Evaluation - Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

By creating a house style across my main product and ancillary texts, I have linked them, creating a brand identity for the target audience to invest in, which will help to "sell" my song/album to the audience. This is because you are giving them something 'whole' to invest in, rather than individual, poorly linked texts.

The combination of both my digipak and magazine advert are very effective as they are clearly for the same artist. Following conventions of a magazine advert and using the front cover image from my digipak for the magazine advert were key in creating a brand identity for my artist.

Brand identity and house style are extremely important. Creating a style of publication that is unique to an artist is what makes their work instantly recognisable to an audience. If this is done effectively, it can help to make you stand out from other artists and project your work to attract your audience. The branding identity of your artist's work is the image you portray to the world of who your artist is and what they do. The combination of my main product and ancillary texts can help to convey the personality of my artist and the audience's perception of who they are.

One way, I have created a brand identity across my main product and ancillary texts by using similar imagery. The above images depict my digipak and magazine advert and screenshots from my music video. The photographs used in my digipak were shot on location while filming the music video. This has meant they all have the same lighting and overall 'look' to them. 

There is an overriding colour scheme across my products. Purple, pink, blue and yellow tones prominently feature throughout, creating warm atmosphere. This combination of colours is aesthetically pleasing, which will attract the audience.

In addition, there are key themes which also translate across my products. For example, the shots filmed inside the car in my music video link to other shots in my video of the cars at sunset, as well as linking to the main image used on my digipak. I chose the image for my digipak based on this. The image used gives another perspective to the shot of the cars on the motorway. This gives an almost POV for the audience and makes it more immersive. 

This is sometimes used in real digipaks, for example, Bastille's Bad Blood digipak. The image on the front cover depicts lead singer, Dan Smith, running along a road in the headlights of a car, where as the back cover shows the two headlights, giving Smith's POV.

I think my advert sells my products to my audience very well. The artist's name and album title are very large and fill a large proportion of the page. This captures the audience's attention.

The phrase 'ALBUM OUT NOW' is effective as it suggests urgency. The use of the word 'now' suggests to the audience to get the album as soon as they can. Putting this piece of text in white helps to make it stand out from other text on the advert and the titles. The text underneath this tells the audience the name of some songs that are on the album. These singles may have already been released and therefore already familiar to the artist. This in turn helps to sell the album to the audience.

I think the artistic style to both my digipak and magazine advert convey the genre of my artist. An artistic approach is usually taken by indie/alternative artists. This is suggested through my image choice: as I chose not to use an image of my artist but an 'arty' sunset image.