Codes and conventions of a Cd

Cover

Codes and Conventions

After analyzing a number of Cd covers I began to notice a number of repeating patterns, the codes and conventions of a Cd cover.

MAIN IMAGEThere will always be a main image on the front of an album cover, whether it is illustrated or a photograph there will always be an image to represent the bands unique and interesting style. Whilst some artists, usually pop, will nearly always have an image of themselves on the front cover, in particular females, other bands such as the alternative artists Radiohead have never featured themselves on the front of their album covers, creating a deeper mysterious meaning surrounding the band and their songs.

ARTISTS NAMEThere will always be the artists name on the front of a cd cover, allowing their target audience to not only remember their eye-catching album cover but the name with it. This element can be challenged in some cd covers, such as Marilyn Manson's album, as it doesn’t present his whole name, letting his fans feel special, included and part of his inner circle.

ALBUM NAMEThis is a feature used for all albums, not only does it give the audience a feel of what the songs on the album are going to be about, but also inputs on creating the image for the band. Madonna's name ‘celebration’ for her greatest hits album, tells the audience this is going to be an album of her best songs. The font style can also be used to represent the bands music genre, for example a rock/metal album cover will often using sharp eged, gothic lettering or black and bold, whilst female pop singers will most probably use bubbly, girly font types. All of these being common codes and conventions of an album cover.

LOGO

Bands will often have an iconic logo that follows them through concerts, music videos and their adverts, but most of all will be seen in their album covers, for example Take That’s album ‘never forget’ features their logo in the front cover of their album name whilst other artists such as Green Day have their logo not only on all of their albums, but also as the main image for their album ‘American Idiot’ creating an iconic symbol for the band so that all of their fans will be able to recognize it whenever they see it.

ExtrasSometimes when making an album cover, artists will want to challenge these typical codes and conventions to make themselves stand out from the crowd, for example the famous Beatles album often referred as ‘the white album’ featured a plan white record cover with ‘The Beatles’ written simply in the corner. An effective way to grab an audiences attention. Sometimes bands will like to have textures on the front of their cd covers, embossed images or writing, glitter, or reflecting parts of the album, all of these will attract a young target audience and will also engage them to pick up the cd. Bands can also put the albums in slips, meaning more images to engage the audience and also makes the cover more interesting.