- Album artwork and design,its role and impact on culture - commodifying and promoting music, as a means of communication - Benjamin, Berger and Adorno.
- how album artwork can give music context especially if the Designer has a close relationship/affinity with the context- Barnard
- In context of the above, consider the cultural impact of the potential de-materialisation of music through digital media.
Black market Clash - The Clash - Consider context particularly political activism.
Conversely Kiss Alive (1975) and Destroyer (1976) - escapism and mystery - using Adorno to crtically assess - mass culture duming down. A band which took branding and consumerism to the nth degree - a Capitalist dream?
Peter Saville, New Order, Blue Monday, sleeve design, 1983 - The capitalist nightmare?
Public Image Limited, album, sleeve design, 1986
Radiohead In Rainbows - self released free digital download by voluntary contribution - Ironically went onto receive Best Special Limited Edition Package.in 2009
Some texts looking at:
Benjamin, W The Work of art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Berger, J (1972) Ways of seeing, London Penguin (Also on Youtube BBC - Ways of seeing series)
Adorno, T (1991) - The Culture Industry, Oxon Routledge
Lister et al (2008) New Media: a critical introduction second edition , Oxon Routledge
Coverscaping: Discovering album aesthetics (2009) Oyvind Vagnes, Asbjorn Gronstad Museum Tusculanum Press
Barnard, M (2005) Graphic Design as communication, Oxon Routledge
Heller, S (2010) Pop: How graphic design shapes pop culture New York Allworth Press
