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Album Cover Essay

799 Words4 Pages

Album Covers

The visual media form that I have chosen to use as my case study for this assignment is album covers/artwork. I chose this specific media form as I believe it has had a fascinating evolution throughout the years. Album covers have changed in numerous ways since they were first invented in 1910, they have gone from physical to digital in a relatively short period of time and both technology and society have played an influential role in the development of album covers. These factors continue to heavily impact the direction in which the evolution of album covers is headed. Album covers are more than just images used as a display on the front of CDs or records. The artwork used by artists is crucial in creating a positive first impression …show more content…

When album covers were at their peak of popularity from the 60’s until the 90’s, they were revered as pieces of artwork in themselves as people were able to physically hold them and display them as they wished. However, nowadays album covers do not seem to hold as much meaning to music lovers as we do not have that level of physicality in the digital age. As CD’s replaced records as the main form of physically distributing music, there was still a physical piece of album artwork inserted into the front of the case albeit on a much smaller scale. But CD’s have become less in demand as technology has progressed, and now album artwork has been reduced to small squares in the corner of the screen of whatever streaming service you use to listen to music. Technology has essentially changed every part of the way in which album covers are designed. Album designers are less concerned with the actual artistic element of the cover and more focused on creating a successfully recognisable brand. Of course in the vinyl age artists still wanted a recognisable brand as with the release of their latest albums it announced the overall tone of the album and therefore cemented the brand they were going with for certain eras. These brands were usually fully thought out and cohesive whereas nowadays artists can rely on other elements of branding campaigns to get by. Technology advancement has basically changed

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