How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?Ellie Lester

In order to produce our Digipak we used a combination of a publisher software and various iPad apps, such as ‘Retrica’, ‘ArtStudio’, ‘Whitagram’, ‘Layout’ and ‘Montage Lite’. The design of our Digipak was inspired by our research into the indie-rock genre, as was our band website and music video. We felt that it was very important that all three of our final products looked similar, carried a house style and had a consistent branding concept. This is because it would make our genre of ‘indie-rock’ more obvious to our audience, as well as linking it to the original artists ‘Wolf Alice’. In our music video there was three protagonists, all of whom are featured throughout the CD booklet. However, only two of the three protagonists are featured on the band website which may be an issue in terms of continuity. Also, on all three products we tried to use a colour scheme of oranges and greens, to keep a natural and autumnal theme.

Final Productions

CD Front Cover

We decided to use pictures of the two artists sat together in order to portray our chosen narrative of ‘friendship’, as well as the fact that it links well with the lyrics and the song title ‘Bros’. We placed the band’s name and the name of the song in the centre of the front cover, this makes it stand out as it is the first thing you will see. The font that we used is in a handwritten style which gives the CD cover a laidback and indie-rock vibe, appealing to our target audience. Other Examples of indie-rock CD Covers:

CD Back Cover

For the back cover, we decided to use a screenshot of some footage from our music video of a woodland setting, we felt that this would help synchronise and create a synergy between the two products. Another feature that we added to the back cover was a barcode, as this is a key feature of a Digipak, as well as adding publication details. Other Examples of indie-rock CD Back Covers:

CD Booklet

For our CD Booklet we decided to use a range of photographs featuring the characters who starred in the music video, this emphasises our theme of ‘friendship’ and creates continuity across our final products. We also included a ‘Thank You’ and credits page at the end of the booklet as this is a common feature found within CD booklets. The main thing we had to include were the lyrics to each song on the album as this is common convention used in most CD booklets.

Arctic Monkeys – Humbug Lyrics Pages

Our Lyrics Page

Band Website

For our website, we decided to use ‘Wix’ which is a website that allows you to create your own website. The primary reasons for choosing Wix is that it’s free, easy to use and worked well. I feel that we used it well as we have used the forms and conventions of a typical band website, for example a link to our band’s music video, an information page about the artist etc. We made use of a lot of effects which show that we have an understanding of the software, as well as creating our style and theme. Furthermore, Wix allowed us to have links to the social networking sites that we created for our band such as Instagram, present the music video and give further information about the artists. However, the only downside to using Wix is that it is template driven, this means that creativity is limited. Although the choice of templates if quite broad and it gives you the ability to adapt them to your own taste.

By creating a band website, we’re adhering to the ‘Uses and Gratifications’ theory put forward by Blumler and Katz in 1974. Within this theory it suggest that people use media to gain information and knowledge, this is what the band website offers to people. If someone watches the music video and takes an interest in the artists, they have the option to find out further information about the artist by visiting the website.

Main Product (Music Video)

Overall, I think that our music video adds to the overall effect of the overall package, this is because it includes the same characters, colours and theme as the digipak and band website. This creates a synergy between our main product and our ancillary tasks. Also, it’s clear that the genre of indie-rock is prevalent in both the main product and our ancillary tasks.

The colour scheme (see following slide) of blues, greens and oranges is prominent in both ancillary tasks and our music video. This shows a link between all three products, meaning they can be easily recognised by our audience.

We also tried to keep the typography as similar as possible, in a laid-back casual style, as it gives the audience something to recognise. However, this proved difficult when using Wix to create our band website, as it’s a template driven software which limited our choice of fonts etc.

The image of the band is also the same throughout the music video and the ancillary tasks, they appeal to our target audience and work well together as a combined final product.

Inspiration for our Digipak and the theme

Our inspiration was the genre of our chosen song and the lyrics. The main idea that we got from the song ‘Bros’ is the theme of ‘friendship’, this why the main image on our CD Cover is of two friends together. The CD Booklet also links well with our theme as it features images of the characters in the video throughout, there is also a theme of time as the images start from when the characters were young.

Within our final products we wanted to create positive connotations of teenagers, due to the fact that teenagers are often portrayed in a negative way in the media. For example, the Women in Journalism study “Am I Bovvered? What are teenage girls really thinking?” in which the Women in Journalism explored the impact of the media on teenage girls, their self-image, ambitions and aspirations. The data suggested that teenage girls are heavily influenced by the media, yet they do not like or necessarily trust it. It also showed that they often blame the media focus on skinny celebrities for making them feel bad about themselves, which in turn leads to eating disorders which is a view shared by professionals. It also suggests that teenage girl’s ambitions are heavily influenced by what they see in the media, therefore we wanted our music video to portray teenage girls in a positive manner.

Target Audience

Our target audience is quite a broad range as everyone can understand and relate to our narrative concept, we aimed to attract people who are fans of the indie-rock genre. Our target audience would also primarily be people that enjoy nature and being outdoors or the feeling of having freedom as this relates to the setting of our music video.