Poster Ideas

Here is a plan of the layout and design of my poster'magazine advertisement. As in my digipak covers it has a image of a face close up to intrigue and capture the audiences attention. The face is placed against the side of the poster, which once again gives a sense of mystery. I have added bold and simple text including the bands name, and the albums release date. I wanted the band name to be very large to show who the band is and create name recognition. The release date is simply to make the audience aware of when they will be able to purchase the album.

Poster Ideas

Here is one of the designs for my magazine/poster advertisement. My main idea for my poster is that it is very simple, and gets to the point. I want it to suggest that this is what the band is all about, and this is what you get when you buy the digipak. The image will be a screen print from a shot in my video of one of the performers to create a link between the two, and make the advertisement easily recognisable to those who have seen the video. The text is bold and simple to catch the eye and once again suggest a sense of honesty with the band.

Album spine

Inside covers

Back cover

Ancillary text: Front cover

Cover ideas

Here is another idea for my front cover. Once again the cover is very simple with little pictures or text on the front. I want the main picture of the performers face to be the focus of the cover as it involves and entices the audience. In my final cover I will use a print screen of the performer as it shows a link between the video and digipak. In this idea I have moved the face from the side of the page to directly in the middle. Once again this is to draw attention to the face and make it obvious that this is my main focus. The text of the band's name will be in a distinctive text that is reflective of the band, but will be bold and simple. I believe that the draft of this cover looks good and with a little more detail it will interest the audience.

Album Cover Ideas

Here are some more ideas for my digipak. I have continued the theme of a face on the front cover as it is a very strong image which entices the target audience. I believe that this accompanied with the repeated name of the band gives a feeling repetition in life and how we all face it which reflects the lyrics well. I also think that only showing one eye connotates mystery and that we do not see the whole person, just bits of them. The back cover I want to be similiar to that of the front cover and connotate the same meanings. I think that added the back of the performers head creates a link from front to back and once again creates a sense of mystery. I also like the idea of the head on the front and back covers being placed on the side of the page. Many album covers have the person centralised within the cover, making the audience pay close attention to them. On the inside cover I have placed credits to the people that have aided me in the product. This is a typical convention of a album cover, with many artists and institutions paying credit to all the people who have helped them. Finally on the other inside cover I including images of crows flying and also stationary. Crows are a strong connatation of dark days and perhaps nothing being right in life. I wanted to give a feeling of life not quite living up to whay people think it is and can be sad at times.

Ancillary text

Here are a few ideas for the digipak CD/DVD cover I am going to produce. I plan to include some sort of collage of a face as it links in well with the theme of my video. I want the text to be very minimilistic with a white background and simple text.






















This is one of my ideas, I believe the college of the face is very effective and goes well with the white background. I also like the idea of having the face partially covered as I believe it shows that every person has a hidden part to them. As I stated previously the cover is very simple, with the song named repeated.

Digipak introduction

In order to produce an effective digipak I would like to research the product and really get a feel as to what they are about. From reading up on the product I can see that it is very modern, and a useful tool in allowing the customer to get more than just a CD. The box itself is an obvious alternative to the traditional jewel box packaging. Rather than being made out of the common materials, the digipak is mostly made up of thick card. The card is a very useful product, as it can be manipulated into shape with very little effort, were as the standard CD must be moulded into shape which costs money and also time. Another great benefit is that the card is shatterproof preventing possible injuries. A major benefit for many leading companies is that the packaging can be produced at a reasonable price, similar to normal CDs. The digipak is an extremely effective and versitile product. It can accomidate booklets, CDs and DVDs, and allowing the number of panels to be dictated from four, six, eight or more. It is also preferred to the DVD packaging, mainly because it is much smaller and compact. The panels allow the companies to impliment special DVDs of the music, giving the customer something more. The DVDs are often included to make the customer feel like they are getting more for their money. Below is a traditional six panel digipak.

Poster analysis

The next poster that I am going to analyse is advertising Green's Day's hit album American Idiot. This poster is identicle to the album cover, with a hand holding up a grenade in the shape of a heart. Both the poster and album cover have back and red themes, and also the same text. This leads me to the idea that the advertisements for albums are very similiar, or exactly the same, to the album cover. This is all for product recognition, for example when you see the poster on the street, the person will instantly recognise is in the shops and want to buy it. Below are both advertisements and album cover for the album.

Second Ancillary text

For my secondary ancillary text I have been askedto produce a magazine advert to support the release of the digipak. The advert must be relevant to first of all my music video and also the album covers I will produce. To produce an effective advert I am going to research previous ads and posters that have been released.

The first advertisement that I would like to analyse is The Stone Roses 20th anniversary album. Common to many of other advertisements the poster shown below is very simlilar to that of the album cover itself. One of the main aspects of the original album cover was the lemon theme. On the cover we see the O in roses replace by a lemon, which was an idea by Ian Brown when he was talkingto a French man in paris about how the riots had involved throwing lemons. This is continued in the poster, which is very central to the poster itself and instantly draws your attention. As well as this both the cover and poster have a map like picture on, making them both very similar. This may be because the album cover is instantly recocgnisable to all the fans of the band and that genre. So when viewing the poster the fans will instantly recocgnise it as the stone Roses. The poster and the original album cover are shown below.

Album cover continued...

The next cover album that I am going to look at is the classic indie album The Libertines by The Libertines. The band emerged as a very popular band with their unique, energetic music, described as indie rock and punk rock. The cover is very reflective of the band and the ideologies it promotes, which is easily recognisable to any fans of the band or that type of music. The cover features two band members, Pete Doherty and Carl Barat, at the freedom gig in 2003. The cover shows the two looking a bit worse for were showing their tattoos dedicated to the band. This is used to show the unity of the band, and obviously we regard tattoos to be very rock n roll. This cover was important as it was there to show that the bands were still together and friends, as they had previously had problems. Pete Doherty is infamous for his drug and alcohol use which we can see in this photo. The photo shows the band rock n roll nature, with an unorganised almost spur of the moment shot. Another thing that strikes me is the text that is used on the cover. It is unaligned and looks like it been put together in a few minutes. It emphasises the bands life and the way the live as it is very messy and unorganised.

The next cover that I am going to analyse is The Enemy’s We’ll live and die in these towns. It was the debutant album from the Coventry band that set out to make an immediate impact. The band describes themselves as champions of the suburban cities. So it is fitting that the cover is of a railway departures board, which is a metaphor for escaping the stresses and bores of modern life that we are all expected to live. After listening to the bands music it is very clear that the band represents the common man, and can relate to the problems of many people. The simplistic nature of the cover suggests a feeling of this is what you get with the band, that they aren’t lying about who they are and what the band is about. All in all the cover reflects the band very well, showing a kind of honesty that you may not usually see on other album covers.

Album Covers

As well as producing a promoting music video I have also been asked to produce an album cover for a DVD release and also a magazine advertisement to support the release. The brief has recently changed, asking me to produce a digipak which would include both a CD and DVD. As this is an unfamiliar product to me I am going to look into a few album covers, allowing me to discover typical codes and conventions. I am going to look at both CD and DVD covers, basing my research around similar styles of music to my music video.

This album ‘In Rainbows’ is Radiohead’s latest album and has become very popular since its release. Radiohead is a band that has always produced interesting album covers, with most of them being considered artwork. Here we see a very vibrant and bold album cover which immediately grabs our attention. Having heard this particular album it seems to me that the cover reflects the music that the band has made, with the colours emphasising the energy and raw power of the songs inside. It could also be suggested that the different colours represented different people who may enjoy Radiohead’s music. This opens up the audience and doesn’t isolate one certain target audience. We are also drawn the red substance behind the writing, which appears almost lava like. This once again could reflect the music, with its energy and explosive sounds. That the volcano has erupted and is being sprayed towards us. The red lava almost draws us to the centre of the cover, and is a bold contrast with the writing. Another thing that I have noticed on the cover is that the bold block writing aligned all the way down until it reaches the bottom line, in which the bands name is out of position. From this it could be said that the band are something different than the norm. Overall I think the cover is very effective as you would go straight to it if you saw it in the shops just because the cover is so attractive and bright.