My first draft ablum design

During the block week, I designed the album cover for an authentic pop solo artist. I chose photographs from my works and sketched drafts on paper. To select suitable photos, I focused on the facial expression, composition and colour palette, because this artist I am going to show is a new artist, and she has not got personal symbols in the public yet. Therefore, I need to build the identity according to the genre of the music and her personality. In order to create a sense of texture and strong attraction. I made different versions with different the layouts, colours and put various elements, for example old school, photographic film, etc by using editing softwares like VSCO and PicsArt on smart phone. Firstly, I want to make a vinyl cover, because it’s give a sense of old-style. The format for the album need to be a square, therefore, I cropped the photo from an rectangle to a 314mm*314mm. Then, I added a film filter to create the texture and increased the level of blurry. For the fonts, I chose ‘SIX GAPS’ on PicsArt with long and thin body. For the harmony, I changed the opacity to 40%s and enlarged it to cover half of the figure’s face to build a sense of mysterious. I get some feedbacks that, because this is a new artist that need to build up the popularity first, so the name should be bigger and more significant than the title of the soundtrack. Also, the left hand side of the image is a bit empty, my friend suggested to enlarge the letter ‘B’. I think the font do not fit the image very well, and haven’t offer any obvious feeling of the genre. 

Personally, I think the genre is not very obvious in this image, because pop music is too diverse and do not have particular features. The other friend who is interested in music composition said, the image have a sense of old school style in the last century, and then electronic dance music in the 1990s. The good things are, I think the photograph is attractive, especially the reflection on the right eye is one of the highlights of the image. However, the design is lack of information of the genre. To develop my album, I would change the size of the title and the name. Also, the fonts need to show more information about the style of the music.

Music Album Cover Design

 I selected four pop music albums, they are Taylor Swift’s 1989, Lewis Capaldi’s Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent, Billie Eilish’s when we all fall asleep, and Daniel Caesar’s Freudian respectively.

The general genre of the these music is Synth-pop. The common features are the style of the  designs give a sense of vintage. Also, Every cover includes the figure of the singer. Take 1989(Taylor Swift) as the example, the front cover shows half of her face and included the abbreviation of her name, and the title of the track. On the back cover, the upper half of her face is on the cover, this helped to link these two pictures together. They all put the song lists at the back, and other information of the album and the record company.

BILLIE EILISH'S WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP: PHOTOGRAPHER KENNETH CAPPELLO ON SHOOTING THE CREEPY COVER ART:

http://www.mtv.com/news/3118000/billie-eilish-album-cover-kenneth-cappello-interview/

Album conventions

Album- Yours Truly_Ariana Grande

The album artwork is so critical, because that is the first impression to the audiences by visual, and audiences usually get information from the album, they want to know: Who is the singer? What is the genre? Name of the album? What songs in it? What is the record company? etc.

The album front cover illustrates the genre of the music directly. Yours Truly, by Ariana Grande, for example, the close up photograph of Ariana in the centre of the cover is the main image information on the album design, and her name on the top is the most striking part. Different colour is used for the information of this particular series and make it stand out form the messages of the singer. For instance, Yours Truly is in pink and it is an important information that this CD need to deliver. 

On the back of the album, there is a list of songs in pink, and the names of other artists are in white. In addition, information of the record company is on the left bottom corner. Again, Ariana is the main figure on the back design. Generally, the star image is created through the colour combination(Black+Pink+White) of the album and her body+facial expression, her costume is quite modern and stylised. these elements represent that she is a young female pop singer, she is a little bit sexy and cute. Also, this CD cover represents that, Ariana is a synthetic artist that the record company focuses on selling her appearence, and trying to build her star image by the cover photograph.

Different from Ariana, Ed Sheeran is an Authenticity artist. His CD album cover Divide is an abstract image of a division sign, it deliver the information of the genre of the music directly. The blue radiation design make it more energetic, so that audiences could feel that from the visual image of the cover. The name of the singer is not on the front cover, because he has regular audiences and his appearance is not as perfect as the synthetic artists, therefore, the record company would focus on developing his music.

Goodwin Narrative theory

Narrative Music Video_Perfect (Ed Sheeran) 

This music video is act by Ed Sheeran as the narrator. The storyline follows the lyrics, which is wrote for the girl he loves. For instance, the lyrics “Well, I found  a girl, beautiful and sweet. Oh, I never knew you were the someone waiting for me.”  matched the scene that the lead character looking at the girl with love on his facial expression. In addition, when he sings, “Baby,  I'm

dancing in the dark. With you between my arms. Barefoot on the grass. Listening to our favourite song...” They are dancing in the dark snow night. Generally, the video visualised the lyrics of the song. Also, there are some amplification part when they are skiing, that’s helped with building up further meaning of the story. The lyrics repeated, the structure of the story is Intro(Looking at their picture to show relationship)—>verse—>Climax—>Bridge(Instrument-Violin)—>verse(stronger)—>Bridge(Guitar)—>Climax—>verse(Slower)—>End. The story become equilibrium at the end.

"Perfect"

I found a love for me

Darling, just dive right in and follow my lead

Well, I found a girl, beautiful and sweet

Oh, I never knew you were the someone waiting for me

'Cause we were just kids when we fell in love

Not knowing what it was

I will not give you up this time

But darling, just kiss me slow

Your heart is all I own

And in your eyes you're holding mine

Baby, I'm dancing in the dark

With you between my arms

Barefoot on the grass

Listening to our favourite song

When you said you looked a mess

I whispered underneath my breath

But you heard it,

Darling, you look perfect tonight

Well, I found a woman, stronger than anyone I know

She shares my dreams, I hope that someday I'll share her home

I found a love to carry more than just my secrets

To carry love, to carry children of our own

We are still kids but we're so in love

Fighting against all odds

I know we'll be alright this time

Darling, just hold my hand

Be my girl, I'll be your man

I see my future in your eyes

Baby, I'm dancing in the dark

With you between my arms

Barefoot on the grass

Listening to our favourite song

When I saw you in that dress

Looking so beautiful

I don't deserve this

Darling, you look perfect tonight

No, no, no

Baby, I'm dancing in the dark

With you between my arms

Barefoot on the grass

Listening to our favourite song

I have faith in what I see

Now I know I have met an angel in person

And she looks perfect

I don't deserve this

You look perfect tonight

Synthetic & Negus Organic Artists

Synthetic Star_Lady Gaga 

Almost every Album covers of Lady Gaga are close up of 

company is trying to build her personal identity that make the star image more impressive and featured. For example, exaggerated costume, the flammable dress in particular. Many people, especially youngster would be attracted by her  appearance first. Therefore, profit generates from her immediately, which is a relatively short term strategy.

Synthetic Organic Artist_Yo-Yo Ma

However, for musician like Yo-Yo Ma, the album covers are always with the instrument, he is a naturalistic artist and focus on progress. He doesn’t have to be ‘well-packed’ (makeup/fancy dressing), and people would more likely be interested in his music rather than the person and his appearance. This is a kind of long term strategy to attract more sophisticated audiences.

Narrative in music video

Narrative Music Video—[MV] ZICO(지코) _ Any Song(아무노래)

Stage 1 (Beginning)     

The Music video begins with the first visitor knocking on the door, and then more and more people coming to the Birthday party in the lead character’s  house. However, obviously, he is not having fun, and bored .

Stage 2 (Middle) 

The stage 2 is the turning point in the story, the lead character finally decided to escape from this boring party, he puts on the headphone and dancing on his own.

Stage 3 (End) 

The final scene is the lead character runs out from the house and free himself, the structure goes to an equilibrium, that is a positive ending and he gots what he wants. 

Narrative music video is the images follow the development of the story(lyrics). 

   

THIS IS AMERICA Analysis

This is America

The music video lead by Donald Glover aimed to tell the racism issue in America by different symbolic  and technical conventions. 

In terms of race, every actors exist in this video are black. Also, part of the lyrics represents the racism in America:”Grandma told me. Get your money, black man (black man)*4. Black man (one, two, three, get down)”. In addition, the lead character is half naked in order to show larger area of his skin colour, which introduced the position of the song is from the aspect of black people group. Afterward, there is a chaos scene behind the lead character, who is dancing in front of the camera. People jump from the floor, and running, escaping.

 

To show the gun culture in America, there are two turning points set in the storyline. For example, the man sitting on the chair is playing happy African music, the lead character is dancing toward the man. Suddenly, he shot the man without saying anything. The style of the music changed and the volume of diegetic sound of the gunshot increased at this point, the rapping lyrics are “this is America (woo, ayy). Guns in my area (word, my area). I got the strap (ayy, ayy). I gotta carry 'em”. 

More than that, the police car exist several times in the video, the first time is after the lead character shot someone, and he walked past the police car. The other scene is a car is burning in front of the police car. These scenes are involved in crime, which is the  narrative and related to the lyrics from the video”This is America (skrrt, skrrt, woo). Don't catch you slippin' now (ayy). Look at how I'm livin' now. Police be trippin' now (woo). Yeah,”

This shows they treated unfairly by the police. 

Technical & Symbolic Conventions

Rap

Rapping is a type of genre that is delivered by vocal, it’s largely consist of ‘rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular’. Most of the rappers have common features on their appearance and style. They usually wear golden chains and the keyword for their clothing style is ‘loose’ and most of them are fashion brand, which makes the sense of luxury.

Rich Brian- Dat $tick (Official Video):

Classic Rapper pose:

 https://parlourmagazine.com/2011/04/six-most-cliche-rapper-poses-are-you-guilty/   

Jazz:

The music genre is originated in the African-American communities in New Orleans, United States, It was developed partially from Blues and ragtime. The musicians usually wear formal costumes, black bow tie, white shirt inside and black blazer.   

Pop music:

Pop music refers to diverse styles of music that is popular at the time. It’s originated from US and UK in the 1950s, as it change over time, it’s modern, and contains different elements, like urban, dance, rock, Latin or country.

According to Pete Seeger, pop music is “professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music” 

Due Lipa-New Rules (Official Music Video)

YouTube: The Differences Between The Music Genres

       

YouTube: 24 Genres-Shape of you

Dyer’s Star Theory

Artist - Jackson Wang is a rapper in a South Korean boy group ‘GOT7’ , he has very good reputation, in front of the public, he is a talented, hard working and polite K-pop star from Hong Kong. Also, he is a country-level fencer, and speaks more than 4 languages... These are his labels to create a perfect star image.
According to Richard Dyer’s theory, Jackson Wang as an Asian star greatly matched with those common features. He is young, creative, produced original songs.  Other than works, he has very good body curve and good looking face. Also, he is active in South Korean, Chinese TV shows, for example, the
On social media, like Instagram, he shows  These images of his appearance is attractive enough to target audiences.

                                             Titanic Official MV(Jackson Wang & Rich Brian):

                                              This is how we do it(Talk show with James Corden):
                                              

       

What is Campaign?

What is CAMPAIGN？

Definition:

By using a coordinated series of activities and various media forms(e.g. album, trailers etc.) to achieve a particular goal.   

This term usually used for military campaign, that means a series of organized military operations intended to achieve a goal in particular area, or involving a specified type of fighting. Including Air Force, Navy and propaganda etc. Similar to media campaign, this is the strategy aimed at promoting the product through different type of fighting (media forms).

In media industry, the goal would be build up demand for the products. 

Research:

Media forms are vary, it could be advertisement on the billboard. For example, Coca Cola is very successful in campaign marketing. It is creative and smart. The slogan of the Coca Cola billboard was ‘DON’T BUY, IF YOU DON’T HELP US RECYCLE’ which is reflected to the recent popular topic and the problem of plastic pollution from their products.

Also, I would say social media have the biggest impact on the majority. For example the posts on Instagram, Snapchat, twitter etc. Blackpink as one of the most popular girls group from YG Entertainment, South Korea, has became an international music group. Member of the group posted a picture on the Sprite festival and got about 1,563,673 liked and more than 7000 comments. In 2019, they were the cover of VOUGE Korea. They went to talks and interviews worldwide, and world tour 2019-2020 from Bangkok to Sydney, HongKong to Manila, the slogan is ‘Blackpink in your area’... All of these are the activities are in order to  promote their songs and build up the popularity to attract more audiences. 

YouTube links:

#How to create social media campaign?:

 

#5 social media campaign:

#Coca-Cola Contour Digital Campaign:

#MarketingTips: Innovative Marketing Ideas: