"For Your Viewing Pleasure"; Visual Rhetoric

This week’s lecture in LA101H focused on the rhetoric of visual images. As humans we are a very visual species, and images can have a powerful effect on emotion and a strong influence on the way we approach things. Our love of aesthetically pleasing images has transcended the canvas, and now visual art has found a home in some of the most surprising locations. With the advent of the computer and sophisticated software in particular, technology pushes the boundaries of artistic expression in ways never before seen. One example of art is album artwork; the covers of music CDs and formerly records.

Album artwork is the first impression between an album and the potential consumer; it is the sales pitch which finds its importance in the fact that we simply can’t help but “judge a book by its cover”. These are some of my favorite pieces of album artwork from my own music collection:

One of the keys to an aesthetic image is the utilization of a focal point in order to present an image the eye can follow its focus upon. The album The Resistance by Muse does this so well with the clear lines formed by the bridge-like structure and all of the geometric shapes meet at the image of the earth. Meanwhile, a mosaic of hexagons creates an array of colors that give the entire image an interstellar, science fiction feel. Meanwhile, all colors are brighter toward the center, adding to the focal point, while the gray border enhances the color vibrancy.



Another intriguing cover is Audioslave’s Revelations album. Coincidentally, this cover also has an image of the earth on it, in this case featuring a continent shaped like the band’s flame logo (Visible in the “O” on the right-hand side). Focal points play a big role in this cover as well in that the image is of a portion of the earth causing the image to be broken up between the planet and the blackness of space. Meanwhile, the band’s name is spaced so that it appears to wrap around the back of the cover and the name of the album is offset from the artist name with a smaller font size and is interestingly upside down.  All images are slightly off-center and it serves an important aesthetic role in that it is much less boring than having all images perfectly centered.