Album Art

In order to study album art and the conventions of album art, we analysed a range of CD covers and digipaks from various genres and with various styles.

Some of the conventions of album art that appeared across the field were:

• The album title
• A picture of the band/ artist OR abstract art
• A visual motif/ synergy with other media products, such as a piece of iconography that appears in a music video.
• The artist's name in a particular typeface that is repeated throughout promotional products
• Logos (of artist or institution)
• Barcode or QR code
• Parental advisory, if required
• Website and social media links
• Promo stickers on the front cover
• A product code on the spine of the case
• Copyright material
• Credits
• Place of manufacture
• Booklets and sleeves
• Track listing on the back cover
• Consistency of colour scheme and style - synergistic with other parts of the campaign.
• Year of release

We discovered that the albums we were analysing could also be grouped certain ways. Some of the ways we could categorise the albums were:

• By genre
• By format
• By colour scheme/ style/ design
• By concept - artist promotion or abstract art?
• By Solo artist vs band identity (consideration of framing)
• By gender of the artist or core target audience
• By style of photography
• By mise-en-scene
• By release decade or year
• By record label
• By target audience - niche or wide?

We also examined the purpose of album art and what it's aim would be in terms of an entire marketing campaign. Here are some of the reasons we came up with:

• The album art is a way of branding and creating an artist identity, and thus is a way of selling a unique selling point.
• It is also a means of visual marketing - it is a form of advertising whereby the power to choose is given to the consumer
• Album art could be appealing to both new fans and existing fans; it could even be a way to strategically widen a fan base
• The genre signifiers on the album art provide an insight into the flavour and the mood of the album
• The album art could also be an artistic expression
• The album art is most likely to be part of a wider marketing campaign, and would therefore be in synergy with other media such as films and music videos, providing an immersive experience for the audience. Making it part of a marketing campaign also gives it the aim, by definition, of making money.
• Audience members, specifically those who are existing fans, would be able to consume the media through recognition and repetition.
• Remarketing and rebranding can also be done through album art and other media products.
• The album art is a physical product that an audience member can own and play, as opposed to the musical tracks. This means that the CD or digipak could become part of a growing collection.
• Album art is also a visual representation of the music that the artist is primarily known for. 
• It also gives the audience information, which is specifically the job of the back cover. The front cover works primarily to establish a brand identity and connote a unique selling point, whilst the inside covers provide further immersion into the artist identity.
• Uniqueness and creativity in album art can be a means of entertaining certain audience members, who may find pleasure from the imagery and lyric booklets.

I decided that the High School Musical album would be appropriate to discuss, since it is a product of a divergence of multiple media formats - film, television and music. Disney, as an institution, is known for its expertise in children's entertainment, and also for the way in which it strategically combines multiple forms of media to market and promote its products, HSM  being no different. 

The target audience is likely to be fairly young, between the ages of 6 and 15, and the album art caters for this audience in terms of giving them something to relate to. Each of the six characters has something unique about them; for example, Taylor is the intellectual, Troy the popular basketball player and Sharpay is into fashion. This perhaps corresponds to the fact that this is a product made for the mainstream music industry which would have universal appeal. Furthermore, the typeface/ logo and the use of the red curtain very much signify the musical theatre genre - they in fact reflect the style of a musical theatre poster, which gives the audience a rough insight into the style of music in the album.

What I learnt in particular from studying album art was the way in which various media products from one musical artist work in synergy to promote the music. Usually this is either through a piece of iconography that appears across promotional material, or through a consistency of colour scheme.This is something that I would personally like to incorporate into our music video project, and thus have a consistent brand image across all marketing materials.