AOB 4: Research Report:C.D conventions

1.   Explain what you have been researching and for what reason?

For this task, I have been looking into C.D designs, album covers and art by different artists/ bands in the Grunge and metal genres, for the purposes of designing my own fictional band and album. To make it as realistic as possible, I looked at cover conventions commonly used by artists, more specifically those used by bands such as Linkin Park, 30 Seconds To Mars, and Breaking Benjamin, as these are the bands that I have drawn inspiration from for my own album. I want the album to have a very black-white feel to it, with an overshadowing dark feel to it. To this end, i feel like i have chosen the bands i will take inspiration from well, as their reoccurring themes tend to be darker than those of most mainstream bands. This kind of music is a point of interest for me because it is seperate from the mainstream, effectively breaking with the convention that the public have become accustomed too.

2.   What were the findings from the research?

After a fair amount of internet-based research, I found a particular set of conventions that all C.D’s and albums seemed to follow. These were mostly tailored to advertising, branding and security measures. Album covers tended to use very few colours, rarely featuring pictures of the band or artist, instead using logos, iconography or even landscapes to identify the album.

Album covers in the specific genre I was researching also had specific conventions, commonly including only one image either filling the cover or used against a background. Text was usually simple and easy to read, and most of the imagery was dark or grim. This kind of iconography matches with the bands i want to use for research. Although some, such as 30 Seconds To Mars, use colours like red and white, which, although they aren't openly grim like other, darker colours, are still made to have the same effect when used with the band's iconography.

3.   How will these findings affect your idea?

Conventions such as dark imagery and a single-image motif on the album cover and more common conventions such as barcodes and QR codes were amongst the things I have considered using in my design. These are obviously important to the product as they denote it as a consumer product that can be brought. I have also discovered, upon further investigation, that some album covers aren't limited to simple black and white, but instead use other dark colours, blue and red being amongst the most common. These features are more common amongst grunge bands like Breaking Benjamin than they are amongst bands like Linkin Park and 30 Seconds To Mars, the former of which tends to use simple blacks and whites, and the latter using primary bright red and white.
To this end, Breaking Benjamin has become my main inspiration and the driving point for my current concepts.