Album Artwork

Album Cover Art

The album cover design establishes the genre of music and the identity of the artists. The way in which the album cover is designed gives the artists credibility, for example they might be making a point about something, or just advertising themselves some more. The cover of the artists album needs to attract the right audience and catch people's attention who maybe wouldn't go for that sort of music otherwise, the album cover is acting as a persuasive measure to entice people into buying it. The artists can make the album original, inventive or just conventional depending on what it is they are trying to achieve. The covers help communicate about the artists and how they feel using codes and conventions.

Four conventions you would expect to see in the album cover:

1) Band name

2) Album title

3) Central image

4) Artist

The Beatles - Sargeant Peppers Loney Hearts Club Band

Uses pop art which is merging of popular culture and high art, (widely used by Andy Warhol and Peter Blake) The album cover was designed by Peter Blake - one of the most famous pop art artists in Britain The Beatles cover was the first to break convention of the time and it was therefore revolutionary

In the album cover:

- Flowers - the flowers saying Beatles are code for the hippy lifestyle, peace and love, flower power

- Drums - code for music and musicality, circus themed and you link the circus with - performance/entertainment/fun/enjoyment

- Costume - vibrant millitary style, which defeats the point of millitary idea/juxtaposes

- Music instruments - are like the weapons with the costume - again ironic

- Facial expressions - serious, so they are serious about there music - Blue Sky - code for happiness, freedom, summer of love, exotic, warm, peaceful, heavenly, which is what they represent - island on there own (own league), beyond the normal boundaries

- Iconic famous people within the collage on the album cover - suggesting the Beatles are now icons

- Where they are positioned is a code for there importance

Nirvana - Never Mind

- Ideological album cover

- American society is corrupt - political statement on album cover

- Water - blue, calm, serene, code for freedom

- Baby - worry free, no troubles, innocence, purity

- Money - baby doesn't need it, corrupt society, greed, influencing, dollar bill $$

- American society - greed

- Font style - Nirvana - ironic, - bold/serious/simple/music more important/sophisticated style/elegance/pride

- Never mind - distorted, as though in water, stoned

- Both are black, not really caring about self image

Busted



- This album cover doesn't have the album name on it which is breaking the common conventions
- All of the band members are present on the front which is a common convention of pop albums
- There band name is playing on the image represented behind them 'Busted' as though they have been caught for something they had done, which is why there is the height lines behind them as though there going to prison
- Although it's supposed to show them as 'rebellious' as they are singing pop music their costume isn't particularly representing this - they all look like normal teenagers
- Body language - the body language is trying to incorporate the mise-en-scene and their band name, they are trying to all look like hard prisoners (which they aren't)
- Graphology - the font looks as though it is a stamp which is stamping as them as 'bad teens'
- Colour scheme - the colours are all black, white and red apart from the bands clothing

3OH!3



- Very simplistic
- Focussing on the music rather than the people behind it
- The hands are a symbol for the band themselves - (as it is 3 fingers so 3 then an O and another 3)
- The album is called streets of gold so the hands being that colour is all mixing in together
- It follows general album conventions by having both the artist name on the front and the album name as well
- The graphology of the text is quite small compared to the code of the hands for the bands name