Evaluation question 4

Evaluation question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages? 

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation question 2

Evaluation question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary tasks? 

Evaluation question 1

Evaluation question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge form and conventions of real media products?

Audience feedback from my magazine advert

I again asked my peers to evaluate my final magazine advert to ensure I had created a successful piece that not only fit with the house music genre but looked professional and authentic.  

I asked in total 10 people to write down some positive points that they really liked and thought worked well as well as any negative aspects that could require some improvement. These were some of the comments made:

Positive comments

• The use of colour fits with the house music genre
• The distorted image looks effective 
• The busy colours work well with the blandness of the brick wall 
• The colours used on the artists name works well the poster
• The use of the black font on the star ratings stands works well as it stands out from the busy background 
• The link between the album cover and advert is effective because of its consistency

Negative comments

• The middle section of the poster looks quite empty 
• The font looks a bit small in relation to the image of the artist
• The image doesn't look as effective with the shadow removed

I did look in to rectifying these issues by repeating the image over again to cover the empty space in the middle, however I didn't like the effect this created and preferred the advert I already made. I appreciated the comments made by peers but I was happy with my final product and kept it as it was. I was incredibly happy that there was more positive comments than negative ones, this reassured me that the magazine was successful. 

Final magazine advert

After some deliberation, this is the final design for my magazine advert. I knew once I had decided on my final album cover I would use the same image for my magazine advert to keep a consistent link between the two. This also creates a strong brand identity for my artist as it reinforces his image, allowing audiences to recognise him as an artist. I slightly adapted the image used on my album cover by relocating the position of the text, rotating it to a straight angle and putting it at the top of the advert, this is a more typical layout for a magazine advert which I noticed when doing my research into them. I also changed the position of Liam (Alex Fiction) and moved him more to the right as I felt it looked better here. 

I removed the shadow that was created on the album cover to create a slight different between the two, but still linking them together very closely. I added 2 other music magazine ratings at the bottom of the page to make the advert appear more realistic. Over all I am very pleased with the final product, I think it fits well with the house music genre and advertises the artist successfully. 

I included key features to the magazine advert such as the release date, ratings from other magazines such as NME and Kerrang!, the option to download the song from ITunes and also showing the new album includes his new track 'change'.  

Possible album covers

For my album cover i wanted to stick the urban theme of the music video, I chose an outdoor location to shoot the cover with the male Liam who stars in the video acting as song producer Alex Fiction. I dressed Liam in casual clothing; jeans and a t-shirt to fit with the informal, underground theme of the video. 

Here is the original photo of Liam with no edits, or filters. I plan to add colour and blurred effects over the photo to give it a unorthodox, quirky appearance. This was originally going to be my final album cover with no edits, however when questioning my peers they said it didn't really fit the house music genre and I needed to develop it in order to do so. I designed a number of edited version of the picture: 

1.

This was the first edit I created a faded pink to blue effect on this, I liked the effect on this image however I didn't think the colours were strong enough to use my final cover.

2. 

I really liked the effect created on this image, particularly the shadowed effected behind the main image, I think the red and green tinge works well with the dark background created on the brick wall. 

3.

I had mixed views on this edit, I really liked the masked lighting over the whole picture as it recreated a club lighting effect, however I thought the main colour the image was too weak and didn't really fit with the theme I wanted to create. 

4.

This image wasn't edited with any colour, just a swirled effect was put over it to make it look a bit more interesting to the eye, I liked this effect but regret not adding any colour to it because it appears quite bland and boring.

5.

This was another favourite edit of mine, I really liked the pixel effect over the image and how it distorts it, however I dont' feel like it adds enough colour.  

Out of all the edits I created I think I will be using number 2, as it fit well with the urban theme I wanted to create. I will considering using one of the effects used on the images above in the inset of my digipak because I liked all of them in some way.

Album art inspiration

I looked into a number of different styles album art that all fall into the house music genre, these are a few I looked at: 

1 - The Eleventh House 

I liked the underground theme to this album cover and ho it was paired with quite bright lighting, creating a contrast between the gritty location and the vibrant colouring. 

2 - Twilight Trax 

I was intrigued by the urban theme to this cover, and how the natural colours were stripped away and replaced with pop-art colours; creating an unusual effect to the cover.

3 - The Chemical Brothers 

I particularly liked the strong contrast between the neon green lighting and the black background. I also was intrigued by how  the lines were constructed to look like a persons face and thought this look really unique and effective. 

4 - Avicii 

I liked the use of colour on this album cover, and how it allowed the silhouette of the DJ and stark white text to stand out in front of it. 

Magazine cover analysis

Magazine adverts have been used for years for the purpose of advertisement, they can be used advertise anything but now more than ever they are used to promote new music. No matter what genre of music these ads always include an image of the artist who's music they are promoting, I know this from looking at many magazine covers but particularly the ones documented below.  

From looking at these magazine adverts I have gathered that house artist don't usually show their full face, if any, in any images of them. I think this is because this allows the music to stand out clearly rather than the artist themselves, as they dont want the music to be overshadowed by the hype of being a in the public eye as a celebrity. Suggesting they mainly focus on the music rather than everything else that comes with it like their image and their fame. I want to stick closely to this when creating my own magazine adverts, another area I will stick to is the use of bright club lighting as this is also used in all three adverts. 

I looked at a range of NME ads but picked out this Daft Punk one as it stood out to me, the cover shows a picture of the artist in their usual robotic attire posed casually. Their faces are cover by their costume so there is no direct mode of address, however the picture appears as if they are looking straight into the camera. Bright, contrasting lighting has been used behind them to recreate the effect of club lighting, linking to the genre of music they create. there is a quote in the middle of the page that reads 'we don't have egos we have superpowers' this gives an insight into their wacky personality, allowing the audience to feel a sense of knowing the artist more.  

Another magazine I looked at was a Mixmag cover which featured Deadmau5 on the font, again there is a picture of the Deadmau5 icon on the cover which hides the artists face, it seems that this is a recurring theme in house music adverts and I will need to consider doing this on my own cover. Again, there is bright lighting used to recreate the effect of club lighting and there a patterned created from which looks like luminescent lighting created by a DJ booth suggesting the artist is in a club environment. There is a headline on the advert that says 'the most amazing show in dance music' which intrigues the reader and builds up the expectation of the artist. 

Another advert I looked at was one of David Guetta, unlike the previous two this one appears to be taken from one of his live shows, again only some of his face is shown much like the other two adverts and the lights are made to appear brighter by the dark contrasting of the background lighting. This is the most effective ad out of all of the ones I selected because of its effective photography. 

Conventions of a magazine advert

There are a range of typical conventions that magazine advert should follow when promoting an artist, these include:

1. The release date of any upcoming albums

1. An image of the artist or band

1. The bands or artist's name/stage name

1. The record label supporting the artist

1. Symbols and logo's such as bar codes and scan codes

All of the magazines adverts I looked at included this, therefore I will need to include it on my own advert to ensure it looks authentic and professional.  



I will need to include symbols such as in order to create this realistic effect.  

The construction of my digipak

The construction of my digipak was fairly simple as I was extremely familiar with the software's I created it on, one of these software was Microsoft Word; this enabled me to manipulate the shapes of the images to make my digipak look professional realistic. The other was PicsArt. 

I edited the images an application called 'PicsArt', this app had a wide range of tools, filters and edits which allowed me to experiment with different themes for my image. The main tab I used was the 'effect' tab where all the different edits were located.   

I was able to place text boxes over the image to write on top of it, I hid the text box by selecting the 'no outline' and 'no fill' tabs. The information I wrote on top of the images included the tracks featured on the album as well as the artists webpage address.  
    

I was able to change the shape of the images pasted, this was particularity useful when making my CD design. I clicked on the image and the 'format' tab appeared at the top of the screen, I clocked this and it gave me the option to change the shape. I clicked the circle with the light grey edging to make it look like a real CD. 

I did the same with the picture of the album cover, I selected a slightly slanted option, again located on uner the format tab on the tool bar, to make the cover look as if it was 3D. this was again to make the front cover look more professional and more like real CD packaging. 

Final digipack

After comparing all of my previously designed CD covers and discussing and evaluating them with my peers, this is the final copy I have decided on. I got to this stage of the image by playing around with different edits on an application called PicsArt, I used an edit very similar to one which had shown on one of my previous designs as this was one of the most popular out of the few I had shown so I decided to use this on my final cover. I developed this slightly by adding a light masking effect over the image and creating a shadowed figured behind the main image. 

The effects I wanted to create for the album cover were youthful, urban and current, which I felt linked well with the genre of music. I was mostly inspired by John Dalhbecks 'Mutants' and David Guetta's 'Nothing but the beat' album which had a similar concept, with the use of prominent lighting and distorted images. 


Another key convention I wanted to stick to was the artists face not being fully shown to the audience; this creates a sense of mystery around the artist which I hope would intrigue people. However as it is an first album it's conventional an image of the artist as the main focus point as this shows brand identity so their fans can see what type of person he is.  I used the name 'Alex Fiction' in slightly bigger wiring that the album name 'Luminescence' as the artist name is crucial to the build in popularity around him. This follows the conventions of new albums as they often use just the name of the band or artist to promote their brand image and get the audience family with their name, I added an album name in addition to this to challenge this slightly.  

I used the same image on the CD design to keep a consistent link between the cover and in the items inside, I removed the artist name and album name and just used the image as I felt it wasn't needed on the CD. I did this not only for design purposes but also for practical reason, so if the user was to misplace the cover they would know which CD this album belonged to because the iconic image. 

I used the same background on the back cover to the album that was used on the other pieces to the digipak, again to keep a consistent link. This also created the effect of a real wall, with Liam (posing as Alex Fiction) leaning on one side of the wall and track names being printed on the opposing side. I didn't use the image again on the back cover as I thought having it on the cover, CD and magazine advert was enough to create the strong brand identity I aimed for. 

I also changed the font on the back of the album cover for practical reasons only, as I felt the font used on the front cover could be hard to read once scaled down to a size that would fit on the back; however I selected a font that was as close to this one as possible to carry on the consistent theme and to show an obvious link between the front and the back. I added relevant logo's and symbols on the back of the cover to give it the appearance of a real product, these included a bar code, scan code and record label logo. As well as this I added a webpage to Alex Fictions page that the audience could visit if they want to learn more about him,to look at merchandise, album release dates or upcoming tours. 

This is the insert for my digipak, I again used a picture of Liam to keep the link between the whole product, and distorted it with a pixelated effect. I took a lot of inspiration from John Dalhbacks album for this picture as I thought it gave a really effective appearance. I kept the same theme throughout by not showing the full identity of my artist to create a sense of mystery.

Considering fonts for my digipak

In order to create my digipak to the best it can be I tested out a range of different ideas including the style of don't, the key elements I knew I needed to include was to make the font clear to read so the audience and know who's album they are looking at. In addition to this, it is also imperative that the style of the font is unique, to identify the artists image and also the genre of the music. Fonts can be used to give an insight into the type of genre the music fits into, for example if the font is in bold, bubble writing then you would associate it with  the pop genre, whereas if it is edgy and harsh then it would fit more to the indie genre.

Above are some styles of font that I may use for my digipak, I have selected a variety of fonts all of which I feel could fit into the house music genre. I asked some of my peers for feedback on these fonts and asked them to give them a rating out of 10. Doing this will make it easier for me to choose my final font, allowing me to feel confident in my choice.

I have averaged each rating and displayed them below: 

Font number 1 - 3


Font number 2 - 2

Font number 3 - 4

Font number 4 - 2

Font number 5 - 1 

From looking at the ratings of all the fonts the most popular was font number 3, I liked the effect on this font as it looked quite futuristic which I felt fit well with the house music genre. 

Audience feedback from my digipak rough cut

I showed the class my original idea for my album cover, this was still the image I have used on my final cover but just a less heavily edited version; everyone agreed that the image was successful as it looked professional, however a lot of people said it didn't represent the house music genre as much as it could as the image was quite dark, was said it looked as if it could be used for an indie artists. I wasn’t pleased with the comment and knew I had create a strong identity for my artist and the genre he sits within, I knew I had to use a more distorted effect with more edited features such as brighter colours or pixelating the photo in order to achieve this. Below are some of the comments made about my rough cut, both positive ones and negative ones:

Positive comments

• The shadow created behind the artist looks very effective 
• The photograph looks well presented and professional
• The colours used on the shadow works well with the background
• The location where the photo was taken works well with the genre 
• The contrast between the white t-shirt and the dark wall looks really effective

Negative comments

• The image looks to dark to fit into the house music genre
• The picture looks a bit too plain 
• It looks as if it needs more editing done to it 

I will keep elements of the picture the same in relation to the positive comments so I don't take these factors away from it, and will try to rectify the negative comments by furthering my editing skills and brightening up the image. Gathering feedback from my peers was extremely useful as it let me know what I did well as well as the aspects that didn't work as effectively as they could of. 

Digipak rough cut

This is the rough cut image for my digipak, I took this image from my initial designs as it was rated the highest out all the others I had edited. I am pleased with the image as I feel it looks authentic and as if it could be used as a real album cover, however I will contact my peers for their feedback before I make my final decision on whether I use it or not. 

 I edited this image on PicsArt, an application that offers a wide range of editing tools to play around with the appearance of images. The main edit I used on the app was the 'shadow' tab, which created the duplication of the image behind Liam. As well as this I used different lighting effects to create the red tinge to the photo. I will be using the same image throughout my digipak, which is typical any new up-coming artist as it strengthens their identity as well as reinforcing their image to the audience, so it is extremely important that I get this image right.     

The main inspiration for my digipak

I chose to keep the same image throughout to create a strong brand identity, reinforcing the image of my artist. This has been done many times before in many genres but particularly the house music genre, artists such as David Guetta and Deadmau5 have replayed the same image over a number of albums to get their image to stick with people, I want to create the same effect for my artist. 

David Guetta has replayed the same image of himself over a number of his album covers, with different edits to them and different colours used on them. He is seen posed leaning against a wall with a casual facial expression, showing only part of his face. I have kept very closely to this when shooting the image for digipak and used the same conventions used in the image used on a number of his albums.

David Guetta digipak analysis

The Digipack I have chosen to analysis is David Guetta 'One more love' as it is under the genre of dance which is the same genre I have chosen to use for my music video. 

This digipak represents David Guetta well as a dance artist because on the front cover it shows a mid shot of him wearing a white t-shirt and sunglasses. This picture links in with dance conventions well as he is wearing big sunglasses which connote fame and high status, also a lot of dance artist wear sunglasses indoors in their music videos. Also the black background connotes the dance genre because in a club it's usually dark and it conveys mystery. The splashes of colour on the digipak convey the flashing lights in a club which links in to the dance genre, also it conveys graffiti which is a way for people to show their emotions through art or to leave their mark somewhere. The only colour on the digipak is gold which connotes fame and richness and the expensive lifestyle of the dance artist. 

The connotations of the advert convey the dance genre because of his sunglasses showing high status, his t-shirt which is casual clothing which links in with dance, the typography is stylish and the name of the album is written in a graffiti type of font. The graffiti type of writing goes well with his tshirt as it has a gold graffiti affect on it. The use of black and white on the front and the bright bold colours on the back show a great contrast which makes the digipak looks more interesting, although he has contrasted the bright colours with black and white, the colour scheme for the typography still remains the same on each cover being either black or gold. 

The use of using gold as the only colour on the front cover portrays wealth and success but as the gold parts look like they have been graffited on, it shows that he achieved that success by being an truthful artist and having only started from the beginning like the streets, he has still come this far. The black and white colours are a simple contrast to the colourful paint effect on the other two sides, as a whole affect it connotes a clubbing atmosphere as it's dark but there's bright lights.

The design of the digipak represents the dance genre well, the splatters of paint on the cover convey bright lights and a none caring fashion as it looks messy. The layout has artist representation on the front cover for people to see and know who's CD they are buying. The image of David Guetta at the front looks like a papped picture so this connotes fame. The listing of songs is on the back cover, so before people buy the CD they can read which songs it includes.

The choice of images used is one close up of the artist David Guetta, it appears to be a high angle shot and the brightest part of the photo is his face so that gives the effect of a camera flash, which could connote his fame and celebrity status as it looks slightly like a photo the paparazzi would take.

The typography used for 'David Guetta' looks straight and stylish to convey the modern dance world, whereas the 'one more love' writing is done in a hand written or graffiti type of font to convey where the dance world originated from the streets. All of the writing on the front cover is in white except 'one' and 'love'   which is in gold to portray wealth and success. The writing on the back cover is in black and gold and quite a small font, this all links in with the colour scheme used on the digipak.
The style of language used on this digipak is normal English as the album is called 'one more love' but the word love has an ambiguous meaning as it could connote one more album or one more dance, but David Guetta called this album 'one more love' because it was an extended edition from the previous album 'one love'.

The advert conveys the artist in an urban way because of the high angle of the photo and the colourful effect on the digipack. Also the picture of the artist is conveys him in a cool, fashionable way because the audience cannot tell his emotions as they cannot see his eyes, also the white lighting on his face may represent the sun shinning down on him, hence why he is wearing sunglasses.
The advert promotes the artist well under the category of dance because of the use of props such as his sunglasses and the use of bright colours and the colouring effect on the image which makes the focus on David Guetta. The way the splatters of colour are spread out on the digipak  could convey the atmosphere of his concerts when his dance music is playing and everyone is going crazy.
The target audience for the dance genre is around 18-24 so this digipack targets them well as it is colourful, yet cool being in black and white on the front with David Guetta wearing sunglasses and a plain tshirt. The plain t-shirt shows that he does not care about his image that much and he is being himself which conveys the dance genre as everyone likes to be original.

Deadmau5 digipak analysis

I looked in to a range of house music artists and their digipaks to look at the styling of them. One I looked in to was Deadmau5 4x4=12 album, the front cover is very simple yet very effective. They have used their iconic mouse logo and placed this in the centre of the album filling up the majority of space, making it the main focus of the cover. In addition they have made the outline of the mouse in a neon green colour to give it the effect that its been lit up, this luminescent colour links with the house music genre as it recreates the colours used on club lighting. The artist names and album name is located at the top of the cover so your eye is drawn straight to it naturally, moreover these names have been placed in the same neon green shade to link with the outline of the image. 





The same mouse icon has been used on the CD design but at a slightly smaller scale, this keeps a consistent link between the cover and the CD so when you open the digipak its clear the designs have been linked. The back cover of the album lists the track names in the same font used on the album and artist name, again creating a link between the two. By using this same typography it allows the front and back to flow, making it easy to follow. 






The bands name is printed again on the back, seen on the left hand side, reinforcing their brand identity. Logo's have been used on the back such as bar codes in the typical position for an album; the bottom right corner, this ultimately sticks to the usual conventions of an album cover.  

Conventions of a digipak

Part of my coursework is to create a digipak to go alongside my music video, I some research into digipaks and the importance of them in advertising. A digipak is a patented style of CD or DVD packaging; A CD digipak usually folds into four sections each featuring different images of the artist or their influences and always contain a front cover, the artist or bands CD, an insert and a back cover. Sometimes including information on upcoming tour, posters and bonus tracks. Digipaks are designed in a way which is meant to attract fans and target audiences, they must have a aesthetically pleasing cover to attract the age, gender and the type of person who will like and listen to the music. 

However they are are also created for the companies finical interests unlike regular albums which are easily downloadable from illegal websites, digipaks incise people into buying extra content which gives the artist some worth. An example of this is Katy Perry's - teenage dream album contains a bonus disk with extra tracks as well as a5 sized miniature poster. 

A digipak consists of plastic packaging used for CD singles, CD albums and the DVD digipak. It includes a book style paper board or card stock outer building; it's made from this durable cardboard so it's less likely to break. This format doesnt ever really change for digipaks even though some elements have developed over the years. 

On the front of the digipak you usually see the main artists or bands face/s, and if not something related to them or their album. On the outside there's a binding that holds the plastic trays inside, also with pictures of the artists or something to do with their album. The things to include on a digipak are the name of the artist and album, their track list, the bar code and record company logo, the six panels including pictures of their band on the inside, the spine with the name of the artist and album and finally, the disk impression. 

The digipak ultimately benefits the artist because it represents and promotes their new album which brings awareness to the artist therefore, selling the artist and encouraging the public to buy their CD.