Snow Patrol: A Hundred Million Suns

This feature is slightly different as this is the first album app I had seen featured on the iTunes App Store. Luckily the cover itself isn’t horrible either as I would have found it harder to justify the post.

The design direction is by Farrow who are serial offenders to doing nice high concept artworks. It ticks the boxes when it comes to singles and website. Each single features a different origami star and their official website has integrated it into the background well.

The first single’s artwork for “Take Back The City”

Snow Patrol Single 2

The back features the hand written text. Which you hope isn’t a font.

Snow Patrol Single 2 back

Sadly I only have tiny thumbnail artwork, so anyone from Farrow (they don’t return my emails) or anyone else please send me bigger versions.

Here’s the standard and limited edition covers for “Crack the Shutters”

Snow Patrol Single1
Snow Patrol Single 1A

But it was the iPhone app that got my interest. It was in the “featured” section of the App Store and as it’s the first promotional album app or “interactive booklet” I had seen. It’s 46MB so if you’re pulling that down from anything less than 3G then sucks to be you.
Click here to download it.

The app is an interactive version of the cover. You navigate the star field by zooming in and out and click the stars then unfold them to read lyrics and view videos. Problem is the app is confusing to use and the videos are very short. One video is just 11 seconds long! Also why I’d want to download an app to read some lyrics is another question that goes unanswered.

Here’s some grabs of what it looks like. The artwork has been created directly from the cover with the actual origami coming to live with a stop motion effect. While navigating the app there is no audio.

Show Patrol Iphone App Front
Snow Patrol iPhone App All

So why does an app like this get made?
My cynical mind has me believe it was more for the record label and for the buzz it would attract. There’s no way to sample any of the music off the album and if anyone can find the link to buy the album in the app in less than 5 min I’ll start a slow clap in your honour. There was reports that 30,000 apps were downloaded in the first week which is pretty good. But if my experience is anything to go off they downloaded it, spent 30 seconds with it and then deleted it. But don’t take my word for it lets look at the 6 reviews on the App Store.

Snow Patrol iPhone App reviews

Even with those reviews the app is in the top 15 music apps on iTunes store right now, with Pink’s Funhouse app in the top 30. Pink went down the mini site route with her app. Download P!nks Funhouse here. More info here.

Where does this leave other artists?
I look forward to seeing more music artist related Iphone apps in the future but with a little more thought put into it. As with all new medium the early examples aren’t always the best solution. If you have seen any more examples of Iphone apps for bands and music labels please comment below.

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Snow Patrol: A Hundred Million Suns

Snow Patrol: A Hundred Million Suns

This feature is slightly different as this is the first album app I had seen featured on the iTunes App Store. Luckily the cover itself isn’t horrible either as I would have found it harder to justify the post.

The design direction is by Farrow who are serial offenders to doing nice high concept artworks. It ticks the boxes when it comes to singles and website. Each single features a different origami star and their official website has integrated it into the background well.

The first single’s artwork for “Take Back The City”

Snow Patrol Single 2

The back features the hand written text. Which you hope isn’t a font.

Snow Patrol Single 2 back

Sadly I only have tiny thumbnail artwork, so anyone from Farrow (they don’t return my emails) or anyone else please send me bigger versions.

Here’s the standard and limited edition covers for “Crack the Shutters”

Snow Patrol Single1
Snow Patrol Single 1A

But it was the iPhone app that got my interest. It was in the “featured” section of the App Store and as it’s the first promotional album app or “interactive booklet” I had seen. It’s 46MB so if you’re pulling that down from anything less than 3G then sucks to be you.
Click here to download it.

The app is an interactive version of the cover. You navigate the star field by zooming in and out and click the stars then unfold them to read lyrics and view videos. Problem is the app is confusing to use and the videos are very short. One video is just 11 seconds long! Also why I’d want to download an app to read some lyrics is another question that goes unanswered.

Here’s some grabs of what it looks like. The artwork has been created directly from the cover with the actual origami coming to live with a stop motion effect. While navigating the app there is no audio.

Show Patrol Iphone App Front
Snow Patrol iPhone App All

So why does an app like this get made?
My cynical mind has me believe it was more for the record label and for the buzz it would attract. There’s no way to sample any of the music off the album and if anyone can find the link to buy the album in the app in less than 5 min I’ll start a slow clap in your honour. There was reports that 30,000 apps were downloaded in the first week which is pretty good. But if my experience is anything to go off they downloaded it, spent 30 seconds with it and then deleted it. But don’t take my word for it lets look at the 6 reviews on the App Store.

Snow Patrol iPhone App reviews

Even with those reviews the app is in the top 15 music apps on iTunes store right now, with Pink’s Funhouse app in the top 30. Pink went down the mini site route with her app. Download P!nks Funhouse here. More info here.

Where does this leave other artists?
I look forward to seeing more music artist related Iphone apps in the future but with a little more thought put into it. As with all new medium the early examples aren’t always the best solution. If you have seen any more examples of Iphone apps for bands and music labels please comment below.

Posted by Ash on 4 December, 2008
Album: A Hundred Million Suns
Artist: Snow Patrol
Record Label: Polydor
Design Studio: Farrow
Year: 2008
00s, Album Art, Photography

  • martin
    what font style did you use??
  • Col
    They should've renamed it "A Hundred Million Singles" as the cover idea suggests each star represents a new song.
  • hahahah
  • chris lopez
    Is anyone is old enough to recall the wonder of ENHANCED CD's? romeo and juliet soundtrack was probably the best one ever made.

    This is just the record label experimenting with the media to see what kind of market exists.....

    it seems like an attempt to explore another format for design, potentially expanding the fan/user experience/relationship with band/music, which is cool. (i know too many forward slashes/ideas...LOL)

    Whether or not you could get someone to pay for it will depend on how clever the app is.

    I think the window is closing on the useles apps that are just there for kicks and serve as a kind of show off device for someone's nifty iphone.

    In the future, they will have to be AMAZING and FREE to take up precious disk space on my iphone..
  • chris lopez
    I just downloaded this snow patrol app. I will be deleting it very shortly.

    1.too slow.
    2.programming isnt very robust.
    3.there arent any implied goals- "payoff"- something more interesting than hard to read lyrics..
    4.the overall performance and intuitiveness
    is sluggish which drags the experience into boredom.

    The paper unwrapping should reveal something wonderful.

    All of the origami objects should be click-able.

    you should be able to navigate in every direction.

    There is no sound.

    this whole things seems like a mock-up for a more advanced version.
  • Really nice photos of the suns...
    Really they are 100 million...
    thanks for sharing....
  • I thought the cover for this album was great, but that the rest of the printed matter was a little lack-luster. I wanted more than just various shots of the same thing and plain type. It didn't have to be much more, but... I dunno.. it didn't feel quite right. Photography of the origami stars was fantastic, though.
  • artie_fufkin
    i like the concept of this but not sure if it'll catch on... still, at least it's refreshing to see an artist put some effort into the album artwork - you don't have to like the music to appreciate the artwork. I don't - but I do!
  • Guest
    Sleeve is Good. Album? Sucks.
  • vizzee
    nine inch nails did something similar recently with the nin version of the taptap revenge game. it included songs from their last 2 albums, 'ghosts i-iv' and 'the slip', and had the distinctive 'the slip'-themed red-on-black graphics. in my opinion this has more potential in terms of marketing for the albums than the snow patrol one; a lot of the reviews above say the snow patrol one is boring or hard to use, and although i don't have an iphone or ipod touch and haven't played the nin taptap revenge, i can't imagine this also being the case.
  • dreamondreamer
    I think the concept is AWESOME, I hope more artists continue to try it and play with it and hopefully come up with something more efficient. Because album art is the main reason I still go out and buy physical CDs, instead of buying them on itunes. I love looking through booklets way too much to just download the sounds. For certain fave artists of mine who put a lot of effort into their album art, I would def get all apps of theirs for my ipod touch if this becomes a standard. I really hope it does!
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