Final Website Design

For our final website design we tried to incorporate as many features as possible from all our previous research into existing websites.

WEBSITE ADDRESS - http://www.ignitedantesinferno.moonfruit.com/

Colour Scheme

A common theme we saw in the other indie band websites was that the backgrounds were darker colours that represent the style of music that the band plays for example more sad and slow songs. Therefore we decided to make our main background black as it seemed so effective in the Radiohead website. Adding to this, we used the main image from our album cover also as the background. We decided to do this as being the first album the band would have made being new, it would have been a good advertising feature for the album and may influence our target audience to buy the album if they are exposed to it on the website. The colour scheme for the image are more light and warming colours which work well as they contrast with the dark black ground we also have.

Typography

For our main heading of the band name we used a large, bold font like in the previous websites to stand out. We used a simple and clear typography that wasn't cursive or artistic. It also was in a dark, grey colour as the background of our picture were lighter colours it meant the font contrasted with the image to stand out and become easy and accessible for the audience to see especially as the main title is an important selling feature. For the informative text we used the popular times new roman font, this is because it is simple and clear but still has slight cursive features, the small tails on the font help link each letter together resulting in the audience being able to read the text more fluently. This typography was used in the Radiohead and th

e Snow Patrol website which proved to be successful. The colour of the text also contrasts with the background we used a white colour which stands out on the black backgro

und.

Links

Just as in the other websites we added links, we made sure they were a

ppropriate to the sort of information we wanted to provide. A feature that was effective in both websites were when hovering over the link it was highlighted in a different colour. Therefore on our site when doing this the text box changes to a lighter green as shown in the picture below.

• Home
• Bio
• Photos
• Videos
• Interviews
• Contact us

Home - It is important to have a home page which fans will be taken to once they enter the website. This of course is to make them feel comfortable that they are in the correct place, and gives general information of the new album release, upcoming news and offers that they can receive!

Bio - The bio for the band gives additional, more detailed information about how the band formed, where they formed and of course, following the promotional theme, information on the release of the new album. It is designed to give its fan base a better understanding of how the band work, and make them feel almost as if they know them personally!

Pictures - Of course this is simply a gallery to display new images of the band and their recent activities simply to give the audiences something interesting to look at. Also by showing pictures of live performances which look vibrant and exciting Ignite are more likely to increase sales of their live tour in the music industry. By allowing a comment box below, fans are able to voice their opinions of photographs and give them the feeling that they are involved and are being heard by the band as well as other fans!

Interviews - The interview section is designed to be a constant feed which shows interviews as they happen, thus replacing the previous post. We have designed an interview with the music company, MTV, which with its name alone adds credibility t the interview as the business is so well established within the music industry. The interview is designed to achieve similar objectives as the bio page, and gives additional information to its audience but in a slightly different format.

Contact us - This really only acts as a support page for fans. It allows visitors of the site to email the band with their thoughts, feelings and support and in the music industry it would increase not only credibility of the website, but make fans feel valued. customer service is essential in any industry, however in this situation the product is the band and the bands music.

Music

Finally, we decided to add our music video as a link to our website. As on the Snow Patrol website this was an effective feature for advertising the video which then may influence greater consumption from the audience. We placed this directly on the home page so it is one of the first things that grabs the audience attention.

Analysis of Snow Patrol Website

I analysed the Snow Patrol official website to see what relations they made between their web design and music. Also to see how they sold themselves as a bad effectively, what specific techniques and designs they came up with involving what i had already researched in other indie websites and "what makes a good website".

Heading

First of all, the main title/heading of the band "Snow Patrol" is in a large, bold typography. Is it centered in the middle of the of the website page to stand out clearly above

anything else. It is in a simple arial font with no cursive or artistic features which makes it easy for everyone to read. Overall it is certainly clear as soon as the audience enters the website that its focus is Snow Patrol, the name is one of the most important features of a band selling themselves which is why the title is made so clear to its viewers.

Links

The links are an important part of a website they are is a reference to a document that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. The snow patrol links are places directly under the large, bold title which means straight after looking at the heading they will automatically follow to the links. They are effective on the Snow Patrol website because when hovering over the text for example "home" or "news" the writing is highlighted red to clearly indicated that it is a link. Therefore this meets the features of a good website being easy and

accessible to use.

Imagery

The main image used on the Snow patrol website is a real life picture. This is picture was taken from a tour that Snow Patrol did last year. The redness in the image goes well with the colour scheme as it matches the red snow flake in the main title. Also it stands out well on the black background as it is a contrasting colour to black. The picture is effective as it shows just how popular and how many fans the band has, it really represents the group as an international success with such a large fan base. It is also attractive to the public eye as it is a fairly scenic image and therefore catches

the audiences eye.

Music

On the website is an audio link which is situated directly next to the main heading "Snow Patrol" therefore is it very easy to access and straight away stands out, it needs to be noticeable because it is not a common feature on a website it is unique and different that

the Snow Patrol website has one which only makes it better than others. It allows fans, the audience and viewers to listen to any song they want from the most recent Snow Patrol albums, the songs cannot be downloaded however the purpose

of having an audio link is that if the listeners like the song it will encourage them to consume either the album or song from an internet site or shop. The audio link is very easy to use, simply click on the link then a box appears with the stereotypical play, pause, skip, previous buttons to control what songs the audience want to listen to. This has proved to be a very successful feature for consumption of the bands songs therefore we may consider using this on our website.

Convergence with social network sites

As the links show below, the Snow Patrol website show connections with myspace, twitter, bebo, facebook and youtube. As my research showed in media convergence, by connecting with these internet sites advertises Snow Patrol's music to a wider audience. Especially because the majority of facebook and myspace users are the ages 16-24 which during our market research of the questionnaire we discovered are the most popular when listening to the indie genre therefore became our target audience. The links make it easy for the target audience to access the Snow Patrol site and not only does it have benefits for the band but also for the audience too.

Website Question Research

In order to gain a selection of answers from people who have looked at artists' websites before, I posted a question on YahooAnswers to get my desired response.

My question 'What makes a good website for an artist or band?'. I posted the question as 'open' meaning that anybody could see and answer it. This would give me a wider range of answers.


Waiting 3 days after posting the question, I then gathered the responses I received and made note of the most popular suggestions. These were:

• an interesting but brief band biography
• members of the band and what they play
• access to play music on the site
• neat presentation
• dates showing the band/artists' next shows or tours
• a link to the artists' store
• a contact page. where members of the industry or fans can contact the artist
• easy to navigate
• consistent colour scheme
• links to Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc

Now that I have what the general public consider to be features which make a successful band or artist website, I can ensure that when I come to design and assemble my own website for my band I can refer back to this list and include as many as I can.

Analysis of good and bad websites

Before creating our own website we looked at other bands with a similar target audience to Snow Patrol therefore we looked at Radiohead and Coldplay as they are both from the indie genre. I looked at the features that i previously researched in " what makes a good website" and applied it to these websites. I thought the Radiohead website was very effective in selling the band and presenting information clearly for the audience, i will use some of these techniques when creating ours. However i thought the Cold Play website was not as clear with its design.
Cold Play website analysis

View more presentations from laurenbromley100.

Radiohead Website Analysis

View more presentations from laurenbromley100.

What makes a good website?

ACCESSIBILITY

Your site must be accessible in all browsers, not just Internet Explorer most people use Explorer but if you only make your website accessible to this you might be losing 30% of your audience. A good designer tests your website on all the browsers they can get their hands on – Explorer 4, 5, and 6, Netscape, Firefox, Gecko and Galleon, Safari, Opera, Explorer on a Mac – and makes sure that it looks right and does everything it should.

GRAPHICS

If a picture is too big in file size it will take a long time to load and drain your visitors’ resources, not to mention their patience.

Waiting for a picture to download and seeing one line at a time appear in front of us is very tedious and dull.If a picture is too small in file size it will look grainy and cheap. A bad designer will take a picture as is and just put it on your site. A good web designer will use all the tricks they can to get the best payoff between quick pictures and pictures that look good for example editing.

EASY READING

The best websites are clean, elegant and easy to use. A first-time visitor knows exactly where to find anything they want. If they can’t, you may as well not have bothered putting it there.

A bad web designer thinks they have to choose between navigation and being “artistic.” That is certainly no excuse and a good web designer is completely able to deliver both at once.

SECURITY

Beware of web design companies who think that if it looks good on top that’s enough. If you are taking credit card details or even contact details then you need to make sure that no one else can read them. This is something a lot of clients take for granted but a terrifying number of cowboy operators send passwords, credit details and personal information in a clear, easy-to-read format, across the web for everyone to see.

If you collect data about people (even just contact details) you should have a privacy policy to explain what you do with that data.

Your web server should be secure.

AIM AND POINT

This is so obvious and yet so many sites completely overlook it or fail to tell you what they’re for. Why do you have a website? What is your website supposed to achieve?

Here are some good reasons to have a website:

• To sell my products to new people
• To offer an information resource and position myself as an expert in my field
• To offer a free report or e-book to introduce my company and gather names of prospects
• To give people I meet in the real world a place to book or buy what it is I sell

Here are some bad reasons to have a website:

• Because everyone else has one
• Because I want to be able to see pictures of our business
• Build “brand” awareness

Notice that all of the good reasons do something, and most of them do something for other people. The bad reasons are passive and have nothing to do with your customers or possible customers.

THE DESIGN

Keeping the design simple is important. Web users have short attention spans.

If the website does not immediately attract your customer and tell them what they want, they will move on in frustration.Simplicity is key. Provide room to breathe; make room for white space on the page through a combination of imaginative layout and typography.Distractions on the page should be avoided. A home page that takes time to load and then has no information except a clever graphic, is time wasted.A website should be simple to navigate, easy to understand and above all, intuitive.

COLOURS

The colours of the website should be appealing to the audience eye, they should complement the imagery and typography used so all are clear and accessible for the consumers. For example white typography on a black background contrast greatly and would be made very clear. Adding to this a good designer would use a relevant colour to the aim and purpose of the website for example a children's television programme site would have bright, primary colours yellow, blue or green. A heavy metal rock band would have dark colours black, grey, brown to relate to the mood of their songs.

Final Digipak Design

After our research into Digipak's and Album Covers we used all the conventions of successful Snow Patrol covers to come up with our design to suit our music video.

Colours
The colour scheme we chose was quite fair but warming colours like in the other Snow Patrol covers. We used a browny, beige background because a common theme we saw were darker colours in the other album covers. This therefore portrays the theme of the song deep emotions. This was done using IPhoto on the Apple Mac changing the contrast, brightness and saturation.

Imagery

We used the images of a horse and a girl because they are a main part of our music video. We did not want the male gaze theory to but a factor in our album cover therefore we used. The horse which is symbolic for the women in the relationship as it represents beauty rather than sexuality which is what we deliberately wanted to avoid. A the pictures are an important factor in our music video, we chose to display two variations of the same theme, on the front and back of the digipak cover. As on the website we used the same theme on all three of the platforms to reiterate a connection between all three of our media products.

Font

We decided to follow the same theme as the previous Snow Patrol Album Covers with the typography with a relatively small size as we wanted the main focus to be on the imagery of the female and horse. We placed it not directly in the center to gain most attention however just off to the left so it is still noticeable. We contrasted the colours with the background so it is clear and accessible for the consumers we used darker colours black and grey against the lighter background we created. Adding to this, the actual font we used was not too "fancy" and "creative" however just simple therefore looking professional and easy to the eye for consumers to read.

Album Cover Initial Ideas

We firstly decided to put together a mood board to help us to discover common themes and ideas frim the groups thoughts. and then to develop any that appeared worthwhile.

The pictures of the mood board we created, left, were labelled A to E. This then made it easier to analyse and discuss each picture and what we could potentially use it for on the album cover.
A = top image
B= top right image
C= bottom right (horse and man)
D= bottom image
E= far left image

Image A - Image 'A' is a good example of a dark, baron landscape which we agreed would act as a good backdrop if merged with other elements from other images. The darkness will be symbolic for negative emotions such as depression which are heavily incorporated within the song we have chosen ('You could be happy') and also matches the 'moody' persona given off by many of Snow patrols songs.


Image B - Again the backdrop for this image gives a depressing feel similar to Image A. However this image contains two horse's silhouettes which adds to the eerie feel of isolation.


Image C- This picture is very different to A and B, and is far more colourful in comparison. The man in red walking a horse through a field is far more 'upbeat' and less depressing. We were considering using elements from imagery like this (e.g man in red and horse) which is colourful and placing it against a dark background to make them stand out. This would then go with the theme that depression and sad emotions will always be there, but humans are resistant. (Good examples of this in snow patrol music is the song , Run - which

Images D and E - A lone wolf is shown on a white background to represent the feeling of isolation which again is another negative emotion put forward by many of the Snow Patrol soundtracks. (you could be happy and Run). Image E again shows a 'Lone Wolf' but he is facing a brightly lit city.

Image F - This is simply a scenic view of a tree on a hill, and has little reason for choosing other than it seems to 'fit' with the style of music

Snow Patrol Album Covers

Before designing our own album cover, i researched the most popular covers from the band "Snow Patrol" and looked for any common differences that made so effective and attractive to stand out in the public eye.

Colour Scheme

What i found out when analyzing the Snow Patrol album covers is that there's a common theme of the colours used. As you can see from the image above, all the colours used a fairly dull lots of blacks, browns, grey, dark blue. They have chosen these in particular because it represents the style of music the band plays for example the songs are fairly soft, slow, dark and depressing and these specific colours instantly when looked at emulate these emotions that the songs portray. Therefore the colour scheme chosen is effective in showing the tone and feelings that Snow Patrols songs to making it extremely relevant.

Imagery

The images on all the Snow Patrol Covers are not of the actual band, they are all concept images with meanings behind them, both simple but effective. When researching the meanings of some of the images they tended to lean towards strong emotions such as "love" "freedom" "loss of loved one" they all had touching meanings that were deep and expressive.

Text

The text in all of the album covers isn't overall big, bold or outstanding the common theme is that the font is relatively small in a more cursive and artistic typography mainly in the colour white contrasting on the dark backgrounds so it is clear and easily accessible to buyers.

Layout

On the whole all the layouts have an image covering the entire front cover this seems to be the main feature of all the album covers or the main subject whether a person or image being centered also. The typography is then the next feature to be drawn attention to however it is relatively small and not directed to stand unlike the image.

Whilst designing our our album cover and digi pack we will take into consideration all the common features "Snow Patrol" used to make their covers effective and make it relevant to their music.

Potential Names for the Band

We chose a different name for the band instead of the original 'Snow Patrol' because viewers who have watched and listened to Snow Patrol will not have a certain expectation as they see the band's name, on the other hand they will have an unbiased opinion of the finished production we have made, obviously Snow Patrol have been very effective in the style they have used where as we wanted to see what we came up with would be effective.

Names -

1) Hole in the wall
2) The Clergymen
3) The untamed
4) The Pigmy's
5) Requiem
6) Sphinx
7) The Wookies
8) Ignite

All the above were chosen largely based on there abstract nature which follows a theme used by many indie/rock bands. For example the indie band The Wombats is a good example of the application of this abstract naming process.

We highlighted in red the main considerations we may use out of the 8 band names.


We finally decided on the name IGNITE. The reasoning behind this is that it contrasts heavily against the mood the band emits to its audiences. The word ignite means to set alight, and is closely linked to the idea of fire, which of course is bright and warm. Fire is often used as a symbol for energy, happiness, passion and hope. This is why we decided on the name as it brings out much of the implied meaning in the bands songs and highlights sometimes hard to see messages through the grey, dark imagery used. Also the word Ignite, flows well when said and has a rounded sound, making it appealing to consumers. Not only this, but the short, polysyllabic word is easy to remember making it easy to be accessed.

DigiPak Research

Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Since Digipaks were among the first alternatives to jewel cases to be used by major record companies, and because there is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies, the term digipak or Digi-Pak is often used generically, even when the media holder is a hub or "Soft Spot" rather than a full plastic tray.

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets

I think it is important to point out that with massive leaps in production and economies of scale being developed over the years Digipak's can be used purchased and developed fareasier than when the idea was first put into play. At one time Digipak's where only reallyaccessible by leading musicians but now are priced much cheaper and available by a broader market.

Choosing to create a digipak for our chosen band as it allows us to show off all the features of our band as we have changed the name, the artists will not be known well. This meansadditional information and artwork would aid the consumer awareness and enhance the entertainment experience.

What makes a good album cover?

Music shares many common ideas and themes with the visual arts. For example, repetition, rhythm, harmony, tone, shape, space, scale, line, texture and colour are terms common to both the musical and visual language and this project was focused around these points.

When someone is flicking through albums at a record store the first thing they are going to notice is the graphics. If the graphics aren't eye catching then they are going to go right past that record until they find one that grabs their attention. If they're interested then they will listen to, and hopefully buy that record. So it is key that when you're putting together your artwork that you make it as noticeable as possible.

Typograpgy

When adding text to your design, whether it be the main title and band name on the front or track listings on the inside you want to make sure that the text isn't too cluttered or difficult to read. Also limit the number of different type faces that you use. The design can become overly complicated and in-consistent by using too many fonts. In addition, it strains the eyes. The main title and your band name should be easily recognizable so that someone who is viewing your album knows exactly who they're looking at.

Type of music

Think about what the music on the album is saying. Does it tell a story? Are there characters in your songs? What atmosphere does your music project? Based off of the answers to these questions take the time to come up with some kind of imagery that really conveys your message. Also, make sure that your cover fits into your genre of music, otherwise a potential listener may pass it by thinking that it isn't going to be their taste in music.

Layout

You don't want to over complicate the design, too much detail text, images can look messy and not professional. It's important to have a specific layout simple can be more effective. Make sure any images or text are aligned with each other so nothing looks out of place. Make sure if something is meant to be in the center it is centered exactly to the middle this will make your cover look more appealing and attractive to consumers.

Colours

Your band name should stand out. If your readers can't see your band name at a glance, your album cover isn't going to help your sales. Make it striking. Bear in mind that your CD will be sitting on the shelf among many other discs, and it needs to be eye-catching.Don't be afraid of "white space." The human brain can get overloaded with too much detail and image. White space allows the brain to focus more on the images that are there. Choose colours that reflects your music. If you play rock, you'd hardly want the bright, summery colours you usually see on a children's pop music cover, more dark,black, grey colours represent this genre.

Filming Day 4

Finally, on our last day of filming we decided to add more "filler shots" this filming day was not planned in our schedule or call sheet however whilst going through our music video and editing we decided we need to add more shots to create our concept and get the point of view across to our audience therefore we filmed

• Letters being burned
• A ring on a necklace
• Some leaves
• burning fire
• the ring being thrown in the pond

All these filler shots added to a certain concept in our video.

This day of filming did not need a lot of health and safety checks as they weren't in dangerous locations or involve activity such as dancing therefore we filmed these fairly quickly and did not need a lot of time in the day.

Filming Day 3

This day was dedicated to filming the 'filler shots' we needed to help break up our music video and take stills for our digipak and poster design. From previous planning we decided that shots of a horse galloping through a filed would look great and would fit into our concept style that had been implemented in the rest of the video. Obviously when working with any animal additional safety precautions had to be taken. The sheer size of the horse alone was a danger in itself meaning we needed someone who knew something about the animals and someone

who the horse was comfortable to work with. Therefore we had Maizy in our music video representing the female we wanted but also because it was safe as she has experience with how control horses and we could not find anyone else that did.

Filming the horse took time and patience but we began be following a similar filming pattern to the previous two days. Therefore we set up a range of shots where the horse would by led in a continuous 'S' letter shape in front of the camera, this would create angle range and different perspectives on the horse. We continued this, walking the horse from a distance up close to the camera, and filmed each sequence so it was accompanied by a different back ground view. This gave us range when it came to editing.

Filming Day 2

On the second day of filming we decided to film the dance, therefore we needed to make sure Hannah and Beth were well prepared with both their costumes and make up. We made sure this was done before we went to our location of the farm as from the first day of filming and the bad weather conditions we didn't want the costumes and make up to be ruined as they are a key feature towards the concept in our video.

This part of the music video was filmed in the barn, this was better than the first day filming as we had protection from both the rain and wind if it were them weather conditions again. Again we set up our main equipment which was camera, tripod and lighting and checked for health and safety risks. Before we could allow Hannah and Beth to start practicing we had to clear the floor area as there was a lot of hay, stones and boxes therefore we spent quite a while making sure the area was secure for dancing.

Finally, we got the filming going, again we filmed several different camera angles in particular to get the impression of what type of setting they were dancing in which added to a part of the concept. Adding to this we had to provide breaks for the dancers as it was tiring repeating the dance over and over again and also with the cold conditions we provided warm drinks and made sure they had chairs and coats ready for when they stopped dancing.

Filming Day 1

Before we started filming we decided to split up the different parts of our music video into separate days, so if anything went wrong we would have enough time in the daylight to keep filming and correct our mistakes, which is exactly what happened. On the first day it was extremely windy and rainy therefore we put filming off for a while to see if the weather conditions improved. Eventually it improved slight so we tried filming to see how good the quality was and it was up to the standard we wanted.

The first part we decided to film was Ben Richards our main male character who was miming the words to the song. This was taken place by the large Oak Tree which was a key feature in our video as it added to the concept. We double checked the location for health and safety, moved any hazards around us, set up the equipment which involved the camera, tripod and lighting and started to shoot our film.

During filming we shot several different camera angles to be able to gain a variety of shots to chose from whilst editing as some shots may work and other may not. Mid, close ups and extreme close up, high angle, low angle, over the shoulder and establishing shots are what we filmed .

The duties we had to share throughout the day involved someone holding the lighting, someone filming, another person keeping all the equipment as dry as possible due to the bad weather conditions we didn't want this to effect our filming and finally the last person to take pictures for photo evidence as shown.