Ancillary text research - Arctic Monkeys 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' CD

The main image of an Indie Rock album cover usually has little relevance to the title of the album, and are usually abstract and therefore very memorable and effective. The main image in this case on the cover of the album 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.' is in black and white which connotes rebellion, vintage and stereotypical Indie Rock. All of which Arctic Monkeys intend to portray with the image of their band.

There is continuity throughout the digipak which is a conventional element, this is shown through the use of a similar image on the back of the album, but with the model in a different position. The grey/black and white colour scheme also carries throughout. The fact that the model is smoking a cigarette and that the CD disc has an image consisting entirely of cigarettes printed on it also connotes non conformity, and how Arctic Monkeys like to break the rules and be rebellious. Smoking kills you, but they don't care.

The bands name is in a particular font style, with a play on words with their name as monkey tails hang from the letters. Many features such as this are used specific to a band or artist to represent them individually.  The fact that the band’s name is placed within a white box greatly contrasts with the fact that the background is very dull. This bright white aspect brings a sense of life to the album cover and most attention is drawn to the bands name because of this. 

The fact that the band did not disclose the name of the album on the front cover breaks the conventions of an album cover, although Arctic Monkeys choose to do this on several of their albums. Although it is not in large font on the front cover, the title of the album is shown on the spine of the digipak. This allows the audience to have an idea of the title of the product they are buying, without emphasising the importance of the title so much. White text for track listings is used on the reverse of the cover, which would stand out but due to the fact that the text is so small, most attention is still drawn to the main image of the smoking male. 

Conventional features such as institutional logo's, a barcode, release year info and production personnel is featured on the lower back cover, which I will need to include in my own product.