CD ART ANALYSIS

This is a cover of the single called 'Chutes too narrow' by American Indie band 'The Shins'. It was designed by Jesse LeDoux, who works as an art director and designer for Sub Pop Records, a record label.

The image appears to have an avant-garde style to it, which is emphasised by the appearance of the chutes themselves. The method of production is unknown, but if you were to look closely at the cover, you would see that their is written text, which may have been written on a notepad. This may have been scanned, and the  final outcome designed over the scan. Or, it may be a vector image. By including the chutes in the cover, it allows there to be some sort of link. The CD itself also conveys the name of the band to some extent as well.

A target audience that springs to mind, may that of hipsters, beatniks, and even those who are fans to this band, or loyal Indie listeners. 

As well as being quite doodle-like, it's also quite narrative. If you were to unfold the cover, you'll see that the booklet folds out, and is cut into the shapes of the design, also known as a dry cut. The typography is a sans-serif and quite bold,the colours would attract attention easily, since the background is white.

My first reaction to this artwork was quite positive. It's because of its childlike quality with the bold colours of the hills and the simple appearances of various objects, it makes it look quite innocent, until you open the case, and see the design on the CD ROM. When I looked at that, the childlike quality slipped my mind, and I thought it was quite typical of an avant-garde. But despite this, I did quite like the design in general, mostly because of its narrative appearance from the dry cut.

This is a cover of the album 'X&Y' by British alternative rock band 'Coldplay'. Designed by an organisation called 'Tappin Gofton', the simple design actually has a hidden message beneath what appears to be a multi-coloured detonator: "X9Y", which may have just been made to entertain the viewer. However, inside the album cover shown below, contains another hidden message: "Make trade fair", which was for the Fairtrade campaign. The blocks are actually 'Baudot-code' encoding, which are used by telegraphs.

Although the design, does not at all reflect the type of music the band makes, but the bright colours do advance off the page, thanks to the dark background. This may have been a vector image, or the designers may have used a Baudot-code generator to make this. Although seriously limited, there is some typography featured at the left hand side of the cover of the band's name and the name of the album. It is a sans-serif design, and the typeface is simple, making it easy to read, and the colour chosen helps with this too.

When I first saw this cover, when it was first released, I didn't know what to make of it. All I saw, were these brightly coloured boxes, in the shape of a detonator, and that was it. But now, that I've looked in to it, it makes a whole lot of sense, and I think it's rather clever of the designers.

These stickers a part of the CD design for the album 'The Information' by Alternative rock musician 'Beck'. It is an example of a 'made' artwork, which allows the consumer to design the cover to their own liking using the stickers, and the graph paper also featured. The aim of this was "to provide something that calls for interactivity" as stated by Beck himself. But because of this concept, the album was not sold in the UK, as it was a concept to increase retail sales, for the design and not of the music itself.

The target audience of this may have been young people/teens, and the album could imply a message, which could link in with the educational benefit of graph paper.  CAD may have been the method used to create the stickers, which may have been printed out using a plotter printer. Using this to print it put, gives the stickers a professional finish.

I really like the creative scope that's been given to the consumer of this product, because it's very unique, so no one else may have come up with this idea (maybe they did, and decided it was too risky). But because it was banned in a country, I think it best not do have a design like this again, because chances are it would be bought simply for its creativity scope.

This is a cover for the album 'Push the button' by "Big beats"/ Electro duo The Chemical Brothers. Designed by 'TappinGofton', the same people who designed Coldplay's X&Y album cover. It is a calligram with the song name inside of a man's head, and an arm and fist inside his head, similar to a brain and a spinal cord. The design itself is reminiscent of Soviet posters, as seen with the plain colours, which can be symbolic for order, and this can emphasise its propaganda like style. Too much colour would be more of the opposite, may be more of a psycadelic theme.  The possible target audience may be those in their late teens and over, even punks who are in to techno music, and wear huge black platforms, and leather trousers, and long coats (this may be a very wide stereotype, but that's just an image that pops up in my head).

On their CD covers. the Chemical brothers always include their recurring logos to identify their CDs. The colour of this may vary depending on the design of the cover, but it always includes the same typeface, which is derived from a typeface known as 'Sho' and was created by Karlgeorg Hoefer in 1992.

Upon first seeing the work, I was taken aback at how aggressive the work was, from the stark colours and its true likeness to propaganda posters, particularly Soviet Russian. Also, because of the composition, it made me think about the possible meanings that the album could hold, it could be positive or more likely negative, and that, for some reason, made me want to stay away from it and not delve deeper into the possible meanings.