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.