Album cover art

When about to create my final design ideas i decided to and carefully go through the images I had, to see which ones would work and how. I drew up some rough ideas on paper and then used the images to adapt these.

This was the first idea for my album cover. I chose this as it breaks the conventions of a normal album cover. The colouring is not something you would normally, especially amongst indie rock bands. The positioning of the artists is also unusual, it does not show any distinguish between the lead singer and the other band members.

Rubber ducks..

As our album cover is called 'Playing with Tides' and our band name 'Canute' we wanted to use something to represent this, and coming up with the rubber ducks idea allowed us to be more 'playful' and 'bubbly' rather than being serious all the time. Using this juxtaposition comes up frquently amongst indi-rock bands as no one wants to be seen as to ;serious'. It allows a bit of fun to be added to our cover image.

Album cover ideas

On March 15th we all went out as a group to take some photos for are album art. We came up with some very good ideas and ended up with some brilliant shots. here are a few:

We wanted to take a large range of images to allow ourselves to be more flexible with our final cover designs. With a large aray of photos we can try out many different ideas.

Post Modern album covers

The Clash - London Calling

The album cover has all the typical conventions you would expect to see from any album cover for example, the artist name, album name and an image of the artist. The image has a very 'rock', 'rebellious' look about it due to the youthful, frustrating stance of the artist. He is positioned centrally with a very strong 'pose'. The blurring of the image suggests motion and the black and white suggests an edgy, serious, sencerty sense of conviction. Then in juxtaposition to this, we have the album name. In a colourful, bold font it suggests a happy, comic feel. It grabs the audience's attention and was made to hold focus suggesting a playful, bubbly, fun side to the serious bellion.

This album was infact a hommage to Elvis Presley's very first album...

This uses the same serious black and white image yet playful font and facial expression, this is how we know it is not a parody. The Clash have used the same codes and conventions to build an album cover almost exactly the same as Elvis Presley's, taking it seriously.

Post Modernism

All the people mentioned above are closely recognised with modernism creating pieces of work that will in years to come still be recognised.
Post Modernism is a movement away from modernism and they want the audience to be conciously aware that they are watching a text. There are two ways of doing this:

• Technical - camera focusing
• Intertextuality - illusions

The following three things all make you aware of other texts (allusions).


Intertextuality - making reference to another text. For example, in Lady Gaga's video for telephone they make reference to Kill Bill.


Parody - mocking the original text e.g Scary Movie


Hommage - celebrating the original text

Album Covers

I created a collage of album covers for inspiration which includes a majority of different album arts and genres. They range from the 1960s right up until the present. All the album covers I have chosen are all ones I like and feel represent the artist well. Train's album art for 'Save me, San Francisco' clearly tells us the artist name, in the font that is recognisable to them. They have avoided bright, bold colours which I have found with the majority of indie bands. The background image of San Francisco bridge and the city buildings is blurred and does not stand out, our attention is drawn to the bird, which is central.
The XX's album cover is very simple yet very effective. The only image we can see is the large white 'X' on a black background. These colours clearly stand out and draw attention. Just from seeing this image we know who the artist is.
Gary Jules's album cover makes good use of the camera. It is defocused on his face and focused on his fist which takes up the majority of the space, this could easily represent anger but then the star sort of says the opposite.
Franki Valli and the Four Season's album cover suggests not a lot of money was spent on it, a simple blue background with a cut out image of the artists. It is very simple and plain to look at.
Then you have others which are very busy, for example The Beatles' album cover which consists of a large group of people along with the artist name in flowers. The cover is full of bright, striking colours which stand out. All the people standing behind the band have all passed away, it suggests they were all an inspiration. 
Mumford and Sons' album cover is quite similar to one of the Oasis one's, both being rather naturalistic. The four men are standing with their instruments which suggests their life revolves around their music. Two of them are standing above the others which shows a hierarchy of importance. The bright, blue sky suggests happiness and freedom.

Band name and Album name

As a group we have decided on a band and album name which are as follows:

• Artist name: Canute
• Album name: Playing with Tides

Since creating my album cover prelims my group and I have decided to change the band name from 'Azura' to 'Canute', making reference to 'King Canute the Great'.
He was a Viking warrior turned english king, 'THE KING WHO COULD NOT STOP THE SEA BUT STEMMED THE VIKING TIDE ON ENGLAND'S SHORES'
Lengend says that he was so great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back but he, himself knew his limitation so he had his throne carried to the seashore and sat on it as the tide came in, commanding the waves to advance no further. When they didn't, he had made his point that, though the deeds of kings might appear 'great' in the minds of men, they were as nothing in the face of God's power.

With our album name being 'Playing with Tides' we thought this reference was a serious, celebration hommage to Canute himself. Everything has meaning behind it and this is ours