Designing my own album art work

Before embarking on creating my own final album art work for my artist I have decided to first create preliminary covers in order to practise photo-shop techniques and play around with ideas and influences from currant inspirations that come from my industry research. I have used  pictures I have sourced from photography and music websites however for my finally piece will be using my own original images.

As I am particularly influenced by controversial and aesthetically provoking images on album covers that convey the synergy with grunge and glamour, encompassing the hybrid between destruction and desire i have chosen images to reflect this.

I came up with the idea of toying with the conventional idea of female glamour and beauty in a playful way which also makes a statement about the extreme that sex, beauty and destruction are taken too and how they are all interlinked. The lyrics to the song we have chosen include ' don't do love don't do friends I'm only after sucess'  ' i know exactly why i walk and talk like a machience' and 'tv taught me how to feel now real life has no appeal' this revels how from a young age girls are conditioned to think and feel that they have to aspire to be a embodiment of idealised perfection, conforming to to sociological boundaries and restrictions. The most commonly used motif for this is 'barbie' in which encompass's all that aspirational beauty, and the bases of most glamours ideals from which notorious pop artist such as Madonna, Britney, and currant such as Cheryl Cole and Pixie Lott stem from. However these image have a modern twist to expose what this obsession with perfection and the the media has, and its effect of young woman and artists. This theme can clearly been seen though the recurrence of drugs, money and most commonly sex in young female artist of today. Kesha for example consistently used lyrics such as ' love is my drug' ' lose your mind, lose your clothes' and 'boys trying to touch my junk' while dressed provocatively, yet still appear glamours, to younger audience this has the same idealistic effect as barbie does from a young age. I believe an album cover with such controversial pictures would highlight the extremities young artist are going to these days, almost spoofing them in a postmodern way to expose the hypocrisy of these 'feminist artists' and conveying my artist as ground breaking and innovative.

Here is a first draft of what the album cover would like,I have edited the picture my self in photo shop.
I believe the motif of the Barbie doll combined with American money symbolises the obsession, an intern destruction that idealised fame and beauty brings.

 I have been inspired by Nicki Minnajs 'pink Friday' cover which presents her as a armless Barbie conveys that the media engulfs woman, especially celebrity's in this ideal which they have no control or power over, they are just lifeless dolls which are passive to social and media expectations and demands.



My album artwork