Album art inspiration

I looked into a number of different styles album art that all fall into the house music genre, these are a few I looked at: 

1 - The Eleventh House 

I liked the underground theme to this album cover and ho it was paired with quite bright lighting, creating a contrast between the gritty location and the vibrant colouring. 

2 - Twilight Trax 

I was intrigued by the urban theme to this cover, and how the natural colours were stripped away and replaced with pop-art colours; creating an unusual effect to the cover.

3 - The Chemical Brothers 

I particularly liked the strong contrast between the neon green lighting and the black background. I also was intrigued by how  the lines were constructed to look like a persons face and thought this look really unique and effective. 

4 - Avicii 

I liked the use of colour on this album cover, and how it allowed the silhouette of the DJ and stark white text to stand out in front of it. 

Magazine cover analysis

Magazine adverts have been used for years for the purpose of advertisement, they can be used advertise anything but now more than ever they are used to promote new music. No matter what genre of music these ads always include an image of the artist who's music they are promoting, I know this from looking at many magazine covers but particularly the ones documented below.  

From looking at these magazine adverts I have gathered that house artist don't usually show their full face, if any, in any images of them. I think this is because this allows the music to stand out clearly rather than the artist themselves, as they dont want the music to be overshadowed by the hype of being a in the public eye as a celebrity. Suggesting they mainly focus on the music rather than everything else that comes with it like their image and their fame. I want to stick closely to this when creating my own magazine adverts, another area I will stick to is the use of bright club lighting as this is also used in all three adverts. 

I looked at a range of NME ads but picked out this Daft Punk one as it stood out to me, the cover shows a picture of the artist in their usual robotic attire posed casually. Their faces are cover by their costume so there is no direct mode of address, however the picture appears as if they are looking straight into the camera. Bright, contrasting lighting has been used behind them to recreate the effect of club lighting, linking to the genre of music they create. there is a quote in the middle of the page that reads 'we don't have egos we have superpowers' this gives an insight into their wacky personality, allowing the audience to feel a sense of knowing the artist more.  

Another magazine I looked at was a Mixmag cover which featured Deadmau5 on the font, again there is a picture of the Deadmau5 icon on the cover which hides the artists face, it seems that this is a recurring theme in house music adverts and I will need to consider doing this on my own cover. Again, there is bright lighting used to recreate the effect of club lighting and there a patterned created from which looks like luminescent lighting created by a DJ booth suggesting the artist is in a club environment. There is a headline on the advert that says 'the most amazing show in dance music' which intrigues the reader and builds up the expectation of the artist. 

Another advert I looked at was one of David Guetta, unlike the previous two this one appears to be taken from one of his live shows, again only some of his face is shown much like the other two adverts and the lights are made to appear brighter by the dark contrasting of the background lighting. This is the most effective ad out of all of the ones I selected because of its effective photography. 

Conventions of a magazine advert

There are a range of typical conventions that magazine advert should follow when promoting an artist, these include:

1. The release date of any upcoming albums

1. An image of the artist or band

1. The bands or artist's name/stage name

1. The record label supporting the artist

1. Symbols and logo's such as bar codes and scan codes

All of the magazines adverts I looked at included this, therefore I will need to include it on my own advert to ensure it looks authentic and professional.  



I will need to include symbols such as in order to create this realistic effect.