Website implementation

WEBSITE IMPLEMENTATION


I wanted to achieve the deep red colour that would be the only colour of the theme apart from black on my website. To do this, I customised the palette that had been automatically set up by the website. By changing the red to a deeper red, I managed to change the colour of certain aspects of the website. I played around with the palette until I was happy with the mouse-over colour of the menu.


I then had to focus on the band’s image that I had shot during filming. I first reduced the noise in the hope of enhancing the quality of the image. this involved getting the right balance between the options ‘Strength’, ‘Reduce Colour Noise’ and ‘Sharpen Details’. I then removed the unnecessary background such as the poster and wall. After that I further enhanced the image using Picasa3 Editor.


Where I originally planned to have an ‘About’ page, I decided that his was outdated after further research into indie and indie rock artist websites. Most do not have an About page anymore, but rather replace it for a more current ‘News’ page. This is regularly updated and some are even linked to the artist’s social networking sites to keep fans up to date with the artist’s movements.


I then began linking in social media sites run by the real Bloc Party to give the website a more authentic appearance. I did this by adding one of Wix’s apps from the app market that would display the feed of any Twitter or Facebook account I chose. I linked my website to the real Bloc Party Twitter and Facebook accounts. I would have also liked to have used an Instagram account for the band, but this would have included images of the real band members rather than the people I chose to portray Bloc Party.


I then began working on my ‘Music’ page. This page would contain the most popular music from all albums, sorted by album. A different track would then be available for free download towards the bottom of the page. I began first by inserting an ‘Audio Play Button’ which I then change the design for. I played around firstly with using the deep red, however I wanted to keep this a special colour and thus use it as little as possible. Finally, I opted for a black background with a white arrow, which blends into the background in a way that makes the black background unnoticeable. I felt that this was the most anaesthetically effective. It was then time to add the music and the rest of the tracks.


I began adding in lyrics to the Lyric page by copying and pasting the lyrics to songs on the album I had constructed. This proved to be a bit problematic because I had changed the names of several songs, and made up names for non-existent songs. This means that some songs were not on the lyrics page. I got around this by adding a small notice at the bottom, explaining that the rest of the lyrics would be posted when the full album was released.


I also had to then change the generic image of the Contact page to the band image. This was the only place I used the band image as most indie rock websites do not seem to feature the band at all. This is also the same band image used on the digipak to show consistency and corporate identity. The band is shown little, therefore by using the same image, they are more easily recognised by the audience and thus it can be established who the band are.

I added producer contact info as this was common place for indie rock bands. Many indie rock bands also had separate e-mail addresses for bookings and publicity as they are usually still only small scale bands who often have a lot more say in where and who they play for and have the time to see and potentially answer most e-mails.


For the video, once again I used one of the apps from the Wix App Market. I wanted to display videos as a type of gallery to make it more interesting for the viewer and also act as a sort of timeline for the band. The ideal app for this was TubePress.

I was able to select the size of the video as well as customisethe overall appearance. I was able to make the backgroundBlend in to the black background of my website and changeThe type of button present to switch from video to video.


I used Windows Movie Maker to cut out the audio of the clip and also put the black and white effect on. This was then uploaded onto YouTube and linked into Wix. I checked Autoplay and Loop so that it would play without any input from the user. I then made an enter button for the page using Adobe Photoshop Premiere Elements CS5. This was a simple ENTERsign that was in the same font as the album coverfor consistency. This I placed carefully so that the letters would be visible on the light background.I linked this to the webpage named Home so that

users would be directed to the correct place when they clicked enter.


My last page to edit was the Live page. I used another band’s UK tour venues to construct a convincing list of venues and dates for Bloc Party. I then placed a ‘Tickets’ text button next to each line. This link is linked to Ticketmaster – a well known and trusted ticket retailer which is widely used by most venues and box officers from operas to festivals.

I used the Wix rulers to give myself guidelines and align the text up for each line perfectly.

Website implementation

Design

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