Intertextual references of ska album designs to include in Digi-pack

These are some ideas for my album covers. The album covers are taken from ska-artists to see if they follow a generic pattern in their ideas of promotion. The band I am promoting 'Smaller Than You' are also ska so this will help to develop my ideas.

This is the album cover for the band Madness with titles album 'Total Madness'.It includes the famous singles 'One Step Beyond' 'House of fun' and 'Driving in My Car'. This album was released in September 2009 and went to number 11 in the UK charts. This album art works as it uses iconic britishness of the 70's with the vintage red London bus. The audience can instantly recognise that the band are british as well as classic. The images used within the bus are taken from previous album covers and are positioned to look like passengers. This adds some humour and quirkiness to the album which also reflects the persnality and music of the band. The main artwork used on the front of the bus is taken from the album 'One Step Beyond' which also included the single 'One Step Beyond' which stayed in the UK charts for 37 weeks. The font used is bold and eye catching with two colours used to seperate the name of the band with the name of the album.

This is the album cover for the ska band 'The Specials' with album titled 'Too Much Too Young'

This album was released on 7" in the 1980's then re-released on in 1996 on CD. This album cover reflects the ska scene of the 1980's, The Specials formed with the goal of intergrating black and white people therefore these 2 tone black and white colours reflect racial unity, this was also reflected in their lyrics. The colours are also representing '2 tone records' which was created by Jerry Dammers in 1979. His goal was to create something new which came with it '2 tone ska.'

(History taken from website below)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/features/stories/west_indian/history-of-ska-music-the-specials.shtml

This is a modern album cover for the Amercian ska-punk band Less Than Jake with their album entitled 'GNV FLA'. It is an interesting cover as at first the letters on the front appear to have no meaning what so ever but dedicated fans would either connect straight away or want to research it further. The LTJ at the top is the band name initials 'Less Than Jake' and the 'GNV FLA' is a tribute to their hometown Gainesville. This album was inspired by their hometown roots and therefore have managed to write a cryptic clue on the front of their album to tribute this town. This is an interesting method and technique as it also uses a picture of the town in a black and white as a background. This makes the title letters stand out and allows their audience to understand more about the demographic of the band as well as allowing the band to appeal to their audience demographic. I don't think this album cover allows strong promotion for the band as only their fans would be able to recognise the album as being Less Than Jake. It also doesn't make it absolutly clear on the genre of their music but it uses some creative ideas which I would like to include in my own design.