1. Question 2
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
We believe that there is an
effective and clear combination
between all three of our products
that we produced. A combination
between the products helps to
improve the exposure as the public
would see the certain aspects that
are spread across the three items, the music video, the
advert and the digipack, helping to create an identity to
which the artist himself can become recognisable.
Through doing research and looking at existing products it
made designing our own products much easier as we knew
what to include to make them recognisable as the indie
genre, this meant that it was more likely to attract and
appeal to our audience because we had followed the
common conventions of real media and edited them in a
way that made them look more real and professional.
The research into exiting
adverts showed us that
commonly the photograph used is the album itself and that this
aids the viewer in being able to establish the album when in a
shop and also familiarises the audience with the new product
being released by the artist. Another thing that it showed us was
that additional things such as background images and the font
style are often kept quite simplistic and clean so that the advert
itself is more likely to stand out amongst a crowded newspaper/magazine.
For the digipack we found that for the front cover there is often no relevance to the album and the
content itself and that the setting used is quite different and unexpected and not what you find
from more main stream artists - muted or dull colours are often used as this is conventional of the
genre.
The back covers are often very empty and only include a tract list, companies used, laws etc, also
the font for both front and back is the same as this helps to build synergy and continuity throughout
the product.
When looking at how effective and clear the synergy is between the three products, we believe that
there is strong connection between the advert and the digipack as they both contain similar things,
the main one being the picture that is the advert on its own and the front cover of the digipack. By
using the same image it will allow people to easily associate the two together on its release and
would allow instant recognition for the artist.
The image itself is of a broken/shattered heart with a section on fire and other sections that have
been burnt and are now ashes, it is laid out in columns and this was to help relate it to the name of

2. the album ‘Pillars’. The colour of the text is orange to make it link to the flames but to also show a
softer kind of love, as we did the in the music video, the rest of the image is back and white and this
makes the flames and the text stand out and makes it more eye catching.
On the advert image there is the addition of reviews made by Virgin Media and Zane Lowe, we
thought it would be effective to use these as it shows an audience that what has been produced by
the artist is worth buying, it is a persuasive angle for purchasing the album and encourages people
to buy it. We think that the advert is very effective as it promotes the album, it’s clear what it is and
who it’s buy and it informs people of when it is available for them to buy.
Also on the advert we included both Josh Records’ Facebook and Twitter pages as this will inform
people and listeners of the social networking pages that they can interact with him on, they can
also be used to promote the album being released and increase the awareness of it.
The digipack fits the theme of the indie
genre in that less is more, there is
continuity throughout both the advert
and the digipack helping to form brand
identity. To continue the theme of
orange it is included in some way in
every section of the digipack helping to
link them all together, we found that this
also helps to connect it to the music
video as within the video there are
scenes that we edited to make them
have a vintage/worn tone to them. By
using the same photo makes the products easily identifiable as one brand, the shattered heart
helps to connect the two products to the video as the narrative is about the character fixing what is
broken, even though it is hard to accept that you have done wrong, it is well worth fixing and
making it right - putting the ‘Pillars’ back together.
The top section of the
digipack features the
CD in the middle and
two images either side
that have been taken
from the music video
itself. The CD is
covered and layered
with Josh Records lyrics
from various songs, we
thought this would be an effective thing to do as it is common within the genre and also other
products from the same genre, making it again easily recognisable as an item of the
indie/alternative genre - the colours used for the text are black white and grey to help link it to the
colour scheme of some sections of both the poster and video. The pictures either side are taken
from the video and include aspects from throughout it, this will increase the connection between
the digipack and the video as they are actual scenes from the video, allowing people to get an
insight to what the entire video is about and the story behind the song. They also feature the
character and artist himself making it clear that what has been produced and created is by him, also
allowing people to know who this album is by and the new products that he has released.

3. One section of the
digipack includes
another image from
the video, where the
character is holding
the figure of the
mother and son, we
thought it would be
good and very
effective to include
this as it helps relate the digipack to the video and that when
people either watch the video and then look at the digipack or
vice versa they will see the relationship between the two.
The font used within all three of the products is very similar to one another and this is beneficial to
the artist as it helps to increase recognition as they can be
recognised by the font used now and in the future with
different products that they release - also helps an audience to
see that all three are connected and have been produced by
the same person. We found this to be a very common factor of
products produced by other artists of this genre through our
research into existing products, we believe it is very effective
and beneficial as it builds a relationship between each of the
items that have been created.
Overall we believe that the three products that we have produced ourselves, collectively, are very
effective in promoting what we have designed and produced. However saying this one thing that
would make it even better would to have included more of the artist himself in the ancillary texts,
since he is a prominent character in the video, including him in the other products would have
made him even more identifiable and would increase his recognition massively - despite this though
we still think that what we have created serves its purpose well and suits the genre that we chose in
the beginning.