Bonyduck Campersang
Odd lookin duck
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2022
- Messages
- 4,635
I've been trying to understand what makes a 'good' album cover: what art/design rules does it follow or/and what makes an album cover popular?
For the first question I can't find any answer. A look on Canva discovers some very good designs, and you can see all of them follow some sort of compositional rules (e.g. text contrast with imagery), but most album artwork is so widely different from one another that there doesn't seem to be any one uniting theme.
For the second question, it seems that the popularity or iconicness of an album cover is heavily dependent on the popularity of the album and the band. I don't think the Beatles could have gotten away with their plain white album cover for The Beatles (1968) had they been a small-time band.
I am not any closer to finding an answer to my question. What makes an album cover good? What is the thought process behind someone choosing a certain artwork for their album, and for someone looking around for an album to buy/listen to?
For the first question I can't find any answer. A look on Canva discovers some very good designs, and you can see all of them follow some sort of compositional rules (e.g. text contrast with imagery), but most album artwork is so widely different from one another that there doesn't seem to be any one uniting theme.
For the second question, it seems that the popularity or iconicness of an album cover is heavily dependent on the popularity of the album and the band. I don't think the Beatles could have gotten away with their plain white album cover for The Beatles (1968) had they been a small-time band.
I am not any closer to finding an answer to my question. What makes an album cover good? What is the thought process behind someone choosing a certain artwork for their album, and for someone looking around for an album to buy/listen to?