A2 Advanced Portfolio: Reflective Evaluation on CD Cover

Question One

Outside design of our CD cover

Inside design of our CD cover

Kimya Dawson's Album - Alphabutt (Front Cover)

Kimya Dawson's Album - Alphabutt (Back Cover)

Kate Nash's Album - Made of Bricks (Front Cover)

Kate Nash's Album - Made of Bricks (Back Cover)

From looking at the existing media products by Kimya Dawson, the 'Made of Bricks' CD cover and our own CD design, we can tell that there are clear links between aspects such as font and layout. The title on every front cover is at the top as this is the first place we look so we can identify the artist easily. The font used on Kate Nash's album cover is very similar to the one we have used (Beautiful Every Time) as it is very quirky and looks as if it has been written by a child. This gives a very light hearted effect representing the artist as fun which is good as Kimya Dawson does not take herself too seriously. On the cover of 'Alphabutt' the design on the back cover is the same as the front however the animals are not there. This is similar to  our cover as we have the same back cover as the front, just without the model present. We liked this idea as it showed continuity in the theme. After receiving some feedback from our teacher telling us that the model was too small on our CD Cover, we looked at a few other CD Covers such as Kate Nash's album cover and saw that the model on there was also fairly small, so we have decided to keep it like this.

Experimenting With Editing on iMovie

After filming some of our music video then importing it onto iMovie, we've noticed that the colours and light are very dull and dark. Firstly, we tried with increasing the saturation of the video. By doing this, it makes the colour more vibrant and shows a better distinction between the different shades. Although we will not be having it as saturated as the second image, we want it to look fairly vibrant as it brightens the image and makes the colour more visually appealing. Also, to make the video seem more like autumn, we will add a slight sepia tint however not too much as we want it to look realistic still.                          

Finished website

This is our website. The background is a doodle that we have drawn ourselves then scanned into Photoshop. We sharped the image to give the drawings more definition as they were originally drawn in pencil. This doodle is used as Kimya Dawson tends to use animation a lot, for example on her album 'Remember That I Love You' and on her website kimyadawson.com, she also has animation as her background. The title 'Kimya Dawson' at the top is also hand drawn then scanned in. As the background was white, we had to cut out the letters which is why they have a slight white ridge to them. We couldn't find a font on iWeb which was as quirky as we wanted which is why we drew it. As Kimya Dawson rarely comes to the UK, we decided to have 'New Year New UK Tour' on the home page to make a big deal out of it. Also, Kimya Dawson is a very friendly artist, and definitely one to keep in touch with her fans so we had her twitter feed on the front page. We feel that the idea of animation and autumn is continued throughout both our website and CD cover and this works effectively to presenting Kimya Dawson as an artist. The links on the page have actually been linked to the actual website pages, for example when you click on the twitter icon, Kimya Dawson's twitter page will come up. 

Final CD cover

After many problems with the back cover not properly matching up (the fence on the front was not symmetrical to the fence on the back) we finally decided to just take one extra long shot then place it over the whole of the CD cover as this meant the fence was completely lined up. As the bottom part of the image is slightly busy we decided to put the track list in the sky and we feel this works very well. By decreasing the opacity of the image, it softens it slightly and also because we added a yellowish background, it has a slight sepia tint to the image. The font is very idiosyncratic to keep to the usual conventions of Kimya Dawson and how she uses animation and quirkiness to express her fun personality. Overall, we are happy with our CD cover as it is how we expected it to be. The only change is the back cover as we originally had the girl on the back cover as well as the front, however we tried it and it didn't look as good because there were houses in the background and had no room for a track list.

This is the inside of our CD cover. On the right is where the CD will go, and we really like the idea of placing the CD over the acoustic guitar. The only problem with this image is the fact its slightly out of focus, however we do feel the shadows inside the hole work well. On the left is a collage of photographs of 'Kimya Dawson'. Originally we were going to have a newspaper here, however when we were on our photo shoot, we felt a whole page collage would look really good. Once we'd tried to have lots of images covering the page we realized it looked disorganized and a bit too crammed. To keep the continuity of the theme, we used the background of our website as the background on the CD inside cover. The board is to keep it stereotypically quirky and it seemed a very typical thing for Kimya Dawson to have on her own media. Instead of putting all of the images we had taken on there, we decided on the best ones and used 'tape' to stick them on. This will appeal to our audience of females as it's very feminine with the doodles and having the girl to relate to on the front. The doodles also will appeal to the slightly younger audience which we're aiming for.

Todays filming

After taking the photos for the CD cover we decided it was the perfect time to film part of our music video. We found an empty classroom so that we could film the scene of the girl doing some maths. We came across several problems while filming as although we had set the camera up correctly, the white paper we had on the grey/white table was too bright and blended in, making it look as though the girl was writing on the table. But eventually we solved the problem and were able to film. Below is one of the clips we shot (it won't be 7 seconds in the final video)

After this we also decided to film the scene in the office, we used the media office as there was a computer with the phone right next to it which we needed. Before filming we had to move several objects out of the shot, things such as Bilborough College ID cards were nearly in the filming.

CD cover photoshoot contact sheets

 

 

As we needed to retake the photos for our album cover with our new actress, today we took time out of lesson to take advantage of the bright day we had. We plan to use as many of these images as we can, as for the inside cover we're having a collage of images. Hopefully these images capture all sides of Kimya Dawson, with her fun and creativeness as well as her seriousness with her music.

Our New Actress

 

After loosing our previous actress we then had to start again and rethink who we could use, ideally we needed somebody from college as the times in which we are all free to shoot fall into college hours, however it seemed that everybody in Year 13 were too busy with their workload, so we decided we may be better off to ask an AS student; we came across Rosa Dolcimascolo (a girl from my secondary school) who is known for being very confident and not afraid of the camera. She was very happy that we'd asked her and it turns out that she has a lot of free periods at the same time as us giving us obvious chances to film and take the photos.

We went into the photography studio to take a few sample photos (not of the costume or makeup) of her as seen above. I also came across a photo of her wearing something very similar to our chosen costume.

New Shooting Dates

As our previous actress is now unable to film on the previous dates we have now had to rearrange our shooting dates. We're planning on filming the office and classroom scenes during Fridays lesson, as well as hopefully being able to go out and take the photos for the CD cover; we're also hoping to film the main cycling scene either Monday or Wednesday.

Weather Report

As we have to redo the photos for the CD cover we decided to check upon the weather before going out to shoot them. As you can see from the report above, the next day suitable for taking our photos will be Friday, which is ideal as we have a lesson then and our new actress is also free.

CD Cover Update

Even though the cover we designed looked really good (as shown as an uncompleted version below) and we were happy with it we ran into a few a problems last night. We had originally planned to film during todays lesson, and tomorrow afternoon/evening however the actress featured told us that she cannot film the music video as she is too busy with her own college work and University plans meaning that the CD cover photos we took are now invalid and so we will have to start again, finding a new actress and taking the photos again.

Photographs for CD Cover

Today we walked up to a field in Bilborough to shoot some images for the CD cover. We felt this location would be more appropriate than Wollaton Park as there would not be people in the background. We tried many different angles, experimenting with the girl sitting down on a log in some bushes then having her sitting on a fence. Although both worked, we prefer the girl sitting on the fence as the image is less cluttered and adds more naturalistic beauty to the image.

 On Photoshop, we then decreased the opacity to 78% as it added a slight sepia tone to the image which we liked as it worked with our consistent theme of autumn. Another idea was to change the idea of the inside CD cover and instead of having the close up of the newspaper, we will have a collage of different images of the girl, her guitar and the bicycle. We feel this is more suited to Kimya Dawson and her style and adds quirkiness to the CD design.

Shooting Dates

After planning everything as much as we can the only thing left to do now is to go out and shoot the music video, as some of us work weekends we have had to choose to film during the week when we're all free. We plan to film the classroom scene during this Friday (25th October)'s lesson as we are using a room at college. We're also hoping to film the scene in the office on Tuesday 29th October and as the cycling scene needs to be done during the day due to lighting we all plan to meet and film this section on Wednesday 30th October; given that we film all of this on time, we should be in good time to edit and reshoot again if needs be.

Our chosen actor

When we first began thinking about what kind of girl we wanted to use for our music video we all instantly agreed upon the same two girls to ask (we asked both in case one of them dropped out), at first they were both really up for doing it but in the end both let us down, being too busy with their own college work/not feeling confident enough.

So after thinking through everybody we knew I thought about asking my friend, Beth Hill; she has experience doing a variety of modelling and fits the ideal look perfectly - having long, dark wavy hair, petite and naturally pretty.

 

These are two of her modelling images that she has sent me, however she now has shorter hair, with it being just below her shoulders; this doesn't effect us too much as she still fits with the look we are hoping at attain.

Photos that have inspired us for our CD cover.





We like the location of the image and the naturalistic sepia tint on the image. We also intend to use the same composition that this image uses with the girl on the rule of thirds playing an acoustic guitar.

We are hoping to use an old vintage bicycle with a basket on the front like this one for our video, with the idea of on the front of the CD cover having it leant against the wall as she sits and plays. There were no ideal images that i could find with both the girl and bike against the wall.

Photographs for Inside CD cover

After taking the images on a better camera to see if the focus is any better, we can see that the quality of the image is much higher when taken on a different camera. The images above are the best ones for the inside cover, however we will have to crop one to fit it into the space provided on the template. My favourites are the top and bottom ones as you can see the inside of the guitar and the lighting is good.

Inside Disk CD Design Progress

The idea for the disk cover is to have the image of an acoustic guitar sound hole. Our findings with these images are that they are out of focus and unusable. Over the next couple of days we will use a better camera and a more traditional guitar to give the right image we wanted.

Photoshop tutorials: How to Crop a Photo and Layering

Because we will be using photo's as the main design for our Cover when we scan it in it may not be the right size to fit the CD template, in order to fit these onto it we needed to learn how and so we searched Youtube and found a tutorial to do so.
To put the title and other such things onto after the photo we needed to find out how to layer items so we found another Youtube video and learnt.

CD Cover - So far...

These are the designs we have come up with at the moment. Although incomplete we have the font for the spine and maybe a colour scheme for it, the end result wont have the colour anywhere but the spine but because we don't have the photo yet so...

CD covers that have inspired us.

We like this CD cover because it's similar to Kimya Dawson's
other album 'Remember That I Love You' in the fact that it has
animation and animals with a speech bubble on the front cover.
We do prefer this one, however, because it has colour on it
and it makes more visually appealing.

We like the simplicity of this CD cover, and the quirky font
used on 'Kate Nash'. Although we want to use more colour than this,
it is the font which we are considering to use.

We decided to look at a CD cover in the same genre as Kimya Dawson
to see how they compared and contrasted. Similar to 'Remember That I Love You'
there is limited colour except one object on the cover (the piano) which is highlighted
as its a brighter colour. 

We liked this CD cover because of the collage looking like a journal extract (like the websites) and the use of the girl as well as drawn image

The colours on this CD cover are very similar to the ones which we are planning to use (warm, autumn colours)

The mixture of drawn images, photo of the girl and warm colours are all things 

we are contemplating using for our own CD cover.

Fonts

Going through fonts on DaFont.com we came to the decision that this was the most appropriate for the artist and genre, we like it the best for the spine of the album as its clear to read and curly so fits with everything else.

These are others that we may consider for other parts of the album such as the Front  e.g title, artist name etc; the Back e.g track listings, copyright, bar code etc and the inside although this should have a newspaper font as it is a newspaper article.

Kimya Dawson; The competition

This is the song that we have chosen to use for our music video, however we will be using a better quality version from her official album as this Youtube video, like all Youtube videos has lost its audio quality..

Continued: Shot lists

As our original shot list had shots of around 18 seconds in, I have redone these to make them shorter shots which gives more of a variety and prevents the audience from becoming bored. Here are the continued shot lists.

Website Analysis; Kate Nash

Images and Logos

How is your band/artist represented?

The background for Kate Nash's website is all hand drawn images of birds, leaves, stars etc. which instantly reminds us of Kimya Dawson's website and relates to the genre of anti-folk with the childlike and laidback reppresentation. The random images to the left of the site remind us of her creativity.

Genre

How are generic conventions of the music used?

Just like Kimya and Regina's website, Kate Nash's is very simple and basic, with not much writing on each page which reminds us of the generic conventions instantly. As do the hand drawn images which are a running theme throughout the site.

New Technology and Links

How does your artist use media technology for promotion?

Kate has a very new and fresh feeling to her site with links to her Facebook, Twitter and blogs. There is a page entitled 'friends' on which there are links to the official websites of artists she is a fan of. She seems to be very in touch with the new technology without over using it, keeping her fans up to date with what she's currently doing.

Colour and Style

What does the overall colour and style say about your artist?

There is a very feminine feel to the colours used on the website, with earthy greens, pinks, blues and browns throughout. The earthy colours are exactly what we'd expect to see on Kate Nash's website and relate fully to the anti-folk genre.

Written Content

How does the written style reinforce the artist's image/genre?

The written content on Kate's website is very informal which i feel puts across her image very well. From watching interviews with Kate it is easy for anybody to see that she is a very chatty, friendly person. The blogs and information on the website shows this profusely.

Font and Layout

How do they construct the artist's image?

On the top of every page is the hand written title 'kate nash' , with very basic and simple font elsewhere, the font reminded me of that in which you'd find on a type writer. Keeping things simple and easy to read remind us that Kate, like the others isn't about any fancy titles.

Target Audience

What techniques are used to target the audience?

The quirky hand drawn background on each page suitably represents the target audience. Along with the chatty wording and links to Facebook, Twitter etc - all appealing to her young audience. The informal, chatty language reveals Kate's personality, which we'd expect her fans to enjoy and relate to.


Advertisements
Are advertisements suitable for the target audience?


Advertisements of her latest albums, downloads and blogs are all suitable for her audience. It's obvious she is aware that her fans are from 13-16 years old and the social networking sites that they use frequently. 

Cd Cover design

This is the rough idea that we have thought of to do for our CD Cover, the front is a picture of her sitting on a wall, performing. On the back we thought it would be quite effective to have the same shot from behind, although not complex it is quite a nice idea.

For the CD base we thought something round would look more appropriate so we thought of something round and relevant so it is the sound whole of the acoustic guitar she performs with.

Being as the main theme of the video is based around a paper round we thought it would be a good idea to get the actual newspapers involved with the cover and so we had the layout of the inside a replication of a typical newspaper article.

Contacting Kimya Dawson

Before we go out and begin to shoot the music video, we first had to ask for permission off Kimya Dawson, our chosen artist to use her song. I found her official twitter page and e-mail off her official website and decided to both tweet and e-mail her in hope of a response.

Unfortunately we are still yet to hear back from her. But untill then we will continue to develop our ideas.

Website Analysis; Imogen Heap

Images and Logo

How is your band/artist represented?

The opening page of Imogen Heap's website has only four images, each of which are the covers of her four latest albums. With a simple, plain grey background. This gives us the knowledge instantly that Imogen wants people to buy and download her music (they are there as download links). However once clicking the 'Enter the site' link the website becomes a little more imnteresting with waterwashed images of her both performing and with various people (perhaps friends?); these images show us that Imogen likes to have a good relationship with people, and keeps things close to her heart. When looking through the other pages (tour dates, downloads, a survey etc) there seems to be a running theme of greenery, things such as leaves and grass appear behind the text on pages and earthy colours throughout, all of this reminds us how natural and down to earth Imogen is.

Genre

How are the generic conventions of the music used?

The use of earthy colours, images of friends and links to her blogs all fit in with the generic conventions of the anti-folk genre. It's set out a bit more formally, and more like a proper website than Kimya Dawson and Regina Spektors websites (which were more like journals) but still kept simple and basic, with not much on each page to crowd the main focus.

New Technology and Links

How does your artist use media technology for promotion?

Running along the bottom of every page are links to Imogen's official Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and iTunes pages which allows us to see how in touch with her fans Imogen is; there are certain pages in particular which are instant links to download her albums. There is one page entitled 'Survey' which Imogen has produced a survey for her fans to fill out, on the survey she asks you which your favourite songs of hers are and how you heard about her music - this shows us how important feedback is for her as she likes to keep up to date with what her fans like.

Colour and Style

What does the overall colour and style say about the artist?

Imogen has chosen to use earthy colours such as greena and browns throughout the website, linking perfectly with the genre and reminding us how down to earth Imogen is. The basic use of these colours are what we expect to see with little going on amongst each page.

Written Content

How does the written style reinforce the artist's image/genre?

At first, Imogens website appears to be fairly formal, with not so chatty information, yet when we read properly we can see that our first impressions couldn't be more wrong. The informal chatty survey and blog posts remind us again for important the fans are for Imogen, keeping them happy is what she aims for and even takes requests for her live performances! At the end of the survey the last question is 'Did you mind filling this out for me?' - Imogen is obviously very conscicous of pleasing people and this comes across in all aspects of the site.

Font and Layout

How do they construct the artist's image?

The straight up, simple font shows us that with Imogen, there are no frills attached. What you see is what you get. We can easily see that Imogen doesn't want to take the attention away from the music, but have enough written content on the website to keep people happy. The font is easy to read but at the same time looks fairly formal - again, to please everybody.

Target Audience

What techniques are used to target the audience?

The informal language and links to twitter, facebook, myspace and her blogs is great for her target audience. Imogen likes to keep in touch with her fans and hear from them and what their thoughts are on her latest ideas and albums. she is obviously aware that the majority of people now download music rather than go out and buy CD's with the pages and links to iTunes etc to download her tracks.

Advertisements

Are the advertisements suitable for the target audience?

The suitable advertisements for Imogen's music appear all over the website. Links to iTunes, Flickr and other blogs and forums allow us to see that she is aware of the times and how things have changed drastically. The specific link and reference to YouTube reinforces the wide range of interest she recieves (in terms of age of her fans) with links still to her MySpace which seems to be slowly dying out (due to the increase in popularity of Facebook).

Website Analysis; Emmy the Great

Images and Logo

How is your band/artist represented?

On the opening page of Emmy the Great's website there are a lot of images, such as the dinosaur at the top of the page next to her name - instantly relating to Kimya Dawson's use of animals.This also links to the genre of anti-folk with the care-free, childlike representation. There are also several images with links to seperate pages which Emmy had blogged about of all sorts of things. The photo of the album cover is also on the opening page, which instantly allows us to see her latest work.

Genre

How are generic convetions of the music used?

Unlike Regina and Kimya's websites, Emmy the Great's is quite busy, with links running across the top, down both sides and at the bottom of the page; this slightly goes against what we would expect from this genre. However the colours used are very simple browns, beiges and blacks which we would expect to see.

New Technology and Links

How does your artist use media technology for promotion?

Emmy's website is very aware of how times have changed, with links to her Facebook, Twitte and MySpace on the bottom of every page.There is also an entire page with links to amazon and iTunes to download her albums and singles. And a page for videos of songs/artists she is a fan of herself.

Colour and Style

What does the overall colour and style say about the artist?

The simple use of browns, beiges and black borders allows us to relate the artist to the anti-folk genre, the 'earthy' colours tell us how down to earth Emmy is. Although this website contrasts to the simple, basic sites we'd expect to see from the genre with it being busy, the simple font and text brings us straight back to our expectations.


Written Content
How does the written style reinforce the artist's image/genre?


On first looking at Emmy the Great's website and looking into the written content, it appears to be fairly formal. However when looking deeper into some of the blogs she has posted we see that actually, she's very informal. With a blog entitled 'How to pretend you're having a good time' and several different ways, written in a very laid back and chatty way.

Font and Layout
How do they construct the artist's image?

The simple and plain font used throughout the website shows us how again, Emmy isn't too bothered about having outrageous and fancy fonts - just like Kimya and Regina - however the amount of text contrasts majorly to the other two previously analysed. The hand written and animal images as titles is also a generic convention to the genre and something we would expect to see.

Target Audience

What techniques are used to target the audience?

The informal use of language and constant reference to blogs, twitter, facebook and myspace amongst every page is perfectly suited for the target audience. The small chat forum at the side of the screen saying 'join the conversation' is also ideal for the target audience. Emmy is obviously in touch with her fans and likes to hear from them. The page given to downloading her albums, EP's and singles rather than buying a hard copy of her albums also show's that she is aware that her fans are mroe likely to download her music rather than buy the hard copies.

Advertisements

Are the advertisements suitable for the target audience?

Advertisements are all over Emmy the Great's website and are all suitable for the target audience things such as facebook, twitter, blogs pages, chat forums etc and advertisements for her live performances - which obviously her fans will go to - are easily accessible and simply worded for everyone to take note of and use.