The History of the Album Cover; Sourced 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 smaller 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.
Research; Analysing Codes and Conventions
To start off with, we looked through various different CD cases to see if we could see if there was anything that was the same on each of them, so we could see any general trends. As well as spotting out any of these, we were able to see if anything was done differently to these trends so we could have a range of different ideas. I have added a screen shot below of me working on this.
This research will help me to plan my product because it shows me any general trends that professionals do, and it gives me many ideas on what I can do with my product. This has been a good task because I can now further my planning by making decisions on what I will include on my album cover.
As a class, we were asked to pick an album cover and talk about each of the different covers and what is on them. I picked JP Harris' album.
Above, is a screenshot of the front cover and what I wrote about it.
Above, is a screenshot of the back cover and what I wrote about it.
Above, is a screenshot of the inside front cover and what I wrote about it.
Above, is a screenshot of the inside front cover and what I wrote about it.
Practice Album cover
As a class, we were asked to create a practice album cover for our artist's album. My artist was Daniel Merriweather and his album is called Love and War.
Above is the overall template we were given to start are task. As you can see there are 4 corners. The top right will be the front cover, the top left with be the back cover, the bottom right will be the inside front cover, and finally the bottom left will be the inside back cover.
Above is the image that I imported for my front cover. I haven't done anything to it in this image yet, but I feel it relates to the album name as Love and War could tie in with poppies.
Above shows my finished front cover. It has the artist name to the left and the album name to the right of the tree.
Above is the image that I have imported for my back cover. I feel this is a good back cover because I feel it relates to the album title, and it leaves room to the left of the poppies for where the track list will go.
Above is the image I have imported for my inside back cover. This is used as the CD tray. I haven't done anything different than upload the image as this is where the CD will be, and I feel that this is best left untouched.
Above is the image that I have imported for my inside front cover. I feel this is suitable as it shows one poppy that again ties in with the album title.
Above is my finished inside front cover. I have added text that reads; "Thank you for purchasing this album. Columbia Records 2013". Also, underneath this I have added the recording company's logo.
My Final Digipack
When I went out to dil, the footage for my music video, I chose to take some images for both my music magazine advertisement and my digipack. I looked through these photos, and chose the ones that I wanted to be on my digipack. Below is my digipack.
Above is the front cover of my digipack. It shows my artist looking straight into the camera, by himself. It has the artist's name on it, as well as the album title. These are commonly found on digipack front covers, so I have followed the codes and conventions that I have found in my research.
Above is the back cover of my digipack. It shows the artist facing away from the camera this time. I liked the idea of this because in the front cover he is looking towards the camera, and then he is looking away in the back cover. I thought this worked well, so decided that these were the images that I would use on my digipack. Along the right of the image, I have put the track list. I decided to do this because there was a nice bit of room in which I can put all of the songs. Along the bottom there is small print, the Sony logo and a barcode. In my research, I saw that these were commonly used on back covers so I decided to use these on mine also.
This is my inside back cover. This is the disk tray. As you can see above, I have created 2 circles and put them there to show that this is where the disk will go. I decided to blur the image behind because I thought that it gave off a nice effect and looked good. I found that usually, not a lot is written on inside front covers, so I decided not to put anything on it either.
This is my inside front cover. I have also decided to blur out this image slightly because it looked quite good and thought it would work seeing as I blurred the other one. At the bottom, I have wrote "Thank you for purchasing Love and War". I decided to put this there because you usually find a thank you on a digipack, so I decided to put this here because there was a lot of room for it and I think that it looks good there.
Above is my finished digipack. As you can see, there is a front cover, back cover, inside front cover and inside back cover. The inside front and inside back covers are upside down because it will fold round and then be the right way up.
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