Album Covers:

After selecting around 10 albums that I own, I noticed that there were lots of similarities; many conventions which most album covers use...

Conventions of Albums - Front Cover:

• Name of Band/Artist
• Title of Album
• Artwork/Image of Artist
• (Usually common for bands to have artwork and individual artists to have picture)
• Colour scheme
• Theme (Graphic/Icon/Style/Colour)

Conventions of Albums - Back Cover:

• [Name of Band/Artist]
• [Title of Album]
• Track Listing
• Copyright Information
• Continued theme/colour scheme/artwork
• Producer Information
• [Band/Artist Website]

Conventions of Albums - Inside Covers/Spines/Booklet:

• Pictures of Band/Artist
• Continued theme/colour scheme/artwork
• SPINE: Name of Band/Artist
• SPINE: Title of Album
• BOOKLET: Song Lyrics
• BOOKLET: Producer/Studio/Engineer/Mixer/Mastered by/Writing Credits/Copyright etc. Information.

Conventions of Albums - CD Artwork:

• Continued theme/colour scheme/artwork
• Name of Band/Artist
• Title of Album
• Copyright Information

From looking at the album covers you can also tell genres apart very well, as individual artists will tend to be dressed very significantly and the colour scheme with be such that it depicts the nature of the music. However with bands, it is harder to instantly recognise the genre as their album artwork tends to be more abstract, unique and orginal although still giving a sense of the sound you might hear.

Album Covers serve many different purposes. They sell the album, the band/artist as an image, and the work of the record label. People will enjoy looking at the artwork and/or images provided by the purchase of the album and it give the audience a deeper insight into the theme and meaning behind the music.