14. Evaluation

Final Evaluation 

The first part of the album cover course was research. we needed to find out how gender was represented in hip hop album covers and connotations of hip hop album covers. I found out that regular connotations of hip hop album covers were that they were in suburban areas. In these album covers the males, which were normally the artists, would wear hoodies and a lot of bling. Males were represented to be very rich by having fast cars and or big houses. Where as the females would be dancing around the males and would be posing as if they belonged to the male. These women were almost always in sexually provoking positions which is  to act as eye candy to the men to attract them to buying the album. Codes in all album covers were that they contained a barcode and copyright information about the album. They also had the atists website  and songs numbered in a list on the back.


EBI: We researched only hip hop album covers and not other album covers so we only learnt connotations of hip hop album covers.

Also if we found out more codes and conventions of hip hop album covers so that we could later use them when making our own album covers.

WWW: We found some codes and conventions of hip hop album covers to use in our album covers.

We found reasons for some features of a hip hop album cover such as women in sexually provoking positions attracts men to the album cover and tempts them to purchase it.

After that to test our understanding of codes and conventions of album covers we made our own album cover from a artist from our genre using photoshop , which in my case was hip hop. We would have to present it well and be creative. We would also have to make sure it appealed to the target audience and had the general codes of a album cover such as a barcode and copyright information. We had to analyse this album cover we had created to understand what we had missed and how we could have improved it.

EBI: we made more than one album cover to make sure we understood codes and convections of album covers fully.

WWW: we were able to make our own album cover using our understanding of album cover.

we could be creative and make the album cover how we wanted to. 

for my final album cover I planned to have a image of a male flying over the moon on a high end bike, this linked to gender representation in hip hop album covers because it showed that the male had power, superiority and was rich. To do this I would have to take a picture of someone on a bike and edit it on photo shop to him flying over the moon. My back cover had a image of the same male falling from the sky this represents him finding out that he s not 'over the moon' and has to come back to reality. I did this by taking the picture in front of a green screen. I also made sure that all the general codes of a album cover were present in my album front and back cover such as the barcode, song list, and copyright information.

EBI: I could have used more convections of hip hop album covers in my board game.

WWW: used codes well and showed my understanding of some convections.

Good use of photoshop to allow me to create my album cover how I wanted to.
In this course I have developed skills such as learning connotations of album covers which I had never recognized before and had been made aware of general codes of album front and back covers. As well as this I have gained presentational skills on photo shop to be able to make my final album cover how I wanted I to be. I have also understood how gender is represented in hip hop album covers.

EBI: We could have had more time to learn more skills on photoshop and improve our album cover.

WWW: I have developed skills and learnt new skills such as how to use photoshop.

Recognized convections in album covers that I had never noticed before.