Album cover analysis

Layer: Digipak outline

We used this template of a DigiPak as the background. This is because it would be useful as a guide as to where

we could place my images and texts and the relevant size. We felt that this was really useful as we had an outline

when starting, rather than completely starting from scratch.

To make our work more organised and to

make it easier for us to navigate around

Photoshop, we named the layers with the

relevant text or image which it held.

Therefore, we knew which layer to highlight

when editing a certain section of the digipak.

Also, we only placed one image or one piece

of texton a layer. This is because if we edited

that layer, it would be convenient as it only

affects one image/text.

We have used Photoshop before in GCSE Art

and ICT so the basics were known. However,

we had to experiment with certain things

which we didn’t know how to do, such as

editing the text style.

Layer: front cover background

This image of Hilary was chosen for the album cover because we felt that it suited the main song, brown

eyes. This is because it has an innocent and subtle look to it. The pose here is also similar to the image of

Beyonce, adjacent to that of Hilary. We made her look innocent and loving to reflect the meaning of the

song. Additionally, we made her wear red lip stick so that it objectifies her which goes with the Male Gaze

theory. Also, it symbolises love which is the theme of this song. We framed the shot so that her dress

cannot be seen. This way, it will objectify her further which complies with the Male Gaze theory.

Layer: Beyoncé TEXT

Neither of us had ever edited text before on Photoshop. Therefore, we experimented with the

different effects and styles. However, we finally decided only to apply ‘Drop Shadow’ as this suited

Beyoncé’s style best.We altered the angle, spread and size of the shadow and felt that how it looks

now looks most conventional with Beyoncé and her style. We placed it on top of the two layers:

‘Digipak outline’ and ‘front cover background’ as it needs to be placed on top of the image.

We chose the font ‘Brush Script Std’, size ‘26pt’ as we believed this fitted with Beyoncé’s personality.

The reason for that specific colour (e7094a) of text is because it matches the colour of her lipstick in

the image.

Layer: back cover background

This layer is the background of the back cover. It is a section of the front cover’s image as we wanted to have the

same colour so that the colours matched. The layer was placed at the bottom as it is a background and therefore

everything else has to go on top of it (e.g. text and images)

Layer: 1. Brown eyes 2. Love on… TEXT

Font: Lucida Handwriting, Size: 5pt

The reason for this font style was, again, the fact that it suited Beyoncé and her personality. Furthermore,

this colour text was chosen to match the colour of her lips but more importantly, to match the colour of

the text on the front cover (colour: e7094a).

The songs in this list were specifically chosen as they are all about love which is what our chosen song,

Brown eyes, is about. It is placed in this order because the shorter named songs are towards the top and

the longer phrased song titles at the bottom so that it looks more organised as opposed to having a mix of

lengths in terms of song titles. This make the back of the album cover look neat and organised.

Layer: Spine background

Initially, we had the idea to have the spine the same colour as the back cover background. However, when did the

spine this colour, we felt that it did not look attractive as there wasn’t a separation between the back cover

background and the spine. Therefore, we tried taking a sector of the front cover background (a grey area) and

putting it as the spine. We felt that this worked well and it still matched the rest of the album so we decided to

use this colour as the spine.

Layer: back cover image

We chose to use this image of Hilary as the

image for the back cover. This is because

upon research, we found that Beyoncé

always uses a close up image of herself on

the front cover and a long shot or mid shot

on the back cover. Therefore, we decided

to stick to this convention. We chose to

make her wear red lip stick in this image as

well as it symbolises love.

We used the eraser tool on Photoshop to

get rid of the background on the image (as

shown below).

Also, we cropped the image as we thought

that the bracelet would be too repetitive if

visible on both the front and the back

cover.

Additionally, we flipped the image

horizontally as we felt that the image

looked better placed on the left as

opposed to the right.

Original

image Image used on

album cover

Image with

background

removed

Layer: Inside left background

This image was taken from a cropped version of the image

shown below. The opacity of the image was reduced

because the insides of albums covers tend to have the

image opacity reduced so we stuck to the norm.

The image was taken on set of the dinner scene which is

the last scene of the video video. We wanted to use this

image because it includes both characters as well as the

fact that it sums up their relationship and it is where there

relationship currently is, in terms of the narrative of the

music video.

We split Hilary and Hakan across the right and left,

respectively, so that when the album is opened, their arms

will be linked.

Carrying on from this point

(upwards)

Layer: Inside right background

This is the opposite half of the image used on the layer

named ‘Inside left background’.

We used this image on the right to complete the image

and make a full image across the inside album cover.

Layer: C&P Sony Music… TEXT

We copied the text from another

Beyoncé album which we had as we

didn’t know what to state here. We

made some small changes. For

example, we changed the “Made

in” to “UK” and we changed the

number of the bar code at the end

to match that of the one which we

used on our album cover.

Layer: parkwood logo

Layer: sony music logo

We included these two logos on the back of our album

cover because we saw that they had been used on one

of Beyoncé’s alums, ‘4’. We got them off the internet,

through the search engine ‘Google’ as ‘PNG’ files. This

meant that the canvas was invisible which was beneficial

as it meant that they didn’t have a background.

Layer: BEYONCE … BROWN EYES TEXT

The font style that we used for the text on the spine is the same

font as that which was used on the back cover for the song list

(Lucida Handwriting). This is because we thought that keeping

to a minimum variation of font styls would look better than

having many different types as this would look confusing and

make the album cover look unattractive. We chose the colour

white as it vibrantly stand out against the darker, grey

background colour.

The font size is the biggest it could be in order to fit the spine

and we decided to do it in capital letters as it would be clearer

for the audience to read when on a shelf as it would look bigger

than if it were not to be in capital letters.

Layer: 10906200102010 TEXT

The font style of the barcode number was

the same as that