This document discusses how the author's ancillary tasks for their pop promo project relate to the question of whether media products use, develop, or challenge conventions. It summarizes the key conventions used in the author's digipak and magazine poster for their fictional band. For the digipak, conventions included using one disk, including the record label and barcode, and keeping consistent fonts and colors. The poster followed conventions such as prominently displaying the band name, including a magazine quote, using consistent branding, and adding the release date and production company logo. The document analyzes how the projects both used common conventions but also challenged some, such as using a non-standard number of slides in the digipak.

1. RELATING THE QUESTION TO OUR
ANCILLARY TASKS
STEFANO TOWELL

2. The question of does media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products
relates to our ancillary tasks too as it goes alongside our
pop promo. When creating our digipak, we performed a
lot of research beforehand to achieve a believable yet
unique CD cover and poster. Items such as the
background, text and colour are all important factors to
consider when creating a digipak and poster.

3. An example of how we challenged the convention is the fact we used a
spread of 5 pages instead of the conventional even number of slides,
usually in the range of 4-8. We also named the album after the band
instead of something completely separate, some well known bands
including Paramore and The 1975 have done this. We have used 2 fonts
in our digipak which gives a common theme, many artists use between 2-
4, any more and the idea starts to drain. We used one key font like many
artists to set that theme, with other fonts being used on separate pages.
The colour of our digipak also remains consistent. Being black and white,
there isn't much colour however we keep it throughout the digipak which is
another convention we didn't stray from. We want to keep a solid structure
and a sense of familiarity instead of the viewer wandering why there is a
different font or colour on every page.
Digipak

4. Our digipak was followed the common convention of having one disk
rather than two which is less common. Albums that have two disks
usually release an album with a montage of different songs or ‘The
greatest hits’ edition. The last convention we used was the record
label company and barcode on the back page of the digipak. This is
almost an essential convention as every digipak would have a
reference to the record company that released their album as well
as a barcode so it could be sold. Aspects such as a parental
advisory logo were added extras just to get every little detail we
could put on the front cover for a realistic and believable digipak.

5. With our magazine poster, we took a similar approach to the manor in which we presented it.
For a start, a common convention which we have followed is the name of the band being
the largest text on the poster. The fact that the album name is the same as the band make
sit even more prominent. A convention which is widely seen in many music posters is a
quote from a magazine or reviewer, someone with authority or power. We used widely
popular magazine NME quoting ‘The most anticipated album of the year’ which would
assure the audience that the album is likely to be very good. Using the same theme and
colour throughout our digipak and magazine poster is also a common convention as we are
sticking with the theme. On the bottom of the poster we incorporated a QR code which is a
relatively new aspect on magazine posters but an essential one for advertising as viewers
can scan it and it will link theme most likely to the bands website where they can find more
info on the new album. Our QR code links straight to Daniel’s blog as it has extra
information on the band as well as a Twitter page where more information can be found.
We put the release date for the album prominently under the band logo to show when the
public can purchase the album. We followed the convention as it is one of the main
features on the poster and one of the most informative parts too. The last aspects to
discuss are the website and production company logo at the bottom. As mentioned before,
we want to achieve the most realistic outcome that can match the forms and conventions of
real media products and these extra details really do up the game as the website is a key
aspect for band for people to find extra information as well as a reference to the production
company, in our case we created the company and named it ‘BCES Productions’.
Magazine poster