Evaluation Task 1 - In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The Website 

This is the final design for the homepage of the website. Over time we have changed the font, background and colour scheme. 

We have complied to conventions of websites by including links to social networking sites throughout the website so the audience are appealed to follow the band of their promotional accounts on Facebook and Twitter. Additionally we have applied to typical conventions by including a page that contains all the information of upcoming dates and venues the band will be playing in. This is all because the website is apart of a promotional campaign for the band. 

 

This is the Bombay Bicycle Club's homepage, which we took as inspiration for our product. For example, we liked using a continuous background throughout the website and using signature dots as an element design, as we thought this was visually attractive and flowed with the colour scheme.

We also included a page that sold merchandise of the band including, sweatshirts, phone cases and vinyl stickers. This is appealing to our target audience of young people that enjoying indie pop band merchandise. On these products the bands signature, # or logo are printed, spreading the branding of the brand.

It is common for band's to sell promotional products on their websites, for example Bombay Bicycle Club and The 1975 apply to this convention. 

 

 

Overall I feel that the website mainly complies the normal codes and conventions of typical band's websites. Lion The Weak's image is sold through the website and applies to spreading the word of the band, which is important as they are new in the market and need to be able to communicate to a large audience. 

The CD DigiPak 

 

The design of the front cover was taken from George Ezra's music video Cassy O', which includes a series of aerial shots of circular items.The inside cover includes pictures of the band, I felt it was important to sell the image of the band somewhere in the DigiPak to show the audience who they were listening to because they are a new and upcoming band. The images are casual, reflecting the laid back image of the band. 

The whole style of the DigiPak is to show the audience that the band are creative and a 'work in  progress'. Having met the band we know that they all enjoy a good cup of tea, which sparked us to use tea as a central image.

George Ezra's Cassy 'O

This is the DigiPak of Bombay Bicycle Club's latest album. Like our DigiPak the same colour scheme runs throughout, which is typical of most albums. 

Overall, I feel that the CD DigiPak challenges and conforms to typical DigiPaks. It challenges conventions because the image of the band is not on the front cover. It conforms to typical DigiPaks becuase it includes song titles, bar codes, different fonts, the title of the album and the title of the band.

Research and Planning of the artwork

I created this image using Photoshop. The title of the band is eye catching and aided by the fiery border. If we were to continue using this design idea, we would try to recreate this image, or something similar, in real life.

These are different album artworks
that fall indie the Indie Rock Genre 

We experimented with crumpling and burning paper and taking photographs with flash/ no flash in order to discover the best way of exposing the band name

We decided not to have a photo shoot of the band and make that the main image of the DigiPak because of our research indicated to us that using quirky and unusual album artwork was more popular to illustrate the image of the band. However, as our band is new, we decided that on one of the pages we would include printed photographs of the band scattered on the work top to introduce the band members 

A quick annotated drawing of the first ideas
of our album artwork for the DigiPak

The main intention for the DigiPak is tot communicate with the audience that Lion The Weak is a new band and by using a work bench background, we are showing that they are not a finished product and are a work in progress 

The idea of taking 'Birds Eye View' shots of the work bench was inspired from The George Ezra music video Cassy O' - this video has been the creative influence for a lot of our decisions throughout the process - because George Ezra falls under the same Indie Pop genre as Lion The Weak

George Ezra, Cassy 'O

What are Codes and Conventions?

Codes are signs, which create meaning. They are divided into two categories, technical and symbolic.
Technical codes are used to tell the story in a media text, e.g. through the use of camera movement and angle.
Symbolic codes can be used for branding.

Conventions are highly recognized ways of doing something. The audience have to read those conventions in order to make them familiar to their genre, for example.

Codes and Conventions work together to create a shared understanding of a media text and provides a platform for the audience.