Liam Parkinson Evaluation Q1

Liam Parkinson Evaluation Q2

Liam Parkinson Evaluation Q3

Liam Parkinson Evaluation Q4

Questionnaire (Liam Parkinson)

CD Packaging (Liam Parkinson)

Twitter Page

Tour Poster 2 (Jacob Sanderson)

Facebook Page (Liam Parkinson)

Tour Poster 1 (Liam Parkinson)

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Album Cover 3 (Jacob Sanderson)

Album Cover 2 (John Masters)

Album Covers (Jacob Sanderson + John Masters)

Our next task is to create an album cover for our artist. Before I start to work on our album cover I will be looking at other artists in my genre and see how they display their album covers. Since dance music is not popular for albums it is hard to compare album covers. The dance music genre artists mainly produce singles rather than albums but I have come across a few albums I can take inspiration off.

One of the first things I have come across is that dance music albums dont tend to sell well as a hardback copy as the main source of selling is on Beatport and iTunes, this is for different reasons. Firstly the online downloadable versions are cheaper and easier to get than going out and buying a hardback copy. Another reason is the fact the genre does not have many artists producing albums but rather singles. 


The first album cover I have looked at is our songs original artist Hardwell. This is the album cover for his album that is due to be released on the 23rd of January 2015, it is titled 'United we are'. 

This album cover is very nice on the eye, it contains a mix of of colours in the background which work very well with the image of the artist. The album cover seems very basic but I think because Hardwell is the biggest artist in his genre he does not have to produce an exciting album cover since its going to sell no matter what the cover looks like. 

The thing I would take from this album is the simplicity of having the artist in the centre of the cover and a background to compliment what he is wearing (Colours matching). The artists picture has clearly been edited for him to look better and a bit cartoonish, I would take this into account when creating my own and maybe edit our artists picture with some sort of effect.   

The second album I am going to look at is Calvin Harris's 'Motion'. Calvin Harris is the most popular DJ and producer in the UK. This album debuted on the UK charts at number 2 and sold over 35,000 copies in its first week. This is what the album cover looks like - 

This is one of the most basic album covers i have come across, it is a basic background that supports the title name of 'Motion' as it is some sort of object moving. Then just the title of the artist and album in white bold text. I would want to avoid an album cover like this as its to basic in my opinion. I believe he has choose a basic cover for the same reason as Hardwell. 

Calvin Harris does not need an amazing album cover to sell it as he is well known and will sell his album based on his name and not the cover. I think I would have to create a eye catching album cover since my artist is not well known and would not sell his album based off his 'name'. 

Album Cover 1 (Liam Parkinson)

This is a the first mock up of our groups album cover as part of our packaging. This is one I have put together personally, which we all will be doing as a group in order to give us more options when it comes to producing our final Album Cover.

I have put this together with the skills I have learned and developed over this school term. I have also created this comparing it to album covers in this genre.

Once I and the rest of the group have produced their mock up we can then decide what ones we like and take strengths from each one and put one together as a group.

Social Network Security (Jacob Sanderson)

As our group will be creating two different social network accounts for our artist we will need to go over social network safety as social network can be very dangerously used to attack, harass and hack people. It can lead to peoples personal information being stolen and their contact information being leaked. Their is also lots of viruses that people can trick you into clicking and downloading through social networks. I will be going over the best ways to stay safe on social network. Hopefully this will help our group stay clear of any trouble on our accounts. The following is a guide on steps to take 

1. Don’t click on unknown links.

Sharing links via Facebook or Twitter is a common act, but avoid clicking on links where the destination website cannot be seen in the URL (as is increasingly common with URL-shortening applications such as bit.ly). These links can open you up to malicious attacks and place sensitive company data in a vulnerable position

2. Don’t share personal information.

Avoid including personally identifiable information when communicating online, such as date of birth, postal address, and certainly not bank details. Savvy online criminals can piece together information from different sites in order to steal individual identities and run up massive bills on company credit cards, or even create a fake passport in an employee’s name.

3. Set strong passwords.

Simple acts, such as developing strong passwords that are changed at least every 45-60 days, can dramatically improve IT security with minimal intrusion on time. Encourage employees not to save passwords on default settings when using the internet, as anyone who misplaces their laptop can make it very easy for the unscrupulous to access sensitive data.

4. Beware fake friends - Cat-fishing.

A common phishing attack that users are seeing occurs when criminals hijack social networking accounts and distribute messages to all the contacts in that individual’s contact book. Clicking on a message from a ‘fake friend’ such as this can lead to an external site that allows malicious code to enter your computer system. If you receive a message that seems out of character, always confirm who the sender is before opening to ensure this is really the person sending you the link.

5. Invest in security software.

Don’t cut corners when it comes to anti-virus software. You might think you’re being economical in the short term by simply downloading some free software online but once a malicious piece of software manages to enter your computer, it can cost a fortune to fix, and that £60 can start to feel like a bargain. There are also many free trails of software which can help out for months.

By following these steps we will ensure we are not at risk.