The document analyzes and summarizes the design elements of an album cover for Lana Del Rey's "Born to Die". It notes that the vintage styling of Lana appeals to the genre conventions. While retaining some vintage elements like makeup and collared shirt, the background uses bright natural colors instead of solely black and white. The colors complement each other and match the sky and shirt. The text is kept simple with the artist and title displayed prominently. Lana looks directly at the camera, drawing the viewer's eye, while the background is plain to focus on her. Features of both indie and pop music are represented in the minimalist, subtly eye-catching design.

1. The image/iconography used in this album cover
consists of a vintage design, something which would
appeal to the conventions and audience of this genre.
The way Lana is styled in a plain, white, collared shirt,
and the makeup used such as brown and gold on the
eye and a red lipstick are all representative of vintage
era’s, such as that of wartime. However, the colours
used in the background aren’t as stereotypically vintage
as people would assume. It does not have a black and
white theme, but instead keeps the image visually
attractive by using a bright and natural setting. The
colours are largely complimentary, for example the
blue text ‘Born to die’ matches the colour of the sky
and the artists name ‘Lana del Ray’ compliments the
white shirt and the clouds in the clear, blue sky. The
reason for this choice of colours may be due to the
genre of the artist as she is also labelled as a pop artist,
so here she tries to incorporate a vintage but modern
style and design, intertwined into one.
The text used on this cover is kept simple, with simply the artists name and the
title of the album. The artists name takes the main stage on this front cover,
being stretched along the width of the page, therefore making it stand out in
it’s bold and white text above the blue sky background. The title of the album
takes a less dominant role on the cover, being displayed at the bottom of the
page in a smaller font. This is present above a white background, which is
taken from Lana’s shirt, again allowing it to stand out and to be capturing to
the audience. Both these pieces of text take on the general colour scheme,
which could be seen as patriotic from the predominant use of white and blue
and the red that is incorporated through the lipstick. The language used in the
title of the album is also quite significant as it is quite controversial: ‘Born to
die’. This is conventional of the Indie and Alternative genre, which focusses on
being different, individual and unique.
On this digipack cover, Lana is directly
addressing the audience by looking straight
towards the camera. This therefore draws the
viewers eye to Lana, which is further
encouraged by her stern yet sultry expressions
making the image enticing and capturing. The
background image and overall mise en scene is
kept relatively plain and simple in this image
suggesting this may have been done to keep the
audiences attention on Lana as the centre piece
of the display. Lana looks stylish and classy in
this piece of photography, through her styling
such as the natural, bouncy curls, and the white
and plain shirt. This represents elements of
Indie music. However we can still see features
of pop in this image, such as the artificially
perfected appearance of the skin and the image
in general, that may have been photo shopped
to create a false idea of perfection. This
represents a more superficial and cosmopolitan
look than one we would expect of the Indie/
Indie Folk genre.
This cover overall is kept relatively minimalist with nothing too striking or bold on the image. It is eye capturing whilst
being kept subtle in terms of its design. From the analysis I have concluded that features of both Indie and Pop music
can be found.

2. This back cover of the arctic monkeys digipack is
kept very plain and minimalist. The most visually
capturing feature of the back cover is the large red
font, which is displayed in a unique and quirky
font, typical of the styles and conventions of the
Indie and Alternative genre. The colour of this font
is also displayed in red, which may symbolise the
idea of danger, which can be supported by the
semantics of the language used in the album titles
such as ‘lightning’, ‘dangerous’ ‘fire and the thud’
and ‘crying’. However this may also be done to add
some interest to the page and to stand out above
the otherwise plain and boring background.
Furthermore. This is also the largest piece of text
on the page, suggesting that this is the main thing
they want the audience to focus on. The artist is
the biggest influence on whether someone will
buy an album and therefore it is essential that the
title of the artist is capturing, visually attractive,
bold and stands out on the page.
The barcode is presented on the left hand side of the back corner
and takes up the first third of the back cover. This allows for a lot of
empty space to be left at the top third of the cover, the second third
has some writing but the final third of the picture is given the most
attention with lots of text including the song titles and the artists
name. All legal information is conventionally displayed at the
bottom of the back cover, in a small text so that it does not defer
attention from the more important information of the page. The
company/corporate logo is also presented at the bottom of the page
for legal reasons.
The colour scheme used on this back cover are beige,
red and black. This keeps the page minimalistic, as even
the red which may be considered the brightest colour, is
a dull and relatively uninteresting shade of red. This
colour is used only on the name of the artist which
signifies to the audience that this is the most important
piece of text on the page and that this is the centre
piece of the back cover/ the centre of visual interest.
The song titles are displayed in a practical black, still in a
relatively bold font. Furthermore, the beige backing of
the page creates a simple, vintage style to the design.
This back cover has clearly been created for practical
purposes as a pose to artistic ones and the main
attention has been aimed at getting across the essential
information that they have to provide.

3. This represents the name of the production company,
therefore advertising them through the use of the digipack
and representing the other artists that record with them.
Here the title of the band and name of the album is displayed. It is
essential that this is displayed on this part of the digipack as in stores
where it may be sold it is likely to be stored and stacked with the sides
showing, therefore this will be the only way to show the audience who’s
album this is. As a result it is vital that this is displayed here for sales and
the success of the album.
This is a source code that allows easy access to find
the album within stores and online which again is
important for sales and the success of the
digipack/album.