Album Artwork - The Wanted & Battleground

THE WANTED 

The Wanted is the self-titled debut studio album by British-Irish boy band The Wanted, released on October 22, 2010 through Geffen Records. The majority of the album was written by members of the band, with help from songwriters Steve Mac, Wayne Hector, Ed Drewett and many more. The Wanted's first album premered at number one on the charts, making The Wanted the first boyband since The Blues, of 2001, to have their debut studio album premiere at number one on the charts without a TV show.


The vibe of the album cover is quite boy band orientated, in the way that the the photo on the front shows all of the members sitting in a car looking very powerful in the poses they are showing. Also the main colours that they are all wearing is black. Black is a colour that stands out and takes notice of how serious it is. In my opinion the use of the black compensates on how serious the band are on there music, and are not just another boyband. I also like the arrangement of the front of the CD, as it is not to fusses, it just get straight to the point having the name of the band/title at the top and a photograph of the artist.


When you look inside of the album, you have the booklet of song lyrics, photos and thank yous to people who created the album and all the support. The booklet back has and image of the band and at the top it has some writing that tells you about the album. To the right of that, is the actual CD. The disc has the bands logo stamped and printed onto it. Every CD has this to know that it is their own and has not be copyrighted. 


The back of the CD album has all of the songs that are on the disc. The text that is used is all in upper case letters. The back is very simple but get straight to the point in showing what is on the album and what the songs are called. 

In my opinion I like the look of the album as its not to complicated. It has a simple photo on the front and the self title album is a good idea, because it makes it easier to read. I mean this by when you would find this in a shop you are attracted to the image and the big font at the top. The target audience for this CD would be teenagers that may want to listen to a new up coming boyband that write their own songs. Also girls from kids to teenagers to young adults that may like the look of them and want to hear they voices.  

      

BATTLEGROUND

The band started working on their second studio album in January 2011. The album features writing credits from the group, Steve Mac, Wayne Hector, Ed Drewett, Diane Warren and Guy Chambers. The second album is called Battleground after being in one of their songs. The album got to number 5 in the album charts, with having 3 top 5 singles with in the album. The most successful song that is 8th biggest single this year was Glad You Came.


First of all the front of the CD covers, has different shades of reds and purples setting in a deserted area. The members are stood right in front of the the landscape looking straight at the camera with a stern look in their eyes. Again the name of the group is right at the top of the cover with also the name of the album in uppercase underneath. I love how the camera has caught every bit of detail that is in the rocks/mountains behind but also in the facial detail of each individual member the group.


When you open the inside of the CD, to the left you can see the booklet that again as information about who wrote the songs and thank yous to their friends, family and fans that have supported them from the start. On that booklet is quite natural image of the TW, looking down and closing their eyes waiting for the command to look up at pose for the photograph. I do like this addition to the booklet because it isn't to fussing but its just makes the impact you just want. 


To the right of that is the CD disc which again has the name of the band on the top of the disc and at the bottom it has the name of the actual album in a smaller font. 


As we close the CD and turn to the back you can see a lot going on. At the top is all of the songs that are in the album, all in white uppercase font and underlined so they stand out. The main aspect of the back cover is the photograph of the band. The picture that has been used is very eye catching in the way that the members are walking away from the camera then suddenly turning around at the right moment. The fact that it is in black and white makes it more striking and effective when you look at the back.

In my opinion I like this album artwork because of how simple it looking with the brightly colours, that may capture some one to by it in a music shop. But also the photo images compensate quite well with the look and style that the album may give you, when you first listen to it. I feel the target audience is for people that already loved the band and their type of music from the first album. Teenagers from young adults my buy this album because of their catchy songs but have been perfectly written. Or even that may like one of their songs want to listen to what else they have instore.  

       

Digital Screen Printing

Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. Instead of hand making a screen print, we asked to make a digital screen print being inspired by this image. We were supposed to use our chosen band that we are making 'song of the summer' album.

Again the band I have used throughout this process has been THE WANTED. This is the original image that I would create my digital screen printing poster from.>>>  




After uploading the image I wanted to make into an poster print using animal heads, I then found animals that I found quite suitable to have as each individual members 'heads'. These are the animals I chose; Elephant, Parrot, Lion, Wolf and Monkey. 

Once i had uploaded all of the images that I was going to be using in this print. I had to make each picture black and white, and adjust the contrast and the grey scale. I made the main photo of the band more poster like as adding more defined highlights to it. I also erased the heads of the boys so that you would not be able to see the actual members face or hair. 

For the animal heads, I used the pen tool to draw around then to just have the heads in frame. I also made these new images more poster like. After that I had to place each of the animals faces on top of the bands shoulders and neck where the head would normal be.

Then after arranging where to place the animals, I then added some text and some 'fire' images to make the poster stand out. I also added different colours to the image to get a nice vibrant feel to it and making sure you could see every bit of detail.

Below is my final out come. I really do like this image as it is very unique and quite artist, in the way that a lot of imagination has gone into coming up with an picture like this. I like the poster like qualities that this picture has. Out of some of the experiments that I have done I really like this final result the most.

        

Vector Image

This was another part of our experimentation work. We had to pick a photo of our chosen band or artist, that we had to 'vectorise', this meant by selected the four main colours of the image and drawing around those using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. >>>

First of all I uploaded my chosen image of The Wanted and made the image a more easier picture so that I could draw around the outlines of the figures and the facial details. I firstly had to selected the four colours that were the most dominate in the image. The colours were pink, white, black and green. 

Once the colours were picked out, I locked the colour layers that I would not be using at that time, and started drawing out the details of that colour layer I was on. After a while I managed to get the idea of drawing the shapes and lines, and it became a lot easier to complete. Once all the shapes and lines were in place, I added different colours so each different part of the image. 

Above are the step by step images that I took to add colour into the vector image...

After I had finished with drawing around the facial  details, different clothes and adding  many colours to each section of the band, I wanted the background to still incorporate the original back ground, but i added a lime green layer just in front of it. I took the opacity slightly down so that you could see the definition of the image. 

All in all after getting the hang of the idea of creating a vector image, I do like mine image as you can tell it is definitely hand made and quite unique in a way. However I don't think I would want to make another vector image again.       

Stitching

Another part of our experimentation work was to look at PULP the album cover. This is the Pulp album we had to re-create, in the style of stitching. The first thing we had to complete both making our own 'PULB' inspired CD cover, we had to take photos of each other making different poses and shapes so we could then draw around them. Here are images of myself trying to pose for the camera. 

These are the two photos that I used to start by stitching CD cover. To make the image into a silhouette, I drew around the figure with the pen tool. After that i collected some images off of the internet of some fabric materials. Once I had collected the fabric style materials, I then uploaded the images into photoshop to make them be the main part of the figure. Then after making the fabric materials the figures main  body, I later added a bold colour out line to make the silhouette more dominate. One of the last thing I did to complete my CD cover, was make the word BAND out of sequins. I did this by uploading a photo of a sequin into photoshop and created a bush stamp out of it, making the word BAND. The final thing I did to complete this was to make the background a two tone colour making the top left hand corner a dark purple, descending into white on the bottom right corner.

In my opinion I like what i have created using me as apart of the re-created design. I also like that I have learnt to use the Photoshop tools better as i have proceeded with using the application. 

    

Album Artwork Analysis

COLDPLAY - X&Y

The band are called Coldplay, who are know worldwide for their songs such as Fix You, Vida la Vida, Paradise and Every Teardrops a Waterfall. This is one of their albums called X and Y.  X&Y is the third studio album by British the rock band released 6 June 2005 in the United Kingdom via the record label Parlophone. When I first saw this artwork I thought it was a little bit boring and confusing trying to work out the shape on the cover. The CD cover uses a lot of colours to entice potential buyers to get the album. In my opinion I wouldn’t really consider looking into too much detail of the album cover because I like that band. However if I didn’t like the band, the unusual artwork my catch my eye in the shop because of the colours and the strange symbol in the middle of the page. The target audience for this cover would be any body how loves the band or that who is interested in the complex drawing on it.  I also love that the artist name is spread all over the page to get them noticed, I feel its all about the symbol in the middle that actually makes the name of the album in a code 'X and Y'. All in all the design is quite unique and maybe more for people who like the band to buy the album. 

The Chemical Brothers - Push The Button

The Chemical Brothers are an English electronic music duo composed of Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons. Originating in Manchester in 1991, along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method. Their music is the big beat circuit, which is basically dance music. When I first saw this album art work I likes the look of the way it was set out with the name of the album being the centre of attention. I like the use of colours because it isn't to fancy or over the top to look at. I like the way there's a fist pumping in the air, to look like the band have power or when you listen to the music you want to rave to it. Also the use of an outline of a face is a good idea to use because where the words for the album title, they have been used to shape a 'brain'. The target audience that this band are for is for people that may like dance music or possible because they like the cover, because it is quite different to any other CD cover.  All in all, i really like the use of colour used, and the use of imagery.

BECK - THE INFORMATION 

The Information is the tenth (and seventh major-label) studio album by American alternative rock musician Beck, released in October 2006 on Interscope Records. People that would this type of genre of music would be people who love Beck or alternative rock music. In my opinion, when I first saw this album artwork I was a little confused because it was just the bands name in block letters. Then once I opened up the CD case I found lots of stickers. The main reason behind the stickers is to make your own individual album cover using the stickers of the bands songs. The use of stickers may resemble childhood memories to create your own world as such. Another feel I get from the cover is a retro style, using very bright colour stickers images and the use of graph paper is another childhood memory from school. In my opinion I like the concept of the idea but when you first look at the cover, personally I wouldn't want to by it.

THE SHINS - CHUTES TOO NARROW

The Shins are an American indie rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico, formed in 1996. The album Chutes Too Narrow cover is quite artistic in the way that there is a lot of illustrations to show the songs that are in the album. The look of this album is quite cartoonish using simple images to explain the song titles. However, for a indie rock band I don't think the cover suits that type of music, as I feel it looks to childlike. Or maybe that's what the artist wanted to achieve with this cover. The use of colours are quite good because there is only a few colours picked out, but there is just too much colour in my opinion. I do like the why that the artwork has been laid out because it isn't the normal CD booklet that you would normally get in the case. 

Out of of the CD's that I have analysed I like the look of The Shins album because it is cartoonish and different to other covers. I like the concept of Beck's album by creating your own cover. Also the colours in The Chemical Brothers album are quite simple. But the album that i like the most is Coldplay's album because they're the type of band i would normally listen to, despite not really like the 'X&Y' cover.