Illustrated Album cover research

As I was a bit worried about how I was going to illustrate an album cover I decided to have a look at and evaluate different illustrated album covers have been done in the past. I selected a few different styles of covers to get an idea of what I liked more and what I didn't really like to help me work out how I would like to approach this brief. 

1. Keanes "Under the Iron Sea" (by Sanna Annukka)

This album cover was created by an illustrator named Sanna Annukka who also created a vinyl version and a book to go alongside the album. The theme of the album art was to create an underlying narrative, this is revealed as the booklet that comes with the CD is unfolded, and within the book that the band also released.
  
Keane's album Under the Iron Sea has a really bold eye catching cover, I really love the colours and composition as they work so well together. The simplicity of this cover is probably what draws me most to it because it makes me want to look closer to workout what is happening amongst the shapes. Another thing that I really like about the album is the fact that you get a pull out booklet that unfolds to reveal more beautiful art work. I love it when music comes with things like that because it makes it feel like you are getting a lot for your money, it also makes the album feel more special as it has something extra. I think ideas such as this will make the album sell more because at the moment people don't often go to shops to perchance an album because tit is so easy to just download the music from the internet. 

2. Architecture in Helsinki "Places like this" (By Will Sweeney)

This album cover was created for use as the CD and the vinyl cover, the illustration was also used on a picture disk vinyl. It was created by Will Sweeney in 2007, Sweeney has also illustrated album and vinyl covers for many other bands throughout the years. 

I decided to look at this album cover because unfortunately i'm not too fond of it and I wanted to make note of what I disliked about it so i know what to avoid when creating my album cover illustration. The main thing that dislike about this album cover is the simple fact that there is too much going on in it and I don't quite know where my eyes are drawn when I look at it. Along with the busy imagery the colours are also very bright which I thing brings more confusion and gives my eyes a bit of a head ache, although this might have been the intention of the cover its just not for me personally. The last thing that  I noticed when looking at this cover is that I couldn't easily make out what the title is and I think if you are going to include the title on the front of a cover it should be pretty clear so that the consumer will know if they are buying the right thing. Some albums don't have a title or band name on the front so i feel like this album could have got away with leaving the title off instead of creating a confusing, hard to read title. 

Looking at these two album covers it has became clear that they are very different and that album illustrations can vary greatly. I also have learned that a lot of the time the art usually fits in with the music that is on the album so I will have to greatly consider the album whilst creating the cover.  It has also became known to me what I would prefer to buy if I saw it in a shop based on the cover alone. Throughout my research I will keep looking at different illustrated album covers to help me with ideas and compositions. 

Agnes Obel- General Research

After deciding to create my work based off Agnes Obels album I decided to do some research into the singer to get more of a background and an idea about her and her music. I found a lot of useful information by just typing her name into google and seeing what came up, also the BBC music website that will helped me learn about her music career. This information will hopefully help me in the future with designing my illustrations. 

Agnes Obel is a Danish singer song writer that was born in Copenhagen. Her mother and father were very musical so she picked music up from an early age learning to play classical piano. She was very inspired by European folk tunes since a young age. Obel has also been inspired by many other influences from Edgar Allan Poe to Alfred Hitchcock. In an interview Obel commented that she 'likes Autumn the best.' This is interesting to me because when I first heard her music i thought of autumn leaves, I think her music gives off a very autumnal feel. 

Obel is a contemporary artist as she has only been on the music scene since 2009. Her first album entitled 'Philharmonics' was released in 2010 in Europe this album went on to a few different awards throughout the Scandinavian countries. Her second album 'Aventine' (the album that I will be creating artwork for) was released in 2013, the same year Obel played the I Tunes festival in London.   

Level 5 introduction: Non-Narrative Illustration- Choosing an album

The first brief of second year is based on the topic of Non-Narrative Illustration and the task we have been given to do is to create an album cover, poster and some form of merchandise for an artist from a list we have been given.  

When I was presented with the first brief of second year I became slightly worried because I couldn't really imagine my illustrations fitting in with album covers. When I heard the album suggestions i became even more apprehensive because they were quite strange and a lot of them would not have suited me at all, For example I could never imagine illustrating an album cover for a rapper or an electronic group.  After listening to a few of the bands that I was interested in I began to think about what would work for my drawings, after a while I realised that it would be nice to work with a calm pretty sounding artist as I like my drawings to have a happy, calming feel to them. I looked at my list again and managed to narrow it down to two options, First Aid Kit and Agnes Obel. I gave these two a re listen to weigh up my options. I then decided to go with Agnes Obel as I liked how much music rather than singing that she had within her songs, it made the songs feel more beautiful and whimsical.  

Considering how worried I was about this brief when we first got it I have became a lot more comfortable with the idea of creating art linked with music because I think I have found an artist that could work well alongside my drawings and aesthetics.