Case Study- How does Sia use techniques in her album art to appeal to her target audience?

Sia is an Australian singer from Adelaide who began her singing career the 90s singing Jazz in bars. She later moved to London in 1997 after releasing her debut studio album, OnlySee. In 2000 she signed a music sub-label where she released another studio album, Healing Is Difficult. After many record label changes she took a hiatus from singing to wrtie songs for artists such as 'Diamonds' and 'Wild Ones'. She collaborated with Rihanna, Flo Ride and David Guetta where she reached mainstream and becoming a huge force within the music industry. Since then she has released countless hit songs such as 'Chandelier', 'Cheap Thrills' and 'The Greatest'.


Colour
Sia's album "Some People have Real Problems'" uses a simple colour scheme. The colours don't match very well or go together well and has a childish feel to it. This is perfect as the songs on the track have an element of childhood. For example, "Academia" has childish elements such as the semantic field of education with a mix of adult themes. For example the lyric "the mean of our heights is divided by knifes, which' is timesed by the daggers and the root of all our fights" mixes childish, improper past tense verbs, "timesed" and dark, dangerous weapons such as "knifes" and "daggers". This creates a brand for Sia as her songs often mix a form of innocence and purity with the dark and very real elements of adult life. Her songs often criticise society and it has been a strong theme from her earlier albums to her recent songs (such as "The Greatest's" relevance to the Orlando shootings). The colour of her album did not change drastically in her next album "We Are Born". The colours are childish and the variety of pipe cleaner colours in her hair screams childish innocence against a pink background. This drastically changes in her recent albums "This is  Acting" and "1000 Forms of Fear". The recent albums were released post- "Titanium"-success and it is reflected by the removal of her own face on her albums and replacing it with a simple monochrome colour scheme". This monochrome scheme creates a sense of seriousness and it is very effective as her songs are powerful and contain so much emotion.

Composition
The composition of the albums are fairly simple. On the "We Are Born" cover the side profile shot allows for Sia's eye to be on a line of the third. This creates balance and the frame appears coherent with no confusion on the audience's part. The side profile shot also allows for the pipe cleaners to be shown. The pipe cleaners are symbolic of childhood which links to her songs on the album as well as her make-up. On both of the "This Is Acting" covers the use of the profile shot allows for the eyes to look directly into camera. This intensifies the shot and reflects the serious nature of her songs. The eyes are on a third of the camera and creates balance without detracting from the message. By not using her own face in her recent albums Sia tries to shift the focus to her music rather than her as a person. In "1000 Forms of Fear" Sia's iconic bobbed white wig is shown with a blurry filter applied where it is in front of a black background. The black background causes the white wig to stand out and be prominent in the foreground, drawing attention to just the wig. The wig links to Sia's brand as she is known for the wig which covers her eyes. The covering of her eyes is symbolic as eyes are a way of showing identity. This influenced my album covers as I tried to cover the eyes of the characters on my covers.

Visual Styles
Sia's albums don't necessarily draw huge inspiration from many styles however on the original "This Is Acting" cover there is a use of surrealism in the distortion of the face. It is symbolic of inner torment and inner toil as a lot of Sia's songs are to do with self acceptance. The effect of this inner turmoil is shown by the album as it is shown on the character's face.
Sia's albums are also somewhat abstract. For example, "We Are Born" uses an abstract style as there is little coherence on the cover and yet it is an effective cover. This appeals to her audience because Sia is a quirky artist known for her different outlook towards her music. Therefore her audience will see the album and recognise her work due to the consistency over her ancillary products.

Case Study- How does Chvrches use techniques in their album art to appeal and engage their audience?

Print Production- Current designs

 This is my current magazine advert design. The cover uses the same sky background so it can link to the album cover. It also uses two half cut profile shots of characters with different effects. The character on the left has a smoke effect applied which suggests she is fading away. The character on the bottom left has a pixel effect applied which suggests he is missing parts of his identity. I decided to mix the pixel and smoke effect because they are very different. Smoke is real and natural whereas pixels are computer-made and very modern. The juxtaposition of the primeval smoke and 21st century pixels creates binary opposition between the two characters. This makes the cover appeal more as there is a sense of narrative on just the magazine.
I chose to place the band name towards the top as on the album covers that is where the band name is placed, creating consistency across the print productions. Also, the font is the same to once again create consistency and to create a brand identity.
The use of physical manipulation effects is part of the band's identity and image. On each print production there is an image of a character which has had an effect applied to manipulate and alter reality, creating a much more interesting image unlike most plain indie covers.

This is the inside panel for my album. I merged an image of a water with the character to create the appearance as though he is turning into water to indicate identity is fluid. It is also a reference to the alcohol element of the music video. The pink overlay is used as pink is one of the main colours used across all the album,
I also placed some of the lyrics on the panel too. The lyrics "get in my bloodstream" as been spaced out with different lines per word. This is done to show the emphasis of the lyrics in the song as each word is stressed. The lyrics are placed behind the water layer as "bloodstream" has obvious connotations of fluidity and therefore makes sense to go behind the water.

 This is my second inside panel. This features the same character as the first inside panel. This panel uses a smoke effect and it appears as though the character is fading away.
The album name, 'Resolution', is in white in order for the green, when over the white, to create a pink effect. I placed the text behind the smoke layer in order for some pink to be shown.
I also used a white font for the main text, 'resolution' and black for the lyrics. This is the opposite of the font colour on the first inside panel. This is done to create some symmetry and balance between the two panels.

This is my front album cover. Firehorse is in capitals as well as Resolution because it grabs much more attention and it should as it is the front cover and therefore the first impression to the audience.
The pixel background matches the pixel effect on the character on the front. The character also has a gradient applied so that there is a transition between pink and green against the different blues of the background.

The back cover uses the same font as the other panels and has the track list. The panel mimics the motif of the front panel in the pixel idea and the half face.

Visual Styles

Digipak photos

Figure 1

Some characters below will have a pixel effect where some of their face will be missing and there will be pixels coming off of them (figure 1).
Some other characters will have a water effect where the character appears to have one side of their body turning to water to symbolise alcohol's effect on the body and the perception of your own body.
One of the covers will also have a smokey effect so the character appears to be fading away as smoke, symbolising changing identities. 

Inner panel picture 1

The first photo I am going to use for one of my panels features myself. The character wearing bracers with a plain white top to reflect the preppy character in my music video. The costume is inspired by the 1940s to illustrate the diversity of the indie genre. The covered face is done to link to the theme of fragmented identity. Part of the character's face is covered which shows that the character is trying to cover their face which is how people are identified. This shows that the character is trying to prevent others from knowing
who they are, relating to the fragmented identity theme of the panels and music video.

This cover once again features me but in a different costume. The red baseball shirt is to link to the Americanised sport character in the music video. Baseball shirts are quintessentially American; worn by baseball players. In popular media the baseball shirt is worn by jock character types, linking to our own jock character in the music video.

This photo featuring a girl is simple and innocent. Initially the costume was chosen to portray her as innocent, hence the school lanyard and minimalist makeup. However, in editing I changed my mind and decided to use just the face and decided to edit it in a way to portray her as guilty. By looking away from the camera she appears to have a secret. The pixel effect will then present her as fragmented.

This photo is one I took whilst on a plane in September that I found to fit very well with my theme. The gradient of a dark blue to light cyan is really aesthetically pleasing. The two different views of the atmosphere colliding can act as a metaphor for perspective. The atmosphere is the same however depending on the perspective it seems very different. 

This photo is going to be used as a background for my album panels and magazine.

This next photo is of some orange lilies that had a really nice mix of oranges and greens. The earthy colours made it an option for a background for the album.

Print Production Initial Idea Evalutation

Album Covers

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