My Album Artwork

My Album Art Flat Plans

My Album Art

To gain inspiration for the construction process of my own album cover, I have studied the album artwork used for the cover of "Oh No!" by Marina and The Diamonds. I particularly like the pop-art aesthetic of the cover, where the facial features of the artist are exaggerated. The fake, cartoon-like image alludes to a fake, materialistic feel; like the artist is submerged within a fantasy world.

I have also conducted research into the essential components of an album cover such as the bar code, record label logos, thanks to recording companies and executive producers, and for more explicit music, parental advisory warnings.

I have chosen to use the logos of Def-Jam Recordings and Interscope Records as some of the most popular, successful and controversial stars belong to these labels - artists such as Rihanna who just released her post-modernistic/sado-masochistic video S&M, and Lady Gaga, arguably one of the most controversial artists of the 21st Century. I want to portray my artist as a controversial yet glamorous artist, who reaches out to the public by questioning social constructs of the 21st century such as materialistic desire and obsession and objectification through vanity. 

To follow the pop-art theme, I began by taking one of my original images (photographed whilst filming), and opening it in Adobe Photoshop software. When it was finally opened in Photoshop I transferred the image onto a blank canvas. After researching the size and width of conventional album covers I decreased the length and width of the canvas to L:13 and W:13.5 cm.  I then used the artistic filter "Neon Glow". I used pink and red as they are from the same tonal variation therefore do not clash to much, but still create a saccharine/sugar-coated and playful aesthetic.

I wanted to use a playful font type that still alluded to a glamorous and stylish feel. So I visited a font downloading website and sampled many. Finally I decided to use a font called "Candy Inc". I particularly liked this font as it was striking, bold yet still delicate and feminine. 

Here you can see the similarities but also the contrasting aspects of my album cover and that of Marina and The Diamonds. In my image I have ensured that the bottle of champagne is a prominent aspect to encapsulate the message me and my fellow band members attempted to create during our video production.

There were some constraints experienced whilst using a free font as it wouldn't allow me to type an exclamation mark. Resultantly I had to find a similar font in order to create the exclamation mark.

Above is the finished album front cover

To create the back of my album cover, I looked at Rihanna's album "Loud". I took inspiration from the use of similar tonal variations and small font types to prevent the cover from looking cluttered. Below is the finished product...