Ideas for DigiPak (Magazine Advert)

For example; Kings of Leon

Advert for Kings of Leon of their new album.

•   The top of the poster we have the bands name. This is one of the most important elements in a magazine advertisement due to people who’ve bought the magazine, they would want to know who they are more than anything so they can search them up later and find out about them.

•   The eye-catching album art gets you interested in what the artwork is supposed to say about the genre of music they’re selling you. It’s a creative conceptual piece with a corner of each band member with a morphed owl made with the band member’s faces. To me, with the use of the same colour, just in different shades, gives me the impression they are more of a pop-rock band. Also, the symbolism of an owl in the background connotes the animal being nocturnal, and this links in with the album title of "Only By the Night".

•   At the bottom of the magazine advert, it shows the release date of their album, which is important to the viewer so they know when to possibly buy it.

•   The mentioned ways you can buy it is useful to anyone who’s interested in buying their album. E.g.; Play, Amazon.

•   They show the names of their featured songs on the magazine advert, which is useful if some people only like those songs so far. It gets them interested in the rest of the album.

•   Their official website is a good element to mention in the advert to show if they’re fans want to get in touch with them or want to buy their albums, singles or merchandise etc.

Here is my magazine advert development;

• 26/01/14 ~ I like how this has turned out because it's exactly what the effects I'm trying to achieve in this magazine advert; grunge and urban-like qualities. This is quite a contrast towards the CD Cover because the CD is supposed to be more modern and minimalist like most album art is today. For the magazine cover I wanted to get across how the music video is interpreted - an urban outlook in to her generation.

Ideas for DigiPak (CD Cover)

Ideas for DigiPak (CD Cover)

•   I have an idea for my digipak, which could go either way. Except taking a photograph of the artist and manipulating it in Photoshop,  and that I paint the artist (an illustration CD cover).

Examples of paintings/or illustrations of CD Covers

  I got this idea from this website, to show that it has been done before and been used effectively: http://www.redefinemag.com/2011/year-end-list-album-cover-art-illustration-painting-drawing/

  For example; Bon Iver’s “Self Titled” CD Cover is a mixed-medium piece. The artist, Gregory Euclide, also did a second painting for Bon Iver’s single “Calgary”.  Euclide and Daniel Murphy (design & layout) tried to create themes within the picture to do with “memory loss, birth, death, growth and decay” and was created with a mix of painting, drawing and natural materials e.g.; leaves, dirt etc.

  Also, a conceptual piece for an illustration artwork Gillian Welch used for her album cover called “The Harrow & the Harvest”, by John Dyer Baizley (artist & illustrator). The artist uses “symbolism, ornamentation, and thoughtful compositions” to tell stories within a confined working area (the cover).

~

•   Or the alternative idea is to create a photograph with meaning and how genre comes across in the album artwork.

  Here’s one website when I researched on iconic album covers; http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2013/08/24/londons-top-ten-iconic-album-covers/

  For example; The Beatles’ cover art (“Abbey Road”) of them walking across a road one-by-one is known by nearly everyone. The photographer, Iain Macmillan, had 10 minutes to get the shot while a policeman held up the traffic.

-----------------------------------------

 

(Researching CD cover ideas and I could take inspiration from it and create an image, not exactly like it because my music video and her music videos are form different genres).

• 19-11-13 ~ I tried to take inspiration from the album cover of Madonna's "Celebration". This was just an idea of mine, and I don't know if I will use it for my actual CD cover but it doesn't matter, this was an experiment with stills. As you can see below.
• Madonna's art pop/pop culture album artwork gets inspiration from Andy Warhols pop art era. I have only used the black and white saturation or threshold for the lines of the face and the shadow detail. Unfortunately, after changing the photograph (still) the facial features didn't show up so I had to paint it on a separate layer with a pixellated brush to get the same hard edges as the rest of the threshold effect I've created by the filter.

Here is the original image I worked from.

My experiments with threshold image looks for an example still I took from filming for my music video.

•   01/12/13 ~ For this tester I've taken inspiration from Amy MacDonald's album covers. For example; "A Curious Thing" by Amy MacDonald shows the singer towards the top right hand corner of the album cover, looking at you but as well she seems to face the opposite way. This is what I've done in my interpretation of hers. I've brought out all of the auburn-ish/red colours in the photo and blurred out the background with black, to make her the central figure. I do like this one a lot because it shows what genre of music she creates like Amy MacDonald has done in her album cover i.e.; indie rock, alternative rock, folk.

• 18/01/14 - Here is my final threshold image. All I've done is overlap the second image (above) with the original image I used and lessened the opacity of the layer above (the middle image in the timeline above). I like this and I will use it because it gives a personal feel to the image like i.e.; this is where she was brought up. The pose of her looking away also gives a personal feel to the image due to the shot taken during filming.

~

Amy MacDonald's "A Curious Thing" album cover I took inspiration from.

My experiments with a shot I took to try and make it similar to Amy MacDonald's album covers (not just the one shown above). On Gimp (a free photo editing software and custom downloadable brushes), I brightened her face up and made her eye makeup darker. I also multiplied and overlayed the shot with filters to make the red-ish brown colour be the dominant colour. 

 ~

•   14/01/14 ~ I have two album cover drafts. The first one is shown to be a shot taken whilst filming Shoot #1. I chose the handwriting-style font to create a more realistic feel to the album cover, like Amy MacDonald has done with hers, without copying her style of album art exactly. In the second one, is shown an image I've already considered using for my album artwork but changed the colours to create a more reddish look and more of a modern indie look to the album. I will decide soon whether I'll go for no.1 or 2.

•   22/01/14 ~ I have decided to choose the reddish album cover for my CD Cover DigiPak. This is because of the same look that Amy MacDonald's "A Curious Thing" album and which sells herself. I also wanted to get across a personal effect to the album with the use of a handwriting font. I made the font not straight and going off up and getting smaller to give a realistic feel to the album; almost like an autograph.

I found her old album cover, like my reddish filtered album cover that I've chosen for my project.

• 26/01/14 ~ I have found another Amy MacDonald album cover which is like what I've decided to do for my album cover. I preferred my cherry-red colour to her orange tinted album art because my lead singer has reddish auburn hair so it'll bring out the red tones more.

 Back of the CD Cover;

------------------------------------

This was what it looked like before the rough white borders

This is what I changed it into

• 27/01/14 ~ I have changed the original final CD Cover look for one that has white rough edges over it. I decided this because it looked less neat and create a more indie pop/rock genre to the cover.

• 31/01/14 ~ Inside cover of CD

Storyboard

Research - Pop & Rock Genre

Rock

  Rock came from people reacting to the obviousness of pop, the commercial and/or common music played continuously on radio stations, internationally. The genre literally gave an alternative to pop and other forms of rock. Alternative Rock, or just laelled as Alternative, mainly a band based genre consisting of vocals, guitar, bass, drums and/or keyboard (sometimes). Since its arrival in the 1980s, the genre of music has grown over the years and bands, such as e.g.; Kasabian, has kept it in modern society and in the public eye for the younger generations to enjoy. Rock albums are simplistic and focus on the bands appearance, giving a band their image or their 'signiture look' so you can point them out, from the other crowds of other bands out there. Although, saying this, there are some rock bands that have album art showing opposite/random images to what other mainstream bands do. For example; Nirvana in their album 'Nevermind' uses an image of a baby in a swimming pool with dollar note floating in front of him.

Pop

  'Pop' is a term that originally was first created from an abbreviation of "popular”. The term "pop music" originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a new genre originated from rock and roll because of the new youth music styles that it influenced to create 'popular' music. For example of the most well known pop artists/bands are; The Beatles, Michael Jackson, ABBA etc.. The pop genre has moved inot it's own sub-genres nowadays e.g.; rnb/pop, easy listening, electronic, hip-hop etc.