Fotor

Fotor was an alternative application we used to create our ancillary products. The tools and effects available suited our genre, and the simplicity of how to use the app really helped. Some features were premium, meaning you had to pay for them, but the effects that were available were varied and there was a wide variety of effects that were available to use.

Pinterest

I used Pinterest to research elements of our genre that we wanted to include in our music video. I created a mood board of clothes, makeup and hairstyles that we could use, and looked at props we could feature. Pinterest has a wide variety of image available, which was really helpful, however sometimes the quality, or size of these images were not good. 

Magazine Advert Research

I printed Coldplay's 'Mylo Xyloto' album advert and analysed it. I found the use of colour interesting as it reflects the music in the album, as well as the fact that there is no image of the band, suggesting they want the focus to be on the music rather than the artist.

Magazine advert reaserch - Anna Hester

Here is a magazine advert for the drum and bass music genre. I have analysed all the things associated with what you get in a magazine advert, how it relates to the artist or genre and what message its trying to show. 
By doing this it has given me a greater understanding of what things we can put in our magazine advert.

Magazine Advert Research

I analysed the album advert fro Fufanu, an electronic band.

It represents its genre through its formal register, colour choice and contrast and representation of the band. 

Research Of Magazine Advert

the magazine advert i chose, was the clean bandit tour poster. this however is not a magazine advert but still has some conventions of one. this is because in both of them they would reflect the artists intentions etc. on the advert it can be seen to show the same font throughout, and its also included its main album cover as the background. but the shapes on the advert, reflect the different members of the band itself. the colours used, go from dark to light, nut they always seem to contrast eachother. the bold writing however would therefore reflect the genre of electronic pop.

Magazine Analysis - Isobel Kelly

I created this annotation of a magazine cover on 'Szoter' to analyse the effect of branding and advertising on music artists.

Recreating Album Covers- Catriona Morgan and Martha Ellison

Album Cover Analysis

Rudimental Album Cover

Rudimental's album cover clearly demonstrates the band's typical style and genre. The urban location featured in the shots is demonstrative of their drum and bass genre, with the white and black writing standing out among the busy background. Although the album cover does not feature an image of the band, their logo is recognizable for audiences who may go out looking to find or buy the album.

The capitalised song titles on the back cover reflect the band's logo, yet contrast the logos colour.

The mise en scene of the shots are symmetrical yet aesthetically pleasing,with the colour on the front centre of the album cover being the album's most stand-out element.

Individual CD Design Idea- Catriona Morgan

Possible CD Cover Designs from catmorgan

CD Presentation Analysis and Possible CD Design - Anna Hester

Possible Magazine AD Designs - Anna Hester

Digipack inspiration - Anna Hester, Izzy Kelly

 We chose these 3 album covers for their simplicity and originality. These album covers follow David Borwell's theory that the audience defines the genre. The covers don't reflect the genre or artists style, also following Mark Reid's theory that the genre changes based on what the audience are told. These album covers don't represent a particular genre, however when the audience know the artist or hear the music, the will apply a specific genre.

The colours in this album cover contrast well with the red standing out among the sepia. This binary opposite draws the audiences attention to the writing, which states the artist and its album name.
The uniformity does not represent the artists usual style, with the symmetrical buildings not reflecting the rock genre and style Led Zeplin is.

I think this style would be effective for our video as although the style doesn't relate to our genre, it reflects the style of our music video, and the uniform placement that is featured throughout the video .




The colours in this album cover perfectly represnts their genre of electronic music. The bright colours are reminisent of childrens toys and reflect the bands fast pace music style.


The artists electronic style is seen through their electronically created album cover. The graphics support the bands upbeat music

I think this style would be effective for our video because we could put little buildings in place of the shapes, to reflect souvenirs, which is the title of our song.






The bright colours on this album are reminiscent of the artists 'rock, house and disco' genre. The image could relate to sound waves, and the colours could reflect the atmosphere of lights in a disco or party, where the bands music is most popular.

I think this album cover would be effective with our video, as we used coloured projections on our artist, which we could manipulate to look like sound waves.




Here are our own interpretations of our inspiration of a music album cover. We realised that the buildings with yellow writing on worked well and reflected our music videos style well. However, the coloured Eiffel Towers, didn't work as well as at times in the video the location of Paris is not fully apparent. The warped colour image didn't work as well as expected, so we decided against that style

Font Analysis: Magazine Advert- Catriona

Font Analysis: DVD & Magazine Adverts.

The font used in both Chase and status' album and the tour poster, is the same, this is because they want to show the audience that they are the same band but they also want to further promotion for the band. the font is bold and in bright colour in order to stand out and be captivating.

The font used in both fall out boys tour post and album cover is again similar, this is again to reinforce the idea of the band, but to help to associate the audience with tis album being the main reason for the band touring. the band have chosen to use bold capital writing in white to help make the title stand out from the rest of the album which is more dark in colour.















The font used in both of clean bandits tour poster and album cover, is again the same, this is again to reinforce the band as a whole but to also remind the audience to associate that font with this band. they have gone for a clear black font which stands out infront of the image behind. they all have spaced the letters out evenly in order to make them more enticing.

CD Digipak Analysis

in this video i have include 3 different CD digipaks, they are by 3 different artists such as Chase and status, Rihanna and Katy Perry. these Digipaks all include, a CD but an additional booklet, these could contain things such as lyrics, or thank you notes to friends and family. these booklets sometimes contain posters, or photoshoots of the artist. all 3 have a booklet but some have extras such as a poster. this therefore would encourage more people to buy the bands CD if they would receive a special poster with it. when we make a Digipak, we will need to make sure to have the album cover and song list, but to also have extras this could be a poster, or even a photoshoot booklet form creating the video.

Magazine Advert Analysis:

Research into HMV of CD presentation.

CD Analysis- Catriona Morgan

I Googled the top 15 Drum and Bass Albums of 2015 and took screenshots of 5 randomly selected album covers which I will analyse below.

The first one I will be analysing is Tantrum Desire's 'Diversified' which came second in the top 15 Drum and Bass albums of 2015. The cover is very minimalistic, with clear titling for the artist, as well as contrasting fonts used between the name of the artist and the name of the album. As you can see, no bold colours were used, however the lilac sky subtly contrasts with the grey of the mountain. There is obviously no picture of the artist, which is common theme throughout Drum and Bass album covers. I think this cover has quite a futuristic feel to it, which is appropriate as the type of music the artist creates is quite manipulated. Additionally, there is a suggestion of a record label's logo at the bottom.

The second album cover I will be analysing is The Prototypes' 'City of Gold' (which came third.)It is quite similar to the cover of 'Diversified' in that the main focus is the name of the artist, as the audience's attention is drawn straight to the top of the cover. Again, the font used between the artist and album name is different, which helps the audience to differentiate between the two. The colours used are quite dark in comparison to my previous evaluation, which I like as I feel it draws more attention to the name of the artist, as a way of the audience to focus on it without there necessarily having to be a picture of them, as it isn't typical of the genre.

This is Bensley's 'Next Generation' album cover which came fourth in the top 15 Drum and Bass albums of 2015. I find it interesting as it uses similar colours as 'Diversified', with grey being the main focus, however there is a suggestion of colour towards the top, which could suggest that's what the type of music is like. For example, the songs could be meaningful, represented through the grey, but made interesting through the use of Drum and Bass, represented through the use of colour. Interestingly, the fonts used between the artist and the title aren't drastically different, however the size is obviously bigger for the artist, as the artist is being sold just as much as the music. There is also a suggestion of a record label's logo at the bottom.

This is Xanadu's 'Through the Oort Clouds' (which came eleventh.)  I find it interesting as it is completely contradictory to my previous research in terms of colour used. It also links with the title of 'Clouds' as it appears to be a seriously manipulated picture of clouds. Following closely to my previous research, the name of the artist is bigger than the title of the album. Again, there also appears to be a suggestion of a record label at the bottom.

Finally, this is Fred V & Grafix's 'Unrecognisable' (which was number 14.) I find this cover interesting as it has obviously been manipulated so much that it is 'unrecognisable', which fits nicely with the titling. I like the use of colours as it makes it interesting to look at and similar to 'Next Generation', the font of both the artist and the titling is the same, however the difference in colour helps the audience to distinguish which is the artist's name and which is the name of the album.  

I have found this research very beneficial as it has enabled me to discover common themes among Drum and Bass album covers, those being:

• No visuals of the artist
• (Mostly) different fonts between the artist's name and the album title. However this wasn't always the case, which is something we could consider when it comes to creating ours.
• The use of colour was mostly grey/neutral/ dark colours, however not always the case.
• Often there was a suggestion of a record label at the bottom.

As a majority of our video is black and white, I think we should stick to the common convention of using grey colours for our album cover.

We could then contrast this with bright colours for the titling, as this is common among the research I have done.

I think the change between fonts of the titling can be optional depending on the image we use, as it does not necessarily have to be different (however I feel it could be more effective to, to allow the audience to easily differentiate between the two.)

Finally, as unanimously there were no images of the artists for the covers, I think we should follow that convention and not include an image of the artist for the cover, as it is not typical of the genre.



Digi pack inspiration

Inspiration for our Digi pack came from the single and album of chase and status. We liked the way the artist had used the black and white theme whilst adding colour. We thought that this would be a good design idea which would match our video. We believed this because our music videos main colour is black and white, and seeming the chase and status are a drum and bass group. We could therefore relate our music video and our Digi pack.