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

To complete the promo package, I had to create a DVD cover for the video and a magazine advert, to advertise the release date of our video.
To create both of these, I used the Photoshop programme as it has all the appropriate tools, such as de-saturate, which makes the picture black and white) ,
the threshold tool, which alters the image to express the shadows to an extreme level (a stencil type effect).
. Photoshop also allows you to create multiple layers, which meant I could have a number of transparency differences, allowing more than one edited photo to appear over text and other graphics.
When designing my DVD cover, I already knew in my mind I would use a limited amount of different colours and that these colours would be greys and white, this is because of the genre of my artist’s track. The artist ‘Junk Star Kids’ (‘Kids’ for short) belongs to an upcoming hip-hop scene within the UK. The genre is commonly known as ‘grime’, with associated artists such as Dizzee Rascal,
Tinchy Stryder and chipmunk. This genre and the scene within it, has a particular representation and is based a lot on specific images and backgrounds. This meant I had to follow the conventions of existing products within the same genre . What I learnt from existing products within the same genre was that many of the designs were simple, in colour and in layout, meaning few colours were used and they were based around each other . This concept is used for the font selection also, as the text choices are important as it reflects an attitude, for example delicate fonts with detail may express a gentle artist, where as a big bold font choice will reveal the ‘in your face’ status. An example that I based my own piece on was the album artwork for Tinchy Stryder’s single ‘Stryderman’.
The layout here is simple, photo-text (of the song title) over the top of the photo of the artist. This is all professionally constructed, which is why I was able to include certain conventions into my own artwork, for example the text over the image of the artist, with the text being the song title.

The second ancillary text was my magazine advert. Just as the DVD cover was made, I had to also analyse professional pieces of the same type and base my own on the successful ones in the same genre. The magazine I chose was NME, at first this was questioned, however other artists represented in this magazine for example ‘Giggs’ and ‘Plan-B’, are classed in the same genre, which meant I could base my design around conventions within this magazine.
The genre of my piece is both hip-hop magazine, but also ‘indie’ as the artist ‘Kids’ is independent, this meant, I had to aim at both sides and mix the two together. The hip hop adverts I looked at from magazines such as mix mag

 

and big smoke

, had adverts such as and these two adverts have specific conventions. Within 21st century hip-hop, the main characteristic of the artists is their ego, which means the adverts are centred on themselves. This is achieved by having images of them (the artists) in the centre of the advert. However as my own advert is also combined with the ‘indie’ approach, the other adverts are subtler and less boastful. . The way I then approached creating my magazine advert was by taking the image from my DVD cover and enlarging it centred in my advert. This image was edited on Photoshop giving it a silhouette affect which both gives the artist all the attention of the audiences eye (hip hop convention), however by being a silhouette, there is a more subtle approach. When deciding the colours, I followed the house style from my DVD cover and music video, as they are very traditional hip-hop colours e.g. greys and white with one or two colours, in my case purple.
Both the DVD cover and the magazine advert link back to the music video, as they follow specific rules of continuity. The house style of the video, with the greys and whites match that in the two other pieces . The image of the artist used on both is an edited screen shot from the music video that keeps the representation throughout the same therefore it is continuous. The theme throughout is also unchanged due to the mise en scene. The music video has a white room, the magazine and DVD cover have the cropped image from the music video also giving the white room effect. The representation of the artist also is the same throughout the pieces because the conventions of the genre were followed closely throughout, with the text choice, the mise en scene and the colours.
The promo package as a whole can either be seen as completely hip-hop, just subtler, or a mix between hip-hop and the independent aspect. The reason the promo package is clearly marketed at a hip-hop loving audience is because that is the genre of the track, however as the artist is unsigned the expression of his independent status has to be reflected somewhere, and through out the package. This indie side was shown by not creating a giant ego, for example the Jay-Z DVD cover and magazine advert, as his name is used as a logo that is known worldwide, however my artist is not. The package is suitable for the genre of the track because is follows the many conventions of that in the same genre in industry. The record label these pieces were created for were the big four. Although my artist is not currently mainstream and has reflected independent characteristics, the piece was still created for a mainstream label, most likely Polydor records, as artists such as ‘Black eyed peas’, ‘Ellie Goulding’ ‘Eminem’ and ‘Wale’, (who are all in the same genre), have all been signed or are currently signed by them. This label is a ‘big’ label producing mainstream music, of the same style, electro-synth rap. The audience would expect to see a product exactly the same as my own as the audience would be those who follow ‘Tinchy Stryder’, who I have based my own on.