Progressing and Finishing the Website

Throughout the continual development of our website, we repeatedly cross referenced and compared our designs with that of similar acts associated with the Indie Rock genre. Conclusively, we can see that the main artists to have an influence on our own website are George Ezra, Alt-J and the Arctic Monkeys - as we blended their graphic design and layout styles with our own new inginuitive ideas. Making the website was a collaborative process for me and Rachel, with her doing the bulk of the digital creation, but with us both making creative decisions together at each stage. After research into similar products, myself and Rachel decided that our website would contain 6 key pages. These were;

. Home - The direction base of the website that allows the user to navigate between pages.

. Contact - This would effectively allow the user to become a member of the website which would entitle them to news letters and promotional information via email. It also allows them to submit fan mail.

. About - This offers a brief biography of the band that can also be found in the Digipak.

. Gallery - This displays the latest photos taken of the band at either fan events, live performances or on music video shoots.

. Merchandise - This is the official shopping page for the band and allows fans to purchase official merchandise.

. Live - This discloses information of the band's upcoming live performances and whether tickets are still available.

These sub categories would effectively help an audience member navigate themselves around the key information of the site. After already completing a bulk of the website, we decided to add in a slightly uncommon design feature that created a supplementary page to these 6. Despite it not being an entirely common convention, we both liked the idea of 'Enter Site' page that lets the audience know exactly where they are. Another artist who has employed a similar page to this in the real world is George Ezra with his website similarly displaying a bold font and a large, natural picture of the artist. Ours simply includes a 'recent' shot of the band in 'action' which of course was taken on our shoot day and then this is paired with our signature band font. This is then sidelined by two options which were to either enter the site or watch the new video. This acts as immediate promotion for views in the video which is important, while also supplying an interesting design element. This allowed us to also work around another problem we encountered earlier. We didn't feel comfortable embedding a frame containing our new video on any of the pages as we felt it looked sub standard and messy, and detracted from the refined and minimalist style we had been working towards. 

In regard to the homage, we used the website of British Indie Rock band Alt-J as a significant reference point, as we were fans of their look.

Both of these home pages have a distinct aura of simplicity. We have adopted a minimalist and abstract brush stroke across the centre which harbours the band name and the name of the latest album. As you can see we continued the London tube element and did so throughout the whole website as we felt this was hugely important. Websites of real life bands will often adapt and evolve based on the style of their most recent output. The homepage also has a reference to social networking, which is a mainstay of the marketing of any artist in the music industry today. Furthermore, the subheadings alter to the colour of the tube line that lies beneath them when hovering the curser over it. This is a pleasing design element. The important details about the homepage is where we reference our own iconography with the logo, font and London tube theme. This hammers home the bands image and makes it coherent with the rest of the pages. The rest of the website features original content devised by Rachel, with my help. This is apart from the 'Live' page, where the tour information was taken from George Ezra's website as we felt this would be more realistic and accurate than us making up our own. 

This is the way the rest of our website is looking currently and can be viewed vie this internet link http://rachelharrison5.wix.com/website;

All of these pages are interactive on an internet platform, despite working much more effectively on Apple software on account of this being the interface in which it was designed. More importantly, they are entirely coherent with one another and look as though they belong to the same website which. I believe the website looks largely believable as a professional product and suits the band and the rest of their output. Unlike our other two products, both myself and Rachel will be keen to revisit the website with fresh eyes upon our return from the winter break, to try to spot any minor details that need to be rectified before completely declaring it complete. However, I am comfortable in the knowledge that we have effectively finished what appears to be an innovative and visually interesting website and therefore all three of our promotional products related to this band. 

Merchandise

Before completing the website, both myself and Rachel decided that we wanted to include a merchandise page on our website. We confirmed through our research that the most common item available on sites of a similar genre was a t-shirt. Rachel used the following website to create the personalised t-shirts; 

http://www.vistaprint.co.uk/gallery/IHQCAAABAAAAAAA=/signaturesoft-men%E2%80%99s-t-shirts.aspx?xnav=MensTshirts_TsrButton

Our hand-drawn logo is individual to our band so we decided to make this the mainstay of our t-shirt design, coupled with the very simplistic 'tee's' which are very in-trend at the moment with the type of demographic we are aiming for with our band. 

We eventually narrowed these down to three key designs;

As was said, these are all very basic designs but that was an intentional choice. The branding is nevertheless strong and this is what is in fashion currently. They were then all published on the 'Merchandise' sector of our website as unisex t-shirts selling for £15 pounds each.

I then came up with the idea of Elephant Castle also distributing vinyl records as merchandise. The recent influx of vinyl sales in the music industry is something I am well aware of, as I documented it in one of my summer research blog tasks where I interviewed a local record shop owner. Furthermore, similar indie rock bands to ours such as Arctic Monkeys and The XX do a similar thing to reinforce their image, or simply out of admiration for the more traditional format. We selected what we might imagine to be the bands three biggest hits and then created vinyl records for them which we displayed on the same page, selling for £2.50 each. This would give the fans a physical object relating to the band which they can own and cherish. In many ways it is an extension of the Digipak and allows then to legitimise their support for the band in another way.

Finished Digipak

After adjustments based on various bits of feedback, we finally reached the completion of our Digipak - with four panels and spine. The creation of this product has been a real gradual process that has stretched over a large portion of time. There was a small list of final alterations that had to be made before we could deem it complete.

The final adjustments made to the product since the last draft were;

Front Panel 
- We made the logo black instead of white. We did this on the biography page and found that it made it much more visible and didn't look out of place also.

Biography Panel
- The logo is also black on this panel, creating continuity throughout the Digipak.
- When displaying this page to peers we noticed there were a few grammatical errors that we rectified in the text. We also altered the wording slightly to make it flow better.

CD Panel
- For display reasons, we inserted a CD holder template to show where the CD would actually slot in. This would make the design clearer during the manufacturing of the product. It would not actually exist in the final print.

Back Panel
- The only changes necessary on the back were related to spelling.

Finally we layed out the panels in a formation that would suitable for them to be sent off to print, judged by where they would have to fold in relation to one another. Overall, we are really pleased with the design and completion of our Digipak. I believe it is entirely believable as a professional product and captures the mood, genre and tone of the band superbly.

Digipack Spine and Layout

Before completing the Digipak there were a few final decisions that had to be made regarding the spine and layout. The way in which the CD is stored within the Digipak is a creative and personal preference. After reviwing various Digipaks that we had at our disposal we chose the more classic plastic casing option, as we felt it suited the style of the Digipak more.

The next step in completing the finishing touches of the Digipak was to decide and design the spine of the album. This is a practical requirement as it binds the album together. We created a space large enough for the spine and then considered what needed to be written. It needs to disclose the key information of the album and is reasonably important as it is the only section that is seen when the album is on a shelf. Much like with the layout, we looked at other real-life Digipaks before making a decision. We designed the spine with contuniuity and in the same colour as the rest of the Digipak. We then continued the use of our bold font utilising the two key colours of black and white, and coupled this with our band logo. These details brought our Digipak product to near completion.

Finished Music Video

Edit: 5

As the editing process continued, I could feel I was getting closer to finishing the product. After an encouraging response from our focus group I knew that it was largely completed, but certain things needed to be refined and sharpened. The section in most demand was undoubtedly the beginning with the white background. Despite showing all the key factors in chronological order, it was slow and didn't flow well. It was hugely important that this section works well as it is the opening of the video, so therefore has to engage the audience and encourage them to continue watching. In order to do this we wanted the instruments to be brought on in the video sooner. However, this was extremely difficult to coordinate as the entrance of the instruments where strictly cued and therefore could only come on at a certain point during the song. If I brought this forward in the song, then the audience would be able to see that the singer is heavily out of sync. However, I felt this change was important so I attempted to work around it. Logistically I would be able to use footage of all of the instruments, as long as I did not cut to a wide shot during the process as this would display the lead singer. This meant I had to take considerable time in shifting the footage and avoiding wide shots, and replacing them with mid shots and close ups that in some cases weren't even in the rough cut. This reinforces the importance of storing all rush footage within the software. Once I had established through the editing that all the instruments had been brought on, I was then able to return to the wide shots. This was a lengthy process and a tricky edit but I felt it was worth the time as it gives the opening section considerably more pace and makes it more watchable. During this process, I also decided to remove the shots of the lyric cards and the cigarette being brought on. I simply felt that these shots didn't work thematically and in conjunction with the rest of the video, especially considering that it is clear to see that it is not a real cigarette. Part of this overhaul was dictated by my decision to look at the video intently and decide whether every shot was completely relevant and was cut to for a reason. This helped me decipher what content was working. Aside from this, all I then had to do to this section was create the split screen effect we had planned and finally color correct the section so that the whites from the two different cameras we filmed on matched up. This final change made a huge difference to the effect of the video, making it look more refined and professional.

After this I then refined the recording studio cutaway by adding a different shot of Ben drumming. It is important to use as many different shots as possible over the course of the video to offer versatility. After this I moved onto to the final episode of the video in the black studio, which I re-cut slightly as there was one moment that included too many consecutive shots of Calum, the lead singer. Despite being the clear focal point of the group, it is important to break up the video with band footage. Finally, I reviewed the entire video with the intention of making the cuts more on the beat of the music, apart from shots that are purposely off-beat. To the untrained eye this would make little difference, but it heavily improves the natural and seamless look of the edit. 

Furthermore, I purposely left in some diegetic sound at then end of the video once the actual track has finished. This is fairly common in music videos, as you can see in this video by the same artist that we are using - George Ezra. This video is littered diegetic sound that makes it more memorable and quirky. I left in the sound clip recorded on the day of the stylist spraying hairspray into the lead singers hair. I chose not to make this too loud as I personally feel it can become overpowering and therefore detract from the song, like in the 'Blame it On Me' video. One can also faintly hear a member of the crew complementing the take, before the drummer then releases his foot from the symbol pedal producing a sound, at which point the image cuts out. Having this moment of relative silence where we see the band after shooting a take reinforces our message - that this is a repeated and manufactured process.

Once completing these tasks, I felt confident that I had produced a finished product. Based on my immediate response, I am very happy with the video as I feel it effectively communicates our intentions and themes. I am proud that myself and Rachel have managed to produce a video of this quality and feel that even in the last week since our rough cut, the video has developed overwhelmingly to what we have now.

Rough Cut

 Finished Video

Correcting the Digipak

After receiving critique from the focus group, myself and Rachel decided to rectify the problems that were raised during the meeting. The group made useful comments that could easily refine our product. Below are some annotated images detailing the adjustments we have made.

The back cover of the Digipak is what needed most work of all of them. As raised in the focus group, the back of the head was in fact on the wrong side of the panel and therefore did not correspond with the front. To rectify this we simply flipped the entire image horizontally in Photoshop. However, this consequently also flipped the text meaning we had to re-write the song titles. We also added some copyright information and a barcode, two features that make the cover look considerably more legitimate and true to real life.

The inner panel that holds the CD has changed the noticeably as we have reconfigured the width and layering of the lines to make it resemble the tube logo more effectively and therefore be more recognisable.

The main edit to this section was the boldness of the text which needed increasing to make it more eligible. We chose doing this over changing the font to black as we thought that it would then lack continuity with the front cover. I also came up with the idea of adding the band logo to the biography as a nice stylistic feature.