Here are some of the album covers for our chosen artist Ben Howard. There is a very recurring theme in that the artwork is often very simplistic and focuses mostly on nature.
Every Kingdom
The "Every Kingdom" album artwork is a good example of the natural themes present as well as the simplicity. The album artwork features simply a man diving into a presumably natural body of water. The water itself signifies nature as well as well as how the person is free to move around within the water suggesting the freedom of nature.
It is also a very simplistic design and easily understandable because of this, from a direct perspective it is simply a man diving into water and so very easy to understand in that sense but still maintains a deeper meaning of nature.
Furthermore there is a contrast of light within this artwork as we see the sun shining through at the top of the water contrasting the darkness of the deeper water which the person appears to be heading towards not only acting as an effective image but also reflecting slightly on the kind of music being produced as the difference between good and bad or light and dark is a very key aspect of this artist's music as well as Indie music in general.
It is also a very simplistic design and easily understandable because of this, from a direct perspective it is simply a man diving into water and so very easy to understand in that sense but still maintains a deeper meaning of nature.
Furthermore there is a contrast of light within this artwork as we see the sun shining through at the top of the water contrasting the darkness of the deeper water which the person appears to be heading towards not only acting as an effective image but also reflecting slightly on the kind of music being produced as the difference between good and bad or light and dark is a very key aspect of this artist's music as well as Indie music in general.
The Wolves
This album artwork has a very simplistic design, overlaying the artist's name with the name of the album in block lettering of different colours to make both distinguishable but appear to merge.
This implies the idea of a split personality or split feelings as the two fight to achieve more presentation than the other. This works both for making the album name more prominent as the album name is generally less memorable than the artist and so it is given authority over the artist's name to ensure it is noticed while still providing a deeper meaning as "The Wolves" fights with "Ben Howard" in order to achieve a clearer view.
Expanding on the idea of a split personality or split feelings the album name is also very significant, wolves are predators and often very quick and dangerous in their actions while humans generally use more rationale actions however this artwork may be signifying how pushed too far we still go back to our roots and may act too quickly in an animalistic way and have to face the consequences of our actions because of this.
This implies the idea of a split personality or split feelings as the two fight to achieve more presentation than the other. This works both for making the album name more prominent as the album name is generally less memorable than the artist and so it is given authority over the artist's name to ensure it is noticed while still providing a deeper meaning as "The Wolves" fights with "Ben Howard" in order to achieve a clearer view.
Expanding on the idea of a split personality or split feelings the album name is also very significant, wolves are predators and often very quick and dangerous in their actions while humans generally use more rationale actions however this artwork may be signifying how pushed too far we still go back to our roots and may act too quickly in an animalistic way and have to face the consequences of our actions because of this.
Furthermore the name of the album is likely once again referencing the common theme of nature within the album artwork as has been seen previously with Every Kingdom showing some form of body of water and now wolves, a very well known kind of animal due to their reputation.
These Waters
This is another very simplistic piece of artwork but the natural aspect shows through clearly. It goes back to a very common theme of the Indie genre, particularly for solo artists, the idea of simply one person and their guitar telling stories of events that have happened in their life through the mode of music as the audience listens as sympathises with them. The album artwork features just that, a man and his guitar on a white background and the image itself appears to be a waterpainting or at the very least and attempt to recreate one digitally therefore referencing the name of the album or in this case EP.
The name of the EP itself is "These Waters" and as such water can be seen to be a key theme throughout this artwork, though not in the same way as "Every Kingdom" as here we are not shown an ocean or infact any body of water at all, here the water is used as the artwork, not a part of it. The image of the man and his guitar is almost certainly a waterpainter due to the style of the image created. Furthermore below the image the artist's name and name of the EP is written and especially from the EP name we can see the text seems to flow like water, hinting at the possibility that this album artwork is actually a photograph of what wad originally a water painting giving a feel of the flow of water to the artwork itself which reflects on the title of the EP itself.