Types of Album Cover Artwork

By Martin Ward

Type – Portrait

Portrait Album’s, for example,

Playing in the Shadows by

Example, a portrait album will

be the artist or band looking

out from the album, this will not

only sell albums, but will also

become star construction

creating an image for example.

The name of the artist is in a

bright yellow box drawing the

attention to the artists name.

Type – Black and White

Black and White Album Covers, Kasabian and

Foo Fighter’s Albums.

Black and white is a very simple album design it

would not normally contain another colour but

in One by One – Foo Fighters, the albums

name is in red.

Black and White albums, are bold and stand out

on the shelves compared to other album

designs, in this case the images give off a

rebellious feel with the heart and masked

person.

Type - Text

Using an album with text is simple

but can be quite effective, for

example The Script’s Science & Faith

looks very good and would clearly

stand out on the shelf, another

album is by Vanilla Fudge’s Rock &

Roll, which doesn’t look very good,

but with the large bold red text it

would clearly stand out.

Having a background on the text is

clearly more effective and with the

Script’s unique font it is a very eye

catching and would be an ideal

option for ourselves to apply.

Type – Photo Manipulation

Photo Manipulation is not a very common album cover, these two

albums by Queen and Kings of Leon, compared to Queens album the

Kings of Leon isn’t as eye catching this could possibly be because of

the colour and being blended with an Eagle.

Type – Illustrative

Paolo Nutini and Ja Rule’s albums,

are both Illustrative album artwork,

these are drawings by the artist or

either commissioned by him. These

two are very different Illustrative

artwork, the Ja Rule one, looks like

something that he expressing that he

has grown up around and things that

are significant to him. The other is

Sunny Side Up which is cleverly

shown with the eggs on the images

plate.

Martin Ward