JANE'S ALBUM ARTWORK
Every one of the following album covers promotes the theoretical solo artist "Jane" in a variety of different ways, based upon the many varied styles of music which she performs.
'Rock Chic'
For this album cover, Jane is portrayed as a stereotypical "rock chick", with the title of her album being a knowing reference to this phrase. Jane is shown dressed in black, playing a bass guitar, and smoking a cigarette with a backstage pass around her neck implying the image is a 'live' performance photograph. She is heavily made-up with dark lipstick and black eyeliner. A gothic looking font ('Penchant') displays her name, while the bloody 'Halloween' displays the name of the album - with exaggerated drips of blood running down the page. The background of the image shows a montage of crowd and stadium photographs from various rock concerts, with part of a lighting rig scaffold and a rack of equipment directly to the left of Jane making it appear as if she is onstage.
'Inner Voice'
This cover is designed to promote Jane as a contemporary R'n'B artist, with her album entitled 'Inner Voice', which is intended to be broadly marketed at a 'pop' audience already familiar with the likes of Mariah Carey, Alica Keys and Celine Dion. The piano keys on which Jane stands highlight her own abilities as a songwriter, as does the presence of headphones and a microphone. This is an attempt to disassociate her from the many ex-television stars who sing material written for them by others, and to show Jane as a performer in control of her own recording work. It has been decided to tone down any sexual references in Jane's artwork, to allow her success to be attained by her artistic talent, rather than an unnecessary "raunchy" image. It is felt that presenting Jane in this manner on her debut album will give her credibility as a singer-songwriter, while its simple design and typefaces will allow easy recognition for consumers purchasing her CDs.
'Down South'
Although wearing the same clothes as in the 'Rock Chic' album image, this cover does not necessarily pin Jane's
genre down to specifically rock music. This cover is an obvious pastiche of Elvis Presley's eponymous debut album from 1956, and in turn
The Clash's 'London Calling' album from 1979 (both below). Rather than being a blatant 'rip off' of someone else's idea, this image
is an intertextual reference to both of these previous releases, using similar type faces and colours, along with a slightly out
of focus and blurred
black and white performance photograph - a common theme in both the Clash and Elvis covers. As with the 'Rock Chic' image, the presence
of a backstage pass, musical instruments and a smoking cigarette suggest the representation of an alternative or rock performer, but
with Jane's face obscured by her hair, and the straightforward title 'Down South' (perhaps a geographical reference or maybe a subtle
oral sex innuendo) could the music on this album defy the genre hinted at, and surprise the conceptions of the listener?
'Just Jane'
This cover was designed to be a pastiche of the album artwork typical of many solo artists during the 1950s. Its inoffensive portrait style suggests that the artist performs music of an 'easy listening' genre, and the text in the banner at the top of the cover mimics the way that record labels would 'brand' their releases with details more often reserved for back covers these days - such as the catalogue number and details of the recording quality. The intertextual transposing of this image onto a compact disc case transforms the artwork into a postmodern reference to album covers by pop icons of the fifties and early sixties. As this image was intended to be playful with preconceptions of the artist's 'image' and genre, the style of music performed by Jane in this context could be anything - from contemporary pop music, to middle-of-the-road ballads, through to classical or jazz.
'Proceed With Caution'
Again, here we see Jane in her 'Rock Chic' clothes, but photographed in a playful manner from a
somewhat revealing angle. While the 'Cut-n-Paste' font used for the album title is reminiscent of the typography found on the Sex
Pistol's 'Never Mind The Bollocks' album (below), suggesting a punk or indie style of music - with Courtney Love being the
prime example - the bevelled 'MarkingPenHeavy' font used for
Jane's name has an almost child like quality to it. Furthermore, the inclusion of a pink blanket with 'babe' motif and the cat languishing
on the bed hint that this album could be perhaps be marketed towards a younger, more innocent audience than the ransom note reference
implies. Perhaps this 'version' of Jane is more akin to the rock-pop associated with Pink, or maybe the playful raunchiness hints at
a more "traditional" style of exploitative pop promotion.
'Dexterity'
This album image tries something starkly different to the other examples here - the sole use of typography. Eschewing the more commonly photographs or portraits of the performer, this picture is influenced by Peter Saville's Factory Records covers - which are ultimately design-based rather than straightforward pieces of artwork. Just the one font is used - Chantily Bold: italics for the bulk of the text, but regular bold for the artist name. The main design in the centre of the image superimposes the letters from the word 'dexterity', with each subsequent letter becoming a darker shade of red and a smaller font size. The letters are slightly opaque to allow the smaller, darker letters to show through - creating a motif not unlike a coat of arms, where the individual letters can all be picked out from the design. The bevelled type for the artist and album name gives the cover a contemporary appearance, but there is ultimately no way to ascertain what category the music would fall into. A cover image such as this would more than likely have had more input from the designer than the performer during its conception.
'In-depth'
Jane's 'In-depth' album cover shows an extremely close up image of Jane's eye, trying to suggest that the material on the recording is of a personal nature, perhaps along the lines of a Joni Mitchell or Suzanne Vega style singer/songwriter. The black and white image with a colour pupil tries to draw the viewer in, shifting the emphasis of the photograph from Jane as a suggestively dressed commodity to Jane as a thoughtful, insightful lyricist and composer. The 'watercolour' PhotoShop filter adds to the implied artistic integrity of this representation of Jane. Although this type of 'tasteful' or even 'safe' cover image is often associated with middle-of-the-road, adult-orientated genres, there is no reason why an this image could not be used ironically to illustrate a more 'alternative' genre, jazz musician, or possibly an electronic dance artist.
'Influences'
There are three variations for the cover of Jane's 'Influences' album, each suggesting a different type of musical content on each one. This first one conforms to the most obvious preconception - an aggressive looking girl, guitar in hand scowling at the uninvited lens of the camera, while drinking an alcopop and browsing through her collection of fashionable novels, and Sex Pistols and Joy Division CDs and Records. The khaki coloured T-shirt, combat trousers and slightly boyish appearance would make those viewing this album cover assume this artist's music would be very much in the indie genre. But would those assumptions be correct? The subtle 'dry brush' PhotoShop filter gives that photograph itself a slight 'classical' portrait look to it. What if the recordings were actually synth pop or hip-hop influenced?
Same clothes, same hair, same instruments - same genre? Perhaps, but the featured disco, hip-hop and breaks vinyl LPs may mean that under this guise, Jane is a performer of electronic material, with the guitar merely being an ironic prop. Note also the science fiction novel and JavaScript reference book. It could be that she is still the same 'indie kid' as before, but is trying to demonstrate the wider range of influences that may or may not be present in her music. But what of the next example...
Here is Jane again, in another variation on the 'Influences' album cover. A close inspection reveals soundtracks to Broadway musicals (Guys and Dolls, South Pacific, My Fair Lady), along with the complete works of Shakespeare and several pieces of sheet music. Could this mean that despite Jane's alternative music disguise, she is actually a connoisseur, if not performer of more classically orientated material? However, it may well just be another way of this guitar rocker demonstrating she is aware culturally of much more than just the music she performs.
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