Huddersfield New College[Company address]

Table of Contents
Album Cover Development Document.................................................2
Hip Hop Album Cover.......................................................................2
Metal Album cover..........................................................................2
Rock Album Cover...........................................................................2

Album Cover Development Document

In this document, I will be going over the various methods that I have used in order
to create the album covers that I have made. I will be explaining the tools, programs,
methods, and edits that I have made, and why I have made them. I shall also be
demonstrating the different kinds of album covers that I have decided to include for
this unit, and will be justifying why I have chosen to create these particular album
covers.

Hip Hop Album Cover

In order to create the album cover for the
Hip-Hop genre, I took inspiration from 50
Cents album cover; Get rich or die tryin. In
order to achieve the result that I wanted, I
had to get an image of a person looking
sinister or intimidating. To get this, I used a
volunteer and requested that they face the
ground, and look up menacingly. In order to
get rid of the background, I used the Magic
Wand too, which allowed me to select the
background and remove it.

done to help define them more, so

would stand out more clearly on the
cover. To achieve this, I used the
pencil tool, and altered the opacity
levels, to create a fading effect as
dark shading came into presence.
To create the background, I used the
pencil tool, and used similar
techniques that I used to create the
shade effect on my model. I created
fully red background with colour
number ff000, and then got a darker
shade, 5f0c0c, and made my pencil

Once I had the image of just the model I

used, I darkened their image, and added a
dark red outline around the individual. This
was
they
final
the

tool

larger from the centre, creating the effect that the image looks like its becoming
darker the more centred it is.
To create the final image, I found a large
number of royalty free images on google of
cracked glass. I made sure that these
images were .png files, so that the
transparent layer would still be in play, and
would allow me to edit them with much
more ease. Once I imported these images
into photoshoot, I rearranged them into the
manner that let them spell out the word
CRACKED in capital lettering. In order to
do this, I used a variety of scaling, rotation,
and duplication to achieve the result I
desired. This was inspired by the Cracked
Glass font, although I have made several
edits to it, such as making it thinner, so it
would look more like realistic cracked
glass. I also added various cracked holes in the
foreground of the image, to make it appear as though
the camera that the buyer is looking at the image
from has been broken. This is due to Hip-Hops association with gangs and by
extension, violence, and this was done to help add to that feeling.
This has wound up being the final result of my Hip-Hop album cover.

Metal Album Cover

The inspiration for my Metal cover came from several different sources, such as Iron
Maiden, Disturbed, and Widow. Metal music tends to have an association with dark
themes, such as religion and satanic imager, due to its loud and scream-style of
singing. In order to reflect this, I have gone for a very dark style of cover with this
genre.
The imagery that I wanted to invoke was that of the grim reaper. In order to achieve
this, I had my model hold a long cylindrical object, and have their arm outreached as
if to ask the viewer to come with them. The cylinder is there to represent a scythe,
which will be edited in during the Photoshop stage, since having a real scythe was
impossible, and would be a health and safety risk. The model also kept their hood
up, and remains solemn in the face, to help keep up the idea that this person is
supposed to be the grim reaper. To help add this illusion further, I went over the
picture taken, and added dark shading at random over the models image, to help
mask them in darkness. To do this, I used colour 000000, and turned the opacity of
the pencil tool to about 15%.

Adding in the background, I got an image

of a rocky Cliffside edge, because I felt that it would be the most effective. Using the
colour shade of 461b21 and 231c1d, I edited the background to make it look far
more dark and ominous, to invoke that chilling imagery that the Grim reaper is often
associated alongside. In addition, at this stage, I found the image of a scythe from
Google images, and added the metallic blade behind the model image, to make it
look like he is holding a scythe. I added more shading effects with 000000 to this
part as well, in order to make it fit with the rest of the cover.
To finalize the image, I went onto Google
images and found a png. Image of a
small fireball. In keeping with the metal
genre, there is lots of satanic imagery, so
I decided to add this in in order to help
better convey that. I left it alone and
didnt add any shading onto it, because I
wanted it to be a focus of the image. The
name of the album, Necro, is at the top of
the image, acting as the title. This title is
a bright grey colour, so as not to totally
juxtapose the theme of the album cover.
The font of this title screen is Necrokids,
which is a gothic style font which goes in
theme with the metal cover that I have
created.

Rock Album Cover

For my Rock album cover, I wanted to invoke the typical image of electric guitars and
lightning around the guitar player. To do this, I decided that I wanted to put all the
focus of the album cover on the instruments, which is why the face of the person in
the picture has not been included. I asked the model to appear to be playing the
guitar, to make the image look better. After making sure that I was happy with the

image that will be in focus, I was able to

move onto the background colours and the
added effects of the album cover.

Using the colour number #1f2430, I was

able to create a dark blue background.
This allowed me to add more focus onto
the
guitar player. After adding the
background, I Went onto Google and found several images of blue lightning with
glowing effects, which I added, rotated, and scaled the lightning bolts until they were
in three different locations in order to give the impression that the music was causing
the lightning to strike. I made sure that the lightning was glowing in order to help it
stand out better.
I then added the Lightning title in the lightning font, and made it yellow, colour
number #FF9999. I made it this colour because it would brightly contrast against the
darker colours that the album has in, and
make it stand out a lot brighter.

Safety considerations
In order to avoid safety issues during the
photo taking, we did not use any real objects
that could cause harm. This prevented us
from using a scythe or anything sharp and
metallic the Metal album cover, but we took
this precaution in order to avoid injury to one
of the members.

Evaluation
After evaluating all of my album covers, I
think that I have done a reasonable job at creating album covers, and I am happy
with the final results that I have achieved.
If I had more time to improve all of my work, I would like to improve my Rock album
cover by adding in more to the background. I feel that the background is a very
boring one, and I would like the time to properly improve it and make it look more
professional.

Overall, however, I am happy with the final results that I have achieved.