How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products? - A2 Media Evaluation

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

By Moriam Tokosi

As a part of our promotional package we created a Digipak, Website and Music video for our Electronic Music Duo Ultraviolet.

We choose this combination as we felt it was easier to link this items together e.g. Featuring the video on the website and displaying the artwork on the website. We had a lot more creative freedom with a website than an advert as we wanted to showcase our creativity which we wouldn’t have been as free doing if we had done an album advert. Also with our target audience being regular users of the internet we thought It was more appealing to them if we made a website as we could also link social media to it and therefore increasing the popularity of our artist.

At the end we’ve come out with a sufficient product that fits the brief and that we are very satisfied with as well due to its genuine appearance.

What did you do for your each product?

Digipak.

Music Video.

Website.

Due to our band being called Ultraviolet we created a concept we wanted to incorporate across all of our texts. We wanted to follow the idea of the Electromagnetic Spectrum, Colour and Light which is why we decide to feature a lot of lights and colour within our music video e.g. Lights, Light up balloons and Funfairs. This also inspired the name of our album ‘Life in colour’.

Concept.

After researching different album digipaks within the genre such as Skrillex and Diplo’s Jack U, Years and Years’ communion, The xx’s coexist, Clean Bandits New Eyes, Calvin Harris - 18 Months and Tove Lo’s Queen of the clouds. We took inspiration from the cleanliness of Calvin Harris, Clean Bandit and The xx’s digipaks for our outer cover but especially Calvin Harris’ 18 months as it features him on a sidewalk outside in front of a brick wall -Which is similar to our back panel. Clean bandits’ new eyes because of their use of nature which is similar to our front cover which was taken in a forest. Tove lo’s Queen of the clouds uses a lot of purple which is one of the colour we consistently feature across our products and her digipak features a lot of purple smoke which we also feature on our front cover. Years and Years Communion inspires the inside of my digipak due to the rainbow like colours and the dark theme.

We decided to have the Light theme on the outside of the CD jacket where we would feature images of flares and graffiti/ street art and on the inner jacket wish to incorporate glow in the dark paint, balloons and glow sticks to aid to the dark theme. This creates binary opposition between both sides as light and dark are polar opposites but both themes appeal to our aesthetic and our brand Ultraviolet.

We used glow in the dark paints (UV) to capture images of both Jess and Osa. This literally correlates to our brand as we are using Ultraviolet paints that glow under an Ultraviolet black light. It also relates to our brand as glow in the dark paints are used frequently in clubbing and rave subculture who mainly play Electronic Dance Music as most artists among this genre tend to also be DJ's and Producers e.g. Calvin Harris and Disclosure. Glow in the dark paint is also bright and it stands out among the crowd which is the aesthetic we are appealing to.

We used similar imagery across the panels as we took the pictures in the same location under the same lighting. The first image on the digipak Jess and Osa in a dark room with low key lighting surrounded by a bunch of balloons different shades of purple. We choose to also incorporate balloons as it relates to our video and they have connotations with fun and partying which is what our band is trying to portray. We have also featured our acknowledgements on this page where we dedicate our album to our friend Nadine. This is similar to real digipaks as they feature dedications and thank you’s on one of the panels.

In the second Image Osa is displaying their logo on their hands in UV paint- each of his palms is painted with the initials of Ultraviolet ‘U’ and ‘V’ this is the image beneath the central disc. In the third panel there is UV paint on Jess and Osa's faces among a bunch of Balloons – This is a close up shot displaying the detail of the paint on them and the light up balloons in the background.

Digipak

The central panel of the back of the digipak features Jess and Osa standing on either side of a garage door. We did this because we wanted to display the youth and how carefree they are – so much so that they are not looking at the camera but away from it This is similar to disclosures image above as it looks as if it was taken in inner city London as it has an gritty vibe to it. We have featured the album track list on the garage door in the same bold font as the logo just with a smaller font size, We chose to use this imagery because a shut garage door relates to Closure which links in as it is the end of the artwork and the album. We’ve shot this photo shoot in the heart of east London as it has an urban feel to it which we are also trying to project as EDM has some roots in Urban Culture. we've also featured a serial number, record label (Big Beat/ Warner), QR code and copyright at the bottom of our digipak. This is because these are a important part of the album but we have made it discreet so its not overpowering the artwork.

Another item that gave us inspiration for our digipak and Album Art are smoke flares. These are canisters that release coloured smoke - we thought using these would help to give us a creative edge as well as going well with our theme for Ultraviolet which is being bright and out there artistically. This is similar to UV lighting as it is bright and luminous and the word Ultra which is defined as going beyond the ordinary and excessive. We choose this to be our front cover because it shows their faces explicitly making them the main focus whilst there is still enough in the image e.g. greenery and purple smoke to make it an interesting picture. We choose to use a bold, white sans serif font (without decorative flicks) that we had found on dafont.com because it was very plain and simple but it was still eye-catching enough to stand out on an album cover compared to our previous logo which was in black and Purple.

Digipak Continued

Here I have compared my finished digipak to the original sketch design of it.

Overall the concept for the images have stayed the same such as using balloons as a main prop, UV paint and a Smoke Flare. As well as all of the images for the outside cover as they have been recreated in the actual digipak perfectly to a better standard than the sketch itself. We followed the same idea for the inside cover but allowed ourselves to be more creative with it as we took several pictures and choose the ones we liked the most and looked best in the digipak.

Our digipak relates to our music video because of the images are taken in some of the same locations as the video under the same lighting. This gives the audience some gratification as they are able to see the link in both texts. This happens for the Zig zag background with Jess and Osa on the outside panel and on the inside where the setting is the black box also used in the music video. We altered the images to make them purple and used UV paint to add a new take and perspective on the scene which is visually pleasing to the audience but also new fans as well. We have also taken images in different locations that haven't been seen before such as the front cover and back cover. This makes it appealing to all audiences as its new imagery for everyone. We have used the same costumes in our music video in the digipak which is another thing that links them together however in the digipak we use props and different makeup to change their outlook. The digipak features lots of close up and full body shots of the two which is similar to the music video as it also features a lot of close ups to successfully promote the artist. There is a scene at the end of the music video where Osa throws his hands up to the screen as the video ends, This represents the logo for Ultraviolet which is used in the central panel of the digipak as we paint UV on his hands. This ties in well with the digipak and Website as we use that specific logo on our merchandise that we are selling on our website. In the digipak we also use the imagery of balloons as used in the music video to display fun, youth and a party atmosphere.

Our digipak relates to our website as all the images as well as new material is integrated on the website through its page backgrounds, social media and also the gallery. This makes the bright theme of our video and digipak consistent. We also used a lot of purple which is our main colour of our artists due to their name being Ultraviolet and to recreate the purple hue of the lighting in the video. In the website we use a lot of the pictures from the dark performance scenes – especially featuring the balloons as a main focal point of the website as we wanted to promote our artist we feature them on most pages but we didn't want it to be too overpowering therefore we used images of balloons as well.

In relation to the music video and

website.

We researched artists websites such as AlunaGeorge as they are our main inspiration for our band Ultraviolet. Years and Years and Tove Lo also added extra inspiration for our website.

We went for the same type of layout featuring an image of Jess and Osa in front of an interesting background.

We also linked Ultraviolet to several social Accounts so if you click the link it takes you directly to them. This is a common feature on artist website such as Years and Years’ website.

Website.

On our website we feature Seven different pages: Home, News, Gallery, Live, Video, Store and Social. The news page features a message about the new album from Jess and Osa. The gallery features some more pictures as well as behind the scenes photos from photoshoots. The live page has tour dates and links to buy tickets. The video page features our music video on auto play so whoever clicks on the page will see the video play automatically which increases the audiences consumption of our product and helps to promote it. The store features Merchandise for fans to buy. And the social page has a live feed of our social media accounts so fans can stay up to date with us.

Website Continued.

I am extremely happy with all of our finished products and I believe that they could all work well as stand alone products.

We were worried initially about linking our products together as we had planned to make our video all narrative based without featuring the artists in the music video and only on the digipak and website but we realised although it would follow genre conventions it doesn’t work as a sufficient promotional package as it is not doing what its intended to do – promoting the artist as all three projects weren’t linked. This is why we choose to feature our artist in the music video and have a performance element alongside the narrative – Our music video is also heavily performance based.

However I feel that we could made the website relate more to our digipak by using the same typography throughout the website as the digipak. Although it has a professional finish the inconsistency of the typography affects the quality of the product.

Overall…