Digipak: Album and Poster Research

ALBUM COVERS

The sole purpose of an album cover is to represent the artist and the music they make; if an album cover does not carry this representation out successfully, then it is not fufilling it's purpose. It is mostly concerned with genre recognition, which shows how important it is to meet the conventions of such. For example, you would rarely have elements linking to nature and tranquility on the front cover of a dance album; it does not allow the audience to assess the artist and their style approriately. Therefore, the album will have been misleadingly promoted which may evoke a sense of distrust and/or disappointment within the audience.

MODERN ALBUM COVERS AND THEIR CONVENTIONS.


It is more common nowadays for people to download music from the internet, via iTunes, GooglePlay or similar, so the only time we get to see the album artwork is when going through this process as well aswhen the song is playing. In many ways, I find this a little sad, as it suggests that the album artwork is not being apprieciated or recognised for it's creativity anymore; people are far less likely to base their decision on what the front cover looks like. This is mostly due to the intense growth and popularity of the internet, meaning much less physical albums are being sold everyday.

This highlights an uncertain future for hard copies of music albums; technology is so unpredictable and ever-growing that it could completely discard the need for the digipak and physical CD Disk - much like the expansion occuring in other spheres, such as online articles, which lessen the need for newspapers, and online films, which decrease the need for DVD's - which originally wiped out VCR's.
 
Conventions of Album Covers

• Significant, recognisable image on the front - either a key aspecty of the band/artist's iconography or a link to their music video
• Often the band/artist themselves are on the front, although this is certainly not concrete and many choose a more abstract approach too.
• Band/artist name as well as the title of the album.
• Sometimes reviews are featured on the front too.

Album Interiors

• Often different images from other angles/perspectives that relate to the artist's iconography/music video concept in some way
• Smallprint & copyrights
• Disk holder - disk again often features similar artwork relating to the key concept/iconography
• Sometimes special thanks or dedictations.

 
Album Back Cover

• List of all songs on the album
• Duration of each song
• Record company information
• Barcode
• Smallprint
• Recycling/packaging information

These features can be arranged in a variety of ways, often depending on the background image used. However the songs will always be displayed in the order they play through on the CD. We have to be aware that we may have to align our text to either the left or right depending on the image, as of course we want to make it easy to read and ergonomical.
 

 POSTERS/MAGAZINE ADVERTS

 

MODERN MAGAZINE ADVERTS AND THEIR CONVENTIONS

The purpose of a poster primarily is to promote the artist and to catch the audiences' attention - even subconsciously. This is achieved by clever marketing and product placement/distribution. The advert will be distributed in the public eye, for instance on bollboards, underground station walls, street walls etc. Alternatively, they will be featured by more exclusive means, such as in magazines or newspapers, whereby people have effectively paid to see the content.

Again, we have to challenge the idea of whether the magazine advert will live much longer, what with the magazine content converging onto other platforms. It is valid to observe that the majority of the most popular posters/magazine adverts will become collectors' items rather than true advertisements.

There are two different types of posters that can be used to promote an artist:
~The Concert Poster :  intends to promote an upcoming concert/performance/gig of the artist, and therefore custom-made. Although, in many cases, their most recent album/single front cover is used on the poster.

~The Album Promotion Poster :  this is used to promote the album itself.