Indie Album Covers

What Makes a Successful Indie Album Cover

After researching into indie album covers we were able to understand what conventions were used to make them unique.

Lana Del Rey:

Lana Del Rey is always seen on the front of her album covers. They appear quite simple and this conforms to the convention associated with the genre having a 'laid back' kind of feel. The colours on her covers are also bright and sometime have added effects such as black and white. Typically most indie music has many special effects and I think that this element was tied in very well with the album covers. The text is also a simple, sharp and bold style and is large which makes it stand out. The clothing Lana wears in her covers are very classy and feminine. The dresses are very simple yet elegant.

Looking into the above cover closely we found many features that help us associate Lana with the indie genre. Her outfit is simple and elegant but still draws our attention and the audience already relate to her as an artist. Indie music is usually more about the artist rather than what made the album; having her as a main, central piece emphasises this. Her dress is silky and flows which is kind of like her music in itself. Her hair is kind of vintage with the loose waves relating to the title of the album as it's written like hand writing adding a sense of class. The title on the cover is big and bold, in gold and the font is simple yet because it's big it still draws our attention to it.

The Killers:

The Killers albums all seem to have a main focus on their name when is comes to the covers. There's a common theme of red, purple, grey, white and black. The mixture of these colours set different moods for each album suggesting they like to experiment with their style of indie and giving us a large variety of song types for different moods. The four main image focuses on these album covers are: the band, women, creativity and open spaces. The use of the band in their own cover promotes who they are whereas the use of women or open spaces suggest what kind of atmospheres they like or what they feel will draw the audiences eye. The use of artsy imagery for creativity suggest the personality of the band.

This specific album cover relates to indie very well. Indie tries to focus on a persons feelings and when looking at this album cover we can think of many stories that are behind it and making us feel as it's very thought provoking. The use of the plain black and white effect is very clever because the background is very dark and the snow-globe. though white, is very vibrant making us focus on it. The album is also called boots so making our eyes attract the the boots inside this snow-globe is smart. Though it's rather obvious to put a pair of boots on a cover with the album called boots it's very creative as an audience would expect something else such as a picture of an artist or something or at least a little colour, and this is what makes them indie, stating the obvious but in a way we (as an audience) don't expect it.

Coldplay:

Coldplay's album covers tend to my very simple and minimalistic. The images used usually just represent the title. Angle wings for 'Ghost Story', King Kong for 'King and Kong' and Mario with Luigi for 'M and L'. The titles are usually written in a very small font, barely readable along with the bands name. Barely any of their covers suggest a form of promotion besides the odd couple with either them or their logo. One thing that is obvious through out is the use of vibrant colours (and sometimes the odd black and white). We can see the individuality this band carries as their album covers may be different they still have a common theme: simple image with colourful background  small font on the side of the cover listing the band and the album title in line with it.

This selected album cover really stood out to us. It reminds us of doodles we do as children, just filling in certain gaps without any specific pattern. This album cover shows a contrast of vibrant pastel colours within a tangled frame of bare silhouetted branches and twigs. We found this album cover was different to all the others Coldplay use as they usually have very vibrant, minimalistic features but this one in particular is different, though there's a simple design we're looking at a more naturalistic cover; rather than it being very artsy is it a photograph with very little added colours and effects. In relation to indie we can say this album cover features nature which is a common theme in indie music videos (we normally see people - such as the artist/band - at a beach, in a field or in a forest).