B: 2.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

When creating our groups print work we all took on a separate role and had a different part of the print work to create independently. Altogether we created a digipak, Album advert and a tour advert. My part of the printwork was to create a four pane digpak which is conventional to the indie/ folk genre as well as creating a good artist image and continuity between the other print work as well as the music video.

The tour and album advertisements are both suitable for our chosen magazines and advertising criteria; local magazines would be used as Ben Howard is a local singer song writer who would play mainly at universities and local halls, daily london newspapers in order to try to expand Ben Howard as an artist and music magazines such as NME in which Ben Howards style would fit into well.

Both the Album advert and the Tour advert were designed to attract the attention of the reader by using beautiful photography anchored by a bold font which stands out and grabs peoples attention as well as being easy to read thus getting the message across and promoting Ben Howard successfully.

The Digipak on the other hand is designed to run as an illustration of the album as a whole. It would be seen on itunes when downloading tracks as downloading music has now becoming more popular. This will ensure that an artist image and visual representation is still being created as the album cover would be downloaded aa well. You would also see the digipak in music retailers such as 'HMV' on a wide scale, appealing to a number of audiences as well as small scale shops such as 'soundwaves' specialist in folk/ indie music.

Here is my contribution to the print work, a 4 panel digipak, album cover.

The main feeljng i aimed to achieve when creating the digipak was a sense of a naturalistic environment using pictures reflecting on the indie/ folk genre in which Ben Howard fits into.

I feel that the photographs i have used work well to promote this image...

 

1. The inside right panel of the digipak is a photograph of a CU shot of Autumn leaves on a tree, this is representative of the tree focus in the main song of the album Follation wood as well as being a visually pleasing image to use. The image of a tree acts as a signifier to look at the form of life and death as well as having Strong connotations to the lyrics in the track of the girl hanging herself from a tree. The colours used on the tree pannels are very autnmus and warm giving it a feel of being alive, connoting the narrative of the music video.

 

2. The inside left panel of the digipak again is focusing on the natural feel of trees but from a LS angle compared to the CU of the inside. I feel that this contrast works really well when both panels are positioned next to each other. Again the colour is warm signifying life which is the main theme of the narrative of our music video creating a sense of continuity between the print work and the music video.

3. The Front cover of the digipak is an image of the Artist Ben Howard using aa shot from behind, being representative of the singer song writer feel that i wanted to achieve. The way the audience is positioned with Ben Howards back could be representative of him as an artist as 'Dyer' writes in his first paradox a star must be both ordinary and extraordinary to the consumer. Ben is reflected as being ordinary in that he has no great status as well as being extraordinary that he is not looking at the audience therefore making him un accessible to look at. In relation to this image and the video, the image could be a signifier of the loss and sorrow that Ben feels in that he cannot look straight into the audience.

-This is representative of Dyers second paradox that the star needs to be both present and absent to the audience. Ben is present in form on the cover giving the audience something to relate to thus building a star persona but at the same time he is absent in that they never are revealed his true identity and the image of him is positioned with pictures of nature making him seem as ab average person. This is conventional of the genre juxtaposed to a rappers digipak for example which would consist of lots of CU images promoting them as a star, Ben Howard is perceived as being more down to earth.

4. The back cover of the digipak is a picture of the fields with sheep showing nature and matching the colour, contrast and scenery line of the front cover, giving the album continuity.

Here are some images from music videos in which we got inspiration from...

Dyer would argue that the stars commodity's are produced and consumed on the strenght of the meaning created, i think that the digipak has very strong signifiers and connotes both Ben as an artist as well as anchoring the track.

To create the basic digipak i used photographs edited on photoshop to create a Autumn like colour feel.

I then researched fonts on the website 'dafont' to find a font similar to that of Ben Howard, originally i found a more feminine font but after discussion with the group i chose to create continuity with the tour advert, and album advert.

After this i found a bar code and record label logos as well as email addresses following the conventions of an album cover in order to promote and advertise the record labels and to create an audience using web 2.0 media outlets. These are positioned of the back pane of the digipak along with the track listing.

This digipak adds value to the track due to the strong connotations between the two, it is also very conventional to the genre therefore would appeal to the tastes of the audience. The digipak also conforms to both of Dyer's paradoxes thus would be argued uses the right techniques to appeal to the audience leading to them to buying the track, becoming fans and watching concerts creating Ben Howard a successful career in the music industry.

The combination of the Advert, Digipak and the video all construct a very strong coherent artist image which would be successful when creating a fan base making Ben Howard clearly identifiable as an artist. This image is shown to be very down to earth and naturalistic which would appeal to an audience who enjoy the indie/ folk genre of music and like an accessible artist. Dyers paradoxes again work well to explain the way in which Ben is both accessible and distanced from the audience through the photography and the way in which he is not a key character in the video.