Final Music Video

Sit back, Watch and Enjoy!

Varieties on the Magazine Advert

This was my first idea for the magazine advert as it includes both the tour dates and the album. I went with the band style and colours to promote make create an entire package with all the products included and I looked at an advertisement for Razorlight's tour (picture below) and took inspiration for the way in which the tour dates are presented. However this first advert is too much weighted towards advertising the tour and needs to be advertising the album more effectively, this the reasoning behind the next design I made.

This design focuses more on the album than on the tour which fits in with the requirements, however the simplicty of the design is ruined as there is too much going on mithin the advert, thus drawing attention away from the purpose of it and just moking it confusing. The only other option I have got is to remove the tour dates completely and just advertise the album. If I was advertising the tour though i would use my first idea as this is less confused and appears more professional because it is based on a proper production advertising the Rasorlight tour.

Here I have removed the tour date to make it less cluttered and have enlarged the image of the album to just advertise that. It is this which is my final magazine product and is the one I have chosen to use in conjunction with the digipak and the music video because the image of Tamas joins the three and the block colour pattern joins the digipak to the magazine advert as well as the image of the digipak on the advert.

Final Magazine Advert and Digipak Products

These are my final print productions that work together for my band, and a smal explanation of what each is:

This is my finished booklet (above and below) The first square which includes the logo will become the back page of my digipak booklet and the second square next to it will become the front cover of my digipak. The two pages below with the lyrics will become the inside pages, folded down the middle.

This will become the back of the entire digipak with the track listing on the back and all the copyright company information in the bottom left corner. The two bars at the side with the band name and album name on will be folded over to make a recognisable side for the album.

This is a magazine advertisement for the digipak I created (shown at the top of this post). It is A4 in format to be easier to see and thus gaining more interest and publicity.

Distribution

As I am marketing an independent unsigned band; the album would probably be distributed by independent music stores like Sound Clash in Norwich instead of at mainstream stores like HMV, but because the advert states that they have been voted best newcomer and the best album by two prominent magazines, small amounts of the digipak might be marketed and sold by shops like HMV, to draw attention to this independent band.

Logo Plans

From the research I performed earlier in my blog I decided that a simple logo can transform a bands image and make them internationally well known like the Rolling Stones (below) for instance whose mouth insignia appears on all sorts of merchandise and is recognisable not just in England and America. I am not necessarily saying that to become popular a band must have a logo, on the contrary to have a logo is merely an easy way to design merchandise and thus because this one image encapsulates the band it becomes a brand which is fashionable to wear and to advertise the audiences support of the band. For these reasons I decided to attempt to create a simple yet effective logo for The New York Fund. It had to conform to the band image I had already created with the digipak front cover and the magazine advert, this is why the colours I chose matched those that were used on these two productions; this way a brand style is more prevalent and these colours can be carried on to other albums, singles and merchandise in different styles/motifs to expand on the band style.



The first logo I created (shown below) was playing with the letter N for New York Fund and it used the colours I had set out to use and remained simple which fits in with the band style I had created, however this logo is a mite dull, although I took inspiration from The White Stripes amazing video (shown below).

It does not have the same impact as the moving image fading into the distance! On top of this I would like to use more of the initials to make the logo clear this is why my second attempt was a lot more successful.

This is the logo I have chosen because it uses the entire initials and the colours that signify the band style. The font I have kept the same as on the digipak and magazine advert to also become part of the band style, and the parallel block colour also does this. The green strips add an extra dimesion to a design that would otherwise be quite dull, but i think the simpleness of this design works well with my band style thus almost creating brand style.

Russia Inspired Digipak's

Whilst doing looking for inspiration from other bands digipaks I have come across a lot of popular bands that have utilised a very Russian Propganda style with their imagery.I was very intirgued as it appears that it is quite popular with target audiences similar to ours. One of the popular bands I found were Franz Ferdinand:

The straight lines emerging from her face reflect power and control is a lot like propaganda posters. The soviet propaganda poster below is extremely similar and the message emmited by the image seems to be one of pass on the word which is a very clever marketing technique to make the product popular.


The text on this soviet poster is very bold like the Franz Ferdinand front cover which fits in with the general style of the bold statement front cover.

paganda texts, to make up an A shape that stands for Athlete! The bold block colours make a big statement and have a connotation of power and brilliance.

This album cover for Art Brut vs. Satan has a distinct propaganda style feel to it with the lines and blocks of colour coming from set points as in this Chinese communist poster where the lines emanate from the man in the foreground giving him the power; thus drawing your eye to that fixed point. The use of red is also instrumental in these texts as it is startling with many connotations with blood, anger and predominantly power.

Digipaks for Bands Influencing The New York Fund

On their MySpace page, The New York Fund have outlined some of the bands/musical artists that have inspired them and although The New York Fund would not impersonate the styles of their idols it is interesting to look at the album covers of the artists who inspire them and more importantly their music.

Neil Young

This Neil Young Album was released as his debut solo album in 1968 and so reflects the 'Hippy' style fashion that was popular at this time. The artwork is very clever showing Neil Young's already famous face on his own instead of with a band (he was in many). It also reflects the turbulent time of 1968 which was the middle of the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King Jr is assassinated, Andy Warhole is shot, The Nigerian Civil War, Robert. F. Kennedy is also assassinated etc. The waving sky perhaps shows the uncertain days in which this is released and the psychedelic colour reflecting the popular culture in the 60's.

The image of Neil Young in shades of green with the upside down cityscape on his clothing also reflects the love of nature and peace in this era. By appearing in this green filter light Neil Young is portraying himself as not entirely human. On top this in his music he tends to tell a story and this front cover mirrors this technique.

Another of Neil Young's album covers which is of stark contrast to that of the one above which is bright and cheerful, this album, After the Gold Rush released in 1970 is very bleak with a solarised picture of Neil Young passing an old woman in the street. After listening to this album I have realised why this album merits this dark album cover as the songs enlist a sorrowful tone with a hint of despairing love this album cover really does reflect the saying "life is hard and then you die".

At least we cant say that Neil Young is predictable, from the album above to the one below!

The Band
The Band's album inventively named The Band (released is very plain with a picture taken of them at Woodstock. The browny green border colour doesn't really do much for the appeal of this album, but the photo gets their image out there and has the opportunity to become an iconic image like those of The Beatles, queen etc. which show the band in their glory!

Bob Dylan

Moving on to a more interesting album cover from another artist inspiring The New York Fund.
This fuzzy image reflecting the rush of modern day life (hence the title of the album). At this point in Dylan's career he is very well known and thus there is no need for him to put his own image on his album cover however his earlier albums have photos of himself on the front to get his image well known and recognisable.

Ryan Adams
Similarly, this image on Bryan Adams album reflects the title of the album; 'Heartbreaker' as this photo has a depressed, languid feeling which also reflects the type of music he produces. The cigarette that is in both of his albums (above and below) shows a state of solitary solemn contemplation and adds to the relaxed tone of the images. The cover above has a black band across the top to make the text stand out with his name in white conveying a sense of innocence juxtaposed against red text the says 'Heartbreaker' shows perhaps that there are two different sides to Ryan Adams' music. and due to the fact that his name is in a different font to that of the title adds more import to his name which would make the audience recognise the artist as well as his image.

The album cover below is in grey scale which is a commonly used technique that creates a monochromatic image that doesn't distract any attention yet again from the coloured forms on an image in this case his name which stands out in electric blue and would draw the audience's attention to it in a shop!

Teenage Fanclub

These two album covers are extremely different from those I have looked at above. The first is very interesting; it is from a compilation album consisting of alternative versions of their songs which was released in 1995. The front cover is easily recognisable and memorable with red writing which stands out against the perverse image and perhaps brings to mind the image of blood in context with the cruel image in which someone seems to be enjoying having a bag over their head with a shouting face on the front. This front cover is strange in the fact that it does not seem to relate to anything, and the album title of Deep Fried Fanclub also does not seem to relate. This shows how album covers don't have to bear relevance to the material or can have an agenda of their own.

Yet another strange album cover from The Teenage Fanclub, they do not seem to mind what the image is on the front of their albums as long as they are interesting and original. This image for instance seems to be referencing the way in which pollution affects the world and we just sit back and watch. with the image of the factory smoke heading up towards the darkened sky split by a deep cut producing light amongst the cloud. A conundrum.

Have audiences become more empowered and active consumers of media texts in recent years?

Consumer habits in recent years

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