The Album Artwork of "+"

Ed Sheeran's album "+"

The artwork for Ed Sheeran's album "+" was done by Phillip Butah, an artist from East London known well for designing portraits of people that reflect their personality and character. Phillip Butah gives a deep insight into the designing of the artwork for "+" describing the portrait as "the emerging singer finally coming out of the darkness which represents the dark clubs and venues that the singer would go to and perform on his steady rise."

Phillip Butah himself

Ed Sheeran has known Phillip Butah for years and in his own blog Butah tells us how he thinks that Ed Sheeran's album is one of the most anticipated album's of the year. We also find out that he hasn't just done one drawing of Ed: with the album cover being followed up with iconic pictures of his singles like "You Need Me I Don't Need You."




Community Channel also got an interesting insight into Sheeran's and Butah's relationship. From the interview with Phillip Butah we can see that Ed and Phillip are very good friends who intend to help one another in their career's. Also we can see that Ed Sheeran clearly admires Butah's artwork as he says that Phillip was one of the best artists he had ever known and that he wants him to keep providing artwork for his albums. This shows us that Ed intends to continue his friendly, helpful relationship with Phillip.

I personally think that Ed Sheeran's album artwork is really good because it is different to the average album artwork. Instead of there being the normal stereotypes on the cover, Ed Sheeran has used a nice, classy, pastel portrait of himself which I think shows his personality and character just like Butah said.

Reviews of "+"

We all know that Ed Sheeran's rise to fame hasn't been through luck, another artist, or the Xfactor, he has put all the work in himself by doing hundreds of gigs and gaining a massive fanbase. Through the years he has done independent albums with songs written to appeal to his loyal fanbase, however, since his big break he is had to write a commercial one with a mix of his new and his old style, but how well did he do this without loosing his previous fans?

Although Ed Sheerans album had been a number 1 hit, many reviews of the album have very mixed opinions and views on whether the album is infact, a number 1 hit. I think that Ed Sheeran has done a great job on his first commercial album as it can be very hard for artists to create an album that will not only appeal to a chart type audience but also to his oldest and most loyal fans.

"His first commercial effort "+". It's a challenge he carries off with relative ease on standouts 'Grade 8' and 'Drunk', where the Damien Rice-meets-Wiley sound blends together in the same unexpected fashion as a bacon and peanut butter sandwich."– Digital Spy Music

Digital Spy Music definately have a lot of good things to say about Ed Sheerans album. From the quote below we can see that they obviously believe, like many other people, Ed Sheeran has created a completely new sound ("Damien Rice-meets-Wiley") and that he has a done a very good job on his first commercial effort. The review also says that Digital Spy Music believe the songs "Drunk" and "Grade 8" stand out amongst the others, and at this point they have not been big hits with the public yet with "The A Team", "Lego House" and "

You Need Me Man I Don't Need You" stealing the limelight. So could these two possibly be two more big hits in the charts for Ed Sheeran in 2012? I think that they could. On the album "+" Ed Sheeran has generally written quite slow and lyrical songs, however "Drunk" and "Grade 8" are the exact opposite of this. They are more upbeat, catchy and carry that standard structure of a hit song. I think that these songs definately have a fighting chance of getting into our charts.

So is there anything bad anyone has to say about Ed Sheeran's new album "+"?

"The funniest thing is how dated and tame it all sounds coming from someone with such obvious drive to succeed." - NME Album Reviews

This review suggests that Ed Sheeran's fans are disappointed with his new album "+" in comparison to other albums he has done in the past. The public have obviously been quite impressed with albums like "Want some?" and "No.5 Collaborations Project" which pushed Ed Sheeran to be successful in the music industry and were expecting more from his first commercial album in term of new sounds and lyrics.

Some people, however, believe that Ed Sheerans album is not good, is not bad, but fits somewhere in the middle. The Observer believes that although Ed Sheeran's album is good, it may only be seen as good to a certian audience. Preferably teenagers.

"Half-rapped banalities about watching Shrek 12 times and being "crap at computer games" will certainly win hearts, but perhaps only those of a certain age." – Music, The Observer

I, however, do not believe that this album is just for teenagers as it would not become so popular in the charts through such a small target audience. Although teenagers can have a big impact on how well a new singer can do in their brand new music career, I don't think that his album just appeals to teenagers and I think that "+" and Ed Sheeran himself will do very, very well in years to come with his heartfelt lyrics, individual genre of music and appeal to so many audiences who can relate to all of this.