CD Cover Analysis

What are the typical features that an album cover has?

From viewing the different album covers, which I have found, I can clearly see that they are similar in more than one way. Bellow is a list of the elements that they have in common;

• They all have a minimalistic look and layout, this keeps it easier to read the small amount of text and helps the viewer see it from a distance.

• Each piece of text is in a different font or has been formatted in a different way, I think this is to make it easier to read and so that the viewer can understand that the different format of text means something different for example on the David Guetta album his name is in a modern fresh styled font while the album title is in a different font and colour, this makes it clear that David Guetta is the artist and that this text is not part of the album title. Often the same font is used when the artists name is placed anywhere, this helps make people associate the font with the artist and recognise them if they see the name somewhere else. One difference with the P!nk album would be her font is all the same however her leg separates the two pieces of text while again stop the viewer from thinking its part of the title.

• Every album cover features the artist filling the picture. Two of the album covers show only the artists face and chest where as the P!nk album is slightly different, it does feature the artist however you can see almost her full body whilst she is straddling a rocking horse, this image is quite fun and outrageous this helps the style of the music become associated through images, the album name is called fun house and I feel that this is reflected through the front cover.

How would you categories the albums?

Each album has a different sort of genre and style, this can generally be worked out through bu the look and feel of the album art. For example a dance CD is not going to have a picture of a saxophone on the front because that would give out the wrong image, it would not have anything to do with the contents therefore the wrong image of the CD would be given out.

The Florence and the machine album art is quite natural, she is situated in front of what looks like plants and is leaning into them, the top is quite thin and allows us to see through it, and to go with the title ‘LUNGS’ she has a pair of lungs over her chest which can also be seen through the top. Her hair is simply tied up at the back and not done in the perfect style, which some artists go for. These reasons give a very calm and careless approach image out, which is almost hippy. The album is of an indie genre which I feel is portrayed well through the album art.

For David Guetta's album he is featured filling the full cover wearing sunglasses in an almost snap shot image of him. The album name and artist are positioned to the left and are the only part of the album which is colour, this makes it stand out on a shelf and keeps the attention on the artist name and the album. This is an unusual CD to categories by the look of the album art. I personally think the fonts used tell the viewer that it is going to be up beat and therefore showing it is going to be a dance / trance CD this is enforced by the bright pink title.

The final CD Cover which i looked at was the P!nk one, this is a very fun looking album art, which gets across straight away that the CD is going to be fun and up beat, the artist is featured in a happy mood whilst sat on a child's merry go round horse which helps the viewer make this assumption. The colours are bright which is the opposite technique used by David Guetta, however i think it is still eye catching due to its unusual visuals.