Album Cover

Evaluation - Question 1 ALBUM COVER

The layout of a debut album will usually always contain song lists on the back, an image of the artist on the front, bar code on the back, institutional information on the back, links to websites on the back, name of album and artist on the spine, serial number on the spine, a distinct colour scheme running throughout and a large name of the artist and smaller name of the album showing the artist is the main focus and want them to sell the album.

The functions of a debut album should be to promote the artist, sell the album, grab the audiences attention, create an image for the artist, promote the genre and create a target audience.
As we were a debut artist we felt that having a photograph of the band members on the front, back and inside covers would be more eye-catching and also market the artist to the audience. We made the images very glossy, striking and glamourous and also used the majority of close ups to give it a more personal feel for the audience. Photographs are also very stereotypical for the hiphop/pop genre, therefore promoting our genre in the album cover. For more established artists they may not follow these conventions of using photographic images. For example 'Green Day - American Idiot' used a cartoon hand squeezing a heart as their main image. This image is distinctive for the band and therefore would be recognisable to fans. Also cartoon images are also very common for the rock genre as they use their outrageousness to sell their music rather than themselves.

Our band is based around the fact that the girls used their dancing to make the famous and were originally from New York. The theme of New York runs throughout our album cover with the use of 'I Love NY' tops and layering an image of us on top of an image of the New York skyline. Also the use of the white and red font connote America. The dance theme is used distinctively on the back cover where Nisha is posed against a dance bar. This shows that she is in a dance studio and that dance is involved with her life. This connotes the concept of dance to the audience.

An album cover is all about creating an image for the artist and branding them. Our album sets up the image of two glamourous, sexy girls from New York who are involved with dancing. The close up shot of each half of our face that has been placed together connotes to the audience that they are best friends and are so close they are one person, however the black line between them shows that they still each have their individual identity. I think it is very successful as whilst branding the artist, the image is very striking and therefore grabs the audiences attention.

Album Cover and Myspace Photo Shoot

While we were re-shooting our footage in the dance studio we thought it would be a good idea to have a photo shoot for our album cover and Myspace at the same time in order for us to have the dance studio mise-en-scene in the background and to make it an ongoing theme throughout our products. Nisha and I both decided that we should look glamourous for the photo shoot, however still have an element of dancing involved with it, therefore we decided to have full makeup and quite a plain outfit with a few splashes of colour.
My costume was red lipstick, black eyeliner and eyeshadow, gold jacket, black vest top, 'I Love NY' t-shirt, leggings and wedges.  I would alternate between the black vest top and 'I Love NY' t-shirt in order to give the shots some variety.
I felt the overall shoot went very well and we got more than enough shots for our album cover and Myspace. Also when we were in the moment we found ourselves shooting various random photographs which we thought would look good on our Myspace as they seemed more personal and less posed. We got a wide range of shots from mid-shots, long shots to CU'S, two shots and individual shots. All of them are unique but yet all link due to the costume, therefore i think they can be used in a very positive way to help brand our products and sell our artist at the same time. The photo shoot went better than we hoped and hopefully we will see the rewards from this when it comes to creating our Myspace and album cover.