How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary

texts? Poster, Digipak and Music video

When producing my digipak, this was where most obstacles occurred due to the fact there are different types of indie artists ranging from your typical oasis, urban styled British band to Bombay Bicycle club who expressed a more artistic style with a lack of focus on the band themselves. I started out with a distinctively British band and featured de-saturated images of urban locations, which I edited to make them appear they were from the 90s giving them a vintage/ indie appearance. I also decided to feature images of real people, however only having two people to photographed conveyed the message it was a duet as appose to band and frankly the members just didn’t fit with the digipak as they made it look distinctively pop.

Once the video was produced it changed my perspective on the band due to the fact it had more of an indie-pop feel therefore I wanted to convey this through my digipak through making a more colourful and artistic design. I wanted to make an identity for the artist one enriched with being fun and creative therefore I decided to feature only the plasticine models on the digipak. This was a risky move due to the fact audiences are most likely to purchase an album through relation to age, or simply just the image of the artistic on the cover. However, I took influence from artists such as blur who featured amazing experimental designs on their cover which made a identity for themselves and drew audiences in through the fact it simply looked visually appealing.

To make up for the lack of images of the bands appearance I decided to add a unique selling point, this being a competition to win a model of the plasticine band members. From my audience research it was clear the audience had an attachment to the models and found them ‘cute’ and stated how they ‘wanted them’ therefore I felt this competition would strongly aid the consumption of the digipak as it offers more than simply a CD. I also further pushed the selling point of the digipak through added a special live CD in which would appeal to strong fans of the band and also added to the indie genre as a whole due to the focus it put on the band wanted to sell there music. Also, assuming the audiences have already seen the music video and as a result are purchasing the digipak they are likely to have an awareness of the bands image already, therefore I felt it wasn’t extremely necessary to feature the band on the digipak. This also added to the typical conventions of indie digipaks as they tend to draw attention away from the artistic to ensure the focus remains on their musical talent and often when the band actually are featured on the cover they are looking away from the camera or captured in a long shot so people aren’t buying into their appearance alone.

My next step was to create my poster which again I had issues creating. My initial design had a crucial error since it didn’t match up with the music video and the digipak design. This broke the overall theme of the artist as the poster looked like it was designed for a completely different band. Again, this was brought on through the fact the type of indie band wasn’t fully distinguished at this point due to the fact it completely changed after the video which shaped a new image of the band after we’d seen the final production. With the poster being a marketing technique the main point of it was to sell the artist therefore it would make sense to feature the bands identity as the central image. However, being an indie artistic once again I felt I could get away with having the plasticine men on the poster rather than the band themselves, as I feel the music video would be so memorable it would work as a form of identity for the band and allow them to stand out more rather than having them compete with other bands who also just use a simple image of the band identity.

This also ensured the digipak, video and the poster looked very similar, in terms of visual style allowing all the combination of the main production and ancillary texts to work together as a cross media campaign to sell the artist. On the poster I needed to ensure it contained all essential conventions to increased the selling point of the artist therefore I added various social media links since are target audience are mainly teenagers who use the internet as the most accessible source of information. I also decided to include download links which although I felt went slightly against the indie genre as they tend to be more vintage and stick to purchasing a physical CD I felt this would appeal to the modern generation who tend to download their music as appose to getting a CD. I then incorporated the standard conventions such as the release date and the fact it contained the number 1 hit bohemian like you, to inform the audience on the most important aspects they need to be aware of.

In terms of combining all my products together I feel they are very successful in terms of the visual

style they convey and they fact they all link together due to the content being almost identical. I

feel this is essential as it makes an image for the artist and keep up a sense of consistency for their appearance. With all the image on my digipak and posters being stills from the music video I feel a direct link can be made as it means the ancillary texts and easily be defined as being produced by

Tonic as there is that linking present.