The first disc records, ones that we would recognize as such, appeared around 1910. Most often these were packaged in plain brown Paper or cardboard sleeves. Occasionally and enterprising retailer would print his store name on the sleeve but generally they were unadorned.
In the early 1920's retailers started gathering many of these cardboard sleeves and binding them together with heavy paperboard or leather covers. These looked similar to large photo albums and, borrowing the name, were sold as record albums. These albums offered much greater protection for the discs than the original packaging and were seen as indispensible to disc owners that had seen too many of their fragile records broken.
Beginning in the 1930s the record companies started using these record albums to distribute bundles of records from one performer or a collection of performers with similar musical styles. Some of the first cover designs can be traced to these albums and the record company’s desire to graphically communicate the music each album held.
Alex Steinweiss the art director for Columbia Records is given credit for the concept of modern cover art. He experimented with different concepts and images through the late 1930s and into the early 1940s. During this time Columbia Records rebounded from the terrible years they had suffered during the depression to become one of the most prominent record companies in the United States. Much of this was due to their ground breaking use of graphical design. By the close of the decade all major recording companies had graphic design professionals on staff.
The golden era of cover art design began in the early to mid 1960s and lasted into the early 1980s. During this time the major format for music was the 12 inch, long play disc or LP. Cover art became a part of the musical culture of the time. Often used to express graphically the musician’s artistic intent, it helped connect and communicate to listeners the message or underlying theme of the album.
Designers, photographers, and illustrators sometimes became famous for their cover art creations. Such notables as Andy Warhol and Frank Frazetta were taken from being known in their industry to becoming household names due to their cover art graphic design work. So respected and desired are the designs and illustrations found in cover art that there are numerous art galleries that specialize in helping collectors find rare album covers.
As the medium for recording transitioned from the LP to the compact disc many graphic designers failed to transition with it. Having worked for so long with the much larger canvas of the LP cover, switching to the smaller CD case left most designers dissatisfied with their results. Often artist and record companies simply tried to shrink the LP size art to fit the CD.
Album cover art, now almost exclusively CD and CD packaging artwork, went through a period of change and rebirth in the 1990s. Designers learned to capture snapshots and portions of the artist’s musical intent rather than trying to convey the entire message. Also designers started conveying the emotion of the music rather than the musical intent.
In the late 90s computer design programs started to overcome the physical limitations of the smaller CD packaging. With the ability to draw much tighter, finer lines and have even small details look crisp and sharp, once again designers were free to explore a larger variety of design options. As the technology continued to improve graphic designers adapted and were once again producing world class artwork.
In the present, CD design is undergoing a true renaissance. Rather than becoming obsolete in the digital age as many thought it would, graphic design is once again proving itself as the difference maker. The internet is now the largest record store imaginable. Now rather than browsing a few hundred albums or songs at a time you may be exposed to thousands and thousands. Since it would be impossible to listen to portions of all those thousands of songs the design of the accompanying artwork must cause potential listeners to stop and take notice and give this album a try.
Here is a video which provides an interesting take on the implications of album artwork in relation to marketing:
Research: CD Digipaks Existing Products
In this task I had to identify the conventions of I'll Keep Calling by JP Harris and the Tough Choices, as well as decoding the codes of the album design. The PowerPoint below demonstrates my analysis of each panel: the front cover, back cover and the two inner covers. This task has enabled me to understand the significance of codes included on the albums design; they ensure that the audience can distinguish the genre as well as providing visual indications to what the album may be about.
Research: Indie Album Covers
To develop my understanding and knowledge of codes and conventions of album covers, I decided to specifically look at artists who are in the same genre as my chosen artist - Indie. This will show me common codes and conventions that I can use in my packaging design.
The other artists that I'll be looking at are Bastille, Arctic Monkeys and The Kooks.
Additionally, I looked at NME's 50 Iconic Indie Album Covers to, again, see if there are any codes and conventions of the genre that are extremely common.
By completing my own research and looking at iconic album covers, I was able to establish common design traits of the genre, such as:
- A monochromatic theme - This is popular in the indie genre because of the way it initiates a sense of nostalgia, in order to create a retro image.
- Instruments - The artist is usually seen with an instrument to emphasise their love for creating music.
- Simplicity - Indie music is known for being fairly low budget, resulting in their album designs to be rather straight-forward and uncomplicated. Moreover, it also forces the focus to be on the music itself instead of just the packaging.
- Symbolic - There is usually some deeper meaning behind the artwork, which enables indie artists to reach out to their audience to spread a message, for example, Nirvana's 'Nevermind'. In the cover it is obvious that Nirvana are making a political statement how when we are all born we are innocent, however by conforming to a capitalist society our freedom is taken away.
I have decided to go against the stereotypical conventions of an album design. As my artist is of the indie genre, I wanted to express the individualism of his music visually, therefor I have chose to animate my digipack. Through doing this, it supports the fact that Indie music revolves around the music itself instead of the image of the artist.
Front Cover - Initial Designs
Within my CD Digipack, I want to have a pink and blue colour scheme in order to achieve continuity with my music video and magazine advertisement. I also want to to make sure that the design is symbolic as this is a common convention in the indie genre. At first I want to focus on the graphic/image that will be on the front cover of the digipack.
Design 1
Design 2
Design 3
Design 4
Development of Ideas
I want to develop this idea as I like the juxtaposition between the word 'think' and the image of a heart. I believe this emphasises the undertone of love which is evident throughout the album as people who are in love tend to think with their heart, not their brain.
Within this initial design, the colours are too high in contrast which don't compliment each other well. Instead I want to select soft, pastel tones of blue and pink as these will be more aesthetically pleasing and will also help to reflect loving emotions.
Firstly, I began to redesign the heart that will be evident on the front cover of my digipack. I have chosen to remain with an anatomical heart instead of a sketchy one as a simple heart wouldn't convey the complex nature of relationships that is discussed throughout the album. Moreover, I want the heartbreak that EDEN sings about in his songs to be visually displayed for example, literally ripping the heart apart.
Here are multiple designs that I created on a graphic tablet:
By discussing my designs with my target audience, we decided upon this heart. We thought this design would work best for the album cover as we preferred the subtleness of the symbolic heartbreak instead of the literal more violent versions. As well as this, one of my target audience members mentioned the fact that I could put the artists name/album name within the heart as its quite a simple plain diagram. This idea appealed greatly to me as it would be an interesting,
intriguing way to input text into the album design.
I then started refining the idea and came up with this design which will act as a template for further experiments including colours and fonts. I also added shading to establish shadows and dark spots, additionally making the image look more 3D. Although I like the design in a black and white state, I believe it would look more effective with colour.
I then started refining the idea and came up with this design which will act as a template for further experiments including colours and fonts. I also added shading to establish shadows and dark spots, additionally making the image look more 3D. Although I like the design in a black and white state, I believe it would look more effective with colour.
I decided to make the heart pink as this particular shade comes with connotations of love and endearment. At first I made the whole heart the same shade as pink, relying on the original black shading to highlight the shadows. Although I liked the simplicity of this design, I wanted to experiment with more colour therefore I added deeper hues of pink to the drawing. As I thought both of this drawings seemed rather effective, I chose to wait until I had finished the entirety of the front cover design to establish which heart works better with it.
Fonts
To discover the most appropriate font for my album cover, I went on photoshop and tested out a variety of fonts. Here are the fonts that I experimented with:
My target audience and I then began to eliminate some of the fonts dependant on the fact that some looked theatrical, were hard to read and seemed unprofessional. We narrowed down the choices to the ones that were clear and simple to match the overall motif of the digipack design. To get rid of more fonts, we began to remove ones that looked too similar.
Here are the final 13 choices that we narrowed down. Overall, we found it difficult to decide upon Ayuthaya and Euphemia UCAS. To ensure that I chose the correct font, I will test these out later on the actual design of the front cover of the digipack.
For the album title, I have chose to have the title within the design of the heart in order to not overcrowded the design and to make the overall visual look more compelling. Additionally, I decided to have the album title handwritten to fit with the hand drawn central design of the heart. Here I tested out different ways to display the album title including experimenting with capital letters and lower case letters, cursive writing and bold fonts:
I prefer the lettering in large, capital letters as I believe this will ensure the text stands out against the background of the graphic.
Final Outcomes - Front Cover
Here are the final designs for my front cover. The first one features the shaded heart with the Ayuthaya font, the second design including the one shaded heart with the Euphemia UCAS font.
My target audience and I unanimously agreed that we preferred the second design. The colour palette is more synchronous and the font is more stylised, however still fits with the simplistic design. Furthermore, we favour the clarity and coherence the second design provides. This was also apparent in the sound clip that I recorded from one of my target audience members:
Back Cover - Initial Designs
Development of Ideas
Moreover, the song titles look professional situated on the left hand side, as when you are reading you automatically look to the left because the majority of people read from left to right. I also want to experiment with digital fonts instead of handwritten titles to ensure they are easy to read.
Regarding, graphic design I want to focus on hands as they provide a key way of conveying emotion and is the most symbolised part of the human body (click HERE to find out more about this). To try and convey love and heartbreak simultaneously, I will draw numerous designs of hands in order to discover the most effective sketch.
Here are my designs of hands:
Next, I want to explore different ways to format the song titles, perhaps by using digital fonts. I will also need to insert a bar code and additional detail regarding the album.
ADD SCREENSHOTS.
To ensure continuity, I will use the same font from the artists name on the front cover. By doing so, this fortifies professionalism and generates an altogether pleasing aesthetic. Moreover, I have decided that the list of titles will remain on the left hand side as this provides enough space for the graphical image and keeps to the stereotypical etiquette of a digipack appearance. 
Final Outcome - Back Cover
For the final design I added a bar code, a common convention within digipack designs. As well as this, above the bar code I added links to EDEN's own website and to his Twitter page; Indie artists tend to have low budgets so social media is a common form of advertisement as it is free and has a large output.
I have also included the graphical image from the front cover in a smaller state situated in the bottom left corner. This establishes it as a logo of EDEN's album, making it easily recognised as well as acting as a form of continuity. Moreover, additional detail regarding the album is available at the bottom of the design as this is a fundamental component of a digipack design.
Final Outcome - Inside Back Cover
In this design I used a large uniform circle because this is the side that the CD would be attached to. The circle makes the inside of the digipack more aesthetically pleasing because if the consumer is trying to put the CD back in the case they automatically know where to put the CD without even thinking about it. This makes the consumer further enjoy the product sub-consciously. Furthermore within this design I used the graphic from the front to further assure it as a logo of the album and to fortify continuity. I changed the colour of the design to create some variety however it still fits with the general colour scheme of the digipack.
I chose to keep this design fairly plain as the majority of it would be concealed by the CD itself. To ensure that it matched with the other panels of the digipack though, I included a blue border similar to the pink borders on the front and back covers.
Final Outcome - Inside Front Cover
In this design I included the song titles placed onto pill containers, this is because the album is about drug abuse and other sensitive topics. By placing the song titles on the containers, it also provides the design with a quirky, creative way to present the titles instead of conforming to the standard convention. This reinforces an indie style as it is unique, individual and different from the norm.
Moreover, I have centralised the album title within the inside front cover to make it more memorable and noticeable which is reinforced by the pink border, designed to draw the audiences attention. I also ensured to hand write the album title so it linked with the album title on the front cover.
CD Digipack - Finished Product
