2. Firstly I feel the combination of my product and ancillary texts is very successful at promoting the artist. The
style and tone of each product is very similar and when combined creates a distinctive look which I feel has a
deep impression on audience members. By creating a range of distinct products a brand has been created for
the artist which is a key tool for someone attempting to stand out in the music world. The artist can use the
brand as a promotion tool, which will help make the artist recognizable, increase fans as well as sales. The
creation of a brand will also allow the artists future products to be recognized by long-term fans creating
opportunity for further success. Both the album and website work well together as the same fonts and
artistic methods have been used to create mysterious and strange atmospheres. These products effectively
reflect the moods and emotions portrayed through the soundtrack and video, which creates synergy and
brings each individual product together as one. Cross platform Synergy is extremely important as it allows
an artist to saturate the marketplace and become known by local audiences, and also provides an
opportunity for the artist’s brand to become known on a larger scale. I feel the brand I have created is easily
recognizable to audiences.
3. Throughout my products I have used a range of similar colours which all contribute to portraying strange and
eerie atmospheres. Both the album and website have a cold colour scheme (using blues, blacks and greens)
which match memorable colours used in the video. I feel the colour scheme helps to reinforce the isolation
illustrated in the music video as well as compliment the oppressive mood. However saying this I feel that
certain parts of the album contrast with the chosen colour scheme. The front album cover is much lighter
and contains more white than images used in other products. At the time this seemed like a sensible idea, as
I believed it would catch the attention of the audience and look interesting and artistic in comparison to
other albums. In hindsight I realized that the lighter colour scheme destroys the consistency and separates
products rather than bringing them together.
I feel I have further linked my products by the use of repetition. The main repetition I have used is an image of
the character lying in a bath. I enhanced the image and used it on my album as the inside cover as well as on
my website as the background. This wasn’t what I necessarily wanted but after many attempts I felt that re-
using an image was the best idea. I found that the repetition reinforces the artist’s brand, and once again
encourages the audience to become familiar with the look and style of the artist. Although repeated I felt it
was important to adapt the image to show that it was a creative decision rather than a lazy one. I decided to
mirror the image to create a frame for website text to sit within. Not only does the adaption have a function
I feel it also looks weird and unusual, which fits in with the theme of the artist as well as the conventions of
the alternative/ambient genre.
4. When designing my products I wanted to create a distinct artistic look, I wanted both the media
product and ancillary texts to be viewed as creative pieces. It is clear in the video that the focus
of the camera has been adjusted; this creates a hazy atmosphere which suggests blurred vision
and distortion. I decided to reflect this in my ancillary texts by manipulating the structure of
the chosen images. Both Photoshop and gimp provided a “smudge” tool which enables me to
reshape aspects of the image to give a blurred style which has a feathered edge. I feel this
artistic decision portrays the theme displayed within the video and helps to build a
recognizable brand for the artist, it continues the idea of mystery and confusion, and
encourages the audience to look and think deeper into the products to find a meaning. The
artistic approach is a common occurrence within this genre of music, and I therefore feel the
video, website and album will meet the expectations of the target audience.
5. The brand I have created displays strange themes related to the artist which are
portrayed in the music video and suggest both positive and negative feeling: hope,
despair, loneliness and confusion are examples of the emotions portrayed. Through
the techniques described above I have created an artistic look that I hope displays
creativity and freedom, as these are the 2 main aspects which make the chosen
genre so unique and special. The brand presents the artist as an eerie, mysterious
character who can continuously be questioned and explored; she is different to
other artists in the music industry and combines art, design and music in a new
innovative way.
6. Throughout the video construction and design process I tried to develop new ways in which the products could
link, I wanted to produce consistency across the products to create a bold, structured brand. I soon found
that this was problematic and creating an obvious link between all the products wasn’t that simple, due to
the products being different types of media. It is hard to replicate themes from a moving image in music
video onto a still image used on an album or website. If the products were the same format then consistency
could be achieved easily, a group of images could be enhanced and photo shopped using the same
techniques and a group of videos could be cut and edited with a similar speed and identical style. Although
complete consistency wasn’t achieved I feel that each product has enough similarities to be labeled as a
striking brand, and I am confident that the brand is suitable to the ambient/alternative genre.
If I was to re-design the product and ancillary texts I would take more time to plan before products were created.
I would experiment with software and find tools, filters and effects that create a similar look and feel in both
Photoshop and final cut pro, with the intention of creating an identical look in each product. I would produce
a range of colour palettes to find the best match for themes and atmospheres created in the product and
would produce mock ups of each ancillary task to ensure I am satisfied with the style.
