Ancillary Task: Album cover and Analysis

So for my ancillary task I have decided to do an album cover and a magazine advertisement for the band. In order to have and idea of what my products should look like i have looked at existing album covers and magazine advertisements and analyzed them, from this I have seen what conventions are most used and work well.

Here is some analysis on The Kooks album cover and back cover 'Inside In The Inside Out'

The main colour scheme for this cover is black and white thus making it very simplistic, a simplistic cover is a common convention that is used for album covers. The main picture on the cover features the band although it is not a direct shot of their faces it shows the band members practising. Also the fact the picture is in black and white give the feel that it is looking back at the bands past.

This again is very simplistic as it has not been staged it looks like the band in their natural environment. For the title of the album there is different use of colour as the band name is in black where as the title is in red , it is also a play on words  as it is saying taking a look at the inside of the band from looking outside , this also gives the audience an idea of what the album will be about.

Here is the back cover for the CD it contains :

• The names of the songs on the album 
• Parental advisory to  show that  the content of the CD may not be suitable for a younger audience 
• The band website features so the listener can go onto the website and find out further information about the band. 
• The signature barcode that is featured on the back of all albums.
• The black and white colour scheme is also used on the back cover, showing that it has been kept the same throughout.

Here is another album cover this on is by another indie band called The Wombats with their album ' Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)'

As you can see there is a plain coloured background with an eye catching image in the middle, the plain background helps make the image more eye catching. This again applies to the simplistic cover convention. The logo font for the band name 'The Wombats' has been used this makes it stand out from the rest of the text on the cover, however the name of the album is in a different font although the word 'Tokyo' is bigger than the band name it does not stand out as much. The main image is a stylized image of a wolf's head this relates to the name of album and gives an idea of what the album may be about. The use of bright colours  and glow around the wolf's head helps it to stand out.

Unfortunately i couldn't find the back cover

for this album 

Here is the cover for the album 'Tourist History' by Two Door Cinema

This cover again uses the convention of having a simplistic layout. As you can see the background is again very plain and there is the main image in the centre of the page. However the name the the band is the biggest piece of text on the cover, where as the title the album title is quite small at the bottom of the page. A specific font  has been used we can see this as the more rounded letter such as 'o' and 'c' are not as bold as the other letters and more rounded. Also the main image is seen to be a cat this does not really relate to the name of the album unlike the other albums. However the cat's eyes look through the two o's in the word 'door', this attracts an audience as the eyes are green and eye catching, where as the rest of the cover is quite dark.

Here is the back of the cover to 'Tourist History'

The back cover is very simplistic like the front, however there is no image on the back cover unlike The Kooks album. There is only the names of the songs on the back cover, the same font style from the front has also been used for the song names. Like the back of most album covers the barcode is visible and the website of the band at the bottom, so listeners can find out more about the band.

From analyzing these album covers I have learnt of the important conventions that are needed for an album cover. I will use thses convention when creating my own album cover