Music Video Draft

Dancing In The Moonlight from James Priest on Vimeo.

DigiPack Mock-Up

Advert Mock Up

Band Advert Mock

This is the advert for our band's album release. I have kept the same colour scheme from the album itself, this is to make the album recognisable, and to give the band an identity. Again I followed the same principle set by my album cover by keeping it simple.

Album Covers

Album : Only Revolutions
Artist : Biffy Clyro

Image and Typography : The image is of a man and woman, this is effective because they are opposites, and thus contrast against each other. A lot like the material that appears to be strapped to their heads. The use of tha man and the woman, and also the contrasting material draws the eye of the audience and has a certain artistic aspect. The fire also draws the eye of the audience. The text on the cover is center alligned so that the audience can view it with ease, the font also contrasts against the background.

Layout: The layout for this cover is very simplistic, which is what i like about it, the cover is just a picture that has been taken, The man and woman are in plain view of the audience, this was achieved by placing them in the center of the photo. I also like how the text is centered, this means it is easy to view. The artist name is also Underlined which is effective.

Colour Scheme: I like the colour scheme for this cover, it is very basic. Contrasting colours seem to be the main theme, for example the blue and red of the material contrast very well, as apposed to if the colours where black and brown, they would not look as good. The black font also contrasts on the blue sky well so is easily view able. 

Album : Suck It And See
Artist : Arctic Monkeys
Image and Typography: There isn't really an image for this cover, which is why it is seen to be so effective, the  simplicity surrounding this cover makes it really appealing. I like the idea of making a simple cover, but at the same time- it needs to have a certain artistic and skillful element.


Layout: The layout is also very simple, the text is placed in the center so is easily view-able to the audience, it also attracts the audience. This is the kind of thing i want on my Cover- i want one thing to be placed in the center of the cover, my idea was to have a Vinyl or Record placed in the center of the screen with a personalized label which reflects my album.

Colour Scheme: Again, the colour scheme appears to be contrasting colours, the same sort of convention i intend to use for my mock up, only with different colours- i intend to use slightly brighter colours, for example yellow: whereas this cover just uses black and white.

Album : Ready To Die
Artist : The Notorious B.I.G
Image and Typography : Again, this album may differ to the Genre that James and I have chose, but i admire the album cover because of it's simplicity. The image is that of a small child sitting on a white background, the baby is black- this contrasts well against the background.


Layout : The layout is similar to the other 2 covers, in terms of its simplicity, text is placed at the top and the bottom of the cover, whilst the image is in the middle, this is a often used convention. The fonts used for both the artist and the album name are the same, which ensures consistency- and i will take consistency into account when designing my own album cover.


Colour Scheme : The colour scheme is a simple three colours, which are Red, Black, and White, which adds to the simplicity, if there where, for example- 5 or 6 colours- there may be too much going on within the image. For my Cover that i will design, i wan't to use a maximum of 4 colours.

Album Mock Up

Below is the mock up for my album called 'Debut' from The Innocent Silence. As I discovered during the analysis of existing album covers, I have kept it simple, as I didn't want to take the risk of something too over the top. But I felt that I wanted to continue with the trends set by current album covers by keeping it simple. On the inside covers it also features the band biography (from the blog) and lyrics for the featured song on the album. I have kept to the 3 colour ruling, by keeping to the colour scheme simpleand using the colours from the images, however I had to darken the picture on the back cover as I needed to make the track listing readable.



Album Covers

Below is a selection of 5 different albums I have selected to analyse in a bid to help me design my own album cover for my own project. I have looked at many different albums in the alt rock genre to help me get an idea of the common conventions amongst them and the different styles they use.

The most recent Arctic Monkeys album is called Suck it and See, and was released in June this year. The design of this album cover doesn't follow the style set by their recent albums. As you can see from their latest release it is a simple approach, which I feel only works as they are a well established band. Their other albums feature different subjects i.e. with their first album "Whatever people say I am" features friend of the band Chris McClure smoking. However I do like the simplicity of this particular album cover, but I don't feel that if I followed a similar style with my album cover that it would work.

This album cover is the latest from American indie band The National for their album High Violet. What I like about this album is its simple but busy approach, which I feel matches their style of music. Again it isn't similar to their other album covers, but I prefer this album cover to any of their 5 albums since 2001. This is because I like the colourful effect of the art work, and that it stands out due to the colourful / unorganised approach. I feel that this catches the eye of potential customers, and stands out amongst competitors.

This album cover is from The Vaccines debut album "What else did you expect from the vaccines?" It follows the simplistic approach which I am looking to replicate with my own album cover. Personally, I don't like this album cover, I don't feel that it 'works'. I understand that the style of photo that they were looking to achieve isn't meant to show the faces, I don't think that the colour scheme works and find it boring.

This album is Foals' debut album called 'Antidotes', and was released in 2008. What I like about this album cover is the sketched outline of the character featured on the cover, who's mouth is filled full of what looks like to be sweets. I am starting to see a common theme amongst many of the indie/alt rock album covers I have analysed, in that many are simplistic, and some feature barely little on them (i.e. The Coldplay X&Y album below). I also like the font used by Foals, as I also feel that this helps reflect the genre of music - this is something I will need to think about seriously during the design of my own cover.

This album cover is from Coldplay's X & Y album from 2005. Again this follows the simplistic style which I have been researching because this is the style of album cover that I want to follow. This is something I have now decided that I want to follow in the design of my own album cover. This album cover from Coldplay features a basic design, and style with a multi coloured motif in the centre. This complements the background colour well, which helps the name of the album (top left) stand out well.

What I have discovered looking at the album covers is that many of them feature very little on the front cover, and all follow basic colour schemes and in some cases are frankly quite boring. However I feel that this works well in this genre, and allows the audience to make up their own minds about what the artwork is about, and if there are any meanings behind them leaving it open to interpretation.