Web page for my artist:

As part of advertising my artist, Violet Rowe, I have decided to also make a web homepage that many current music artists in the music industry have. I will research other artist homepages such as "Kesha", "Ellie Goulding" and "Olly Murs" that are linked to the genre of pop as this is the genre that Violet Rowe's music is.

When researching the different web pages, I will make sure that I use typical conventions of what is expected on a web page and implement these into my own web page to make sure that it is effective. Conventions will be -

- The artists name situated at the very top of the web page

- A menu at the top that crosses the page for easy access of the site

- Advertising music awards and social networking sites

- Previews of the different sections of the site for the audience to be engaged

Stages of making back of album cover:

In designing the back of my album cover, i have decided to show the different stages and the decisions that i have made during the process of the album leading to the final product. So far, you can see that i have made the start of doing a unique pattern with the use of hearts. I wish to make a design with the hearts such as a large flower to cover the back of the cover.

Stage 1:

I decided to chose a heart for the design as this links to the theme of love which is a typical theme found on pop albums. I felt that this would also show the creativity of the artist whilst also showing the simplicity of the design. Below, i am experimenting with the design by changing the size of the heart and the positioning of text in order to copy conventions of an album cover.

Stage 2:

In the second stage of making the back of the album, i have added more conventions and made more decisions in the design. I have decided to enlarge the hearts in order to fill the large white space and overlap the hearts over one another to make the flower effect. In this stage, i have also made an album name, "The Revolter" which links to the artist and her personality. I have started thinking of different song names for the album.

Stage 3:

This is near the final deign of the back of the album cover. i have finished making the design with the hearts into a flower, taking up most of the white space. Also, i have added colour to the font to make sure that it is colour coordinated. I have also added in a barcode and text with the music company's name to follow conventions. I am still in the process of adding a few more songs to the list. It is also evident that the font is not clear in contrast to the background, so i may have to fiddle with the effects of the text and try and make the colour darker for instance.

Evaluation on how effective the artwork is:

I feel that my final album cover piece is effective in many ways:

Design:

Firstly, I feel that the simple but unique design I have used successfully targets my target audience. The feminine features of the artist, such as her lips, the large flower and her eyes are highlighted. Through media language, i felt that this would symbolize uniqueness about the artist, reflecting the message that she is a care free person.

This would therefore give the album some differentiation from most other album covers, as it is a unique design, so when it is being sold in shops, it would stand out from amongst the other album covers.

Audience:

I feel that this album cover targets the audience of young girls from 14 - 19 year olds as it allows them to see the artist as a role model as she is fashionable and is being portraying a stereotypical pop artist. This is targeted through her pose and and facial expression which gives gives the portrayal that she is a role model for the young target audience.

Thus, the psychographic of the audience would be mainly surrounded with fashion, magazines, social sites or anything that happens to be popular which many people find popular. Maybe not as significantly, but it will also appeal to young boys of the same age as it they may find the artist attractive with her feminine features being focused on from the cover.

Conventions:

I also feel that this album cover follows all of the typical conventions for most album covers. The main image is focused on the artist, which is typical of a pop album, with her posing in a trendy and stylish way toward the camera. The font is energetic and makes the album cover stand out with the bright colour juxtaposing the faded image colour.

I have also included the album name and artist name on the front cover. From the back of the album cover, i have enlisted all the different songs that are to be included in the album and i have included a spine of the album cover that contains the name of the album and the artists name as expected with any real album cover.

Reflection on process of making artwork:

I am currently still piecing together my final album cover idea. I feel that out of my other ideas, this is the most effective as it conveys the pop genre well.

Whilst creating this album cover, I found that the program "Photoshop" had its difficulties at times. I have found it hard to work my way around and to understand how to use it effectively such as making the two layers for the colour/black and white effect of the image of the artist. Apart from that, I have found it interesting and fulfilling in being able to create a good album cover.

However, i did not expect that making an album cover would not take so much time and effort. It has taken me lots of time to take the images, to find suitable locations, to portray the right pose from the artist to making the final piece on Photoshop whilst trying to make a unique style for the cover.

Picking the suitable album cover idea:

I have decided that idea 3 of my album cover designs would be the most effective. This is because I feel that the conventions used are effective and that they all link together specifically. With this design, I felt that it gave the album cover and artist an odd feel to it and a design which would not be found on ordinary pop album covers.

I have made sure there are typical album conventions such as

- Logo of the artist

- Main image that is focused on the artist

- Name of the artist/album

- Theme of the album (colour)

Overall, the colour scheme links well, with the colours being mainly pink, purple and white to give it a feminine feel, which will appeal to the audience of young girls from the age of 14 - 19 years old. Also, the album is typical of the genre of pop as the image is greyscale and the layout is simple in order to revolve around the artist and the single. Other artists that use the grey scale image and focuses on their face is "Diana Vickers", Lady Gaga" and "Pixie Lott".

My album cover:

Preliminary album cover ideas:

Having already a keen idea of the type of layout i want for my album cover, as one of the images of the artist has a lot of potential to be experimented with. However, I have still made three different album cover ideas that I will use for my artist. I felt that making preliminary album covers, i would be able to show how effective my album cover idea i have is effective. Below are the different ideas where I have made sure that i have used the typical conventions of what would be found on the front of an album cover. I experimented with different photos that were taken at the groups photo shoot, have the ability to capture an array of locations and positions.

Idea 1:

Idea 2:

Idea 3:

Artwork choices made:

In making my final album cover, I made sure that i used the conventions of a typical pop album from my research. I used the program "Photoshop" in order to design my album cover. I decided to chose this program as it allowed me to edit the image of the artist and add text in order to use similar conventions.

I took many different poses of the artist. I chose this particular image of the artist as the background of where the artist is standing is white. Therefore, this would allow me to change the image as much as i like. Also, this pose of the artist shows her personality of being full of attitude and fashionable, which is reflected through her music.

This is also emphasised through the font of the artists name, which i chose to be in a bold, slanted font in to give the impression of it being the artists signature. This would give the album a personal feel to it whilst the colour is in a bright purple colour to link to the light, girly colours.

I chose to desaturate the image so that the full image is black and white, giving the album a simple and allowing the audience to recognise the album to be in the genre of pop (as below). The program also allowed me to make another layer of the image, which would allow me to delete the black and white layer, allowing the colour of the colour image to come through.

I felt that these choices were important in giving the message of the artist wanting to be solely focused on by the audience and that there is a sense of uniqueness from this particular music artist.