Album artwork

When thinking about my album artwork i decided to look up album covers and designs that inspire my album cover. The following are a few ideas that i wish to try and encorperate into my design. My initial idea was to use photography but i found that photography as an album cover can look quite generic as much as you try to make it look individual. I went through my ipod to look at album artwork and found some of the following, they all have aspects of something i want to encorperate into my album artwork and i think all are very strong representations of good album artwork. They are all different, but similar in a certain ways.

Jason Mraz - We sing, We dance, We steal things

This album artwork is really simple, but its always stuck in my mind and i remember it whenever i think about this album. I like the basic design and the font which looks almost hand written. The drawing on the front is a portrait of Jason Mraz which looks quite arty and edgy. I liked the idea of having a portrait of the artist on the cover, and this portrait is simple yet really effective. The main thing that makes the portrait look like the lead singer is the hat, which jason mraz always wears in his music videos and portraits. I like the fact that it looks very personal, this album could quite easily have been done by Jason Mraz and the untidy drawing and scribbled album title looks very home made which is a look that if done properly can look very effective.

City and Colour - Bring me your love.

City and colour is a side project of the vocalist Dallas Green. His band, Alexisonfire, are a post hardcore band and his side project as a solo acoustic artist is completely different but alot of Alexisonfire fans also listen to City and Colour, purely because of his musical talent. This is again another album that has a artistic portrait of the lead singer, i like the idea of using artwork as apposed to photography to construct my album cover. The portrait is of singer dallas green and anybody that knows this will automatically recognise him. I think the album artwork represents the album well as it looks artistic and folky. The title stands out so that from a distance people can see the album is by City and Colour and the title of the album is less visable.

Futures - The Holiday EP
Futures are a small rock band from Buckinghamshire, England. The band is named after the Jimmy eat world album "futures". The album artwork is again very simple with a landscape photo of a girl running away their band name and album title over the top. The album looks artisic and fits in well with my idea however is slightly different to the two above ideas as the girl is not in the band and the album artwork is photography as apposed to a painting or line drawing. The title stands out

Arctic Monkeys - I bet that you look good on the dancefloor.

The Arctic Monkeys are a 4 piece rock band from sheffield, england. Their origion one of the main reasons i decided to look into their album artwork as my band are rfom sheffield and this comes across through their music in a similar way that arctic monkeys do. The artwork is, as with the futures album, a photograph not artwork however similally to City and Colour and Jason Mraz is a portrait of a man. I like the grimeyness of the image and how if youve listened to the album the artwork really does work well with many of their songs. They use their standard "arctic monkeys" font and logo which stands out on the cover and is recognised to anybody who knows the arctic monkeys and can be remember by anybody that doesnt. This font is used throughout their albums, websites and merchendise so becomes almost a logo as apposed to a title. I like the idea that the album artwork is in black and white however i feel this may not stand out as much on a shelf as maybe the city and colour album which isnt as generic.