DIGIPAK/ALBUM ART RESEARCHDesign Bump: ‘Album Artwork – Design’s Greatest Trends’ Michael Scotney

INTRODUCTION DesignBump is a website which publishes articles

based on everything to do with design – from examples of photography, tutorials and even facts.

The article I read for my music video research is entitled ‘Album Artwork: 2009’s Greatest Design Trends’, which is a modern outlook on where album art design is and is going.

It lists the different styles of artwork coming into popularity, with examples and reasons which I will list in this presentation.

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY Portrait photography is crucial for solo artists – but not so

much for groups/bands. The article says that the portrait helps put a face to the name

and feel more connected to the artist. It makes them more aware of the artist when seen on TV for example in the future.

This links to Richard Dyers’ star image theory – the representation of the artist in the picture is used to importantly market the artist in a way to appeal to a certain target audience – and make them more likely to buy the album.

It says that they tend to be close-up macro shots usually of the artists face that fill the area, so the customer/viewers full attention is on the artist for the reasons explained above.

PHOTOGRAPHY This next style is explained simply in that powerful/eye-

catching pictures are all that is needed to bump sales. This is because the customers/viewers are compelled to

check it out as they have been intrigued by the nature of the photograph. Then they listen to the music and a percentage end up buying it.

These examples below do not even need any typography of the band – the pictures are that effective.

‘GRUNGE’ The article explains how album covers are now more

commonly using a technique from graphic design and web design; ‘Grunge’.

A loose term, it refers to album art containing elements that are deliberately rough, unfinished looking, alternative in both convention and material, innovative or controversial.

This is used predominantly for bands as opposed to solo artists – and also depends significantly in genre. Rock and metal bands are big users of this – whereas classical and easy listening artists are not.

TYPOGRAPHY The style of writing of the bands’ name, or other relevant

information and colour schemes of the typography like the image trend can often be enough to grab attention.

The stylised theme based on its relevance to the particular band/theme/genre can make the album appealing and so the customer chooses the album over its competition.

It can also work focusing the audiences attention to the simple words written and so make the band name stay in the customers’ head for example, as opposed to possibly being distracted by a picture.

OTHER STYLES Then the article listed the other styles of album art also used

including digital, hand drawn, minimalistic and black and white.

These styles were explained in more detail in the DesignBump article, but it reminded me of these styles that could be used for effect. Below are examples of a digital illustration album cover, a both black and white and hand drawn album cover, and a digital minimalist album cover.

EVALUATION In evaluation of the secondary research, as the portrait

photography style is not suited to our genre of music, the band, or their themed album art/Digipak so we will not be following this type.

In particular, the grunge style is something to take forward into planning. The Green day album cover with spray paint is something I think could really work well with the Demon Hunter theme of logos on the album cover. It could be used to spray the logo onto a wall for example, and this grungy effect created also links to the metal chosen genre.

Photography is also something to take forward into planning – as a photograph can catch the audiences attention easily which is important for a Digipak/album cover.

EVALUATION CONTINUED Next, for the other styles contained in the, black and white, for

example, these are all things that we will bear in mind when coming up with our creative ideas. However, I feel black and white is not in keeping with what the target audience expect from past album covers.

As said in other research, hand drawn is again something that would not be possible for us to do but minimalism is a great idea we could implement as we will want the audience to concentrate on the trademark skull logo.

Another important thing I’ve learned from the article is typography. I think from this we will combine typography to be in keeping with the main (grungy) design style to create a calibrated and piece that fits together nicely. In conclusion, I have learnt a lot of knowledge to take into planning and creating from this DesignBump article.