'In the Court of the Crimson King', this iconic album cover also features no writing on the front cover. It was designed by the late Storm Thorgerson, who also designed the covers of other iconic Pink Floyd albums, such as Wish You Were Here and Division Bell.
Album Covers: Research into Existing Products
In order to continue our research into album covers, we started to look more closely at the conventions of different random album covers from our teacher's questionable music collection. We had to list the things we saw on each cover, and then state how many of the other covers shared the same feature.
This task taught us that the majority of CD packs share the same conventions, regardless of the genre. It also made me think about whether i wanted to challenge the conventions on my own Digipak, or match them.
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| Working on this task. |
Decoding an Album Cover
In order to continue our research into existing CD Digipacks, we were given the task of decoding one for things like hidden messages in the different codes of the pack.
From this task I learnt that nothing on a CD Digipack is done by accident, and that when it comes to creating the digipack for my chosen album I will need to take great care in the details of whatever image I use, or the font. Each code on the album cover I analysed related somehow to either the artist or the genre of the music it was promoting.
Analysing an Existing Album Cover
Digipack Inspiration
My group's style of music is on the edge of what is considered mainstream. This means that their style can translate well enough to mainstream acts. I discovered a mainstream group which have a nice design for all of their album artwork. It seems as though it will be quite difficult to pull off however the end result will look very professional.
This cover features a different image completely in the shapes. The images in this case are taken from the music video for the track. This is an idea that I could potentially use as inspiration in order to link my video and my digipack art.
First Try
I took a scenic image from the internet to practise with:
This is the final design that I achieved using Clean Bandit's style and choosing to use letters instead of shapes.
I still wanted to make this design a bit more dynamic, so I opted to change the colour balance of each letter individually.
Taking Pictures
The image I took from the internet is good for the style of editing I intend to do, however I can't use it because I didn't take the picture myself. Instead, I needed to go out and take a picture which can achieve the same effect as the one from the internet.
This didn't quite go to plan. I found a potential location and took some photographs, yet upon looking back at them I realised that the exposure made the picture too bright, even with it being taken near to sunset. I attempted to change the exposure setting on the camera yet for some reason it wouldn't work the same way it had previously in the day.
The images are basically unusable, despite my best attempts to edit them.
Chosen Image
This is the image which I have chosen to edit for the front cover and back cover of my Digipak.
I think that it sets the right sort of mood to suit the tracks on my chosen album, because they are not too upbeat or loud, but more subdued an sophisticated.
Creating My Digipak
I had already decided exactly what I wanted my didgipak to look like before I went into the creation process. This made it a lot easier and faster to create. I did however discover a much easier way to create the letter effect than in my trial attempt.
I used a tool called 'Type Mask Tool' in photoshop
After deleting the image except the selected letter, this is the result.
Then, sticking to my initial plan, the letter needs to be rotates top stand out in its original position on the background image.
By repeating the process for the rest of the letters my digipak looked like this-
This looked exactly how I wanted it to look, however during my practises I didn't include the album title, so I would have to conceive an idea for that in the middle of making the digipak, which was not ideal.
I settled on using the a similar method as I did for my band name, exempt I was going to cut the letters from the lighter coloured sky and bring them down to the water so they stood out. I attempted to use block colours for the letters but I looked bland and too not in sync with the rest of the image.
I decided to add a blur to the whole of the background in order to make the writing stand out more. The track listing proved to be a stumbling block because I couldn't find a colour which would stand out on all of the background it would cover.
This is what I settled on-
The spine was done in the same way.
The blur also softened the weeds on the back cover as they confused the image as the words got lost in them before.
'Don't Save Me' Jake Hughes Completed CD Digipak:
Analysing an Existing Album Cover
Digipack Inspiration
My group's style of music is on the edge of what is considered mainstream. This means that their style can translate well enough to mainstream acts. I discovered a mainstream group which have a nice design for all of their album artwork. It seems as though it will be quite difficult to pull off however the end result will look very professional.
This example simply flips the image in the shape and then places it where it has taken the image from.
This one does the same as before, however it changes the main colour in the flipped shape image in order to make it stand out more.
First Try
I took a scenic image from the internet to practise with:
Initially I decided to just follow Clean Bandit's technique of using shapes to flip the image.
This try worked out okay, however the effect wasn't as dynamic as i would've hoped for. This could be due to the fact that the section I took the shape from has quite a similar colour all around it. So, I decided to change the colour to make the shape stand out more.
I was a lot happier with this image, however didn't feel as though it really had anything to do with my band.
I thought that if this effect could easily be done with shapes, then maybe I could replicate the effect with letters, to spell out HAIM.
Here are the steps to how I achieved this:
I began by importing the image.
(Some shapes have already been created) I began by cutting out an I from the image. I had the other letters around on this occasion due to prior editing so that I could get the right idea for size.
By inverting the select I deleted the whole image except from the I shape. As you can see it clearly here due to me moving it.
In order for the shape to be visible in its original spot, it needs to be rotated 180 degrees.
This is the final design that I achieved using Clean Bandit's style and choosing to use letters instead of shapes.
I still wanted to make this design a bit more dynamic, so I opted to change the colour balance of each letter individually.
The image I took from the internet is good for the style of editing I intend to do, however I can't use it because I didn't take the picture myself. Instead, I needed to go out and take a picture which can achieve the same effect as the one from the internet.
This didn't quite go to plan. I found a potential location and took some photographs, yet upon looking back at them I realised that the exposure made the picture too bright, even with it being taken near to sunset. I attempted to change the exposure setting on the camera yet for some reason it wouldn't work the same way it had previously in the day.
The images are basically unusable, despite my best attempts to edit them.
Chosen Image
This is the image which I have chosen to edit for the front cover and back cover of my Digipak.
I think that it sets the right sort of mood to suit the tracks on my chosen album, because they are not too upbeat or loud, but more subdued an sophisticated.
Creating My Digipak
I had already decided exactly what I wanted my didgipak to look like before I went into the creation process. This made it a lot easier and faster to create. I did however discover a much easier way to create the letter effect than in my trial attempt.
I used a tool called 'Type Mask Tool' in photoshop
This creates a selection in the form of a letter over the image which is on the selected layer. So by duplicating the background layer I used the type mask tool to cut out the shape I wanted rather than cutting it out manually.
After deleting the image except the selected letter, this is the result.
Then, sticking to my initial plan, the letter needs to be rotates top stand out in its original position on the background image.
By repeating the process for the rest of the letters my digipak looked like this-
This looked exactly how I wanted it to look, however during my practises I didn't include the album title, so I would have to conceive an idea for that in the middle of making the digipak, which was not ideal.
I settled on using the a similar method as I did for my band name, exempt I was going to cut the letters from the lighter coloured sky and bring them down to the water so they stood out. I attempted to use block colours for the letters but I looked bland and too not in sync with the rest of the image.
I decided to add a blur to the whole of the background in order to make the writing stand out more. The track listing proved to be a stumbling block because I couldn't find a colour which would stand out on all of the background it would cover.
This is what I settled on-
The spine was done in the same way.
The back cover was not going to be s difficult to create, because it has more conventions which have to appear, like a barcode, a rights paragraph at the bottom and a track listing.
The blur also softened the weeds on the back cover as they confused the image as the words got lost in them before.
'Don't Save Me' Jake Hughes Completed CD Digipak:
