My Digipak

Throughout my digipak, I've used various styles that are consistent across all of my products. Perhaps the most obvious of all is the orange colour scheme - the colour's connotations are such that a warmth is conveyed; this is a visual trait required by my artist's music genre, as indie-folk songs tend to share associations with warmth, summer and countryside miss en scene. Appealing to such genre conventions is ultimately beneficial for my music products as it is a key identifier for potential consumers who value this genre of music.

In addition to the colour theme, I've designed my own artist logo to further cement the brand identity of my products; AH stands for Accidental Hero, and is located on many of my digipak products. It's placement is such that the logo is seen by the media consumer, thereby becoming iconic of all of Accidental Hero's work in the consumer's mind.

Abiding by Goodwin's theory on the conventions of music media productions and products, I established a link between the title of the album and the images present on my CD casing; When considering that the album title was "Thank God I Don't Believe In God", I decided to reflect some form of religious imagery in the visuals of my digipak, adding of course the priest and devil from my music video. By abiding to the typical convention of having a thematic link between the lyrics heard and the visual content seen, I believe I am strengthening the purpose and effect of my production and digipak by having a united and consistent brand image.

Record Label

When considering a record label that would produce and represent my media products, I naturally considered well-known record labels; In an ideal world, having a secure record label from which to launch your music products is a vital step in ensuring commercial success. A record label that caught my eye therefore was Atlantic Records.

Atlantic records have signed music artists such as Ed Sheeran, Johnny Cash and Jason Mraz; all of whom share many similarities with my artist, Accidental Hero. As my music artist's genre is not unknown to Atlantic Records, I can have faith in their ability to propel my artist into commercial success, as we have seen with the artists stated above.

Poster Art

Magazine Advertisements: Jessie J

  

Considered to be Pop with elements of R&B in genre, Jessie J's target audience would generally be geared towards younger audiences and in her case, generally female music consumers.

Throughout the majority of Jessie J's music products, we see that her physical image is iconic of her brand identity. This is not unusual for an artist of her genre; the typical consumers one would expect to listen to Jessie J's music would be young - individuals who interact with many other different music artists regularly through the means of internet technology and its rising accessibility. This, coupled with the concern that Jessie J is still a relatively new artist, means that her advertisement and image has been crafted in such a way that largely has her physical image positioned as centre-focus. We see this on the magazine advertisement on the left, where the close-up shot of Jessie J fills the entirety of the screen; there can be no mistaking this artist's identity.

The artist's name appears to be gold plated, while the album's title appears as informal writing located below and in a minimalistic fashion. The suggestion that her own name is 'golden' is typical of the pop and R&B genres, as a frequent theme that is present in said categories is the concept of material wealth and visual embellishment. Having one's name as gold plated is a statement of material wealth and by that, power; it's intention is to give significance to the name "Jessie J", relative to the pop/R&B consumer who will be looking for such signifiers as they are indicative of their music interests. Forming a direct contrast to the name above, the title "Who You Are" is minimalistic and takes on the appearance of being hand written; This gives the impression that this title may have been written by the music artist herself, forming, almost, a personal relationship between the design of the advertisement and the artist, which potential consumers are able to relate to. There's also the literal connection of the title and it's design; perhaps Jessie J is suggesting that the 'real her' is humble and minimalistic, and perhaps, we should all be to. This concept of finding the 'real you' can appeal to younger audiences, especially teenagers.

Poster Art Early Concept/Rough Cut

Forming the rough concept draft of what would later be my final poster art piece, I designed this picture after creating my CD case's front cover. I was still finding my feet in the photoshop software, experimenting with different designs and styles.

A style that I became particularly fond of was the blocky-graphic filters that applied certain filter effects on the images behind them.

This style, though possibly not original, I thought to be unusual and quite striking, given correct placement and regulated frequency.

On the left is a first draft/conceptual rough-cut of my ideal final poster art. From here, I thought that I might head in a design direction that would embellish the image more. I needed to make the image sharper; it's two figures need to stand out more.

Does it Conform?

Depicted quite clearly at the front of the image is the main artist - this is a standard convention of poster advertisement for music artists as the artist is pushing their image, declaring their very person as representative of their own music; when one sees an image of any of One Direction member, one immediately links their image to their music. Ultimately, this supports brand identity, as any music artist's product must possess clear signifiers that establish itself as its own unique brand.

The devil's place in the image - linking to the title "Thank God I Don't Believe In God", the devil figure's existence in this picture signifies a relationship between religious imagery we see in the title and the thematic direction of the music album. There's a relevance between the images displayed and the lyrics heard - a prediction made by Goodwin that encompasses almost all music videos and indeed, music advertisement/products. The devil's presence in this image is indicative of the conflict of ideals that the artist is attempting to push to the media consumer - hinting of religion, atheism, and in some part satanism. It is quite clear that the music album's title is ironic and satirical, and to some heretical, hence why the devil's place in this image can be justified.

Storyboard Animatic

A basic storyboard concept my music video, this animatic will serve as a platform from which the filming of my actual music video will be planned and structured.