BIRDY CD COVERS

Because Birdy's video concepts have been of huge inspiration to me, I decided to have a look at her CD cover designs in order to help me to create mine. I really liked the way in which Birdy films her videos, and I feel that they link closely with my concept, therefore knowing that an artist should keep their material consistent, I knew that this should be of inspiration to me.

The first image is the cover of Birdy's self-titled debut album which features the tracks that I have taken inspiration from for my video. The second image is the deluxe edition of this album, and the differences between the two are minute. Many artists do this, and simply make small changes such as colour in order to create a different cover that customers will still recognise as coming from the artist. In order to differentiate these covers, Birdy has taken off her jumper, and when closely analysing these two images you can also notice the change in lighting. In the top image the lighting is focused in on Birdy's face, which I feel doesn't look appealing and makes Birdy look drained and very young. However, the lighting has been altered in the second image to give a much more flattering tone. Birdy is also wearing make-up on the second cover, which could be symbolic of her growing up, or could be an attempt to move away from the young age that everyone associates her with.

Personally I prefer the second image as I feel that she looks much more attractive, which may not be the main thing that she aims to achieve, but could widen her audience. The angle has been adjusted to more of a straight-on medium shot which aids the angle at which the light hits her face. Furthermore, the costume in this cover is much more subtle, as I felt that the red jumper not only disrupts the natural colour pallet, but it also puts emphasis her young age and could have limited the sales of her album. This could be the cause of the change for the deluxe edition.

As mentioned in previous plans, I wanted to have the characters of my video in very natural coloured clothes, and wearing minimal amounts of make-up, and I feel that Birdy has achieved this and in my opinion it is really effective. Covers from artists such as Beyonce, Cheryl Cole, Rita Ora and Rihanna are always very over the top and glamorous, which suits their genre of music, and that is what I feel Birdy has achieved; a cover that suits her genre of music and personal style.

Adding to all of this is the fact that the background of Birdy's cover is worn wallpaper/walls which appears to be in a run down house. Seeing that a young artist like Birdy has been able to pull this off is reassuring for me, as not many current artists have gone for a similar theme to me. This is proof that my selling point of 'vintage' will be successful.