Analysing CD Covers for my chosen Genre

I have started to reserch into the different album covers that my genre has. I will look at 2 covers per artist and see the links between the two, and the brand identity that the two have. This will help me when it comes to making the cover for my digi-pack as I will be able to look at the conbvensions I have reserch in order to create an authentic CD cover.

This is a CD cover for a Taylor Swift album. This was her debut album cover, and compared to the other ones that she has done, it is very simplistic.

It almost has a shiny effect to the left hand side of the cover. A connotation of this could be that the shininess is angelic as there is no place to hide shadows. Also it seems to brighten up the cover, which can be suggested as another angelic symbol.

Also another thing is that she is not wearing a lot of make-up. This could be due to the fact that she is representing county music and the fact that it is out in the open and fresh means that she feels compelled to follow the image. In comparison to some of the other artists in her record label Big Machine Records, she has an unusual album cover. Fellow artists like Daniele Bradbury have more green and country type album covers. This tells me that there may have been synergy used within production to get this very unusual album cover. However, this has had a good effect. It has meant that we have a cover that really stands out from all of the other genres on the shelf.

Furthermore, the artist is looking at the camera. This really engages with the audience as you think that she is looking at you on an individual basis and that may compel some people to buy the album but also helps it to be really persuasive. Also they have put the artist name sin a signature format, which also makes it feel more personal.

However, there are a series of bad points for the album cover. There is no name of the album on the front. This could really confuse people and they will not want to spend time looking if the tracts have been put onto a different CD.  Also not having a title does not really make it look as professional and people may not want to buy it for this reason. It really detracts from the album.