Creating an album cover.

In preparation for making my double page spread on my artist 'Melinda' that has been featured on my front cover, I have created an album cover for her debut album. I felt it was necessary that I did this because the point of the interview and the double page spread, as advertised on the front cover, was to promote and discuss her debut album.

1) I chose a picture from one of my photo shoots that I wanted to use for the album cover.

2) I then cropped and edited this photo in iPhoto. 

3) Next, I opened the edited photo in photoshop, and edited it further. 

4) Then, using the same font and effects as I had chosen to use for the artists name on my front cover, I added the artists name in the centre of the cover, slightly nearer the bottom. I decided to place it here after I'd researched other album covers, and discovered this is roughly the layout they used. 

\

I then decided to use the same font but smaller, and in a solid colour with less obvious effects for the album title, as some of the examples above have also done. I have added an outer glow for the album title as this connotates the name 'coming out of the shadows'. 

5) To make the artist seem more well known, and then more realistic to have a double page spread, I made the editorial decision to add a 5 star rating from the NME on the album cover, and a reference to her NO.1 single. I also made the editorial decision to have the 'stars' as hearts instead as I thought that would link quite nicely with her signature font for her name, as it has a heart for the dot of the 'i'.

This is the finished album cover, which I plan
to feature somewhere in my double page spread.