Matt's Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 2

Below, Evaluation Question 2, for a larger view visit http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/image/7032839/M.png

Evaluation Activity 4

How did you use media technology in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Activity 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Activity 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
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Created using Cacoo

Evaluation Activity 1

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Final peer feedback- Evaluation Activity 3

Final format for digipack design

Final design for Ancillary task

We have chosen to combine our individual ideas for our final digipack.

This is the front cover of our digipack; it was designed by Matt. It is a representation of da Vinci's Vitruvian man. We took two photos of Matt- one standing with his feet together with his arms straight out to the side and the other with his legs separated and his arms raised up.
Juliette then edited the photos using GIMP 2 to remove the back ground and then added the 'sketch'.
We have included the bands logo (bottom right hand corner) to help the audience to link the album to the band. This is a common digipack convention because it is essential for the audience to be able to quickly recognise new albums form the band/artists they like.

This is the inside front cover of our digipck; it was designed by Juliette. It is a picture of the band performing- taken during a filming session. This picture shows the audience what the band looks like and links the album to the music video. The reflection effect has been used to represent the idea of reflections and mirror images used in our music video.

We have chosen to also include some information about the band because this is their first album so the audience will need to know more about the artist. Telling the audience that the band are from London allows the audience to relate to the boys because they can see that they are just normal people who enjoy performing music.

We have written this page of acknowledgements because it is a common digipack convention. We have written it in a friendly register to show that they band are appreciative of the help they have received. We have continued to use a dark background so that the white text stands out which draws the audiences attention to it.

This is the CD tray for our digipack; it was designed by Bruna. It uses an image of Matt walking, we took this picture against the green screen and Juliette edited it to remove the background and add a 'sketch' effect.
Matt is walking around the CD in an endless circle to represent the themes of the CD- loneliness and struggle.
The pattern created by his feet joining, is aesthetically pleasing and makes the CD look more interesting.

This is the back cover of our digipack; it was designed by Juliette. It uses the silhouette of a bird in flight to link to the theme of freedom which is sought-after by the artist in our music video.
The names of the other songs in the album where created by Juliette and Bruna, after making a list of possible album titles to unused titles were used for the songs.


We have used the front cover of our digipack in our magazine advert.

Magazine Advertisement Design Idea

My Magazine Advert Design Idea 

For my design idea I included the names of two well know magazines that would have reviewed the album for their audiences. The ratings are very common for many album magazine adverts.

I have also told the reader when the album is out and the name of the album along with the name of the band.

Album Design Art Ideas

When coming up with some ideas and design concepts for our album's art I wanted to hark back to some of the key features of our band and specifically the song that we were covering. As an indie rock band doing things by the book and being part of the status quo just isn't an option, this is why I wanted to try and help make our album unique. I wanted it to stand out and make the viewer think about it for a few moments. Over the course of this blog post I will outline why I chose some of the artistic ideas that I came up with.

Front cover

The Front Cover

For the front cover I wanted to create a very unique and hopefully iconic design. I chose to replicate Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man illustration but incorporate our style with it. The basic idea is that the black silhouette is the darker subconcious side of the character that appears in the song Across the Skyline and the white, clear figure is the other supressed yet real character. In a way the design shows that the silhoutted figure is blocking the clear figure which is shown by his arms being held out in such a manner. The clear man seems to be trying to stretch and escape from behind the shadow which is shown in the song Across the Skyline. This design works with the name of the album, which is Trapped Reflections with the silhouetted man's dominance showing that he is trapping the clearer character. Both figures are the same person but two sides of the person, which is why they share the same face and head. The sharing of the same face shows that they are the same person to the viewer yet the vacant expression shows that the characters emotions are trapped and suppressed by the silhouetted figure once again.

The circular design around the two figures is also taken straight from Da Vinci's illustration and it's inclusion shows once more that the figure is trapped within a sort of bubble almost. The main theme of course is that feeling of being trapped which I feel has been expressed in a variety of ways with
this album cover design.

Inside panels and disc

The Front and Back Inside Panels

The image to right is of my front and back inside designs. For this I was aiming for a simplistic concept that represented the band in an indie sort of way but also reflected the name of the song and some of the lyrics within it.

The disc design is deliberatly blank to reflect the individualism of indie rock and the band itself. Fans of indie rock and indie rock artists don't conform and they don't buy into brands and labels. I believe that making the disc blank shows that feeling and reflects it effectively.

The background of the entire inside is also again deliberately a single colour. This is to contrast with the white of the disc to make it stand out but to also allow the birds to fit into the design on the left-hand-side.  The birds are shown in the design flying off into the distance which relates to some of the lyrics within Across the Skyline and the name of the song itself. The song itself features the word skyline which has a connection to birds which we incorporated into our music video and which also features in the song. The lyrics "bitter the bird that flies" are reflected with these birds on the inside panel of my album design. The idea behind incorporating them within the album is that they signify freedom, which is something that our character doesn't have. This contrasts with the front cover and I believe forces the audience to think for a few moments about the meaning.

Back cover

The Back Cover

The back cover of my design is again playing on the idea of being trapped and again focusing on our clearer character. The man is shown pushing up against the border between him and the song names list. The song names list is irrelevant to the image of the man but the border between them is not. It signifies a wall or a barrier. This barrier is trapping him and he is shown pushing with all of his strength trying to remove it. This again relates back to the concept shown in the previous designs and the theme of the song. The contrast of white on black makes it stand out visually and it fits in with the theme of the rest of the album design. 

I haven't come up with any song name ideas to fill the list with at this stage and the text below the man shown with the lines is showing the credits and some extra detail we will be including. The barcode on the right of course is very recognisable and it's just a common feature of albums so I decided to incorporate it within my design idea.

Alterations, Technical Difficulties and Story Board Changes

Above, some of our alterations and changes explained.

Album Art Design Idea, Electronic

FRONT

INSIDE FRONT

INSIDE BACK

BACK

Magazine Advert Design Idea

Magazine Album Advertisement Analysis

Below is a magazine advertisement for the indie rock band The Horror's album called Strange House;

An analysis of the magazine advert using MindMeister;

Album Art Design Ideas

This picture is my interpretation of the music and my first initial ideas for our CD cover.
I have used colour- purple and blue. These are deep, dark colours which represents the pained and longing feel of the song.
The birds flying across the page link to the lyrics "bitter the bird that flies", we have included footage of birds in our video and including birds in the CD cover will link it to the song and lyrics.
The houses that I've drawn on the waves of colour represent a skyline through the eyes of our tormented artist. It creates confusion and disorientation.
I have also drawn pictures associated with our artist, I have drawn gritted teeth and a desaturated field scene with our artist standing in the middle. This link of our music video and would show the audience who the artist is.
The chain hanging down the centre of the page links to the themes of restriction and entrapment. Chains could be used on the CD cover as accessories or as a physical restraint trapping our artist.

My initial CD cover designs:

This is my design for the front cover.
The artist is in the centre of the page, he is wearing a dark jacket and dark trousers. The chains will be around the artist's wrists restraining him, holding him down. There will be chain hung in the top corners of the cover to emphasise the themes of entrapment -these could be digitally added.
There will be one light source illuminating one side of the artists face and body. This will make the artist stand out but also symbolically represent his inner struggle to be free.

This is my design for the inside front cover.
It will be a photograph of the whole band. Whilst filming we took photos of the band performing so that they were acting naturally. Using a photo of the band will help the audience to associate the band with the song and the album. Because the photo was taken during the filming process it will directly link the album to the music video. This could increase the number of views/downloads of the music video because the photo of the band will show the audience that we have created a music video to accompany the album.

This is my design for the inside back cover/CD.
The CD will have images of birds printed onto it, they will all have one wing pointing into the centre of the CD and the other wings pointing outwards. There will be around 6/7 birds on the CD arranged in a circle. This will link the album directly to the lyrics in Across the Skyline- "bitter the bird that flies". This should increase the lasting impact of the song making it more memorable.

This is my design for the back cover.
It includes birds again. The titles of the songs in the album will be moulded along the line of the birds wings. This creates an aesthetically pleasing effect and it is memorable. The use of birds will again link to the lyrics "bitter the bird that flies", but birds also connote freedom and space. These connotations contrast dramatically with the front cover of the CD which represents entrapment and suffering.

Work is progress photographs of our story boards

These story boards show our ideas so far, we have listen to the song (Across the Skyline) and taken inspiration from the lyrics and mood of the music. Some of our ideas have been symbolic and some have been literal representations of the lyrics.

We have chosen to include narrative and performance in our video; peer feedback and research has shown us that this mix of music video genres is commonly used by Indie-Rock bands and artists.