The combination of the main product (a music video) and ancillary tasks (a Digipak, band website, and CD booklet) was effective because they had consistent branding, themes, and aesthetics. The products portrayed the indie rock genre and themes of friendship and adolescence. While some continuity issues arose between the number of characters in different products, the color scheme, fonts, and images unified the package. The music video, Digipak, and other ancillary tasks complemented each other to present a cohesive final product for the target indie rock audience.

1. How effective is the
combination of your main
product and ancillary
tasks?
Ellie Lester

2. In order to produce our Digipak we used a combination of a
publisher software and various iPad apps, such as ‘Retrica’,
‘ArtStudio’, ‘Whitagram’, ‘Layout’ and ‘Montage Lite’.The design of
our Digipak was inspired by our research into the indie-rock genre,
as was our band website and music video.We felt that it was very
important that all three of our final products looked similar, carried a
house style and had a consistent branding concept.This is because it
would make our genre of ‘indie-rock’ more obvious to our audience,
as well as linking it to the original artists ‘WolfAlice’. In our music
video there was three protagonists, all of whom are featured
throughout the CD booklet. However, only two of the three
protagonists are featured on the band website which may be an
issue in terms of continuity.Also, on all three products we tried to
use a colour scheme of oranges and greens, to keep a natural and
autumnal theme.
Final
Productions

3. CD Front
Cover
 We decided to use pictures of the two artists sat together in order
to portray our chosen narrative of ‘friendship’, as well as the fact
that it links well with the lyrics and the song title ‘Bros’.We placed
the band’s name and the name of the song in the centre of the
front cover, this makes it stand out as it is the first thing you will
see.The font that we used is in a handwritten style which gives the
CD cover a laidback and indie-rock vibe, appealing to our target
audience.
Other Examples of indie-
rock CD Covers:

4. CD BackCover
 For the back cover, we decided to use a screenshot of some
footage from our music video of a woodland setting, we felt that
this would help synchronise and create a synergy between the two
products. Another feature that we added to the back cover was a
barcode, as this is a key feature of a Digipak, as well as adding
publication details.
Other Examples of indie-rock
CD Back Covers:

5. CD Booklet
 For our CD Booklet we decided to use a range of photographs
featuring the characters who starred in the music video, this
emphasises our theme of ‘friendship’ and creates continuity across
our final products.We also included a ‘ThankYou’ and credits page
at the end of the booklet as this is a common feature found within
CD booklets.The main thing we had to include were the lyrics to
each song on the album as this is common convention used in
most CD booklets.
Arctic
Monkeys –
Humbug
Lyrics
Pages
Our Lyrics
Page

6. BandWebsite
 For our website, we decided to use ‘Wix’ which is a website that allows
you to create your own website.The primary reasons for choosing Wix
is that it’s free, easy to use and worked well. I feel that we used it well
as we have used the forms and conventions of a typical band website,
for example a link to our band’s music video, an information page
about the artist etc. We made use of a lot of effects which show that
we have an understanding of the software, as well as creating our
style and theme. Furthermore, Wix allowed us to have links to the
social networking sites that we created for our band such as
Instagram, present the music video and give further information
about the artists. However, the only downside to using Wix is that it is
template driven, this means that creativity is limited.Although the
choice of templates if quite broad and it gives you the ability to adapt
them to your own taste.
 By creating a band website, we’re adhering to the ‘Uses and
Gratifications’ theory put forward by Blumler and Katz in 1974.Within
this theory it suggest that people use media to gain information and
knowledge, this is what the band website offers to people. If someone
watches the music video and takes an interest in the artists, they have
the option to find out further information about the artist by visiting
the website.

7. Main Product
(MusicVideo)
 Overall, I think that our music video adds to the overall effect of
the overall package, this is because it includes the same
characters, colours and theme as the digipak and band website.
This creates a synergy between our main product and our ancillary
tasks.Also, it’s clear that the genre of indie-rock is prevalent in
both the main product and our ancillary tasks.
 The colour scheme (see following slide) of blues, greens and
oranges is prominent in both ancillary tasks and our music video.
This shows a link between all three products, meaning they can be
easily recognised by our audience.
 We also tried to keep the typography as similar as possible, in a
laid-back casual style, as it gives the audience something to
recognise. However, this proved difficult when usingWix to create
our band website, as it’s a template driven software which limited
our choice of fonts etc.
 The image of the band is also the same throughout the music
video and the ancillary tasks, they appeal to our target audience
and work well together as a combined final product.

9. Inspiration for
our Digipak
and the theme
 Our inspiration was the genre of our chosen song and the lyrics.The
main idea that we got from the song ‘Bros’ is the theme of
‘friendship’, this why the main image on our CD Cover is of two friends
together.The CD Booklet also links well with our theme as it features
images of the characters in the video throughout, there is also a
theme of time as the images start from when the characters were
young.
 Within our final products we wanted to create positive connotations
of teenagers, due to the fact that teenagers are often portrayed in a
negative way in the media. For example, the Women in Journalism
study “Am I Bovvered?What are teenage girls really thinking?” in
which theWomen in Journalism explored the impact of the media on
teenage girls, their self-image, ambitions and aspirations.The data
suggested that teenage girls are heavily influenced by the media, yet
they do not like or necessarily trust it. It also showed that they often
blame the media focus on skinny celebrities for making them feel bad
about themselves, which in turn leads to eating disorders which is a
view shared by professionals. It also suggests that teenage girl’s
ambitions are heavily influenced by what they see in the media,
therefore we wanted our music video to portray teenage girls in a
positive manner.

10. Target
Audience
 Our target audience is quite a broad range as everyone can
understand and relate to our narrative concept, we aimed to
attract people who are fans of the indie-rock genre. Our target
audience would also primarily be people that enjoy nature and
being outdoors or the feeling of having freedom as this relates to
the setting of our music video.