AM Poster: Print Research

 

The official promo poster for AM is very simple.
It features the band logo, so that people will instantly recognise what the poster is for.
It also features the album artwork in the centre of the poster, this is useful, as it will ensure that anybody who sees the poster will be able to recognise the album in shops.
The rest of the text is in notes form, and not very detailed, this helps to get the point across without going into very much detail.
The small print states the band and record label's websites and the logo.
This poster is very simplistic, yet it is effective at capturing and audience’s attention. It continues the same theme that is seen on the album sleeve and also features the same sound wave line as is seen in the video Do I Wanna Know

Consistency in CD Packaging Designs

After designing the front cover for my digipack, I thought it would be a good idea to look into how existing albums keep a consistent style in the album sleeve before I designed the rest of mine.
Here are some photos of some physical copies of albums that I own that I have used for this research.
The main things that I noticed were that the colour scheme stays the same throughout and similar images are usually used. Most designs only use a couple of different fonts.

The Lumineers: Continuity Throughout Product and Print

• The Lumineers are a three person band from California, specialising in the folk/rock genre. They often tend to perform ecoustically and have a very rustic sound. 

• This has rustic, folky feel has now come out in all aspects of their production. 

• From their appearence, to their music videos, to their album artwork.

• Their debut album, named "The Lumineers" has been successful nationally. 

This is the music video for ho hey, their acoustic instruments and very simple camera movements.

The lighting of the video is sepia toned, much like the effect of an old picture. 

The video has a very homely ageless feel to it, which could be why they chose to go with the vintage appearance. 

The tambourine, ukele and guitar are very rustic instruments, other instruments they are seen with are the violin, the accordion and the double bass, which are rather old instruments rather than modern day electric guitars and keyboards.

This is the album cover for the Lumineers debut album, as you can see it is very simple. The thick black border contrasts well with the image centred. 

I chose to look at this as the image centred appears to be an old fashioned photograph. I think it works well because it matches the Lumineer's image. The font also looks like that of an old fashioned type writer to match the image on the front cover. I will have to include some of these aspects in my print work. 

The Lumineers also performed a "Take Away Show" where a group of fans followed them on a walk about through a normal American town and performed acoustically. This was successful as although the band is now quite famous they still perform on a personal level to their fans, rather than letting the fame get to them. It also gives off the image of their folk genre.

To look at the Lumineers website, click here

The Lumineers website is very simple and has neutral colours which again compliment their other products.

Representation of Teenagers in the Media

Album Cover Research

 I have chosen to look at some of my favourite album covers and see how I could apply them to my final product. I believe these covers are all individual and unique which is a necessity for the industry as it signifies the product.

• The Black Keys have a tendency of simple album covers.
• The EP cover for "Lonely Boy" is an example of this.
• This picture could have been taken by anybody, let alone a professional photographer. 
• They have probably reduced the saturation to make it appear dusty and may have faded the contrast. 
• This gives it a more "rustic" look.
• This contrasts to the the bold black font for the writing and the border really draws your eyes to the image.

• Here we can see the continuity of the album covers
• They have the same font used for the title 
• It is a similar image as that of the EP
• Here, they probably also reduced the saturation and contrast to give it a similar effect.
• Again the bold black against the sepia/dusty tones of the background.

• For the Lumineers debut album they also use a border to draw attention to the image.
• This, however, is far bolder and contrasts well to the thinner border surrounding the image.
• The title for the Lumineers is in a formal font, this looks quite classic.
• This font could relate to the image centred, it is old fashioned and in sepia, making the album appear vintage.

• The Vaccines have chosen a similar style.
• They also have a thick border that draws the attention to the vibrant image in the centre
• This image is a very red/pink colour scheme, this matches the title and the border around the image. 
• I may use a thick border ion my album cover because i think it looks professional and draws attention to the title and image.

•  I really like this album cover, although it was originally released in the 1960's I like how simple this image is.
• The character is centred in the middle making him appear important
• I like that the writing is smaller here and is not as obvious like the other albums.
• Again this has many sepia tones, and a border. 

• This is a previous arctic monkeys EP cover
• This is in black and white and looks very simplistic
• The logo of the band is very bold next to its white background
• So is the name of the track it is representing
• Again this is an image anybody could have taken but has been made to look realistic and gritty 
• This could be to represent the bands sound.

Arctic Monkeys Album Art Throughout Time

Arctic Monkeys Album Art Through Time 

Links Between Digipak and Promo Posters

No Text Band Logos

Thinking more about ideas for my own logo for use on my print work; I have considered making a logo that is just an image, not featuring the band's name.
This could be seen ad a risky move, and goes against the typical conventions of the majority of bands and their print products. But if done successfully, the logo can become even more iconic than one that just features then name of the band in a fancy font.
A prime example of this would be the Rolling Stones lips logo

Album "Stickers"

When researching into album art, I noticed that a few designers used a circle on the cover, featuring some band information, this is seen a lot in the designs of Leif Podhajsky, the man behind the album art of Tame Impala and Splashh

A similar thing is seen on the album art for Suck It and See.

This style could perhaps have been inspired by the promotional stickers often seen on physical release copies in shops. These stickers normally list the most popular/ successful songs off the album, and sometimes give a star rating from a reviewer or magazine.

The Black Keys's El Camino digipack release had a circular sticker with the words "Play Loud" on it, another example of this feature.

I really really like this idea and I think that I will use it in the development of my own ideas for my band's logo

El Camino: The Black Keys

The iconic cover art for The Black Keys's latest album turns out to be part of an elaborate extended joke to promote the record. According to various published interviews with Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, the album art came about when they glanced out a window on the road and spotted an El Camino: Chevrolet’s half-car, half-pickup, built from 1959 through 1987. The musicians liked the name and thought it would serve as a fitting title for their next record. But Michael Carney, the band’s art director and the brother of Patrick Carney, whose previous efforts won him a Grammy for packaging chose to place a battered, woodgrain-sided, first-generation Chrysler minivan on the cover. Patrick, during an interview on the topic of the artwork:

I told my brother the idea and my brother was like, "You know, if you name the record El Camino, everybody's going to think of the car the El Camino." And I was like, "Yeah exactly. That's the f**king point!" And he was like, "OK, but why don't we just put a car on the cover that's not an El Camino?" And I said, "OK, what kind of car?" He says, "Just put the first car you guys ever toured in on the cover

I really like the theme of this album art, the colours used seem pretty retro and fits in with the theme of The Black Keys's music and style
Each physical digipack copy of the album has a circular sticker on it that says "Play Loud"
All of the singled released off this album have the same consistent style and font, I really like the black boarder around these and I think I might use a similar thing on my design

AM: Album Research

For their latest album, Arctic Monkeys have taken a similar simplistic approach to the design of the album art as is seen on Suck It and See.

The AM album art is very striking and iconic, showing the same soundwaves as seen in the music video for Do I Wanna Know. Since the band is already quite famous they can easily get away with such a simple cover.
The album art also coincides with a black and white theme seen in the music video R U Mine (the first single released off AM) and seems very similar to the album art for Do I Wanna Know, this gives AM and its singles a nice consistent feel.

Originally, when AM was first put up on Itunes for pre order, the album art was a black and white photograph (seen right) but after the release of Do I Wanna Know they changed it to the iconic soundwave line.

• The black and white theme is also seen in the album art for the single Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High which shows phone buttons with the word 'HIGH' on the number 4 button. Again, this seems to be a very simplistic approach, with no details about the name of the song or even the artist who sings it on the art.

The XX - Advertisements

I chose to look briefly into the advertisement and products of the band "The XX" as their albums and posters are very consistent. The large "X" is always used, on their instruments, on posters, in their videos. This logo is very important to them obviously, and it identifies the band very well.

It would be good to have something like this as this is very typical of bands to use the same imagery and theme throughout their products whether its the music video, album, logo or clothing.

 Even their website is as plain as the album cover, they are using the same image throughout however the writing is a little different.

Review of the New Arctic Monkey's Album AM

Review of AM on Gigwise

I believe that it was important to look at some reviews of the album to get the right language to use on the advertisement for the new album, I also thought it could help me when designing the digipak.

This is an example of one of the paragraphs in the review: 



" Ahead of their blistering performance at the London 2012 games last summer, the Sons of South Yorkshire blew fans with away with this fittingly Olympian track. Racing into a heavier psychedelic rock direction, R U Mine has quickly become a fan favourite. Why? Well, it's a right little beast, laden with a righteous riff and sexy QOTSA-esque groove. This is exactly what we imagine blazing through the desert on a Harley with Josh Homme sounds like. Phwoar. "

Words like "riff" will be good to use as it is part of the same lexical field for music. Terminology like this will be essential for the magazine advertisement.

30th August

Today I have been looking into logo design, I think this is important as it is what identifies the band with an image...

for my band image I want it to be "edgey" yet sophisticated. To do this I am going to sketch out some ideas and then alter them on photo-shop to experiment.

I have already looked at old band logos so I already have an idea how they should look.

LADY GAGA : The Monster Ball Tour

This is another successful poster, however this is to advertise the artist's tour. It is very bold and not as colourful as the Florence + the Machine poster. However it has some similarities, it again has the artist centered, this is a genre convention as the consumer's should be focused on the artist.
The artist's name like the other poster is also in a larger and clearer font than the rest of the writing, this is so fans spot it quickly.
The information is in the same font however it is much smaller, this reciprocates in the Florence + the Machine poster.
One thing that is really interesting, which I should consider once creating my poster is the "Parental Advisory" notice sticker, as if the album contains any explicit language it will need to be mentioned. It is likely that I will need this.

Florence + the Machine : LUNGS

This is an excellent album advertisement for Florence + the Machine, it is very eye catching to its audience and it features the artist. It also contains all relevent information like when the album is released, what formats it is to be released on "CD. DELUXE CD. VINYL. DIGITAL". They have also featured the most popular song releases on the album which people will see, this means that if the consumer recognises the song they will be tempted to buy the complete album.
The colours of the poster are plain and dark and compliment the colours of the album artwork, this symmetry is very successful.

Band Logos

FAMOUS BAND LOGOS

Band logos, every band has one. It is the identity of the band, without it there is no true essence of what the band is. 

When you think of the Rolling Stones you think about the image of the lips:

It could be said that a logo could make or break a band... Because of this we need to make sure that our logo is professional and realistic. 

We could have a choice of an image or text, and if so:

• How would we style it? 
• What font would we use?
• What image do we wish to portray?

... these are all points to consider when it comes to designing our band logo.

Arctic Monkeys Previous Album Artwork

Survey to examine what we should involve in our Music Video/Music Article/Digipak

This is the survey we created on the website "Survey Monkey". 

Please click on the link above to take part in our survey...

This will help us identify what is best to use in our media products in order to appeal to our audience, we have aimed this survey at 15-20 year old's as this is the audience we will be aiming towards.
I decided to do this on Survey monkey as I think it is an effective website that allows us to gather accurate percentages and statistics with very little chance of errors and mistakes. It also allows me to reach a wider audience and help towards a more sufficient outcome.

I posted the web address of the survey on facebook to try and get a wider audience into our survey and promote it. 

Tame Impala Lonerism Album Release Research

Print
For the release of their second album, Tame Impala released a "Deluxe" edition in a Digipak format, and also on a vinyl copy, the colour of the disks and casing all co-inside with the initial image on the album cover.

The band selected artist Leif Podhajsky to create the artwork as he had createde the artwork for their previous album and various singles. But in the end, the image was taken personally taken by one of the band members, and then edited by Podhajsky. The image fits in nicely with the themes of the album "Lonerism", the metal gate is said to represent isolation, as a barrier between the photographer, and the people in the garden.

All of Tame Impala's recent album art, designed by Podhajsky features a circle in the corner with the song and band name inside it, they also all seem to feature the same colours, this seems to work quite nicely and makes the releases all look consistent for this album.

For the band's single Elephant, the single release album art seems to fit with the video, with a psychedelic feel and bright colours. In the video, this same theme is created through the use of what looks to be spinng ghosted effects and bright colours. This psychedelic feel all fits in well with the style of the band's music.

The toup posters also again fit in with the same psychecdelic theme with interesting patterns, shapes, and bright colours. They have also used the same font as is seen on the album and single packaging.