Yes, I know one mustn’t judge the book by it’s cover but when you are a library with endless number of book something must filter your interest and most times since we can’t stop and read a little of all the books, you best bet is taking your time to design a cover that will at least get me to stop and have a look. More so with music, an album in this digital age not only competes with the fellow innumerable contemporary artists but also gems from the past being uploaded and remastered with the new found storage option of FLAC & Mp3.
What does your album art say; Not only does it stipulates your level of intellect, your overall knowledge of art, beauty, and propensity towards beaut it reflects the kind of album you have there. What you portray as the image that encapsulates the entirety of your album, the image portraying the theme of your album says a lot about the album.
Not using your own picture shows that you are not vain, that the album is bigger than you, even if you, the picture might have skewed nuances, showing just your body (without the face showing) or highlighting a sepia or blue filter or tint colored depicting your weariness.
A naked, guitar holding and make up wearing flashiness shows that you are probably going to be singing the same vain, overwritten,bland and generic music.
So, the album art is your first judge, like the books the albums are innumerable you are threading a road walked by many, fighting for listen with both your contemporary fellow releases and the old gems that are products of equal herculean hard work. You best bring it, and when looking for random albums in a blog, No matter what the reviews say, The album art goes to show a glimpse of what the artist went through, or what is in the forefront of his mind. Like here is my album and this image is what I want you to associate the listening to, And when you see it, let it create this synaesthesia for you to actually "this"and see why I prefer to use this art for this album, You can’t just overlook this part of your album process, for as things goes this might be most important part of your album creation.
A little shade and tint goes a long way to increase the mystery or mysticism about your album
A deeper meaning, You can’t be bland either and just draw something childish or crop something up, that laziness can be seen and it affects the reception on the part of the listener.
We want the gut punch and right from the looking at the album , we need every resonance that we can get, A definite pull, for the album needs a mental image and the image of your album will affect the level of intensity and curiosity attached to it’s listen. It is basically saying there pain enough here for me to be that cryptic about the album art, that I really mean everything I say here and that this is not merely a contractual “here” from the record label
You must be mindful of your listener and go for things easy on the eye, calm and inviting, as music takes a soothing in today’s hurtful world, the pressure on artiste to take the role of healer and succor starts from the cover. Yes, the cover must tell me this is medicine, for your hurt soul
Some artistes have some album art that are just horrible and that scowl goes on to affect the listening of your album subjecting us to that hideous mental image, is almost insulting; showing you don’t even have us in mind. With a bad album art, most listener will go to the album listen looking for any excuse to delete your album from their phones or computer. It means that you don’t care about your work enough to want the art to be inviting enough for people to want to click on it
Some art are abrasive with too much colors and some use similar album art to confuse the listeners, that too It will affect your album listen since the brain works with association, if it looks like this album art, I might go in expecting the same elation or disappointment I associated that album with,
If I look well chances are I might find what I am looking for.
So it has to be unique, I know it get tiring looking for the right album art for the right albums all the time, even for me writing articles, sometimes I take time to look for the right image that portray what I have in mind. I sometimes ask google give me the abstract image of so so and so because it’s that important. I admit some artist now know the pull of the album art and use it as a tweak to keep us to listen and even keep an album, and I have had album I kept just because I like looking at the album art, but eventually, when the art doesn't have good music I have had to delete it.
If I look well chances are I might find what I am looking for.
So it has to be unique, I know it get tiring looking for the right album art for the right albums all the time, even for me writing articles, sometimes I take time to look for the right image that portray what I have in mind. I sometimes ask google give me the abstract image of so so and so because it’s that important. I admit some artist now know the pull of the album art and use it as a tweak to keep us to listen and even keep an album, and I have had album I kept just because I like looking at the album art, but eventually, when the art doesn't have good music I have had to delete it.
In this day and age, it's not enough to have quality music, you must have the artwork to support it too. Because it's the image that is associated with your body of work and gives an insight into your mind and the central idea, that encapsulate your project.
>s
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