Print Production Research

 Debut Album 

Never Fade EP

As you might be aware of I've used Gabrielle Aplin's music and music videos as case studies and intertextual references, but they have all linked with the idea of narrative and genre to my chosen song "Across the Sea". The print productions for her debut album and EP's they have all featured a similar theme, they are concentrated around bright colours, images that represent the ideology of the songs presented on the album, she also has a theme of appearing on the album front cover, this is seen by her holding items to imply her album name e.g. English rain is implied by her holding an umbrella. Close ups and long shots are varied with showing her on the front cover, this is to show the audience who the artist is and brings the sense of Goodwins theory of notion of looking. I think that these albums bring a feel of atheistic pleasure because they are colour graded with parts in black and white and some in colour, these are seen to be photographic and are implied to be making the cover seem more unique. The colour choices that she used for her English rain cover stand out because she is immersed around black and white and she is easily identified in colour with the umbrella being multi-coloured.

'I Forgot Where We Are' Album

'The White Album'

Ben Howard is another folk singer/song-writer that I have experience of listening to, his album cover concentrate around himself and have instantly recognizable by the consumer due to the massive success of his debut alum 'Every Kingdom'. His newest album 'I Forgot Where We Were' features a chiaroscuro lighting with him shoulder width visible, he's done this because of the successfulness of his career he doesn't need to promote his album with bold lighting or to create an eye catching close up of the artist.

Only artists such as the 'Beatles' used an album cover for their album 'The White Album', as their success grew over a number of years they didn't need to use bold covers to attract consumers, but instead used their reputation as a selling method, in this case I feel that Ben Howard did the same with his. The use of the Beatles album cover from 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' album was used as a way to attract the mass consumer, when they weren't so popular, so they have to try and extensively try and use colours and bold images to try and sell, but a year later 'The White Album' was released and a less and more drastic cut down in colours and images showing the band wasn't used because audiences knew the band by name and where willing to pay the money for the songs instead of a over exaggerated album cover. I chose to do research this artist because it fit within our genre of music, Ben is seen to be proving that folk music is still a surprising music genre.

FREEWHEELIN'

Keeping within the folk genre, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez heavily inspired the music video to 'Across the Sea' due to the reference of love, his album 'The FREEWHEELIN' shows the aspect of love with him and a girl in the cover. It also implies that the album is concentrated around the ideology of love and contains aspects of love songs which are influenced by his love affair with Joan, this links in with our storyline of Steven and Lucy, the break-up of the two and watching the after effects unfold in the plot. Like any other artist album cover, it features the use of the artist itself, Bob, in every album that he has produced he features himself so that every audience member knows that its his album, which is useful when consumers go out and purchase it. Many people have tried to create this image and have wanted to replicate this, for example NASCARS Jimmie Johnson is seen to be trying to replicate this, it implies that people view this as special and want to be a part of the idea and reputation that comes along with it. 

To conclude, I feel that each one of these print productions will influence what I am creating for the print production of Chief of Seattle's 'Across the Sea', as they all offer a unique design and emulate the ideas that we portrayed in my music video. I feel that to have success in print production for the artist, there has to be some evidence and this may be shown with a close up of the singer/band, a headshot would work more effectively than an image that doesn't link with the songs or band. I feel that the importance to have an album cover that has a connection with the rest of the songs on the album, for example Gabrielle's English Rain use colour correction which added to the depth and exposed the colours of the umbrella to express the title of the album. The idea of an effective album cover is for it to be remembered and to be re-created for future artists, Michael Jackson was an iconic singer who audiences and music industry professionals aspire to be like and will look up to how he portrayed himself to the consumers.