The document discusses the conventions and codes used in album cover designs. It analyzes both a professionally designed album cover for the Black Eyed Peas and the author's cover for their folk/indie album. Both covers follow standard conventions such as centering the artist name at the top in a distinctive font, including the album title below the central image, and adding elements like barcodes and copyright information. The document examines how the author developed some conventions like turning the barcode vertically while also experimenting by listing song lengths next to track titles. Overall, the analysis shows how following design conventions can help make a homemade cover look professional.

1. The masthead is at the top of the page in the
centre of the front cover. The masthead is used
to tell the audience the name of the band/
artist. Both mine and the professional cover
have an image underneath the text. Both have
a stroke to make the text stand out.
The key image is centred in the page, displaying the individual
artist in mine and the group in the ‘Black Eyed Peas’ cover. The
mise-en-scene of both images represent the genres of both
pieces of music. The Black Eyed Peas image represents hip hop
whereas mine represents folk/ indie.
The text at the bottom of the page, is both of the album name. In
both cases they are a similar font colour and a relatively similar
typeface. The name of the album is smaller as it isn’t as important
as the name of the artist. Again the text is placed above the image
to make sure that is it easily read. Both have a very small stroke to
make the text stand out more than without a stroke.

2. There are simple codes and conventions that I have followed
such as the use of a barcode that make it look professional. I
have developed the convention by turning the barcode
vertically so that it looked better on the page.
On both mine and the Tiesto tray card, the name of the
songs is centred in the middle of the page. The text stands
out. I have gone against common convention by putting
the length of the track next to the song.
I have also included a side panel similar to that shown in the
Tiesto album tray card. This has the album name and artist.
This shows the copyright information that has to be provided
on albums. Having followed this convention it makes my
product look professional and uniform.
This is the record label logo that is included on
most albums. This makes the album look
professional with the addition of the Sony logo.

3. The name of the song is normally
at the top of the page and I have
looked to follow this convention
in my album package.
Again the lyrics are in a font that
is easy to read and visible in front
of the background. Another
convention that I followed was
by using two columns for the
lyrics of the song.
The key image on the page, is
intriguing for the audience. The
image fits the genre of music, the
professional version a grime style
of image, whereas my image is
calm and peaceful representing
the folk genre.