Digipaks and Magazine adverts - Indie

Analysing Digipaks and Magazine Adverts

We decided to analyse some examples of indie digipaks and magazine adverts to help us design our own. We decided to look at 3 artist's digipaks and magazine adverts to find common themes so that we could get a good idea of the sort of product we would like to make.

Digipaks

Gabrielle Aplin:

The first digipak we looked at is Gabrielle Aplin's 'English Rain'. It conforms to the artsy side of the indie genre, and is very pretty and positive. It focuses on the artist as someone the listener can relate to, and seems personal and friendly. There is a strong sense of synergy in the style of the pictures and the colour schemes.

Mumford and Sons:

The second digipak is Mumford & Sons' 'Babel'. This digipak conforms to the vintage and eccentric side of the genre, and seems more 'folksy' than the other 2. It has the look of an old-fashioned english village or town, with bunting and strange furniture. It also looks positive and friendly, although less personal than Aplin's. There is less of a sense of synergy here, because the CD does not have the same colour scheme as the packet.

The 1975:

The last digipak is The 1975's self-titled album. It is very different than the other 2 due to it's more alternative sound, and is very dark and mysterious. Unlike the others, it seems less friendly and more mysterious. It also doesn't feature a picture of the artist, adding to the sense of mystery. There is a strong synergy as the front and track listing are almost exactly the same, and the CD and back link with the dark feel and colour scheme.

Magazine Adverts

Gabrielle Aplin:

The first advert we looked at was for Gabrielle Aplin's 'English Rain' tour. The advert is not particularly similar to the digipak, although it has the same positive and happy feel. The advert focuses on her face and therefore on her as a person, unlike the digipak which focuses on the art. However, there is a sense of synergy with the font used, as her name and the name of the ep are the same as those on the digipak.

Mumford and Sons:

The second advert we looked at was for Mumford & Son's album 'Babel'. Unlike Aplin's, the Mumford & Son's advert is the same as the picture used on the digipak, creating a sense of synergy and an immediate link between the advert and the album.

The 1975:

The final advert is for The 1975. This advert is different to their digipak cover, although it has the same dark and mysterious atmosphere. The advert focuses singularly on the band, showing only their logo and the band members. This means that although the look is not exactly the same, the synergy is still there through the style and atmosphere of the advert.

Indie Posters

What Makes These Posters Indie

In order to decide which ancillary tasks to do, we decided to research examples of them for 3 artists within the indie genre. We decided to focus on 3 artists specifically: Lana Del Rey, The Killers, and Coldplay. We chose these artists as they are well established within the genre whilst having different styles of music, meaning that their products will be both professional and varied.

   Lana Del Rey:

The poster for Lana Del Rey's 'Born To Die' album reflects the look of the album it is advertising. Along with the imagery, it features the name of the album, and includes an offer of an extra feature that can be purchased alongside it. Some of her most famous/well liked songs are also mentioned so as to persuade the viewer to buy the album, as they would know those songs and therefore want to own them. The fact that Lana herself is featured on the poster would also persuade people to buy the product, as her potential audience would recognise her image and therefore want to support her.
This poster reflects the indie genre as it has quite a vintage feel to it. The slightly saturated colours and grainy appearance create the feeling of a somewhat old poster, reflecting the indie convention of making things seem vintage. Indeed, the very fact that it is advertising a 7 inch vinyl is part of the vintage side of the indie genre, making the sale more appealing to an indie audience. The poster

also seems to feature nature a lot, which again appeals to an indie audience as the genre focuses on nature and natural things. The font used on the poster is very simple, which, again, is a convention of indie music, whilst also making the poster look smart and professional.

   The Killers:

The poster for The Killers 'Day & Age' album is similar to Lana's in that it shows the same picture as is on their album cover. However, unlike Lana's, it does not feature images of the band. However, they have included their logo, which reflects their brand and therefore makes the poster immediately recognisable to their fans. There is very little text on this poster, which makes the text that is there stand out more. The viewers will quickly see the 'brand new album' text, which should make them want to buy it as it is something new and exciting. This poster also mentions one of their most famous songs which is featured on the album, again drawing people in through a song they recognise. This all makes the viewer of this poster want to buy the new album.

This poster is also a reflection of the indie genre, although it is so in a different way from Lana's. The poster revolves around the art of the album. Art and artsy things are often used in the indie genre, as the genre involves the idea of art and beauty without the technology and professionalism of more 'mainstream' genres like pop and rap. Although the art could have been digitised, it appears quite natural and broken up, looking like a mosaic. This broken up imagery is also reflected in the font, which all seems quite broken and rough. This gives the poster a sense of consistency, meaning that the poster does still look rather put together. However, the poster also seems very welcoming, and the brokenness makes the poster seem less professional and thus less mainstream, reflecting a convention of the indie genre.

   Coldplay

The poster for Coldplay's 'A Head Full Of Dreams' album also reflects the art of the album. Like The Killers', it doesn't feature the artists themselves; however, it also doesn't use a familiar logo that their fans would immediately recognise. The font for the poster is completely different to that on any beforehand, which may be because they have gone through many sounds and evolutions over the years. However, as the poster is inconsistent with other posters of theirs, this means that a viewer may not make an automatic connection or assumption about the poster. On the other hand, they are such a famous and well established artist that they possibly don't need to do this in order to get people to buy their albums. Instead, their name and identity as a well established band is likely to be enough to sell their product anyway. The poster also doesn't feature a selected already well-known song from the album, although this could be because of the reasons mentioned before.

The Coldplay poster, like The Killers', is also based around the convention of art, although the style is very different to that of the latter. In the centre is a colourful geometric shape, and surrounding it are little images of various things, including planets and birds, with a colourful rainbow border on the outside. The font matches the geometric shape in the middle as the gradient colours are reflected in the font, thus creating consistency. However, this consistency is broken by the seemingly random border on the outside. There is almost too much to look at on the poster, but it is not so much that it appears crowded or heavy. The randomness of the images also reflects a convention of the genre, which revolves around being different and artsy. There is a pop art feel, which again is a convention of the genre. The imagery also reflects the modern 'aesthetic' style that is common on the internet.

Indie Album Covers

What Makes a Successful Indie Album Cover

After researching into indie album covers we were able to understand what conventions were used to make them unique.

Lana Del Rey:

Lana Del Rey is always seen on the front of her album covers. They appear quite simple and this conforms to the convention associated with the genre having a 'laid back' kind of feel. The colours on her covers are also bright and sometime have added effects such as black and white. Typically most indie music has many special effects and I think that this element was tied in very well with the album covers. The text is also a simple, sharp and bold style and is large which makes it stand out. The clothing Lana wears in her covers are very classy and feminine. The dresses are very simple yet elegant.

Looking into the above cover closely we found many features that help us associate Lana with the indie genre. Her outfit is simple and elegant but still draws our attention and the audience already relate to her as an artist. Indie music is usually more about the artist rather than what made the album; having her as a main, central piece emphasises this. Her dress is silky and flows which is kind of like her music in itself. Her hair is kind of vintage with the loose waves relating to the title of the album as it's written like hand writing adding a sense of class. The title on the cover is big and bold, in gold and the font is simple yet because it's big it still draws our attention to it.

The Killers:

The Killers albums all seem to have a main focus on their name when is comes to the covers. There's a common theme of red, purple, grey, white and black. The mixture of these colours set different moods for each album suggesting they like to experiment with their style of indie and giving us a large variety of song types for different moods. The four main image focuses on these album covers are: the band, women, creativity and open spaces. The use of the band in their own cover promotes who they are whereas the use of women or open spaces suggest what kind of atmospheres they like or what they feel will draw the audiences eye. The use of artsy imagery for creativity suggest the personality of the band.

This specific album cover relates to indie very well. Indie tries to focus on a persons feelings and when looking at this album cover we can think of many stories that are behind it and making us feel as it's very thought provoking. The use of the plain black and white effect is very clever because the background is very dark and the snow-globe. though white, is very vibrant making us focus on it. The album is also called boots so making our eyes attract the the boots inside this snow-globe is smart. Though it's rather obvious to put a pair of boots on a cover with the album called boots it's very creative as an audience would expect something else such as a picture of an artist or something or at least a little colour, and this is what makes them indie, stating the obvious but in a way we (as an audience) don't expect it.

Coldplay:

Coldplay's album covers tend to my very simple and minimalistic. The images used usually just represent the title. Angle wings for 'Ghost Story', King Kong for 'King and Kong' and Mario with Luigi for 'M and L'. The titles are usually written in a very small font, barely readable along with the bands name. Barely any of their covers suggest a form of promotion besides the odd couple with either them or their logo. One thing that is obvious through out is the use of vibrant colours (and sometimes the odd black and white). We can see the individuality this band carries as their album covers may be different they still have a common theme: simple image with colourful background  small font on the side of the cover listing the band and the album title in line with it.

This selected album cover really stood out to us. It reminds us of doodles we do as children, just filling in certain gaps without any specific pattern. This album cover shows a contrast of vibrant pastel colours within a tangled frame of bare silhouetted branches and twigs. We found this album cover was different to all the others Coldplay use as they usually have very vibrant, minimalistic features but this one in particular is different, though there's a simple design we're looking at a more naturalistic cover; rather than it being very artsy is it a photograph with very little added colours and effects. In relation to indie we can say this album cover features nature which is a common theme in indie music videos (we normally see people - such as the artist/band - at a beach, in a field or in a forest).

Indie Websites

What Goes into an Indie Website

We researched into indie official websites to find which conventions were used and what common themes were in order to help us when is comes to making our own. 

Lana Del Rey:

Coldplay:

The Killers:

                         

In all of these screenshots of Indie websites we can see a common theme of promotion; both Lana Del Rey and The Killers have images of who they are in order to actually show the artist/band. Even though Coldplay don't have their faces we can see their band logo. Each band is surrounded by imagery that represents them and they believe suits them best for their style. Another thing we can see they all have is a way of searching into further information about them and what's on e.g. 'iTunes', 'News', 'Gift Shop'. Vibrant colours are used through out the websites perhaps in a way to draw attention but it's usually to highlight something that they want you to look into. Lana Del Rey has 'ENTER SITE' in red writing. Coldplay have tour dates in big bright boxes. The Killers have 'NEWS' and other things highlighted in bright blue. Overall, we can see that the central/main image is of the band/artist/logo as a way of recognition; we now know what they look like, what style they participate in and how they want to be represented.

Indie in Depth

Indie Research

Understanding Indie:

In order to create a successful indie music video we need to understand more about the genre as a whole so we did some research. For this we decided to looked into certain elements such a style, setting and who is associated to this specific genre. We believed this would help us come up with some potential ideas. So, we google imaged certain words and here are our results: 

After researching up the word indie we found words which were associated it and these words were: Grunge, Hipster, Alternative, Vintage and Pale. Each of these words share the idea of individuality, being different from society and it makes its own statement. This relates to the idea of bring genuine and unique compared to what is expected in society. The word 'vintage' is a convection for the style of indie as many things appear to be vintage such as vinyl records which are considered to be more genuine and real.

Indie:

• A vary of artistic style
• Association with both bright and pastel colours
• Pop art
• Nature/natural symbols
• Gradients 

Indie Style:

• Warm/cozy
• Brown/yellow tones
• Jumpers and cardigans
• Festival related clothing
• Casual wear

Indie Places:

• Back streets
• Old buildings
• Nature: Mountains, trees, lakes
• No Big, busy cities

Indie Music:

• Records
• Cassettes
• Guitars (commonly shown live)
• Supportive to artist

Indie Tumblr:

• Very artsy
• Flowers (mostly daisies and roses
• Water
• Travelling and adventuring