Final Album cover

Final Magazine advert

Magazine Cover Design

CD Cover First Draft

Evernote: CD front and back cover first design analysis

Having completed the first designs for our front cover I have created an Evernote document containing notes on possible improvements and additions to make to the album cover before completion. To view the Evernote document please click here.

Research into iconic CD covers

To help in the production of our CD cover I have decided to do some research into iconic rock album covers. Listed below are a few iconic rock albums from over time.

Nirvana - Nevermind

With the same name as the song that we chose, Nevermind, the iconic album by former grunge band Nirvana is considered one of the most iconic album covers of all time. It is claimed that Kurt and the band came up with the idea after a conversation about water birth. 

GNR - Appetite For Destruction

Guns N' Roses Album cover for Appetite For Destruction was banned due to it's graphic nature, it depicts a robot about to sexually assault a woman. It was subsequently changed to a picture of the 5 band members as skulls on a cross smiling.

AC/DC - If You Want Blood

The AC/DC album cover is fairly simple and simply shows a band member with a guitar through his chest accompanied by copious amounts of stage blood. The shot was taken during one of the bands live performances and is considered very iconic.

Digipak analysis

This is an evaluation of a digipak for a rock genre that illustrates the core ideas we may be using for our music video

Research in HMV of CD presentation

Research into album covers highlighted a key aspect that we would use in our CD cover. Most of the great album covers advertised the band in an unusual way such as the Kings of Leon cover (3rd down). ACDC also does this (2nd down), but in a different way and shows the whole band, making the focus point the main singer. Nirvana's album cover is different and does not advertise the band, this is mainly due to the bands massive popularity. This is something we are obviously not working towards and will have to advertise the band, we are hoping to come up with an interesting idea to try and make our album cover individual. Kings of Leon's CD is very unusual and different which is a big selling point. The audience will be attracted to something a little odd and we are hoping to incorporate something like that in our album cover. ACDC's album cover has an element of extraordinary as the lead singer was horns and a tail suggesting the devil. These conventions are common in a lot or rock albums; dark colours, suggestions of violence or anger etc. We will be sticking to conventions and will probably use dark colours, but assuring it complies with the themes of our music video. However, Queens album cover is different from the other rock CDs. It seems very subdued with the band members quite conservative with no expression. The album cover, although still using darker colours sells the band in an odd way. There is nothing else of interest on the album cover.

After evaluating album covers, we have decided that our aim will be to advertise the band, staying consistent with the themes of the album but still using conventions of the rock genre. This will enable the audience to realise what genre it is quickly. We will also aim to make it a little odd or different. This will hopefully make it stand out more in a shop and hopefully get more people interested in it.

Album cover ideas

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This is an album cover we found that is similar to our genre. Bon Jovi is a rock genre and we have studied this carefully to try and get an idea of what we should base our album cover on. The imediate thing you notice is that the album cover is advertising the band, something we came to expect with our genre, but the main thing we can take away from the album cover is the simplicity of the image. This is something we have tried to keep constant throughout our project. For example our music video was planned from the beggining to be as simple as possible, only using effects/transitions when they are needed. The editing as well was going to be very simple and always matching the pace of the music.

Our album cover and magazine ideas have also followed this trend of simplicity, never putting too much on an image. The products will always be selling the band, this is very important. Below is an album cover from Nirvana. This is not selling the band yet is one of the most famous images, this is because Nirvana sold themselves very well in their earlier careers so they were well known. Therefore, we will be selling the band with everything we do and in theory, we would later be able to create fantastic album art similar of Nirvana.

In depth music video analysis Video 1

In this task I will be analysing 3 music video that are similar in genre to the music our group has chosen.

The first video I have chosen to look at is Avenged Sevenfold's 'Seize The Day.' Firstly I will start by introducing the band, Avenged Sevenfold are a country rock/hard rock band from California, famed on Rock scene for their fast paced and deep songs. Their video for Seize The Day follows a period of time (perhaps 3 months) in the life of a young man - played by the lead singer M. Shadows - who is at first singing with rest of the band behind a wire fence in what looks like a prison. The scene then fades - almost as if it is a memory - to the main character celebrating what the viewer can assume is the pregnancy of his girlfriend/wife, the scene is taken from the point of view of a handheld camera held by the main character, it is made obvious that this is a very happy time for the couple, the scene then cuts to a long haired character knocking at the front door of the house - as the audience we can assume that this is either an enemy or a friend of the main character. The door is then answered by M. Shadows who then proceeds to hug the man and more characters are shown to have arrived, the new characters in the scene are shown to sit and converse with the main characters wife or girlfriend and all seem to know her and the main character, almost making themselves at home. After the visit of Shadow's friends he is shown telling his wife something that obviously upsets her (shown in her facial expressions and body language) and then kisses and hugs her, she then mouths 'no' and attempts to grab his arm before he walks out the door. After a quick cut to the band behind the wire fence the video snaps back to the narrative and shows Shadows and his friends putting on masks in a car, they then proceed to raise weapons and exit the car, as they approach the doors of what the audience can assume is a shop I noticed that there is a red/orange tint to this piece of the music video, I believe this was used to connote a memory, perhaps to suggest that the singer and the band behind the wire fence are remembering. The group of friends are then shown pushing over the shop keeper proceeding to rob the store. After cutting to the band and lead singer a police car is then shown pulling up outside what we can assume is the same shot, the thieves are then shown fleeing the store with them jumping over the counter and scrabbling away (this connotes desperation/fear). I then noted that one character seemed to be lacking behind with the camera shots used show this, all of the thieve jump into a car, bar one who is tackled to the ground and unmasked by the police, when the mask is removed it is revealed that the main character had actually gone to rob the Off Licence, the character is then shown on a television being viewed by his girlfriend/wife being led away by police officers. The Wife/Girlfriend is then shown crying and the scene cuts to a performance scene of the band behind a wire fence. A cut in the scene shows the main character being led by a guard in what the audience can assume is a jail or prison, he is shown having his piercings removed, his head shaved and then being led to a cell. It then cuts to the Girlfriend and Main Character arguing through a glass window both holding wired phones, the girlfriend proceeds to slam the phone down and walk away leaving M. Shadows with his hands on the glass partition. The music in the background then stops showing the girlfriend driving a way and suddenly a van smashes into the side of her car, the scene then fades to a funeral, with the bands guitarist appearing from a puff of smoke and a flame on top of the coffin and then proceeds to play a solo as the priest reads from the bible, after the solo ends the shot fades back to the prison with the main character staring at a photograph and then a jump cut to a performance scene of the band. The remainder of the video cuts between shots of the band in a prison environment, performance shots of the band and finally each member of the band visiting the grave of the protagonists partner or wife with protagonist holding what we can assume to be his child who has survived the crash.