Cd cover task

CD Cover Task

Jack Renshaw

The Objective:

To prepare myself for creating an album cover from scratch and hopefully to stimulate ideas I could use for creating my

album cover. This could include ideas on the technical side of things (such as how to create the title font) or ideas for

pictures and names.

1. Go to Wikipedia. Click random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your artist.

2. Go to Random quotations. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Go to Flickr and click on explore the last seven days. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together. Preferably in a square format layout, like a nice old-timey vinyl album cover.

The Rules:

Personally I will probably just be using PowerPoint to create my cover since I am not at school, also thanks to charlotte since I copy and pasted (then edited) these rules from her blog:

http://charlottemarcha2media.blogspot.co.uk/

http://charlottemarcha2media.blogspot.co.uk/

Step One:

My artist’s name is WHIE apparently…

Hey! This links in to music – spooky…

Step Two:

WOO! Winston Churchill!

Album Title:

“Half Of Them Are True”

Step Three:

That actually looks like something you might see on an album cover, cool…

WHIE + Half Of Them Are True +

PowerPoint/Photoshop Magic

Step Four:Equation:

This is the original image. I feel that this is a good picture for album art as it is widely symbolic of time, life, good and evil etc. It is also positioned well so that text can go on the right hand side, mainly in the top right so as to balance with and fit around the dark figures. The picture could also be relatable to the audience, as it is an image of the London underground. Thus, we could expect the artist to identify with the hustle and bustle of life in London. I would also expect this to be a major theme in their lyrics.

This version of the image was done on Photoshop using a basic filter. The bright lines on the black background connotes an electronic genre as it reminds me of the

bright lights in dance music. However, this symbolic contrast could also suggest a theme of social inequality

which is more in line with the rap genre.

This filter was very different. While I don’t think this is appealing enough to be an album cover, I thought the colour might connote a lot of different genres. The green lines remind of the lighting familiar to electronic and dance music but the whole picture is to dark to be of those genres I think. Instead, I feel that this might work for a more remote genre such as jazz, blues or reggae. The colours seem sad enough for the blues and they also represent stereotypical reggae too. I’m actually growing to like this more as I write this, I suppose this is also quite sci-fi, which might fit with rock or pop.

This looks a bit too Photoshop to a genuine album cover, but I like in this how there appears to be mist in the background. This would fit with heavy rock or heavy

metal or other gothic/emo genres (I’m sorry if that is stereotype or incorrect but you know what I mean). The

red connotes danger and anger, and the red mist literally represents the descent of rage.

This is an interesting one. The filter I used has given it almost a graphic novel or comic book feel. I feel that this could connote rap music or maybe R&B. I also think that

if I were to tint or colour (or whatever it is) half of this image, to represent the half in the album title, it would

work well. This also has quite a smart feel I think, like James Bond or something.

<It’s a bit like this.

The white lines in this version gives it a very professional and sci-fi look. Sci-fi is most often used in pop, as a major theme in this is surrealism. However, sci-fi can also be used in rock too, for example by Pink Floyd in ‘dark side of the moon’. I feel that this image suits rock more as the dark figure looks quite sinister and most pop songs are not so sinister. None the less, the bleak colouring could connote an artist into bleak songs such as ‘chasing cars’ and ‘run’ by Snow Patrol.

From now on, these images are basically going to be almost the same. I think that the blurred look could

represent a variety of things such as busy London or working life. It could also be taken to be quite

supernatural too. I think this would suit an indie track most.

Pretty colours! This takes inspiration from… something that I know exists but can’t find on google. I could take this further and only do half of it with the colour so as to symbolise the title; “half of them are true”. It’s quite hip-hop… I think…

I really like this blurred effect, the texture is great. I’m sure this effect has been used on real

album art but I can’t place my finger on it. Anyway, a lot of these variations look almost

pencil drawn, which is a running theme in many indie album covers. The colours reflect

purity and there is a contrast which could represent the lyrics.

Fonts:

WHIEHalf Of Them Are True





WHIE

Half Of Them Are True

Elves might like this type of music, you never know…

Indie, Country or country pop

Rock? Pop? Rap?…reggae???

Old style music

Electro, pop, hip hop

Country or old style

Fonts:WHIEHalf Of Them Are True

WHIEHalf Of Them Are TrueWHIE

Half Of Them Are TrueWHIEHalf Of Them Are True



Hip-hop or popFemale artist(s)

This font is actually used by band Evanescent, who are a rock/gothic metal band

Gothic, metal

Hip hop, electro, r&b, danceRock, though could be used by anything with a specific theme


WHIEHalf Of Them Are True WHIE


Fonts:


mariachi

Dance, electro, hip-hop

gothic

Pop, hip-hop


reggae


Fonts:


WHIEHalf Of Them Are TrueWHIE


Country western

Pop or any with sci-fi theme

Rap, rock

Like the others that are essentially the same, pop or hip-hop

WHIEHalf Of

Them Are True

Fonts:

WHIEHalf Of

Them Are True

Rap fonts I just got

Finals:

WHIE

Half Of Them Are

True

Dance or electro theme.

I think this font goes well with this picture, It’s quite sci-fi/electric-y/neon-y and stuff. My only concern is that this might be too dark for an electro or dance album cover, I thought this was still quite ‘daft punk’ though…

Finals:

WHIEHalf Of Them

Are True

Gothic or heavy rock metal.

Still looks a bit terrible and Photoshop-py, but the font matches the theme of the picture and I think this is perhaps the most obvious cover when guessing what theme it is.

Finals:

WHIEHalf Of Them

Are True

Pop or rock or something….

Really like this one, sci-fi theme works well. Can’t think of much too say about it really…

Finals:Rap? This doesn’t really strike me as a rap cover to be honest. I couldn’t really get a font to match the picture. Dunno why I made the font this colour, it just looked right.I also considered using this font in a greyish blue, or sticking with this font but making it grey to match the picture. That looked too dull to me however.

WHIE

Half Of Them Are

True

Finals:

WHIEHalf Of Them Are

True

Hip Hop or pop

I think this one is good. The colours of the pic and the font match. The font looks hand written, most likely by a female artist. I don’t really think it’s surreal enough to be pop, its more likely hip-hop.

Finals:

WHIE

Half Of Them

Are True

Pop, soul

This one doesn’t really look fluent enough to be real – you can tell I did this using Photoshop and PowerPoint. The pink font connotes a female artist again and the colours of the picture go nicely with it to be very soul-ish. I put pop again because pop can really be anything.

Finals:

WHIE

Half Of Them

AreTrue

Blues

Just this font really…

Finals:

WHIEHalf Of Them

Are True

Mariachi

Your argument is invalid

Finals:

WHIEHalf Of Them Are

True

Indie or pop or country or something…

This is perhaps my favourite picture, it looks vague enough to be an indie album cover, but the font has a hint of country perhaps. To be honest though, a country cover wouldn’t really have a picture of the London underground on it would it?

The End

WHIEHalf OfThem

AreTrue

elvish

Education

Cd cover task