Report

For my pre-production task I chose to produce two CD covers. I wanted to make two completely different covers to challenge myself, so I decided to make one indie/rock album and one pop album.

Textual Analysis/Images/Layout:

The first CD cover that I analysed was Coldplay's 'Parachute'. The layout of the front cover was simplistic yet effective. 'Parachute' has a white background with a black border and text. (but what else is on the cover – analyze it more, the image or design etc)  It is very simplistic which makes it seem modern. Throughout my research I also found that a lot of CD covers have their covers matching one of their songs or linking to the name of the album (give an example of this from a real CD cover), so I decided to have a picture of an empty field as one of the songs in this album is called Empty Fields. (why? What does this link to on your cd cover??.) I wanted the cover to be dark and quite sad to resemble the emotional style of songs the album has, so I made the picture black and white, which created a feeling of despair as well as isolation due to empty space, which is the main theme of the album. On ‘Parachute’ I noticed that the only text used was central on the cover to offer this as a focus upon the whole cover, as such I placed the album name and artist in the middle of my image, however to make it stand out against the picture I used a slightly transparent box to help the black text stand out from the gray coloured image. For the back cover I decided to have the same picture in the background to recreate the sense of despair. I made the box the text was in, slightly transparent so it wasn't too bright, as if it was it would lose the darkness of the cover. 

With my second cover I used the same convention of a theme running throughout that linked with the album name. The album 'Escape with me' inspired me to draw a route on a map which promotes that idea of someone escaping, in relation to uses and gratification this would also suggest to the audience that the music and album can be used as escaping to listen to and relax. So I got a map and drew a line to an airport but on the way had notes, such as 'look for hotel' and 'Spend day in'. I added these notes on the map to make the map seem less bland. Also it supports the album name as it is a map to an airport. It also makes the album look unique as the comments are hand written. (why did you add these additions to the image – what is the effect of them) The back cover of this CD case was kept as simple as possible as the image on the front is to be the main theme and focus. The back cover of Coldplay’s ‘parachute’ is very simple, which was my inspiration for my back cover, it is a white background with black text in the middle with a border around it. (comment on an example of a simple back cover you analyzed and then explain how this inspired yours) I used the same blue colour from the front as the background colour to ensure consistency over both sides. As if the text/ colour on the back of the cover was another font, it would look too informal. I wanted this album to look a little informal but not too much.  DEVELOP

Font/Language:

For the first cover (Empty Fields) I was looking for a font that would show that this album would be serious and quite emotional so I looked through the fonts and found Trajan Pro, which looked quite gothic. I made the text on this cover a dark red so it kept the dark feeling of the cover and didn't stand out much. For the title the font was much bigger than the band name, which shows that the name of the album is more important. I used the same font and colour on the back cover to make it consistent. For the legal information at the bottom, the font was Perpetua Tilting MT as it looks less formal but still quite gothic. (mention genre of your albums, what music?) The audience that this album was aimed at is older teenagers (16-19 years old). This is because that age group are the main consumers of indie music.

For the second CD cover (Escape With Me) I used a less formal font, Perpetua Tilting MT, as it creates a friendly feeling, as it is slim and sharp. I wanted this album cover to be bright and reinforce emotions of joy that the songs would give, I had the text in white. As the background of the map is white as well it was hard to see, so I added two blue boxes to put the in so they would stand out from the rest of the cover, so you know who and what album it is. The size of the text is the same as it shows consistency throughout the front cover. The text on the back cover of the CD case is in bold which draws your eye towards them. As on the front, the text is white on a blue background. The song names are all the same size but have been separated to show that this cover is slightly less formal. The first four songs are in the top left corner and the other four are in the bottom right. The legal information in the same font to show the informality of the cover. The audience that this album was aimed at is from 14 upwards as I tried to make it kind of pop/rock, which doesn’t have a specific aged audience. (this is just description and does not offer any insight into why this is done or the importance – remember you are supposed to be showing how this all works to make people want to buy the album.)

Conventions:

To add to the authenticity of both covers I had the barcode and legal information at the bottom on the back cover. I had to change some parts of the copyright information because there where names of another band on it, so I typed it up so it would be easier to changer the two covers. I also looked for a basic record logo so it wouldn't stand out, this is so people’s eyes won't be drawn towards it.

****you start by referencing research and then this disappears in the rest of becomes just a description of your CD cover which is not what is required. You need to add more information about the research you did into cd cover design and explain how this helped your designs. You can also add more emphasis on the language or words used on the covers and why they are effective in relation to the design you have gone for – again link back to research that shows the designs are usually associated with an aspect on the songs etc. Genre is important and you have not mentioned this once!!***

Production:




My production was a double page spread in a music magazine promoting the album I created 'Escape With Me'. The double page spread that inspired me with the layout of my own double page spread was the interview of Davey Havok. The parts on the layout of this interview that I used were; three columns of text, using only one page for the text and the other for a picture, a small box at the bottom of the left page containing text. Some more textual and visual analysis I did was on issuu, to look at other music magazines to find parts of their double page spreads that look good and are effective to get people to read the article.

 That is where I got the idea for the artists name and what they do (e.g. lead vocalist) on the page with the main image of the article as it can give a small bit of context of the artist before the reader has even started to read the article.[y1]  For example, on my double page spread it says lead vocalist, which is his role in the band and it also says super villain, which relates to one of the questions in the interview.

I tried using different colours for the background (as I had saw on any issues of music magazines on issuu) but none of the colours seemed appropriate for the text so I decided to keep the background white with the use of black text – this made my article seem important and gives a serious mode of address which is good for helping people understand information about the band. Also black text on a white background is “easy on the eyes”, meaning it is easy to read. For the questions, I had the Q blue so it was easier to see where the questions where. For the answers, I had the A red for the same reason. The idea to do that came from the interview of Davey Havok as the questions are is black and the background of the area is white and the answers are black on grey, which makes the questions stand out. For the box at the bottom of the left page, I made that black with white text, this is so it stands out to the reader, so people are more likely to buy the magazine when looking through it in the shop.

In the black box, I had a competition. This is very popular in music magazines where they say to go to the website to win tickets to concerts, this encourages interactivity and makes audience inclined to buy this magazine again if they could win something in a different issue. It is also advertisement for there website which may have extra competitions and articles on.

At the bottom of the text I had a closing paragraph where it tells the reader who they are interviewing next and that they can send in questions for the interviewer to ask the artist. This makes the reader feel more involved in the magazine and more likely to buy it again.

The first part of the text is an introduction of the artist, this is for people who may not know who they are/or know very little, can learn about them before reading the interview. This gives them context. The rest of the text is an interview with the artist. About half way through the interview, I had it so the next set of questions where from the readers, this makes it seem like they are involved.

One weakness of my double page spread is the lack of pictures. This is a weakness because it makes the double page spread look more formal than I wanted it to. However the colours of what the artist is wearing draws the eye as most of the text is black and the clothes that was given for him to wear were mustard trousers and a black/navy blue jumper.

You need to evaluate – strengths and weakness of your double page spread – linking to the effectiveness of it and how it compares to existing examples. Again, comment on the content – what style of article did you do and why. Link to how the brand can be seen from this to the CD cover as well. Use of the image – what image is it and why has you done this etc. What would you have changed or improved? Etc.

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 [y1]This makes no sence… re -read and edit / only add the key information needed.