Album art ideas & concepts | Album art project

album art ideas & problem solving

Mind-map

Album art needs to easily communicate with the audience and get the message across easily and fast without losing the attention of the viewer, and considering our attention spans are significantly lower than what they used to be, the album cover must quickly and effectively get across the message without missing a beat, or risk losing a potential listener.

Below is a mind map I created detailing the basic themes and what is mainly needed to create an effective album cover explaining what each feature could do to help an album cover

I then did some research into images associated with the 3 words I chose, "Powerful", "Exciting" & "Mind-blowing".

images associated with words

Sketches & mock-ups

Nico Collins - Prisoner

Nico Collins - Alone

Nico Collins - Hannah Montana

We had a group discussion between 4 of us & shared our ideas and how they went together. I did get some ideas from the discussion & this helped me figure out how I could progress my ideas.

I decided to make 2 mockups for my ideas for my album art. I went with "Alone" & "Hannah Montana" as I liked these titles and themes more and though I could do a lot with them

We were asked to get feedback on mock-ups for our album covers, the feedback I received showed that I had good ideas, but some text needed to be changed or placed better. As you can see from the second image, I stayed with the research design as I liked the style of it, though I changed a few things as I found it overcompensated.

Mock-ups

Nico Collins - Alone mock-up

This is the mockup I made for my Nico Collins Alone concept/idea. For this idea I really wanted to capture the feeling of being and feeling alone, and I believe I captured it great here. The light shining is supposed to be the bright light, as if the person is feeling so alone, they are looking for a glimpse of light in the darkness. In the song, Nico mainly talks about how he found his way from feeling alone in his childhood and never fitting it, to finding his light which would be his music and the great people (including me) that listen to him. The font I use is broken, to show the emotions the person is feeling. I wanted all the elements within this mockup to be dark, but show there is a way to happiness which is what Nico talks about.

Feedback from my peers

Nico Collins - Hannah Montana mock-up

I chose this look because I liked how I brought it together. I chose the main colours, blue and purple because together, they look crazy and give of a cool and teenager kind of feel (if I explained that well). I also mainly chose the purple because Hanna Montana's colours are bright purple & pink.

Nico Collins Hannah Montana album art.jpg

Feedback from my peers

Nico Collins - Hannah Montana mock-up behind the scenes

Importing the image.png

I firstly imported an image of Nico Collins, using image sizing in photoshop I scaled it from 300x300 to 1600x1600 preserving details.

Removing background.png

I removed the background from the image.

Adding background & effects.png

I added a city view of San Francisco California & used the effects tab in layers to linear dodge Nico to the background.

Adding text.png

I then added both Nico Collins text & Hannah Montana text, I used the effects tab in the layers tab to apply overlay effects.

Hue & Saturation effect.png

I then added a hue & saturation layer to the image to make it purple as that is Hannah Montana's theme colour & I though it fit well & looked cool.

Nico Collins - Alone mock-up behind the scenes

Importing main images

Firstly I imported the person sitting down then I imported an image of an edge. I then cut then down & blended them together.

Highlights.png

I added highlights to the main subject to make it as if the subject was actually there.

Text & Glow.png

I then added the "NC" text with some black stroke. I then added the Alone text with a broken font as I thought it went with the theme of the song.

Animated mock-ups

Alone animated

Hannah Montana animated

Alone animated behind the scenes

Importing the PSD file

I used techniques from both Dave & the tutorials from the research to import the album art PSD file into after effects.

Using brightness & contrast

I added brightness & contrast to the background so I could easily control the white part of it.

Keyframing the brightness

I then keyframed the brightness to go higher in the middle & fade out towards the finish creating a loop effect similar to the Hannah Montana animation I did.

Using scale on text

I used scale on the text to animate the alone coming into frame. I did this to create a cool & simplistic effect where the text catches the audiences eye quickly.

Hannah Montana animated behind the scenes

Animating the album art

Using the techniques from the research & shown by Dave, I imported the PSD file into after effects to animate it. I used CC RepeTile to create copies of the "Hannah Montana" text without having to use CTRL + C + CTRL +V several times also cluttering the layers tab. I set CC RepeTile to 10000 left to create enough copies, then I used position to move it right continuously so if played on loop, it would look simultaneous.

Risk assessment

Risk assessment page 1

Risk assessment page 2

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album art ideas & problem solving

Mind-map

I then did some research into images associated with the 3 words I chose, "Powerful", "Exciting" & "Mind-blowing".

images associated with words

Sketches & mock-ups

Nico Collins - Prisoner

Nico Collins - Alone

Nico Collins - Hannah Montana

Mock-ups

Nico Collins - Alone mock-up

Feedback from my peers

Nico Collins - Hannah Montana mock-up

I chose this look because I liked how I brought it together. I chose the main colours, blue and purple because together, they look crazy and give of a cool and teenager kind of feel (if I explained that well). I also mainly chose the purple because Hanna Montana's colours are bright purple & pink.

Feedback from my peers

Nico Collins - Hannah Montana mock-up behind the scenes

Nico Collins - Alone mock-up behind the scenes

Animated mock-ups

Alone animated

Hannah Montana animated

Alone animated behind the scenes

Hannah Montana animated behind the scenes

Risk assessment

The finished products