Research and Planning- Adverts VS Album cover.

To get an understanding on what to put on our magazine advert we have compared and contrasted the difference between album covers and album adverts. An example I have chosen is for the album 'Dead Set On Living' by the hardcore metal band 'Cancer Bats'.

The only information presented on the album cover is the band's name, album name and logo.

Where as on the album advert to the right it has all of the above as well as the release date, names of the hit singles and fine print including contact details, record label and store names to buy the album.
Some extra information that can be found on a magazine album could be critics reviews of the album and gig dates for a tour to promote the album. This is defiantly common for the metal genre and we will consider including this on our advert. 

The reason for not having these details on the front of the album cover is because this information can be found on the back page of the CD, whereas an advert or poster does not have a back. It also means that the information is easily obtainable for the audience.

Looking at this is useful as I know what information to include or not include for the Ancillary tasks.

Further editing to music video.

In lesson today we added some little details to our music video which makes it look more professional. The first change we made was add a small logo in the top left hand corner. The logo we used was the 'Scuzz TV' logo. We used this logo because we feel that our kind of music video and the genre of the song would most likely be shown on this TV channel.

The second aspect that we added was credits at the beginning of the video. The credits read the band's name, the song title and the record company. We have done this because it is a common thing that you see on music channels as audience need to know the artists of the song, the name of the song and if they want to do further research they can look up the band on the record company's website.

We have decided to use the record company 'Nuclear Blast'. This is because they are a record company purely for metal bands and the sub-genres of metal. We also decided to use them because they are already the record company for bands that have a similar sound to Ravenface's music. 

Research and Planning- Finding a suitable font for the ancillary.

After planning the design for our album cover I have started to look at possible typography fonts. A site that i found useful for this was cool text which converts text into a chosen font. After trying several designs i found that the following two worked best. This was because they met the codes and conventions for the metal genre and worked with the overall design of the the cover.

From these basic templates for font I will draw them onto the design. This is because using font from the computer would brake up the design and make it look amateur. However on the back cover I have found a suitable font for the song titles. This will not be drawn on.

Research and Planning- Designing Ancillary.

After looking at examples of album cover designs we have made a plan of what we shall do for our own cover. For this we took into consideration the codes and conventions of other metal album cover products such as Gothic typography, dark colours and a theme. We also used iconography from our music video in our design with the image of the pocket watch and hinting to the presence of the band members by showing instruments.

Research and Planning- Analysis of Ravenface's typography.

This is Ravenface's existing typography. The overall font height is made up of capital letters. The arms on the letter 'E' is of all the same length and there are no sharp strokes on the 'N'. This creates an overall simple font which is quite different from the conventions of a metal band's typography because usually they have a Gothic font. However this font creates a very bold and strong feel which is very typical within the metal conventions as the music overall is very powerful. The white colour of the font is contrasted against the black background. These colours are very common for this genre as they are simple but dark. What makes the typography interesting is the way that the letters fade in some areas. This can meet some of the codes and conventions of the metal genre as it could connote old, weathered and decaying objects. This meets the conventions of a Gothic font as Gothic is associated with older things.

Looking at Ravenface's typography has been useful as it gives me an idea of the type of font that we should look at for our album cover design.

Research and Planning- Typography.

Typography is the technique of 'arranging type in order to make a language visible' as well as the appearance of the type.  To begin with my group had to decide on a common type that is used with in the metal genre. We decide on this type:-

 

This was because it was a Gothic font that connotes old or a scary atmosphere. We also decided that the Capital font would not be used much as it is to bold and a lot of  metal album cover fonts are subtle compared to the imagery. We were also given this sheet which shows the typography names for the style of font. Typography is important in establishing iconography and brand as there are the codes and conventions of each genre that audience look for when buying an album.

 

 

Next we started to design a font that we could use for our album cover. As I had already started to design this earlier on I developed the designs.

Then using the technical terms that we learnt in this lesson we wrote a quick overview of the design. :-
The use of red colours connotes blood and anger as well as fire, which corresponds with our theme of apocalypse and also with the codes and conventions of the metal genre.  The serifs on the letters make it seem classic and Gothic, handwritten and script like which again keeps to the codes and conventions of the type on other metal album covers.

This design is a development from some font that i used in a previous design. After looking at it we decided that is had quite an Oriental feel to it which we liked. It also keeps to the codes and conventions of the metal genre as it has a script like feel with pointed serifs, stems and strokes.