Molly Rickards (7111) - Promoting New Artists

One Direction is the perfect example  of a new band being promoted in a number of different ways.
Recognising who the target audience will be is the first step to promoting a new band. Clearly for One Direction the target audience is mainly teenage girls, all  of the merchandise made for the band has been made to appeal to the young female audience.

It is the norm at the minute for the majority of young people to have phones, a great way to promote the band is to make things which the audience can use/wear everyday, for this reason wristbands, bracelets and phone covers are great ways to promote a new artist or group.

Creating 'the look' is very important to create a strong appeal for a new band, I want to create a look which suits the artist and will appeal strongly to their audience.

Things like T-shirts, posters and gigs are also something often used when launching a new artist and so I will create some magazine adverts, posters and other merchandise for Daniel Shaw.

Molly Rickards (7111) - Album Cover research

This album cover for Walk the Moon is an abstract illustration, it is common for a band to feature on the front of an album cover whether it be illustrated or photographed, and this cover breaks this convention. I have chosen to look at this album cover as it has been made for an indie rock/pop band, which is the same genre as our song choice. The abstract style is a clear convention in this genre of music.

As our singer is a new artist and needs to be recognised for his new music career I will make the album cover with him as a feature on the front of it but I will take into account this abstract style.

The colours are very vibrant and the band name takes up a large space at the top, this is most likely for selling purposes as this will help people to find this on shop shelves. The cover looks very fun, this introduces the bands album as happy and enjoyable, I think the style and colour reflects the type of music on the CD.

This has influenced my ideas for my own album cover,  I want to create a very abstract styled cover but I also need to promote the name and appearance of the new artist. I will use an illustration style on the cover making it look cartoon and will use a large font on the front to promote his name. I am planning on using whites; browns yellows and oranges to create the cover as I think these colours will reflect the style of the video and will create an image for the new artist.

ConorDrury 7200 - Backside and Track Listing Research

 I decided to do some research into what needed to be on the back side of a digipak cover, I knew they included a song listing but it was good for me to research as I wasnt sure what else was included. On this example of an album by Mika i decided to focus on the natural font and bright colours used, this instinctvely gives the viewer the sense that the album will be cheary pop music, which it is. To apply this to my genre ive decided to stick to a very limited colour palette, to much the moody feel to most of the songs.

On the back of "Peaceful the world lays me down" by Noah and the Whale the text shows links to the bands various websites, it also states about the record label and gives some information about copyright infringement in subtle writing. To make my digipak look more authentic I will also include our companys logo and a barcode to increase the realistic look of the digipak.

ConorDrury 7200 - Track Listings

I have decided to come up with some track listings to include on my digipak to make it look more authentic, some of the song names will be existing songs by our artist, Jay Tyrer as an almost homage and thanks to him for letting us use his song.

• Intro
• Plastic Dreams
• Always Be There
• Without You
• Letting Go
• 7 More Hours
• Hometown Heartbreak
• Little Did You Know
• I Was Over You From The Start

ConorDrury 7200 - Initial Ancillary Cover Research

After doing some research into indie and retro iconography I stumbled across an image from one of my favourite films that I could use to create the retro link to my artist.

This image from the very iconic "Back to the Future" gave my the idea to include elements of 3d into my cover using the simple trick of layering translucent red and blue colourings. This will give me the oppurtunity of including a free item (pair of glasses) with the digipak. The style I plan to use will also allow me to work creatively with the types of typography for the track listings and also be able to create a unique poster aswell.
below ill include an example image of how I plan to use the 3d elements.

ConorDrury 7200 - Filming and Editing Diary

Molly, Luke and I are extremely pleased with how our music video is starting to turn out. We have completed the majority of our filming and editing and have organised to complete our filming this Wednesday.  Once completed we will organise showing the video to a group of people and getting their reviews and creative critique.

ConorDrury 7200 - Album Cover Research

After doing some research into various album covers from artists of a similar genre I discovered many of them used imagery of the artist themselves. To push boundries but also stick to the convention ive decided to use an image of my artist but not on the actual front cover, on the back and inside instead. This will persuade the consumer to actual pick up the digipak and open it rather than just scan it on a shelf. On the front I plan to include something very eyecatching and unique but also have subtle qualities of a retro feel, this can parralel the indie links we found whilst researching the genre for the music video.

ConorDrury 7200 - What's in a Digipak

After doing some research online i have worked out what is likely to be included in my Digipak. 

• six sides
• cd holder
• pictures
• track list
• cd name
• artist name
• label name
• label sign
• barcode

By including all of these different elements as well as experimenting with other things such as, free items included, similar to Katy Perry's Prism which includes a pack of seeds to each consumer in the USA who purchases the album. I could possibly design wristbands as they could easily be concealed in my digipak and are also another way of promoting the new artist.

An example of a Rihanna Digipak 

ConorDrury 7200 - Ancillary Research.

Digipak

Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.

Since Digipaks were among the first alternatives to jewel cases to be used by major record companies, and because there is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies, the term digipak or Digi-Pak^[2] is often used generically, even when the media holder is a hub or "Soft Spot"^[3] rather than a full plastic tray.

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak (DVDigipak)^[4] is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets. Such packaging is less resistant to abrasion than jewel cases, so it tends to show signs of wear relatively quickly. Licensed digipak manufacturers such as domestic U.S. printer and disc replicator Oasis Disc Manufacturing^[5] recommend coating the raw printed paper with a protective UV coating, thus ensuring greater longevity.

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digipak"

Promotional Posters

I did some research into a variety of posters that have been used for either music videos and films and came across this website on how to create a great promotional poster. 

"http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/02/7-elements-of-a-great-movie-poster-design/"

Clothing 

A good way of promoting new artist is through the use of tee shirts and clothing, for example by getting a clothing sponsorship you can be endorsed with the power that the larger clothing companies have.

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ConorDrury 7200 - Filming and Editing Diary.

Since my last post we have done a serious chunk of the work and are almost in sight of completing this segment of the project. We only have roughly 3 shots left to film and edit before our music video will be complete. We would like to thank Gary from Blueprint media who came in and taught us various new and exciting editing techniques.

Group Task - DigiPak Contents Ideas

This is a Potential poster that i have designed for the DigiPak, although it is pretty basic it is mainly to emphasis the artist himself. We feel as if this poster does just that, there is nothing to distract you from the artist, We aimed to make Daniel the main focal point on the poster.

This is a design we made for the Front cover of the DigiPak. I feel as if it draws in all the emotions that the song and artist is trying to portray throughout his music. It shows pain, pain and loss this is precisely what we were going for and we are very pleased with the way it turned out.

Group Task - Digipak Research

I am aiming to create an effective Digipak to go along side our artists music video (original -Jay Tyrer - Letting Go) and The artists social networking page. The Digipak will contain a CD and the conventional features of a Digipak, such as still images from the video, artist imagery, song lyrics and a DVD copy of the music video itself. By making a Digipak, I will be helping to promote our artist to a wider audience as-well as his current fans. I think it would also be a good idea to keep a constant theme running throughout the Digipak which will be linked to Love, Loss and Acceptance. This idea was influanced by varios other Digipaks we came across whilst researching. Overall I aim to produce a Digipak that is attractive, engaging and links to all the aspects related to the artist.

Obviously the original track is copy right free and I am using this to launch Daniel as a star image.

My digipak will include:

• CD album
• DVD showing the making of the music video 
• Digital download code 
• Posters 
• Still images 
• Track list
• Lyrics 
• Info booklet on the artist
• CD holders
• Money off Voucher for Merchandise 
• Wrist band with artist new and track name