My Final CD Front Cover

Evidently, my final front cover is extremely different in comparison to the original draft, however all changes were made with good reason. For instance, the song I chose as the focal song for the album and overall band promotion was much more subtle and slow and the original images I incorporated in the initial draft, implied a more loud and obvious sound. This was due to the bold and bright patterns and colours used like the green, black and white stripes and the accentuated checkered squares.
As opposed to these extravagant designs and cluttered images, I chose to focus solely on the band and their music and what better way to promote an underground band than a well-taken photograph on stage at a gig. However the image looked slightly unprofessional in its original form, so I decided to use a blending tool in Photoshop to add depth to the image to make it look like an actual potential CD cover. Furthermore I changed the colours to black and white to emphasise the subtlety of the band. The band's music is simple and acoustic using traditional instruments such as guitars and their own voices - as opposed to the technological effects and instruments we now have available - can further reinforce the idea of using black and white as a way of conveying the way that the band value tradition and simplicity in their music.
Another change was the name of the band itself. We originally named them 'The Kennedies' because Alan Kennedy is the main vocalist in the band and they themselves had not chosen a particular name at the time. Roughly a month ago, the main vocalist told us that they would prefer the band to be named 'Life Thu Iris' which caused me to re-design my title as I did not feel that newspaper cuttings of the word's 'life thru iris' were the best way of conveying the music or values that the band portray. Instead I used a normal, handwriting font to emphasise the idea of simplicity. Furthermore I coloured the writing in yellow to contrast with the black and white background but still maintaining a natural element of colour as opposed to a bright red.
Overall, I am quite happy with my final front cover as it conveys most of the things that the initial draft cover did not. For instance, being and underground and relatively unknown band, it is important to see the band on the front cover so that potential audiences have the opportunity to see the band member and gain an impression of their music and identity which they may then be able to identify with as a fan.
Moreover I found that by using an on-stage photograph of the band, I did not have to create and stick-in a random image of a guitar and other instruments to portray the importance of music to the band. In fact this is better than the previous idea as the band is actually playing the instrument and are presented 'in their element' so the importance and value of music to the band is self explanatory through the image itself.