CD Cover Analysis

Here are a few analysis of Indie CD covers.

Fortune Drive - 'A Modern Question'
This is the album cover for the Indie/Rock n' Roll Bristol band, Fortune Drive. The cover is eye catching with very simple contrasting colours and a very different design of a picture of a small girl holding a beer bottle with what looks like a 'Parental Advisory. Explicit Content', but actually reads; 'Parental Advisory. Entertaining To Kids'. This shows the bands personal side a little more, as the album is actually clean (free of swear words or sex reference) but they have made it look like it isn't and needs a PG rating. The girl is copied 3 times over the 3 different colours of orange, blue and pink with the bottle changing to the opposite colours to the background. The title of both the band and album title is in a personalised font which is black and white so it stands out to the rest of the colours. Apart from the block coloured background, the rest of the image is quite distorted which represents the band quite a lot as they are quite edgy and 'common'.




The Goodness - 'Run & Hide EP'
This is the EP cover for The Goodness' first EP, 'Run & Hide'. The pictures are both taken in very public places which are underground walkways in the city centre. Like a very traditional Indie band, the pictures have a very decorative background, but with only one person in the picture somewhere. This is on both the front and the back of the EP. The front cover has the bands name and logo (the crown) on the top of the front cover, with the title of the EP in the bottom right, both are in very simple Arial font. The picture on the front is a staircase going down to the underground passage way with a teenager jumping down on his skateboard. This skateboarder gives off a very traditional representation for the band as it is a common connotation that 'Indie Kids' go skateboarding. The colours are also very simple and plain, consisting of a shade of yellow, black and orange. The back of the cover is quite simple but also effective, although without a lot of traditional representation/s except for the one male with his back to the camera. In the distance of the picture, the back wall has some graffiti which is a very strong connotation for where the area is and that this type of background and the area of the bands life is what inspires them in their music.
In the top left hand corner is the EP track list. These are again in very simple white Arial font, with a dark background, this is easy to read. At the bottom of the picture is recording and copyright information. This is very obvious on a CD cover but also very important and something that we need to strongly think about when designing our own.

The Goodness - 'The Shape Of things To Come'
This is the second EP of The Goodness and has a very clever and stereotypical connotation of a bands second CD. The title of the EP is 'The Shape of Things To Come' which is a connotation for what the rest of the bands music is going to sound like is in this CD. They have emphasised this connotation by using childrens building alphabet blocks to spell out the title on the front cover. This is also a backing connotation that the boys are still kids and that they like to enjoy themselves in their youth. The background is plain white, helping the colours of the childrens toys stand out more which makes the cover a lot more eye-catching. On the reverse side of the cover is a barcode and recording information with copyrights, along with the EP's track list. This is again something I will have to take into consideration when designing the CD cover as it is a vital piece of information for all CD's to have.