The first design for my CD cover was quite basic as I had limited knowledge of what the conventions of a cover are. This meant that instead of having a track listing on the back I just used a picture and had no bar code or logo. However, I had decided that I wanted the front cover to consist of one picture- a close up of the artists face with her eyes closed. This will be very similar to the first shot of my music video but there won't be a microphone as there is in my first shot. I decided upon a picture like this because I think it is personal to the artist and the audience will know what the album is straight away. On the back I wanted a picture of the couple holding hands so that there was a glimpse at the genre of music and a hint at the narrative within my music video. I believed that this would create synergy.
In addition to this, I did recognize that you need the name of the album to stand out on the front cover which I included in my second design (below).
For my second draft I used powerpoint and pictures off the internet to show my basic idea for my cover. I hadn't decided upon my pictures I was going to use yet so I just used similar to pictures to that in my first design. I wanted to use the computer to do my second draft so I could get used to the sort of software I would be using (mainly Photoshop and power point)
Once I had realized my mistakes I decided to change the background, I thought that darker colours would make the image more prominent. On the back of the cover the background is the same with white writing in a similar font to the one used in my edit of the video. However, I did find that the white part in the background meant that you could not see all of the writing as they clashed. I also decided not to include the artist's name on the front cover because I wanted the title and image to stand out more. Finally, I included a bar code on the back because I found that every CD cover has one.
For my final edit without any original images I researched other artists who had a similar design of a cover to which I wanted. Rihanna's 'Loud' cover was probably the closest as it had a close up of the artist's face as the whole cover. The main difference from the previous design is that the image fills the whole cover and the name of the album is placed on top of it rather than to the side. I thought this looked better as it cleared any 'dead space' from the cover. The back of the album was also changed as I felt that the colours wouldn't go together, this also allowed the track list to stand out more as before the white clashed with the background. I thought that light pink would be good for the back of the cover as it created synergy with the front image, however when I come to properly creating my own artifact I would want more neutral colours, maybe black and white, in order to appeal to both genders.
