A2 Advanced Portfolio: Reflective Evaluation - Question Two

Completed Website

Completed CD Cover



Throughout each section of our work - the website, CD cover and music video - we have tried to maintain a continuous look and feel to everything we've done. From looking into some of Kimya Dawsons own CD covers and her official website, as well as other artists within the anti-folk genre we have picked out different things we liked and wanted to do ourselves.

For instance, as artists similar to Kimya (as well as her herself) are very down to earth, simple and natural we chose to stick to browns and beiges for the majority of our work. As you can see from the above images we edited the doodle (in which Jacques and Sophie drew) so that rather than having a white background like it did previously it was beige. To do this, after scanning the drawing onto the Mac we opened the image into Photoshop where we made a new layer (which was the beige) and placed the drawings on top of the new layer, only selecting the drawings. We also had the writing on the website as a darker brown (slightly red as to add a slight colour so it didn't get too boring) and chose a font which wasn't too formal but looked more hand written, as well as having the 'Kimya Dawson' at the very top of the website written by ourselves which we too then scanned into Photoshop to select each letter seperately; when first analying Kimya Dawson's own official website she too had doodled images at the top with hand written titles for each new page (however during us making our own website based on this she updated hers, we preferred the originall version and so carried on using that as inspiration).

We kept this running through to our CD cover by having the same doodle pattern as the background for the inside cover, we also turned the opacity down on the front/back image and added a slight sepia effect. This suited the image we had chosen perfectly as the landscape behind her sat on the fence seemed more autumnal. As Kimya Dawson is always seen with her guitar we also made sure that she was sat playing the guitar in the image (where we also later filmed part of the music video) and used the sound whole of it as part of the inside cover where the CD would be placed.

To carry on the effect from this we added a slight sepia tint to the narrative sections of our music video, not only did this connect it to the CD and webpage but it also created the effect that each of these sections were events that have happened previously in which she is telling us about. We also ended our music video in the same location as the images for the CD cover and website were taken; we had Rosa sing the last few lines sat in the same place as the CD cover image was taken and she also walks off through the field behind her at the very end as if she's going home after finishing her paper round.

Throughout all of the photoshoots and filming we also tried to make sure that she was wearing the same costume, which you see on all three of our products, this makes the artist instantly recognisable for the audience. Although on one day of filming (the bike section) Rosa was unable to cycle whilst wearing the long skirt and so we had to make sure that when we went back to film that part again she was wearing the same as before so as to not create any continuity errors. It also so happened that she had forgotten to bring her boots and was instead wearing some personalized pumps - although we were worried at first, it turns out that actually these shoes also fit in with Kimya's image with the doodling on our website etc.

From looking at two of Kimya Dawson's previous album covers, 'Remember that I love you' and 'Alphabutt' we can instantly see her simple and down to earth approach to life. Both include handdrawn images with nothing too complicated, they differ in the fact that 'Remember that I love you' is mainly black and white, whereas 'Alphabutt' is very colourful and personally i prefer the colourfullness of the second album as i think that this matches her fairly outrageous personality more so than the plain black and white. Although they are slightly different to eachother, and different to our own CD cover I think that they still fit in with how we have designed ours.

Kimya's website also portrays her personality with the monsters at the top, however as I previously spoke about halfway through us designing our website she updated hers. We all agreed that we preferred her original website as it fit in more with what we had in mind, but the new version still works with what we've got. Just like ours, Kimya has videos on her website, and links to her twitter, facebook or other blogs.

I also looked at Laura Marlings CD cover for some inspiration for ours, although this is very different to ours i think we can relate to this for the fact that the image on the cover is a drawing, however it's a drawing of the artist herself. I'm not too fond of this in relation to using it fully for our own work, mind.

I then went on to look at her website; i found it was very simplistic and felt quite formal. Although obviously we didn't want our website to be too relaxed we wanted it to feel approachable and for our audience to be able to feel at ease with it.

After looking at Laura's and not being too impressed i went back to Kate Nash who we had preivously looked at, I feel like her album cover is very similar to ours, the image on the front looks almost animated and drawn rather than a proper photo (like our doodle) and the artist is on the front cover - instantly recognisable - the font at the top also looks like it has been hand written which has been something key to us in the process of making our CD cover.

Kate Nash's website is also very similar to ours, although it doesn't have a running theme of colour or exact style to her CD cover i feel it is still recogniseable as hers. The title at the top of the webpage is in the same font as on the cover which may help to add to this; the website gives off a far more femine image to her work which obviously appeals to her target audience or teenage girls. Scrolling across the top of the page is also different images with captions from Kate herself. Which is just like the live twitter feed we have on the bottom of our website.

From looking into each of these artists CD covers and webpages I am confident in thinking that our own will appeal to our target audience. Throughout the process of creating them we have kept them in mind and all the time referring back to 'does it work?', 'will it fit in with the rest of our work?' and 'will they like it?' - I feel the answer to all of these questions is now yes! they will.

In all, without the use of the internet I doubt our music video would be very successful at all; we've used numerous use of the internet to mass research into our chosen genre, artist and competitors as well. We have also uploaded our video to YouTube in which within just under a week of it being on there we've managed to reach 300 views already, we have used sites such as Twitter and Facebook to promote our video, passing on the URL for people to watch it. As well as using Blogger to keep track on all the work and progress we've been making.