First and Final drafts of Digipak cover.

These are the first and final drafts of my digipak covers, I decided on using a text generator instead of the handwritten style as it looked more professional.

Digipak;- IT Draft (Album Cover)

Here is a basic draft of my album cover. The album cover follows the basic conventions of album cover, such as;-

· Main Image of the artist
· The album name
· The artists name/logo.


I will try to make my album feminine yet have a sense of female power much like my AS music magazine. The use of the colours pink and black with be a main element I wish to install into the cover.

Textual Analysis 2 (Robyn-Body Talk)

For my final textual analysis I will look at the album of Swedish artist Robyn’s seventh studio album Body Talk (2010) in. The main theme of the album is electro/dance based music. The album came in three parts with Body Talk being the collective instalment of the mini album collection, meaning it featured the best singles from the three chapters of the Body Talk collection. The main core of the album comes from the use of synthesizers and the use of electronic instrumentals. I will look at how the album case is mad conventionally to create the over all artist recognition and look is translated through the use of the stylistics for example; how the use of mise-en-scene can create a hard persona for a heavy metal artist in contrast to creating a subdued image for a classical artist. I will also look at the conventional elements of album case such as; the use of the album name and artist name on the album case. Like the other albums analysed the predominate image of the album is the artist, taking up most of the room on the cover. This allows use (the audience) to identify who the main artist is instantly, however the image is disorientated to match the theme of the album giving it a surreal image. This in turn acts like a concept image for the album itself, due to the nature of the songs on the albums are mainly made up of personal notes from the artists life. If we look at this compared to the album cover we can see that is depicted with the use of the main image of the artist. Within the image we can see her surrounded with various small coloured panels some of the panels that are surrounding her face had the image of facial features on them, for example; mouths, eyes and areas of hair. Again we can depict the meaning of the image however it becomes a more literal image of the albums name; ‘Body Talk’ the image of the body talking comes from the panel of bright colours around the artist body and the presence of the mouth gives a even better sense of imagery to the artists image. Another point of which we could focus within the mise-en-scene is the use of the colouring within the digesis the wide use of bright colours suggests a subtle sense of positivity within the album a happy sense of feeling due to the nature of its contents. Its almost like the colours and the nature of the panels act like stain glass giving a colourful yet transparent effect to the character of the artist. The style of the font also has a sense of overlaid sections of lettering creating a sense of different colours over the top of each letter giving a coloured out line, this acts much like a kaleidoscope with the use of the overlaid colours giving a new sense of colour. This could also emphasis the sense of a happy connotation within the album due to the nature of the tracks all been based around the sense of happiness and cheerful dance music. This style is continued over to the spine of the album, the use of the blue back ground with the sense of bright overlaid colours. However when we look at the back of the album the theme has changed and become more like lined paper. However the image on the back of the album can be depicted and co-notated as the style in which cassette track list’s where set put in the mid-seventies much like lined paper they were laid out in a list, making it obvious of the sense she is trying to create with the album. A sense of simplicity with the colouring and image of the front cover and a the sue of the basic track listing on the back crates a all around image of simple, yet powerful imagery.

Textual Analysis 1 (Rihanna-Rated R)

The first album cover I shall analysis is th cover for Rihanna’s 2009 album Rated R. I will look at the conventions of a album cover and how they are applied to the cover being analysed. I will also the at the connotations of the mise-en-scene of the album cover and see how they may possibly be realated to the albums underlying theme and its main messge from the album. I will look at all elements of media that can apply to this format of media text such as; Mise-en-scene (every thing within the setting of the cover)and Cinematography (How the camera angles can influence the meaning of the album cover).

The main focus point of the album cover comes from the prodominate image of Rihanna. There are various reasons that this image is used, mainly due to the fact she is the artist of the album (a main convention of a album cover is that it features the artsit). When we look closer we can see that the camera shot is slightly tilited upwards giving a slight low angle shot, however this contrasts with the use of the artist persona we see. In the shot Rihanna is given a dominate stance within the mise-en-scene due to the use of her taking the majority of room within the image. We also see the precence of a couture bodice which is highlighted with strong bold masculine lines giving a hard, metallic feel to the image. This gives Rihanna the persona of a strong woman much like the main theme of her album.

If we look into the album cover in more depth we can see the use of the dark coloring renforces the hard image rihanna is trying to give this is due to the harsh contrast of black, grey and sliver to the usual girlies, sexy feminie image rihanna usually gives the towards the audience. Within the mise-en-scene we have many different aspects which suggest the theme of the albums content. For exmaple the use of the rings on the artists fingers suggest a sense of power with the use of the chains connecting each ring. This again renforces the idea of strong female power. Alongside all these elements there is also a drastic change to the persona of Rihanna in contrast to her image from her preivous album. For example Good Girl Gone Bad (Her 2007 album ) she is seen with a very sexy, feminine image. This contrasts to the image she has for this album were she is seen as a strong, female character.

Contiuning the analysis of the album cover we get the same elements of mise-es-scece on the spine of the album cover as well as the back we have the same use of colouring and the same sence of styling within the shadowing of the case, (the light grey/ dark grey contrast). this give the over all look of the album cover a strong and bold feel to the album, again enphasising the theme of the artists persona. Finally if we look at the use of convetnional elements such as; Main tilte of the album, Artists name, Track list. The frist element which stands out the strongest in the civer of the album is the name of the album Rated R, its stands out due to the use of the white coloring of the words, which contrasts with the use of the background fon, on the other hand although the text if white there size remains smaller, this is due to the contrasting presence of Rihannas logo the R in the corner of the album signifies straight away that it her album. Furthermore, the use of the graphology on the R suggests the type of audience that her music would appeal to, we can see this as the R is made to suggest a urban feel due to the use of the graffitied affect. We also get a sense of a meatallic feel also giveing a hardened feel to the album cover. On the back of the album cover we have the ocnventional use of the artist tracklist alongside all the leagal copyright infromation that is usually found within the elements of a album.

Album Case Analysis.

I will begin to analysis album cases to gain inital ideas and look at the conventions of a album case. Looking at the fornt, back and spine of the album case I can gain a sense of what I want my album case to look like. Also I will try to keep the main theme and idea of my music video running through out my designed album case.