Tuesday, 1 October 2013

CD Artwork Analysis'

I think that this album cover was made using Adobe Photoshop; the portrait would have been placed on a new document in photoshop and cartoonised with a texture added to the portrait as well as the background of the whole album cover. A popart effect has been created where the main aspects of Madonna's face have been coloured. 

An example of popart, which inspired this album cover: 
The use of this technique highlights Madonna's personality as she is a self concious person who cares about her appearance, so would therefore enhance specific areas of her face. There is also a 'paint splash' effect on the cover as a 'background' for the album cover for the title: 'CELEBRATION' . This could have been made using a stencil and coloured ink. This album cover relates to the potential outcome for my album cover as I intend on combining a handmade experiment using coloured ink ot create the same 'splash' effect. The composition of the colour in the hair in-particular as well as the bright colours on her face visually emphasizes Madonna's outgoing personality, which is a complete contrast to the personality of the model (Marylin Monroe) in the original popart image (second image) the designer was inspired by. I like the way that this album cover has been has been designed as it was clearly thought about before it was made, allowing the designer to create a meaning, eventhough only a few techniques were used. This has inspired me to not incorporate too many effects to my cover. This is because using too many effects will make the idea im trying to portray become unclear.   

 This CD cover was designed for the artist Notorious B.I.G's album 'The Final Chapter'. The portrait on this album cover was placed onto Photoshop to then be edited using various textures, patterns and a colour scheme of red shades, black, white and grey shades. The colour scheme links very well with the album name. This is because the different shades of red can be seen as a representation of blood/death, which is a theme that relates to the title as it is called 'The Final Chapter', which could be a metaphoric phrase to do with the end of someone's life for example. This theme also incorporates with one of the song titles from the album which is: 'Just A Memory', which is what a dead person would be. The placing of the colours with the portrait used are appropriate to the design because it gives the cover a masculine type of vibe. This is due to the way it looks as if it was designed to be 'messy' which is unlike the stereotype of females that like designs to be neat and tidy. I think that the messy look almost compliments the emotion on B.I.G's face as his expression seems as if he is carless, which seems to be the same type of mood the designer of the album was trying to portray to the customers. The use of the newspaper prints placed at different angles relates to the album title as it creates a sense of detoriation and something that has been left alone for a while as it had come to an end, for example: a shop that has been shut down and had newspapers placed over the windows. The use of the font represents the artist as it is bold and standard, just like how B.I.G is very standard with his meaningfull lyrics and gets his views across to his listeners. The composition of the font alos relates to the masculine effect as it hasn't been placed straight. 



 This is an album cover made by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin who are a Dutch fashion photographer duo who are known for their work in fashion magazines and advertisements. They were both born in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Inez was born on 25th September 1963 and Vinoodh was born on 29th September 1961. The name of this art piece is Bjork Vespertine Album Cover. It was made using a piece of acetate and placing it on a piece of photopaper on the board of an enlarger while the negative of the Bjork was placed in the 'neg carrier', then image created was exposed to light to appear on the photopaper. I have chosen to to analyse this picture in particular because these two artists inspired me to make my own acetate & negative prints. The contrast between the black, white and grey soft tones resemble the way Bjork is calmly resting which I think creates an effect on the public as it allows them to view it in a particular way.

I would say that this picture ties into two themes; doodling and portraiture. This is because the acetate image is done as a doodle, and the picture of Bjork is clearly a portrait. I think that the work has been done as a symbolisation to convey a calm image/message to the public informing us on the type of music featured on the album. This is because firstly, Bjork is calmly resting on the front cover. Secondly the drawn image of the swan also conveys a peaceful message as those birds are known to represent peace and calmness which I think was done to outline her personality.


This is a picture that I made after being inspired by the Bjork Vespertine Album Cover. First I took a photo of a scenery outside using an SLR camera. I then made the design using tracing paper. The settings I used for the photo that I took were: F.8 and I used 2 seconds to expose it to the light. Unfortunately this picture came out too dark therefore I did the experiment again using the same negative and pattern using F.5.6 and 1.5 seconds which allowed the image to look alot clearer and brighter.

1 comment:

  1. Some good analysis, well done! It's good to see you making connections, especially to your own work.

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