[ Cover Art By: ]

What I have Learned

An album cover is the initial moment of the record. Its a doorway into the music. - Peter Blake (page 6)

This book is the most significant book used for the research project so far, The author - of the initial moment at the start of the book - Adrian Shaughnessy talks about the artwork for music directly which has helped this research project immensely. Shaughnessy tells readers that 'big labels' are unwilling to take risks and artwork is filled by nothing more than glamour and stylistic images.

left to their own devices, the big lables are generally unwilling to stray from the safe formula of glamorous and heavily styled artists - Shaughnessy (page 7)

He mentions many relevant things and the rest of the book is filled with interviews with people who design cover albums which became extremely useful in the written project.  Below will list the most relevant quotes from the book with analysis.

Music became a commodity - Shaughnessy (page 6)

This is an interesting point that will be discussed at length in the research project. The connotations of the word through the researcher's reading has become especially negative which is something that can be questioned. Music may be a commodity but is that a bad thing?

They [record companies] made lots of money this way but they also shot themselves in the foot because, by doing this , they were encouraging the audience not to place any value in the package they were buying - Fred Deakin, Creative Review, March 2007, cited in Cover Art By: (page 6)

Deakin is talking here about the manufacturing of CD's and how they are cheap and the audiences are not valuing the product because they can see the cheapness. This is another questionable point as value doesn't always reflect cost of manufacturing. Value may be sentimental and extrinsic. This does not mean that cost of manufacturing should not be considered and in many cases a cheap product will be valued less and in terms of the artwork cheap print processes and smaller packaging will as deakin says encourage less value. So maybe reproducibility can be said to have negative impacts on packaging in the long run.

Perhaps the little adverts on itunes have become the album covers of the future - Jeff Jank (page 94) cited in cover art by:

iTunes is the new record store? It can be accessed anywhere anytime and is could be the future for artwork. This puts a lot of responsibility into itunes to see the value in artwork. They must consider new ways of showing off artwork maybe they should create an optional delivery service [of exclusive artwork]  for extra money if the buyer of the music wishes. Or if the user is on apple music there could be another tab to browse relevant artwork. This saves the consumer from searching in other places for artwork they can order it from the same place they download music.

What is the role of Artwork

Is to establish a context for sounds contained within - Ian Ilvasky from the label constellation, cover art by: (page 11)

500 years from leonardo da vinci, 400 years from shakespeare, 250 years on from mozart, 100 years from deda, 60 years from pop art, 50 years from the beatles 40 years from Hip Hop: We live in the future. (Masato Samata, page 32, in cover art by:)

Reality is to be found on the web (Masato Samata, page 32, in cover art by:) 

I don't think people come to us and just want the music - Julian House, Ghost box, (page 40)

If the physical object is marginalized or disappears altogether young designers may have to find other ways of expression than cover design, I'm afraid.

Another concern is what it will look like as a 150 pixel jpeg - Jeff Jank (page 94) 

It reminds me of the way the film industry changed with the advent of TV, or the belief that movie theatres would eventually close down after VCR and DVD people love to go out and see a film together. At the same time, music fans like the feeling of a record a physical cultural icon in their hands. - Jeff Janks (page 96)