R+P Post 10: Album covers that have inspired and influenced my ideas

For this project we need to create a digipak cover for our artist's debut album. Album covers help to sell the artist's image as well as their music.

A debut album cover should:

• Introduce the artist and their identity/brand image
• Stand out and attract attention
• Work in synergy with other platforms such as the website
• Represent the genre of music
• Contain institutional information (e.g. Record label logo, year of release, copyright, distributor, bar code, website information for the artist)

Below are some albums we looked out in the R&B genre for inspiration. 

Album covers that inspired us

Although some are looking directly at the camera, most are looking away - in side profile - which I prefer. A lot of these are similar to what I would like our album cover to have - a close up of the artist, unsaturated colours or even black and white, simple fonts. Nearly all of these cover seem to be shot in studio, however I would like our cover to be photographed on location to add a sense of authenticity to the artist. By including these some of these features it will hopefully mean that our album cover will be following the conventions of R&B album covers.

Here is a close analysis of Raleigh Ritchie's album You're a Man Now, Boy. I really liked this cover due to the edited photo on the front. I would love to edit our photos in a similar way and make the cover as artistic as possible.

Overall looking at similar album covers has been really beneficial for us as we now have clearer ideas of what we want to include for our own album cover and knowing what albums of the genre should contain will help us follow conventions.