Imran Khan 'Unforgettable' Album Advertisement

I have analysed the magazine advertisement for Imran Khan's 'Unforgettable' album. This has helped me get a good idea of what I should be doing when commencing on my very own design. I am beginning to make evident links with album advertisements, which are helping me to create my very own design.

Imran Khan Magazine Album Advertisement Analysis

Imran Khan Album Cover

Representing Reality - Mediation

In today's lesson we read about Mediation. The media is known for placing us at one remove from reality. They take something that is genuine, either a person or an event and alter its form to produce whatever they are aiming for, and it is this text we as readers and viewers end up reading. This type of representation can be linked into our music promo videos as we have been constantly editing our video to portray a specific storyline.

It is like thinking of an album, it is not just the sound of one or two musicians but the sound of mediation. The authenticity in the sound of the album has been mediated before it reaches to listeners. This is done through engineers and producers changing the sound which is created in the music studio until it is 'just right'.

Linking this specific type of representation into the production of our music videos, it can be said through the chosen setting and the use of our mise-en-scence we have mediated our video into a precise representation. This is evidently true as my group and I made sure we editing bits of our video which did not look like it conformed to the stereotype of the 'RnB' genre.

When something like the news is switched on we automatically tend to beleive what is being said to us. However, the News is the greatest mediated piece of media in today's society. Specific shots are used in order to interpret the story they are telling in a specific way. The story is always different to the experience of someone who was at the scene, this shows how mediated the News is.

Here are the three key things to look for in Mediation:

1. Selection: Whatever is being portrayed to you, there is a greater selection that has been omitted. For example, a specific picture has been chosen from a great number of pictures, to be shown to a wide range of audience.
2. Organisation: Different components are organised in the way the producer has ordered it to be in, usually not the same as in real life. This is known as mise-en-scene, linking this into the production of my music promo video, we chose to film in a females bedroom and urban area to follow the conventions of 'RnB'.
3. Focusing: The whole mediation process is to please us, the audience. Therefore, the audience are encouraged to concentrate on a chosen aspect. For example, when a film or video wants to depict the importance of character the camera pans towards them.

Gwen Stefani Magazine Album Advert Analysis

I have analysed the magazine advert for Gwen Stefani's 'Love Angel Music Baby'. This has enabled me to come up with a few ideas of my own as I have noticed several similarities with the album cover and advertisement.

Gwen Stefani's Magazine Advertisement

Gwen Stefani's Album Cover

Questionnaire on 'RnB' Digipaks

1. Name: _____________

2. Gender:

• Male ( )
• Female ( )

3. Age:

• Under 16 ( )
• 16-18 ( )
• 19-21 ( )
• 22-25 ( )
• 26- 35 ( )
• 36-45 ( )
• 45+ ( )

4. Please state your occupational status: ____________________________

5. How important do you think the front cover of an album should be?

• Very important ( )
• Important ( )
• Not that important ( )

6. Which do you think is more appealing?

• A colourful and detailed album cover ( )
• A black and white album cover ( )
• Other, please state: _______________________________

7. Which camera shot do you believe is more attractive and effective to an audience?

• A full body shot ( )
• Medium close-up shot ( )
• Extreme close-up shot ( )

8. How many panels do you prefer your digipak to have?

• 4 ( )
• 6 ( )
• 8 ( )

9. How useful do you find booklets which may be enclosed in your digipak?

• Very Useful ( )
• Useful ( )
• Not useful ( )

10. What type of writing style would you prefer on a female artist's album?

• Bold ( )
• Italic ( )
• Skin Deep ( Close to Italic) ( )
• Other, please state: _____________________

11. In an album, from the following which do you find more appealing?

• Competitions
• Background information on the artist
• Chances to win free tickets to see the artist perform live on stage
• Other, please state: ______________________

Initial Ideas for our Digipak

We bgean to share our ideas for the design of our Digipak. After looking at different front cover examples from the 'RnB' genre, we have decided to have a black and gold colour theme as this is effective. While researching different female artists album covers we found a typical style for writing was in the italic form. Therefore, in order to follow the 'RnB' convention we have decided to use the italic form for our album cover.
Depending on what our "artist" is comfortable with, we will either have a full body shot or meduim close-up shot. Inside we have decided on having background information on the song and artist and maybe a competition. Our panel will be four sides, allowing the album to not look packed.

Album Covers

Album covers are known as the front packaging of a comercially released audio recording album. The cover serves three main purposes, they are:

1. To advertise the contents of the music product
2. To convey the artistic aspirations of the original artists.
3. In reproductions of the artists, to serve as a primary image in the promotional efforts surrounding the product, as an identifiable image associated with it.

History

In the year of 1910, seventy eight records replaced phonograph cylinder as the medium for recorded sound. Sold in diameter sizes of 10" and 12", during 1910 the records were usually sold seperately in a brown paper or cardboard sleeves. These cardboardf sleeves were generally a circular cutout, this allowed the record label to stand out clearly. In order to show the producers or retailers name the sleeves were either plain or printed.

In 1909, German record company "Odeon" initiated the "album" when releasing "Nutcracker Suite" by Tchaikovsky. This was released as a four double-sided discs.Bound collections of empty sleeves at the beginning of the 1920's were sold as "recording albums". They consisted of empty sleeves with a simple plain cardboard or leather cover. They were sold in dimensions of 10" and 12" sizes. In order to allow the records to stand upright on the shelf, the cover of the bound books were produced as wide and tall products with the records inside them.

Several record companies in the 1930's commenced on issuing collections of 78rpm records by one performer or one genre of music. These albums were commenced in specially assembled albums, some included a collection of admired songs.

Alex Steinweiss was hired by Coloumbia Records in 1938. This was Columbia Records first director, Alex successfully invented the concepts of an album cover. Previously, in the past , album covers were used as plain backgrounds, however with Alex Steinweiss thew invention of "cover art" changed this completely. Due to Alex Steinweiss is productive invention, several other record companies began to follow his lead. For all major companies, record labels released their records with their albums featuring colourful backgrounds, contrasting to previous album covers which had been released. Some of there designs used classical art while others created their own designs.

Formats

Popular music was distributed from the 1950's through to the 1980's by the 12" LP record and the 45rpm record. Today, the LP format is still used occassionally, however as the years have gone on there has been many new formats. It is since the mid 1990's, the CD has been the most common form of a music product. There are two very common forms of packaging today, they are the plastic jewel case and the cardboard and plastic combination otherwise known as a Digipak. These Digipak's are usually 4.75 inches square.

Album Cover Research

As part of our ancillary tasks, we have been told to produce an album cover for our music video. As a start, we have researched into album covers from the 'RnB' genre, allowing us to get ideas for our own album cover production. This productive task has allowed us to familarise with typical 'RnB' conventions, which I intend to take on board whilst creating our own production. Below, I have analysed "Rihanna's", "keyshia Cole's" and "Keri Hilson's" album covers, sticking to the female artists as we will hopefully be producing an album cover from a female perspective.