The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow analysis

My first reaction to the work is that there are a lot of bright colours and it is obviously an illustration of a hillside with lakes and chutes. I think the music will be quite country because the cartoon picture on the cover looks like a field and hillside.

The band of this album is called The Shins. The genre of the music that they make is Indie Rock. I do not think that the artwork of the album cover reflects the genre of the music.
Jesse LeDoux made the artwork cover illustration. He is a illustrator and an art director and designer for Sub Pop Records.  He has his own website and his own blog in which he does his own illustrations and illustrations for other people. http://ledouxville.com/ Most of his illustrations are about random things such as shapes, patterns and actual places.

The target audience looks like it is for younger people because of the use of the colours, shapes and different fonts used. The sort of people who listen to music in this genre is mostly older teenagers and young adults as they like the indie rock type of music.

I think some of the imagery and some of the text relate to some of the songs on the album. For example on the back cover there is a small illustration of lips which might relate the the first song which is called 'Kisses the Lipless'. Another example is that there are lot of illustrations of chutes on the front cover and the back cover which has obviously been presented as the album title is called 'Chutes Too Narrow'.  The mood it creates is quite a jolly mood as it has a lot of bright colours and does not look too simple so it does not look boring.

The kind of materials that were used to create this album cover is a lot of pen and coloured pen work just to highlight the colours that will be used, illustrator for the different fonts used and to colour in the illustrations to make sure that it is full with colour. The techniques used is drawing out the illustrations probably in pencil first and then going over it in black fine liner.

The designer of the cover uses a lot of bright colours to really attract fans to buy the album. It also uses a lot of colour because it may relate to the mood of the signs. The work does not really portray any message as it does not have as much information on the cover. Just the title and the illustration.

The layout is quite simple as it has only the illustration, the band name and the title of the album. The biggest thing on the album cover and the thing that viewers are most likely to look at first is the band name as it is at the top and the font is quite big. I think this was done on purpose.