CD Cover Designs.

After my initial attempts I decided rather than throw myself in head first I would have a bit of a planning session. Taking aside the measurements I decided to put some notes onto paper.

As you can see from the image to the left I came up with a few ideas. I decided to go with a normal jewell case to keep things simple. I also decided to include an inside booklet so that I would cover the required '4 panes' as well as add an extra indie type touch.

I decided to have a single strong colour dominating on the front and back cover with simplistic black edges. This is because it would contrast greatly against other CD Cases or Album Covers thereby drawing the potential buyers eye to pick the case up. Or to prompt the thought "Huh that looks interesting".

Where as to add that little special 'indie' touch I also wanted to add a booklet with the lyrics of the songs as well as a few relevant images. To keep to the contrast ideas of the outside of the case I was going to have them be in a simple domination background image / colour with only a limited amount of imagery here and there.



This would mean that in total there would be 7 panes throughout the CD Case. Firstly with the Booklet acting as the front of the album with 6 panes and the Back of the CD case as the 7th.

Front of CD Case + Booklet

After looking at a few other CD Cases I decided to have our lead singer Owen as the face of the CD Case. I decided to use a medium shot so that we can have him singing as well as playing his instrument to bring in the aspiration listeners. I also employed a 'Ray of light' affect to draw the audience to look at Owen after reading the large title 'Blighters'. Furthermore by the way we're taught to read we then look from left to right thereby the viewer instantly reads the Album name.

The image only uses 4 imagery layers (once ; firstly we have a high-resolution papery texture to add a bit of unique with a low opacity of around 25%; secondly there is a radial gradient of yellow to green with an overlay setting to create the background; thirdly the rays of light with an overlay setting of only 35% opacity; finally there is Owen with a desaturated affect.

Creating the ‘Rays of Light’ was quite challenging. I employed the Pen tool and created a single ray where I then went onto duplicating it multiple times. After that I then transformed each image and rotated them in 20 degrees multiples until I achieved the final affect you see. For a more detailed explanation of how I achieved some of my editing look [ HERE ].

The text has numerous affects such as Shadow along with stroke to make it more imposing; there are 9 different text layers on the image. I wanted to create a affect as thought the Album name was traveling along the guitar and then falling off it to the ground which leads us onto the back of the CD Case.

Back of CD Case

Once again I decided to use the same background with a slightly different paper texture. Along with this I wanted to use a puddle like high resolution texture to create a ground affect. The idea behind this is that the ‘I’, ‘o’ and ‘n’ has fallen to the ground. Where I then went onto have the songs on the album displayed.

I decided to use a blue text as though the song names had fallen into a puddle. This affect may not come across clearly but it does have a very impressive manner of drawing your eyes straight to the songs which is the point behind the back of this case.

You may notice the edges, these are for the edges of the CD Case. I decided to keep them simple with a black overlay on the green background. By using this contrast anyone picking up the CD Case will be instantly drawn to the green thereby advertising the songs and band name.

Inside of CD

The 1st and 3rd pages of the booklet were designed to be annotations of the lyrics while also showing some imagery from the "Boy's in Motion" music video I had produced in my main production. Furthermore I wanted to name the band members somewhere in the album so that the audience knew who played what instrument and could visually link them. I achieved this on the 3rd page of the booklet (right image).

The 2nd and 4th inside images of the Booklet were also designed around the lyrics of the song. However I wanted to have a drastically contrasting colour to the imagery in the previously mentioned pages. So I went for a more graphic idea, similar to the front of the Album. Similarly the back of the Booklet (right image) went back to the blue colour. This created a graphic element, strong blue coloured picture then graphic element pattern to the booklet.

Overall the product came out successfully I personally find the 2nd inside image of the booklet (left image above) to be my best product. It relates to the lyrics far more successfully than the other pages while also keeping to a simple not to busy design.

Initial CD Cover Ideas

Blighters is a Indie-New Wave band so I felt that I would aim for more of an alternative artistic design similar to that of There for Tomorrow’s ‘Pages’ album or the Fast Forward: Indie Trax cover. Knowing that my creative skills aren’t that impressive I wanted to keep to a simple design, thinking of this put me into the mind of New Wave being similar to graffiti and sent me on a hunt through my album collection for inspiration.

I then came across an album cover by Open Chapter called ‘falling to be held’. This cover has the simplicity yet interest I was looking for. The horizon affect, or rays of light, also suited my idea extremely well because of the relation to the New Wave genre with it being related to a New Dawn, or rising sun.

With these initial thoughts I then decided to have a go at using Adobe Illustrator. The first image I created was this high contrast design. I liked the strict differences in colour however after further fiddling I found the affect used called 'Trace' was very limiting in it's affects and created a huge loss in the detail of the image.

Not letting this deter me I spent a bit more time on the image and in the end found that the limits of detail was very annoying. Looking further from that the first outcome had a completely off colour scheme for the genre. Suiting a more grungy band than indie. The second outcome wasn't anymore effective.

I felt that the outcome was to cheesy to be an Album Cover. While the contrast was good the amount of detail lost even when multiple character layers was used was to immense to be an effective path. But I felt i should at least attempt to use the horizon affect I had liked the look of and a few of the outcomes can be seen below.

The horizon affect created quite strong images, however they had lost my desired affect and had no obviously location to host the name of the album or band name. Even though using the speakers seemed a good idea in my initial attempts the text was far to small in comparison to the album cover.

So I decided to go back to the drawing board and to select a different album cover image. I went through my original selection of images from [ THIS ] post. Knowing that I had hit something good with the 'Rays of light' / Horizon affect I decide to push forward using a stronger single image.

To see my thought process and the CD Covers Design stage look [ HERE ] and for the finished products [ HERE ].

Lily Allen - LDN Analysis

Edited to Higher Standard - 28/01/10


The song LDN, or London, is from Lily’s debut album ‘Alright, Still’ and is held within the pop genre. An overview of the video shows us that it follows a linear narrative of Lily travelling through 2 distinctive worlds. One being the usual pop sensation of everything is bright and vibrantly perfect while the other is a darker reality challenging the traditional pop video mise-en-scene of paradise.

When you look with your eyes
Everything seems nice
But if you look twice
you can see it's all lies

As you can see the lyrics support the 2 different views of the world. This connotation is that even though everything may look perfect on the surface it may not be in you look deeper. The music video even seems to challenge the audience to have a second look at Lily herself. This is when you notice even though she is wearing a strongly feminine dress she is also wearing trainers further pushing this idea that everything and everyone has layers to them.

Furthermore throughout the entire video even though everyone else changes from being a handsome knight into a man being chucked out or a nice youth to being a mugger, Lily stays the same as though her upbeat personality can change your view of the world. This connotes the usual pop genre cliché of the singer being beautiful and pure, a stereotypical representation.

However at the very end of the music video when Lily’s happiness is crushed she loses her brightness yet stays in her dress and even has a strop by kicking a rubbish bin. This challenges the usual representation of the female gender by having her being aggressive at dismissal from meeting her friend rather than upset or hopeless like a feminine fatale.
Once again the lyrics ‘But if you look twice’ come into the limelight, by having Lily in her dress in both versions of the world she presents another stereotype of celebrities such as herself are always perfect looking regardless of their surroundings.

The audience are most likely expected to enjoy seeing the perfect world and the amusement of its child-like entity yet also know that the dark image is more akin to reality. This would make the target audience more than likely to be young females however Lily Allen herself is portrayed as a woman with her long flowing dress to draw in the male audience. While not a heavy laying of curves is displayed Lily Allen’s unique attractiveness is brought forward, especially the quirkiness of wearing trainers in a dress. So while the audience would mainly be dominated by the female audience of around 15-25 a large number of males in a similar age group have been targeted as well.

Touching on the editing techniques used you can see quite an impressive overlaying affect by having 2 very different shots showed on the screen at the same time. The blurred halo affect further adds to the fact that Lily is in a bubble of her personality, which can lighten up the world, strongly sticking to the generic pop “the world is perfect” persona. Other editing includes the quick succession of shots to the musical beat during her travels through London to the destination to meet, who we presume to be, her friend.

To conclude the music video holds many traditional aspects of the pop genre such as the perfect world, pure singer and large amounts of bright vibrant colours. However it also contains many challenges such as the darker version of the world, the lyrics containing aggressive references as well as Lily being almost normal in having a strop when she’s stood up. A strong video that employs unique editing technique to make a simple narrative of walking to meet a friend amusing and questioning with its lyrics ringing in your ears in the end.

“When you look with your eyes everything seems nice but if you look twice you can see it's all lies”

Music Video Screens

Here are a few screens from the music video which may come in handy when designing my Digipak.

Title Screen

This screen could enable me to cut out the letters and use them for the band title on the CD Cover. This would provide some conscientcy between the Music Video and CD Case.

Band Shots


The first band shot would be perfect for the front cover by having all of the band members on at once. The other images may be useful for the inside booklet due to there high contrast between the background and attention seeking section.

Performance Shots

These images may come in handy, once again the 4th image has a brilliant background for a contrasting image. I also feel the 6th image would be perfect for the Back of the CD Case due to it's humour value.

CD Case Dimensions

These are some basic dimensions for a Jewel Case. Something to keep in mind when I'm designing the case on the PC.

CD Case - Discussion of Formats.

When looking into what design to use for the CD Case there are numerous types to take inspiration from from jewel or digipaks to extreme Box sets.

Jewel Cases are the norm for most Music CD's which shelves stack full of them and has been the favourite way of distributing your bands music for well over the past decade. This is down to the simplicity of the design and ease of production.

The Digipak has been round for nearly just as long. Generally made out of card and seen as a more environmental friendly method of producing CD Cases it has failed to take over the market due to increased production costs. However the digipak normally offers a far more pleasant to own case due to the better materials used!

Other extreme CD Cases include collectables like this Kiss CD collection case. These are far more expensive to produce so are definitely considered rarities and normally at least 10 times the price of the other 2 mentioned cases above.

I personally prefer the Jewel case because they are all down to an industrial standard meaning they will always fit into your CD Rack.

A Perfect Circle - Judith

Added More



A Perfect Circle - Judith is an amazing music video to look at technically, the amount of different shot types and use of editing affects to create a quick and power video is very impressive. To show this let's look at the variety of shots used within the first 10 seconds of video in detail.


The first shot is a medium shot of the lead singer at a slightly low angle with a large spotlight coming from behind creating a almost dreamlike affect, this along with the grunge type overlay of the image creates an almost gothic atmosphere. This connates his importance by having him as the first band member you see while also following a rock genre stereotype of the huge contrast differences. The light is coming from behind him, and is not in front, which connotes that he brings the light, or in this case the music.


A quick succession of images follows, with one being of the technology used to create the music offering a unique look at what's used. This can bring in the audience because of it's aspiration values of wanting to be a musician or to create your own music even though it only briefly appears. The next 2 shots are of objects the more interesting of the 2 being the pool table, this is to add irrelevant images to add a layer of mystery to where they are.

The following 5 seconds mainly concentrated on the band in performance type shots, however within this small amount of time we have 4 perspectives used of the band and see all of them performing their part of the song. This is a great example of the norm of music videos. By showing a quick succession of band performance shots you can bring aspirational viewers as well as the interest of other viewers just by the sheer volume.

Another medium shot displaying the drum player quickly gives way to a side shot of another band member while also showing the entire band and the huge white light coming through in the background.

However it's the next 2 shots which are the best example of what makes a good music video. The first shot is of a close up of the lead singer performing while using depth of field it draws you to watch the singer. Once again by having the lead singer the centre of the shot it connotes his importance and dominance of the band, especially by having the other band member blurred out.

The final shot of the first 10seconds on the other hand is a key element to a performance based, and that is extreme close ups of the instruments themselves being played. This adds a layer of aspiration for the viewers, you want to be able to play that instrument and are instantly impressed by it.

So as you can see within a very brief time scale A Perfect Circle has numerous shots which draw the audience in with the skill and editing used to create them. On top of this the entire music video has a video effect of adding a old film type quality to it, a grunge style. This follows the stereotype of rock bands being quite earthy and almost dark.

The mise-en-scene used throughout this video is that of a dark and gloomy atmosphere. This follows the feeling and vibe of the song with lyrics such as "Not like you killed someone". The layered effect on top of the video with it's almost like it's been recorded on a filmstock and has been slightly damaged. Slightly ambiguous as to why it has been damaged making it slightly more mysterious.

A Perfect Circle is a good example of the strategy most music videos now follow. By containing both a narrative and performance shots it can bring in a wider audience while also keeping the interest levels high by having a wider amount of different shots. The suitability to the rock genre is spot on even though it is leaning more towards hard rock with it's gothic atmosphere. The amount of extreme close up of the instruments is spot on, just by having a quick look at other similar rock band video you can see the similarities.

All together this music video is very good and suits it's genre very well. It brings in the audience via it's aspirational goals with all the extreme close ups of the instruments being played as well as a large amount of interest by the ambiguity of the video.

Music Video Planning

Song - Blighters - Boys in Motion

Video Idea
We are currently looking at doing a primarily a performance video due to our music video research showing that the best skating videos such as Lost Prophets Shinobi VS. Dragon are centred around performance and come out extremely well with little to no narrative.

Narrative (?)
If we were to employ a narrative we would sue something along these lines to keep with the Song lyrics themselves to not make it to ambiguous so that the audience can't follow it at all.

• Journey to skate park
• Skating alone
• Progressing to a better clothed skater (Inline with lyrics of "New Life, new work")

Throughout this narrative we would be using a large range of performance shots of the skater doing tricks around the band and rural skatepark.

Performance
The performance would be made up of different shots of Skating tricks. We'd aim to have a range of different angles from low to high as well as different distance shots similarly to the images below taken from the Lost Prophets Shinobi VS. Dragon.

As you can see the majority of the skateboarding shots are taken from a low angle enabling you to gain a better view of the skateboard itself. We plan to use this shot type within our own video. Likewise by recording the skater performing a large trick you can attract aspirers or other skateboarders enlarging the audience attraction.

Location
We are looking to use our local skatepark (Hethersett). This will provide a contrast to other skateboarding videos of the larger skateparks as well as add a layer of humour with the sheep in the background. It all connotes a laid back, more rural approach, which will fit in well with aesthetics of the band as well as the skateboarders clothing.

As you can see from the 4 shots above this is a low end simple skatepark, keeping with the aesthetic of a "New Wave" band. Plus by having an open background at the time of day we're planning to film the music video you will get a strong visual background adding to the feeling and impact of the video, plus it further empowers the lighting we're using.

The actual layout of the skatepark suits our ideas in the fact the central ramp acts as mini-central stage. By having the band in the middle of the skatepark and at a slightly lower angle will connote their importance further.

Camera Angles

We plan to have a high amount of low angle shots to increase the size of the band and to further connote their importance as mentioned in the Location section. We also plan to have quite a few over head shots to gain a larger impression of the skate park.

We shall be following the stereotype of other music videos by having numerous close up shots of the lead singer to further connote his importance as the head of the band. Plus a few other ideas we have is to have a side extreme close up of the band members playing their instruments to draw in the audience. Especially those with aspirations to be musicians themselves.

Lighting
Current lighting is going to be comprised of power torches and gas lamps providing accurate and powerful light. This will enable us to highlight the band and skater during the slowly decreasing light creating a power contrast between the darkening field around the skatepark and the band performing and the tricks being preformed.

Plus with it being a very open area we should be able to use the sky as a magnificent background for the band. A good example of what I mean is the shot below taken out of our video:

Props and Equipment

Skateboard, instruments (Guitar, Drums, Microphone & Bass), step ladder for high angle shots, camera as well as tripod & of course costumes. We will be getting most of the equipment from Ryan's garage. We will be borrowing the camera from the 6th Form.

By having the majority of props coming from actual group members it will make transporting them to the filming site far easier. Plus by using school equipment we save ourselves a lot of hassle of making sure our own cameras will work with the school programs.

For more detail on the Costumes & Actors Click Here