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1. Matthew Teagle- De Montfort
University- New Media Design
Portfolio
Record Cover Research

2. In order to design a record cover of my own, I first of all had to do some
research into some record covers that already existed and had been
professionally developed for well known artists. Another decision that I chose
to make was that I needed to decide on a particular genre of music as I would
need to grasp the conventions of the genre that I was designing my record
cover for and incorporate those paradigms into my final design. My final
decision was to create a record cover for an Indie/Alternative Rock band as
this is the genre that I personally have the most knowledge of and thought
that this Knowledge of both the music itself as well as the conventions of
Indie/Alternative Rock music would be crucial to producing a strong final
product.
For my research, I picked out some iconic record covers that have been
released by hugely successful and well-renowned artists from the
Indie/Alternative Rock scene as well as some record covers that were less
recognisable, yet followed similar conventions due to the musical genre. I felt
that it was important to do some research into new artists and their artwork
As it would expand my knowledge and understanding of the Indie music
conventions and how less successful or well known artists still Integrate the
paradigms of the indie genre so that audiences know what to expect from
their music through simply The cover of their record.

3. My research was based on finding the similarities and also picking out any
differences between these record covers so that I could identify the generic
conventions that they all share and incorporate those into my own final
product. The most striking thing of all was the simplicity of each of the
designs, all of which are still images that have been edited in some way, in
some case holding an enigmatic quality, in other cases the band members are
pictured within the frame somewhere.
Another thing that I noticed about the covers were that each cover used a
different font that all had particularly different aesthetic qualities yet all were
relatively simplistic. The editing of the images was something that I felt was
important because as straightforward as each cover was, the images had
been heavily edited to add some aesthetic quality. The covers are all relatively
grainy and gritty, and most of them (apart from The Black Keys cover) were
very vibrant despite their darker, duller tones. There is also usually the
contrast of some form of light against darkness, either from streetlights or
what appears to be the glow of headlights, there is frequently the use of
artificial lighting. This makes for an interesting colour palette which consists of
very few bright tones and colours but more pastel blues, blacks and greys
with the exception of the vibrant colours given out from the artificial lighting.

4. Another thing that I noticed when it came to
Indie/Alternative Rock record covers was
that there was often the shape of a disc in
the centre of the cover containing some kind
of image or aesthetic, which was surrounded
by a border. Around the disc shape was the
name of the artist and the name of the
album. I found this to be an interesting
concept and although it is not exclusively a
concept adopted by artists of this genre, it is
used more often by them. The conventions
remain the same in terms of the aesthetics
used within the images, which are usually
relatively simplistic.