Contrast

Successful:

   

          This image of Adele's debut album, 19, shows a successful design that includes the element of contrast. The image has a pitch black background and intense shading on the artist's face. The most visible parts of the image are that of one side of Adele's face, her bangs, and the album artist and title lettering. The image uses a lot of light and dark contrasting colors. The background and shading are completely black, as dark as they could be, and Adele's face is very fair, all the while maintaining the element of color. The lettering is also of high contrast. The "ADELE" lettering in the lower right hand corner of the image are extremely noticeable due to the fact that they are white and the background is black. The same can be said for the "19" with the exception of the coloring of the numbers being the same color as Adele's skin rather than pure white against a black background.

Unsuccessful:

           This image is of the album artwork for Orion, entitled Reborn. This image is a complete failure in terms of contrast. At a first glance, it would appear that the entire image consists of a blue background with a black, orange and blue teardrop in the top center section of the image. The background is blue, and Orion's shirt and pants are both blue. The entire image is the same color with the exception of Orion's hair, which has a nice contrast against the blue background. The mask Orion is wearing somewhat contrasts against his skin and hair. However, it is so close in proximity to the rest of the blue picture. This image was badly designed. This album would not catch anyone's eye and has no element of surprise or complexity. Even the artist's expression seems to be disappointed with the result of this bad design.

Movement/Motion

          The Beatles' Abbey Road album cover implicates that motion is occurring (see above). The image is of four men walking across a street in a single-file line. In the distance behind them is a car traveling towards the men. Since the album is entitled Abbey Road, it is fitting that the men are walking across a street, assumed to be that of the actual Abbey Road. Movement is implied not only because of the positioning of the men walking across the street, but also because of the positioning of the car in the middle of the road coming towards them a distance away. It would not be normal to park all of the cars in such formations as in this picture and have the men pose as if they were walking across the street. Thus, motion must be occurring at the time the image was taken.

          Yet another image of Taylor Swift (this one for her website) implies that motion is occurring. The image is of Taylor Swift wearing a vibrant read gown with a burst of red fabric exploding from behind her, as she is the center of the image.  There are different tones of the red in her gown being shown in this image, although it is quite certain that the pieces of fabric flowing around her are not actually part of her dress. It would be an incredibly complex and difficult job to create a sculpture of the movement of the dress and fabric behind Swift. Thus, it is only natural that the fabric and Swift herself are in motion at the time this image was photographed.

Dimension, Depth, Space, and Scale

          This image is a fan-made version of Taylor Swift's Speak Now album artwork. The artist incorporated dimension, depth, space, and scale in to the design. The motion of Swift's dress conveys that the image has dimension rather than being a totally flat picture. The "Speak Now" placed in front of Swift adds depth to the image because of the fact that it was placed in front of her rather than above, below, or on either side of her.The contrast and lighting on Swift's skin also portrays depth and dimension. The water color stroke and paint splatter brushes used to create the background of this image use both the elements of space and scale. The darker brushes are spaced out evenly so that the photograph is not uneven, and the dark water color splatter underneath Swift was designed to look like an artistic shadow of her dress, thus incorporating the element of space. The sizes of the brushes that were used definitely incorporate scaling. Swift looks a bit smaller than some of the brushes used but larger than others. This gives the image a sort of abstract feel.

Tone and Color

   
            This image of Adele's sophomore album, 21, incorporates tone through the lighting within the photograph.  This is a black and white image that uses a lot of different tones to highlight and emphasize different parts of this photo. For example, her face and hand are colored in lighter shades of grey, whereas the majority of her hair and the background of the image colored in darker shades of grey and black. This relates to the element of contrast primarily since it is a greyscale image. This tragic, yet element photograph of Adele integrates contrast and tone through the lighting to create a strong tonal visual structure.

This image of the album artwork for Adele's debut album, 19, is very similar to that of the artwork for 21. The only difference, aside from the actual photo, is the fact that her debut album cover was a color photo rather than a greyscale image. However, both images have a very strong tonal visual structure and high levels of contrast. The color in this photo emphasizes Adele's hair and face, and the white and light beige lettering of the album artist and title are given attention through the contrast against the black background.