Album Covers

To help me develop ideas for my bands DVD cover I thought it would be wise to research existing album covers from bands of a similar genre. From there, I will be able to decide what style I’d like to choose, and of which would coincide with the genre, style and ideologies of my band Exlovers.
Once chosen with the main picture, whether it is art work or photography based, I will be able to design and choose a suitable font.
First of all, i researched my bands existing advertising and their current single cover art:




After looking at these cover art of Exlovers, they are obviously fans of the whole ‘vintage’ look that is currently very popular within the Indie Rock scene at the moment. All of them appear to be taken with a film camera, giving the effect – unfortunately I do not own a film camera, but the look is nothing that can’t be achieved by using Photoshop! – So I’ll go with this idea instead of delving into my pockets.
These are similar album covers I found from bands with a similar genre or similar style of cover art :



From looking at these found images, I’m convinced this style would meet the look that Exlovers is trying to portray.
From the first image, by Belle & Sebastian – I think the use of sepia is effective as it contrasts with the black hair, although it’s not black and white it really reminds me of Exlovers black and white single cover of ‘You Forget So Easily.’
I also really like the last album cover by Tokyo Police Club. I like the editing used of the red flag contrasting to the main black and white background. This effect is something I might consider for my own work.

In today’s lesson I started to think about ideas for this DVD cover, my first step of planning was researching the bands photography, this is when I came across this image :



Scrap the guy in this image, he looks gormless and uninspiring, where as the girl really interests me in this photo, I love the heart shape lollypop on her mouth. As soon as I saw this, I immediately knew I wanted to recreate this, make it into something more interesting and striking.
I went home and experimented, instead of using a heart shaped object, I decided to paint a heart onto my mouth instead – which was very tricky! But I feel it looked pretty effective.
Here is what i looked like before i started taking the photography: - haha



As you can see i painted the heart as perfectly as I could, if it was slightly wonky the whole effect wouldn’t work. After taking the photography, I decided to experiment with the editing of the photos, trying as many effects that could look effective, these where the best ones:







Although I like this image and the way I’ve edited it, it doesn’t fit the bands ideologies and style at all! It looks as if it should be an album cover for The Ting Tings instead of Exlovers.



And finally, this is the one I feel meets the look of Exlovers, whilst being the most striking album cover, I also feel the photography is the best quality in this one. Now to get cracking on the typography!