Ancillary Tasks

We have been given two tasks to complete. We were given a few options but quickly came to a joint decision where we decided create an album digipack and also a poster promoting our Album/Artist. After looking at a number of different images we decided that we needed to advertise the artist in the Album cover. This is typical of most R&B Albums, where the album cover features a large picture, normally focussed on the Artist themselves.

Task #1

Album Digipack

For our digipack we have to design all the album artwork for our Album. We used Adobe Photoshop on the MacBook we used. None of us had previously used Photoshop so we found it really hard at first getting used to the software, but after a while of some trial and error we finally got used to the different tools that are available. This was our first draft.


We decided to go for the star, as this has a direct link with the lyrics "I'm that star up in the sky" in our main video, which is the main song on the Album itself. We had a picture of the same boxing gloves that we used throughout the video and we also used some effects on Photoshop to create what we thought was a "cartoon" effect. We thought this would go well as R Kelly appeals mostly to young males. If he was trying to attract an older, more serious audience we wouldn't have used it. We have also used boxing gloves, as most this is quite masculine and would appear to more males. It also shows that the artist is quite masculine and this fits in well with R Kelly's profile.

We had some positive and negative feedback from people when we showed them the Album front cover. Some people thought that the Font worked well, as it stood out, you could clearly see R Kelly. It is at the top of the cover and this is getting the message across about the album. They thought it was good that we included the star and the boxing gloves. But everyone we asked wondered why we didn't have a picture of our main character Toby on the front cover. We went back and re-designed the front cover and this is what we came up with.


We were happy with the final cover, as we got to include everything we wanted. When going back and asking the people about what they thought of the changes. They thought that the inclusion of Toby as the main picture was a good change. They also thought that keeping the cartoon effect on Toby's picture worked well.

This was the main cover, but we still had to complete the other 3 sides of the cover to complete.

Here is the first inside cover..

Here you can see we have decided to use another picture of Toby. Here you can see him recording the track. It is also a screenshot from the music video. We this would be good to use as it promotes the artist performing his track. It shows Toby singing and performing an action of pointing to the sky. We have also used the cartoon effect as we are trying to create a consistency throughout the album artwork.

The other inside cover.. (This is to go behind the CD)


This is the artwork that goes behind the CD. We have looked at a number of album's and the artwork that they have, and more often than not, the cover on the inside behind the CD is blank, or it is very plain. We have decided to put an image of Toby with his boxing gloves and hoody for training on. Although we have used the cartoon effect in this picture to keep continuity between the other images in the artwork. We thought this would be a good image to use, as this is the final shot in music video, where we zoom into a still image of Toby.

The back cover..


This is the back cover of the album artwork. Once again we used an image from the video. It shows one of the locations that we shot in. We used the cartoon effect once again to keep the consistency amongst the overall artwork. We have also used a similar colour for the font when we list the songs on the current album. We had a look at some back covers in the R&B music genre. They are all fairly simple and just show a list of the song titles. We have used this approach and have just slightly moved them as we have gone down. It's quite simple, but we think it works well.


Task #2

For our second task we were asked to create a poster that advertised the artist and the music video we had just created. We used Adobe Photoshop once again to create the poster as we thought it would be good as we all had some experience and quite a lot of success when we used the software to create our first ancillary task, the album artwork. Although we didn't have as quick success as before, we had tried many different designs, different images in different positions. The main problem we had was that we were trying to inflict more than one message on the poster. In our initial copy we were trying to promote an upcoming tour aswell as the artist and the album. This meant that none of them really stood out. After talking to a few people to see what they thought about our poster we decided to go for a simple effect. We had the picture of Toby on the page. Then we also included the front cover of the album. We decided to mention the tour, but as it wasn't the main feature of the poster.

Here you can see we have kept the cartoon effect throughout both ancillary tasks. We have also used bold yellow font to stand out. The album is also on the poster as the creates a link with it and promotes the album so people know what to look out for and can relate to the album cover when it becomes available to buy.

R&B Album Covers

As one of our tasks, we have to design the album cover to the music video that we are recreating. This is just one of the tasks that we have to do, but to get some help with where to start, I have decided to look at a lot of other artist's album covers that work in the same genre just to see if there is any reoccurances. After looking through about 10 different covers, it was quickly noticable that all of the album covers are trying to, in some way advertise the artist. The artist was consistently on the front cover, and more often than not, he/she was the main focus within the picture. I have put some together for you to see what I mean here..

Album Covers

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Here, I am going to go through the album covers and talk about the similarities and differences in each one.

Tha Carter III - This Album cover has one main picture on it. It is a baby that has some characteristics of the artist that it is trying to portray. Lil Wayne has these tattoos on his face and the use of a baby in the picture could be used to make Lil Wayne seem youthful or maybe even try and give him some sense of innocence. He bases his style of rapping and his artist image on being unique and this certainly fits the description of a unique album cover. You can clearly see his name and the album name next to the picture.

Here I Stand - This album cover shows Usher seemingly walking away from a car. He is standing up, which is relevant to the name of the album. The album cover once again is there to advertise his image. He is walking away from the car, and the text showing his name and the album name is clear for everyone to see. Another thing I noticed was that the text is similar although the "Usher, Here I" is Red, and the "Stand" part of the lettering is black. I don't know if there is a reason for this, as when artists change the text, it is normally to make their own name stand out.

Double Up - This is an album by R Kelly. He also performs our song choice for our video. He has quite a mixed style. He has appeared as a gospel like singer, a rapper, but perhaps has had his best success as an R&B/Hip Hop artist. This album cover is from his R&B days where he completed a double up album with other artists featuring in most of the songs. The album cover typically focuses on him and shows him as a successful performer who appears to be wealthy. This happens in many album covers as rappers and R&B artists have the image of having lots of money. The text is also in the same colour as jewellery that he is also wearing.

Paper Trail - This is probably the simplest album cover I have looked at so far. It simply has T.I.'s face in the middle of the album cover. It uses an effect to add a bit of colour to the image. The font in the album artwork is simple but gets the message across. It is black bold writing simply saying the artist's name and the album name. As T.I. has been around the Hip Hop scene for some time now, he doesn't have to do too much to be noticed. This artwork is simple but effective.

Comeback Season - This is Drake's first album since he joined the same rap label as Lil Wayne. He has burst onto the scene and was basically an international superstar before he released his first official solo album. It shows a picture of him, with his name above him in the picture in big bold writing, the album name is below, but it is quite surprising to see this in such small writing. This might be because the album cover could be trying to advertise Drake as an artist and not so much focussing on the album itself.

Catch 22 - This is Tinchy Stryder's best selling album by a country mile. He has become one of the UK's leading artists in the last couple of years. This album shows him on the album cover. He is wearing a "Star in the Hood" t-shirt. This is his own brand and he is trying to advertise this on the side of the album itself. You can see they have used an effect in the background of the main image of him to try and mix up the album cover a tiny bit. Although once again, he is the main advertisement and this album cover is all about portraying the artist.

Curtis - This album cover is probably the album cover out of all of them that simply is trying to advertise the rapper. 50 cent is so well known across the world, he hasn't even put his name on the album cover. Although he is wearing a bracelet with "50" encrusted on it. He has simply used a photo of himself, with the album name "curtis" in small white writing at the bottom of the image. This is simply, but from the picture you can see that maybe the album is going to be quite interesting as the image shows the artist thinking hard about something.

The Documentary - This is The Game's first official solo album. It is basically advertising him, he is the main picture on the screen. I am not too sure why he is sitting on two wheels. He is wearing a necklace, which is typical of most rappers who like to have things such as money, girls and "bling". The font of his name is much more noticable than the font of the album name. This has become quite a common occurance amongst people releasing their debut Albums. It was the same in Drake's album earlier in the presentation.

I Am Sasha Fierce - By the time this album came out, Beyoncé was already a world famous singer. The album cover is still focussed on her. But the font is quite small, it is more classy than most of the other ones. The lettering seems more professional and the main thing is simply a picture of her. This is portraying her using her Beauty, but as everyone knows who she is, she doesn't have to put her name in massive writing across the cover.

From looking at all of the album covers, I have decided, that in some way, we need to put Toby on our album cover, and he will possibly be the main focus point of the cover, although we need to try and advertise some other things in the album cover. We are going to use a larger font than most of these covers use as we feel it will be quite important for everyone to see what the album name is and especially the artist name.