POST 8: MY WEBSITE HOMEPAGE

The brief requires me to create a website for my artist, with a homepage and second webpage of my choice (the former's research and planning is on this post while the latter is discussed in detail on post 9). Despite this, some elements of research and planning, such as my stills photography, were planned for simultaneously across both my webpages and therefore there may be a bit of an overlap.


Research
When researching for my website, I analysed other artists' webpages as inspiration for my own ideas for design (colour palette, focal image), conventions (what apps/widgets actually featured on the page for audience interaction) and layout (how various features on the page were set out) and how these elements together allowed the artists' brand to be digitally convergent.


DESIGN: I gathered many pictures from artists' websites into one mood board as inspiration. This allowed me to realise that the stills can be of any camera distance or angle, but that MCUs are very common so I had to make sure I took plenty of them. My range of shots also varied in colour and could therefore be bold and bright or in black and white but were often in colours that matched the rest of the website's colour palette.

The design could allow for digital convergence through the fact that some of the set-ups (costumes and background colours, and sometimes the same image) were repeated across the artists' social media platforms. The artist must also be recognisable across all platforms, never with their face/identity disguised or hidden, and have the same sense of style across all digital platforms.

CONVENTIONS: Many different conventions are used across artists' homepages to encourage audience interaction and reward them for going on the website in the first place, as well as promoting synergy across the artists' digital brand. For example, Anne-Marie's homepage features many call-to-action features in the form of buttons or opportunities to interact with the artists' brand. 

For example, the first button (below) encourages the audience member to watch the artists' new music video through the verb "watch" and is featured at the very top of the page, overlayed on top of the first focal image, and takes the viewer directly to the video on the artists' YouTube channel. 

Similarly, the gallery of four images (below) directly link to her Instagram page, where you are taken if you click on any of the images or the 'view more' button at the bottom right. To make the marketing completely cyclical, her website is also linked at the top of her Instagram account so fans that follow her on either her Instagram  account or her website will quickly find themselves on the other platform. This would grant Anne-Marie and her team more views on her website and likes/comments/followers on Instagram, which my "media literate" target audience would also engage with and is an example of very successful cross-platform marketing.

LAYOUT: The layout of an artists' homepage can vary massively, dependent on the conventions they have utilised, discussed above.

An example of how the layout could be utilised to promote a connected brand is the very simple and effective use of fonts. The menu bar below, from Katy Perry's homepage, displays the two fonts repeated across her site: one italic, capitalised, bold font for her name and another sans serif font on the right, linking to her other web pages. The unique font has prominent placement on her website as a whole, as it is also a button for her homepage, with this same logo repeated across her other platforms, including the album cover for 'Chained to the Rhythm' (below). This consistent use of a unique font can therefore be seen to tie her whole brand together, particularly due to prominent placement of her brand logo.

Planning & Pre-Production

Draw-up of homepage= I drew up my plans for my artists' landing page and homepage below, with annotations of the elements for clarity. This allows me to plan out what stills I need to take to fill the homepage and will give me something to go off of when I begin making my website on Wix. By taking my time to plan my website beforehand, I can ensure it is conventional and rewards my audience for following my artist to her website with exclusive news and interactivity features, unique to the website.

Mood board for stills= As well as creating this mood board for my research for the homepage, I plan to use it when taking stills on my photoshoot to give me inspiration for new poses and to show my photographer if I want to take a specific type of photo, which is very useful in the visual format. It also allows me to incorporate different colours into my images through costume, background, prop and editing choices.

Stills shoot schedule= I created a shoot schedules for my stills photoshoots, in exactly the same format as for my video shoots (seen on post 7). They contain the timings of each shoot, actors involved (which in this case is always just me as FRNKE), the crew and location as well as a short shot list below the table to give me a starting point on each shoot. The shot lists are less specific than those for video, due to the photography format which gives a much larger opportunity for experimentation and new ideas for stills, based on the crew and location and the mood board of stills that would also be taken to set to inspire the team if necessary.