Photograph Plans

Photo Plan for Digipack by

Design Sketch (Final)

Here is the final design sketch for the Digipak:


 

Design Sketches (Drafts)

Below are pictures of digipak drafts which my group and I created together and annotated.

Colour Scheme & Font Ideas

Font and colour from clwp_cloe06

Idea Brainstorm - Contents and Styles

Analysis of Genre Covers 2

The second album cover analysis which I have chosen to do is the R&B artist Rihanna’s “Unapologetic” album.

The focus of the album cover is a mid shot of the artist Rihanna posing nude with graffiti writing over the picture. The colour scheme used for this album cover is very simplistic as the background is white with the graffiti writing in either black or white over Rihanna’s brown body. By using graffiti writing it makes the album cover stand out and shows an element of creativity. The title of the album cover is covering the artist’s left breast with a scribbled black background; this helps to the audience to differentiate the fact that it is unique from the rest of the writing across her body.

Also these words which are used in the album cover are quite meaningful to how the artist may perceive herself as anyone who is a fan Rihanna would know that before the release of this album her life was very much the focus of the media (specifically social media site Twitter) as she lost her grandmother and had been rumoured to get back with her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown who had previously domestically abused her. Therefore the words which are used such as “Faith, Fearless, Love, Happy etc” could be her way of expressing her inner feelings towards all the publicity and criticism she has been receiving. This also could all refer back to the title “Unapologetic” and the fact that she is not apologetic for her actions and the choices which she has made.

Rihanna is a known celebrity for having many tattoos however the only tattoo we see in this album cover is one of the Egyptian goddess Isis kneeling with her wings spread and spanning across Rihanna's rib cage which was dedicated to her belated grandmother. This connotes to audience the importance and impact her grandmother had on her life and as Isis is the goddess of children as well as the protector of the dead could imply that she may be looking for protection for herself hence why she has writing all over her as a way of blocking the audience from seeing her as a whole.

Similar to her “Rated R” album cover, Rihanna also has one of her eyes covered in this album cover. This shows her as not wanting to be too revealed to the audience but the fact that she is nude and has her feelings written across her body goes against this idea which creates confusion and mystery about the artist.  

Analysis of Genre Covers 1

Although my music video is mainly R&B he artist which my group is using is both an R&B and Hip Hop artist and there are some elements of the song which we are using that could be seen as Hip Hop. Therefore i choose to analyse one Hip Hop album genre cover and two R&B album genre covers.

Rick Ross : God Forgives, I don't

The “God Forgives, I don’t” deluxe edition album by artist Rick Ross was released in 2012. This album cover has much more depth to it in my opinion than the normal edition album cover.

 The normal edition album cover is very simplistic as it just has a dominant background with a picture of the artist in the middle. However generic conventions can be seen with in this album cover for example the artist is wearing more than one gold chain which is a symbol of wealth and through the glasses which he is wearing we can see the skyline of a city which could represent luxury. One of the main themes which songs are based on in the hip hop industry is money and the idea that the more money you have, the higher you are in the game or in other words the more successful you are. Therefore it would only be expected that Rick Ross would want to portray this image of being wealthy and living luxuriously in his album cover.

Unlike the normal edition album cover, the deluxe edition has much more going on. Both editions include the sentence “the untouchable Maybach Music Empire presents” at the top of the album covers and the artist name and title of the album are in the same font on both editions also. The artist name instead of using “s” to spell “Rick Ross” use’s the dollar sign so it is spelt “Rick Ro$$”. Once again referring back to money and the theme that “money is everything”. However the deluxe edition differs from the normal edition as the colour scheme has dramatically changed. The deluxe edition colour scheme is predominantly gold with black fading in from the bottom. The background is of a golden church with a silhouette of the artist at the bottom of the album cover. Having a predominantly gold album cover is also another symbolic code for wealth as gold is expensive.

Roughly around the middle of the album cover there are clouds faded into the picture and at the top of the album cover is a picture of Rick Ross posing with his with his arms out looking down on the silhouette. This position which Rick Ross is posing in is a symbolic code to the way in which Jesus or God is perceived in Christian pictures as he is opening his arms in the exact same way Jesus/God is perceived to do and also he is above the clouds which could be perceived as him being in heaven. The idea of Rick Ross being in heaven could also go back to the generic theme through out hip hop of wealth and luxuries and the life he is living now because of these things could be perceived as his “heaven”. This also refers back to his title of “God Forgives, I don’t” as from the album cover he is taking the position of God and so connotes that he is in a position to make judgements like God and does not want to forgive. Intertextuality is also used within this album cover as the font used for the title “God Forgives, I don’t” is similar to the font used for the title of the films “The Godfather”. In these films decisions had to be made on who died which could be seen as these actors also acting like God and so this album cover also portrays that idea as I previously said of making serious judgements to connote the title.

 

Like in the normal edition we see he is wearing gold jewellery and his glasses have the city scenery in them. The fact that he is main focus of the album cover as his picture takes up over half of the cover is a convention which many albums covers use. By doing this it attract the audience as they are able to recognize the artist face and that it is their album before they read the name or album title.

The parental advisory symbol on the album shows a level of maturity of album and is quite stereotypical of a Hip Hop album as many lyrics included in any hip hop song will include some offensive language. 

Annotation of Album Covers