2. About House Style
House style is used in all different types of media. It is a series of related product which has
its own individual style so that it is identifiable to the creator.
When promoting a music video, adverts etc. the artist would have an individual house style
which connects them to their fans so they can identify them from other artists.
This is a convention that is always used when designing new print products so for my
digipak I have created my own house style for my release.
As my genre was pop/rock it was important that I designed my digipak to appeal to my
target audience. When browsing different music you can tell by the design which genre it
belongs to and can make a quick attraction of a person if that’s the type of music they’d go
for which would make them interested at looking at the CD. This is all due to the packaging
which I must ensure I get right so it will appeal to my target audience.
My aim is to produce a coherent package that has a house style and works together to
attract my audience to the actual product.
3. Colour
#000000
#FFFFFF
The colours I had chosen for my theme was black and white, which is a
classic convention of colour palette my genre uses.
When researching and analysing other print products I noticed most of
them used black and white which showed me that this was a popular choice
and obviously appealed to their target audience. This influenced my opinion
onto designing my print products. Using two colours allowed me to keep it
simple but effective as these colours are an excellent companion in terms of
contrast and look.
These two colours were very prominent in the print work and the video.
4. Font – Maliart Rubberstamp
I decided to only use one font within my
print products to keep it simple and the
design to be consistent. Maliart
Rubberstamp was the font that I used.
This font was chosen by my target audience
when I asked them for feedback on which
font type they liked the best for my genre.
The results were clear with this font being the most popular so I decided to use this.
When researching other artists print work as well I noticed this type of block style font
was very conventional for this genre with most artists using is for their housestyle.
5. Lighting
The lighting throughout our performance element in our video is
used through artificial lighting which is very conventional in music
videos. When researching similar genre music videos we noticed
that a lot of lighting was used during the performance. This links in
with Andrew Goodwin’s theory of promoting the artist and giving
them a star appearance. Making the artist marketable is key to
making them look like stars and appeal to our target audience.
Below is some examples that we used throughout our video to
promote the artist and enhance the props.
6. Props And Costume
When brainstorming ideas for our video we wanted to make it as realistic
as possible. We collected props and costume that would link to the
character of a soldier (Jacket, boots, trousers, rucksack). We wanted this to
fit into our theme. The props used for our character would connote to the
audience the type of person he is. The fact that he's dressed like a soldier
with a rucksack suggests that he's on a journey.
We also kept in mind what would look most appealing in the performance
element. We decided that everyone should dress in either black or white
which we link to our house style and our genre. One of our artists also
wore a brand name that our audience would wear, Converse.
7. Visual Theme
I had a clear visual theme that I wanted to have when it
came to designing my digipak. Because the music video
was based on the character chasing the moon which
connotes night time I wanted to have a night theme
approach to my digipak. To convey this I used tree
branches to give it that dark appeal and theme. I also
used this as it relates to my back cover of the shot of
the moon. I used a technique called ‘Curves’ which I
adjusted the setting so I could have a vivid contrast of
black and white to link to my theme.
When receiving my feedback from
my target audience they all really
liked my digipak design and gave
me a lot of positive comments on
how professional it looks which tells
me its very coherent.
8. Brand Identity
Being successful at creating a house style will enable you
to have a brand identity. I think I have accomplished this
and have created my very own individual brand identity
for the promotion of this band. The photographs of the
band I incorporated into my print products are very
naturalistic which gives them that cool look appeal which
my target audience would like. The colours I had chosen
are very subtle and harmonious which adds to the theme.
I think I have not made my print products not to
provocative or full on like most rock related products
most likely would go for. I think I have kept the continuity
between the creation of my final cut and my print
products where they have a strong link to create that
brand identity.
