Album Covers & Magazine
Album Cover Layout:
I designed the album in Photoshop. The front and back cover are pictures of myself when we were filming in Abney Park. Naseha and Fabiha took pictures of me using the DSLR camera. Abney Park is very gothic styled park as well as a cementary, which perfectly suited our dark theme for our Indie/Pop music video. We found an area in Abney Park that looked like a place you expect in a fantasy/fairytale film, because of the tress, grass and randomly arranged tombstones on both sides of the central, narrow, muddy lane.
We agreed for me to stand and pose in that lane, whilst Naseha and Fabiha take pictures of me from different angles and in different shots. The photo for the front cover is a mid shot of myself with a serious facial expression, as the songs in the album are lost love and intense emotions and the facial expression gives the impression to the audience that this Indie/Pop artist's image is more focused on being mysterious and gloomier than being more upbeat like Marina and the Diamonds and Lily Allen. I looked directly at the camera so the viewer identitfies who is the artist.
The costume suited the foresty backdrop because the colour of the grass and trees are alightly darker and isnt as vibrant like the costume, because of the lack of summery flowers. It is expected for Indie/Pop artists to wear very minimal yet classy and vintage jewellery, so I decided to wear this pearl necklace, as this meets that description. Also, the photo for the back cover is me again, but shown to be walking away from the camera. The idea of me walking away from the camera links with the title of the album 'Let's Restart', the artist is walking to hope to restart on her relationship with her previous lover, which also matches the lines from the lyrics 'Let our love being again', from the actual 'Let's Restart' song.
We took the above photos, again using the DSLR camera in Wapping. The reason for this is the sun was beginning to set and skies looked very impressive, which also links with the location shot of the trees in Abney Park and the small clips we used for the projection scenes that were added in our music video.
In Photoshop, I used a the Color Replacment tool for all four covers because I wanted a purple filter, with subtle dull toned hues of colour of teal, blue and pink because this colour and type of filter goes with the Indie/Pop genre more. In a Indie or Indie/Rock genred album cover, it would be filtered in a monochrme tone or no filter at all, because the focus on the Indie genre is the actual song and its emotional and insightful lyrics, that the older audience would relate to, rather than focusing on the artistic and visual design. Arists such as The 1975, Coldplay and Artic Monkeys; during the eariler 21st century are good examples of this, as well as that these music groups are male, they tend to focus on the creative side less than the female artists, such as Florence and the Machine and Lana Del Rey.Whereas in Pop only genre, the colour scheme would be more vibrant, uplifitng because it would appeal to the mass audience, particularly the younger audience. Artists such as Britney Spears' in her younger years, Little Mix decipt that colourful imagery within their album artwork and music videos.
I added less of the purple filter in the Abney Park photos because the dark green from the natural scenery subtly and delightfully clashes againist the purple. The purple also emphasises that fairytale like scenery in Abney Park. I slightly brighted my face a little by using the Inkdropper tool to get the colour of my skintone so then I use the Brush tool to make my skin look more brighter and stand out against the backdrop because intially the natural lighting in Abney Park did not show my face as much as the trees in the back.
Picking Fonts:
For Fonts, I went to this website called 'Dafont' and searched for fonts that would suit the theme of the album cover as well as be easy to read for the potential consumers.
These are the fonts I liked best. I downloaded all of them and checked out which font actually goes best with the front cover, so then once I pick which font I liked best for theartist name, I will then use that same font for the magazine ad.
My group and I decided that we liked the fourth font in the top row (called 'Alisandra on the website} for the artist's name because it nicely contrasts against the font for the album title. We immediately like the font 'Nxie One' for the album title 'Let's Restart' without considering any other fonts, because its simple and not overly designed. If we chose a font with calligraphy, it would look too much with the backdrop and with the tartan print from my shirt. We chose for both the fonts to be coloured white, so it stands out from the dark toned artwork.
Company Logo
I went to the Dafont website again to find a visually eye catchy logo font, I found a font called 'Fishfingers' because it is cute, quirky and it goes with the genre. I decided to name the company somehting simple and easy to remember, so I named it 'Indigo' because it sounds very close to Indie and the colour is in between purple and blue, which links with the theme of the album cover. I first wanted to design the colour, but I realised that it would be unnecessary because you would not be able to notice the extra design it once i place onto the back cover, so I kept the font colour to be white so it is easy to identify.
Magazine Ad
As mentioned before, we kept the same font for the artist name, the font that was used for the album title was used for the other details. I added no purple filter to the trees and grass, instead I added more green and teal filter using the Color Replacement tool because I wanted the artist name to be a dark purple, so then I can place that font behind the bluish white sky and the green/teal filter is more lighter than the purple filter. But I filtered the muddy lane in the purple tone because I wanted the theme for the magazine ad and album cover to have an consistent purple theme to it and the purple llane compliments the artist name title.I included the necessay details such as the website URL link, so it obviously shows that we are promoting the artist and her album by magazine and her ''website''. I placed the picture of the front cover in the bottom left cover, so you can still appreciate the artwork in the magazine.
This is one of my earlier draft of the magazine ad. I added more colored filter to not just the backdrop, but to my face and shirt. But we decided to go for a purple theme as this color would represent the darker Indie/Pop image of the artist more than using this picture, which looks too abstract and dystopian, rather than gothic and fairytale like.