Kaytranada Website.

 This is the website of the music producer 'Kaytranada', it has the animated illustration from the album cover in the middle, and each option on the website has a different illustration when you hover over it, each one links in with the theme of the illustrations and is moving which looks really cool and gives an interactive sense to the website.

One really good thing about this website is the game, which allows fans of the band to win a bonus track from their debut album. This really is really good idea for publicity, as people will play the game and tell their friends about it as it is a unique idea, making more people visit the website which spreads the name of the artist and is a fun and interactive way of spreading the word.

Creating something that is collectable is a very good way to market an artist, this is definitely something that I may consider. However I would have to look into the technical aspect of making something such as a game.

I really like the hand drawn illustrations and it is definitely something I will consider for my album cover. Unfortunately I am not very skilled at drawing, so if I did go down this route I would have to commission someone to make an illustration for me, I would want as much input as possible though so I would design I rough version.

Working on my website.

 

Today I started working on my website using the Wix website builder. As I haven't done a photoshoot with Jem yet, I started by including a short clip from my video, which I thought looked really nice. Also I think its good to link the video and the website together to create something recognisable for the fans of our musician. My next step will be to organise a photoshoot with Jem so I can complete the website.



Inspiration: Disclosure.

For disclosure's 'Settle' album cover they used a mixed media image - a sourced photo of the band as children with the familiar scribble face drawing over the top.

This has become a recognisable feature of disclosure's album covers, they use this same design even for their collaborations with other artists, such as for the song 'Omen' with Sam smith, who is very recognisable as a celebrity, and therefore this adds to the novelty of his face being turned into a disclosure drawing.

Using a mixed media image is something that I am considering for my album cover, as it is more interesting than just using an image of the artist, but it also means that the artist is still there and therefore can become recognisable as an artist, especially for the teenage 'fangirl' market, who want to see images of the artist that they can pin up on their wall etc.

Inspiration: The Neighbourhood.

I Love You is the debut album by the American indie rock band The Neighbourhood.

The Neighbourhood are known for a black and white or grey scale image. All of their album covers, music videos, any photos of the band and their website feature very little, if any, colour.

 

The three symbols on the front also link to their image and are now known as the band’s ‘logos’ or ‘symbols’. This helps to give the band a recognisable brand that audiences can relate to whenever they see these symbols, this also opens up the possibility for merchandising, as these symbols can be printed onto posters and hoodies etc.

 

The fact that there is no album title or band name on the front cover coveys a sense of mystery. The back of the cover also features the smoke background along with the grey scale theme. The fact that the name of the album is printed on the back in unconventional and alternative which would appeal to young 'cool' individuals. 

 

Their website it very fitting to their album cover, sticking to the black and white theme, it features a gallery of images linked directly to their Tumblr,  giving fans the opportunity to 'reblog' things which has positive connotations for the advertising of the band's brand.

 

It also has a store where fans can shop online for the bands merchandise, which features the recognisable logo printed onto hats, hoodies and t-shirts.

 

The font that is used is and old style newsprint font, which fits with the same of the band as local neighbourhood newspapers often use this font.

 

There is also a section with their music videos, all shot in black and white, fitting with the theme.

 

Overall I think the neighbourhood have been very cleaver with their branding, sticking to recognisable themes and logos and creating something collectable (the hoodies) in a way which will spread word of the brand.

 

When designing my website and digipak, I want to use brighter colours but I also want to stick to a recognisable colour scheme. I also want to have a section for cool fashionable merchandise to create something desirable.

 

 

Inspiration: Two Door Cinema Club.

Whilst designing my digipak and website, I have been researching and getting inspiration from other bands which are similar to our artist.

Two Door Cinema Club are an Irish indie rock/pop band. They're style of music is similar to our artist and therefore would have a similar target audience. 

This is their album cover, like other bands that I have looked into they have not actually used a image of the artist on the album cover.

They have used a recognizable and identifiable font on the cover and a picture of a cat. This reminds me of the album cover for 'Contra' by vampire weekend as the picture has that slightly 'old style' film, grainy look and taken with a harsh flash. This particular style fits in with the indie trend and it looks cool and effortless. 

I prefer the album covers that are slightly more grungy and 'effortless' as they look cooler and would appeal more to the laid back audience, as it goes against the mainstream 'glossy' high production look that alot of pop music has, this is often seen as 'uncool'.


Their website front page has moving images on it, varying from videos of performances to relaxing clips of the sea. I really like this as it it more immersive than other websites and it hold the interest of the audience. It is also very aesthetically pleasing. (Click HERE to view the website)

I would consider something similar to this for my website, as the sea theme fits with my branding and I could use some clips from the music video, as well as including a separate photo shoot of the artist and some artistic images such as an abstract painting.

'The Male Gaze'

The male gaze is the way in which the visual arts and literature depict the world and women from a masculine point of view, presenting women as objects of male pleasure. The phrase male gaze was coined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in 1975.

Laura Mulvey developed the 'male gaze' theory in her 1975 essay 'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema'. The 'Gaze' was an already established concept however Mulvey coined the term 'male gaze' to further examine the gaze in media texts and contexts.  

In order to deliver the male perspective to the audience camera angles, camera movement, cut aways and slow motion are used to make the audience feel as though they are looking at the characters from a heterosexual male view. 

To achieve that, the camera tends to linger on the curves of the female body and/or the reaction of the male within that shot. This places the female as an object for the audience to view.  

The presence of the female in some music videos can solely be for the purpose of display rather than a narrative or active function. 

Mulvey argued that women are given two character types in film:

- Sexually active and promiscuous  

-Powerless and innocent female that is often the spectators watching the video.

During the research into 'Male gaze' in the media form of music videos I have found that the theory is most dominant in pop and hip hop genre videos where there is a strong link between what the artist is presenting in terms of the lyrics and what is shown on screen. I found that in most music videos in this genre, they often have male artist presented as powerful and surrounded with lots of women. On the other hand, the female artists are in tight, revealing clothing and their movement is often seductive. This perhaps represents societies ideology on male and female roles and positions today. 

Finding inspiration.

During my research, I have found a really useful tool for finding similar artists to our artist.

It'c called Music Map (https://www.music-map.com/)

You type in the name of a musician and it gives you a map of similar artists.

Catch phrased 'the tourist map of music', this tool has helped me research other artists to find out how they are branded which helps me gain a deeper understanding of how to brand my artist to our target audience.

What we did today - Digipak mock up: 11/01/17.

Today I worked on a mock up of my digipack using my initial ideas for the brand. I went for the pastel colour scheme as I thought that it would particularly appeal to my primary target audience of females from ages 16-25.

When decided to go for a painted front cover as most of the album covers within the 'indie pop' genre are quite artistic, the colour scheme is also quite poppy.

I used a screenshot of the video for this version, but when i make the real thing I will include photos from a new photo shoot with Jem.

This is just a work in progress and when I finish this mock up I will show it to our target audience research group.

Analysing Blurred Lines using the male gaze theory.

I will be applying Laura Mulvey’s ‘The Male Gaze Theory’ to the music video Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke.

The first shots of the video are of the artist laying next to a woman with his arms around her and his name across the screen. This implies that he’s an imposing and confident figure, the camera movement and editing moves up their legs wrapped around each other and then there is a cut to their upper bodies showing they’re next to each other. The part of the theory saying ‘needs of the male ego’ could be applied in this shot as the showing of the artists name across the screen could infer he has a big ego, and the shot could imply that he needs that woman or women in general to fulfil the need of his ego. These shots could use the theory of women are there to be looked at. It shows the male artists looking at the women in an inappropriate way and the women have no problem with it. This goes with this part of the theory as the women have no problem with this and are acting like they know they are there to be looked at. This could also apply to the point about scopophilia as the men are getting pleasure from looking at the women.

Men as controlling subjects can be seen in the video, the women are stood still around the man and the man shouts ‘hey girl come here.’ This indicates an empowering and controlling attitude taken by the man which links with the theory. Also in a lot of the video the women are dancing and following the men around indicating that the men are controlling them. Throughout most of the video women are represented as a sexual fantasy. This is one example as the close up of the woman showing her looking into the camera seductively complies with the fantasy theory. Also with the majority of the background being red this has connotations of a sexual nature. This video complies with theory of society being a patriarchal society as the male artists are the dominant figures in the video while the women walk and dance around them. This can be seen either way as the male artist looks like he is trying to dominate the female with the lyrics ‘tried to domesticate you’. However, the facial expression of the woman shows that she is not interested and could show that she isn’t being dominated by the male, going against the patriarchal society theory.

This video shows the theory of objectification of female characters. It does this by showing the female as a source of entertainment for the male characters as the women stand there and dance while the male characters just look at them. This complies with the theory as it looks like the males do not take into account how the women feel about this and just use them for their entertainment. This can also be used for the theory of women as an image as the mise-en-scene shows the women in little clothing, looking like they are performing for the men. This complies with the theory as it goes with the stereotype and the scopophilia theory of women are there to be looked at which is why they are dancing and performing for the men. This picture shows that the video goes against the theory of active male and passive female. This is due to the male being shown as the passive character in this wide angled shot and the females being the active characters. The females are the active characters as they are dancing for the men and walking provocatively for the male character as he just watches them. This demonstrates that this video has contrasting scenes where the male is dominant, showing in the explanation of men as controlling subjects, and that females are dominant in this explanation.

Researching fonts for the Digipak: Finding the font.

These were some of the possible fonts that I found on a free font download website (1001 free fonts). I liked the 'typewriter style' fonts best as I thought they were cool and I have seen this style beiong used within the 'indie pop' genre.

I like the 4th one the best as it was the most minimal one, I don't want something too over the top and flashy.

The reason I don't want anything too fancy was because the style of our artist is more 'grungy/cool' and swirly fancy font would't rreally fir with this image.

It is important that every aspect of the branding for the artist matches so it becomes a recognizable brand that any fans and supporters can relate to.

Researching fonts for the Digipak: artist research.

  

 I researched some quite iconic and well known album covers to see what fonts are common/look unique and stylish.

The first one I looked at is Patti Smith's iconic album cover for 'Horses'. She uses just a simple black and white image of herself, with her same written small in the corner. I really like this font as is is classy and understated and fits in with the vibe of the album cover image and also the cool punk 'I don't care' vibe.

The next one I looked at was Chance the Rappers 'Acid Rap' album cover. The melting letters fit with the 'trippy' artwork for the cover, also with the name of the album, which has links with the hallucinogenic substance LSD, also the 'acid' could have melted the letters.

Jay-Z, for his album 'Reasonable Doubt' went for the 'old style gangsta' vibe and used a font that matched that perfectly. This is probably not something that I would do for my Digipak, as it does not fit in with the genre conventions, however, I think that is is good to consider and research all aspects of genre within the music industry.

Finally, I looked at Grace Jones' Iconic disco
album 'Nightclubbing', which has a simple powerful image of herself with simple text going along the top. With album cover's, I am uner the impression that 'less is more' and it is possible for it to be more powerful with less going on. However, at the same time album covers such as the one for 'Acid Rap' has a lot going on and it still powerful, engaging and interesting.

Researching fonts for the Digipak.

From looking at other digipak's and past A-level work, I discovered that the font can make a huge difference to the professionalism of the Digipak.

The font can be the difference between something looking amateur and something looking of industry standard.

Here are some examples:

 Here is an example of an A level digipak. while the photography and artistry looks professional, the font clearly sets it apart from the industry atndard, as only a basic times new roman font is used.

Next to it is the digipak for the Killers album 'Sam's Town', using a small neat font which doesn't just look like a basic word font.

I will need to take this into consideration when making my digipak, as I want it to be convincing as something that could exist in the current music market.

My next bit of research will be to find some possible fonts for my digipak.

Album cover research.

When researching album covers I realized that many of the album covers from within the 'indie' genre don't actually portray an image of the performer.

I am concerned that if I use a picture of Jem on the front cover, it will be a convention that is more associated with the pop genre. As the artists sound is quite 'poppy' we wanted to steer away from any pop imagery as we want it to appeal more to the fans of the 'indie genre, as we believe that this is the genre that fits best with our song, and we need to have a clear direction with our branding.

As most of these album covers show, most indie artists use some sort of logo or piece of artwork, which is something that I think i will include in my front cover. I also want to include images of Jem somewhere else in the Digipak, perhaps in the inside cover, to appeal to the 'teenage fangirl' audience. However, to appeal to a wider audience, I think that having artwork on the front is more appealing and aesthetically pleasing.

Initial moodboard for the album cover.

This was my first attempt at researching ideas for my Jem's album cover.

I put together some of my favorite album covers that are in a similar genre and have a similar target audience to our artist, along with some other visuals that I like.

I will use this when doing further research and when designing my own album cover.

What we did in today's lesson: 6/1/17.

Today we began our initial research into CD covers. In our groups, we discussed the different album covers from within the genre of our artist. We then discussed how we wanted ours to be unique from the others while at the same time fitting into the genre and therefore appealing to our target audiences.

We also started discussing our websites that we are going to make for our artist. I stated by looking at other 'indie' artist's websites to get the general vibe of them.

I noticed that they were all quite minimalist and artistic, which is something that I shall take into consideration. An example is the Alt-J website (pictured on the right).

We looked into the website tool 'Wix' which is what we will be using to make our websites. There are many templates, but I decided I wanted to design mine from scratch in order to have full creativity over it, and to make it more unique and personal.

We then discussed our Digipacks, looked into others and discussed our own ideas. I would need to link in with the design of our websites to create a recognisable brand that people can relate to.

 



The Hypodermic 'Syringe' Model.

The hypodermic needle theory implies that the mass media has a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences.
The mass media in the 1940’s and 1950’s was perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change. 
Several factors contributed to this "strong effects" theory of communication, including:
- The fast rise and popularisation of radio and television - The emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda 
- The Payne Fund studies of the 1930’s, which focused on the impact of films on children
- Hitlers monopolization of the mass media during World War II to unify the German public behind the Nazi party.