Updated Print Productions and the Reasoning Behind My Changes

After collecting feedback from my tutor and my class, I realised that I needed more colour in my print productions. Firstly, the name of the artist - The Colours - would be given an increased focus by using more colour. I have used this effect before - for example, in the lyric card of my music video, where the lyric cards are made out of various colours of card instead of the traditional white card used in the music video for Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues.

Possibly the biggest advantage of using colour, though, is the way in which it would make my print productions fit into the pop genre. Bright colours are common in the pop genre, as they appeal to most of the target audience - teenagers, mostly female. I have decided to use bright pink in my print productions, as this is the colour I have observed to be the most common when researching.

Maroon 5, a boy band from the pop genre that I have likened to The Colours, are a good example of this use of colour. When analysing their print productions in my research, I noticed how bright colours - primarily pink - were frequently used. If you look at the front panel of the digipak for their album Overexposed (shown below), you can see how often pink is used.

The front panel of the digipak for Overexposed, the fourth album by Maroon 5.
Notice the strong use of bright pink

The colour pink is also used on the front panel of Coldplay's (Coldplay is another similar artist to The Colours) well-known album Mylo Xyloto. Once again, I noticed this due to my study of their print productions in my research. It is used less heavily but you can still see how it is a commonly used colour in the Print Productions of the pop genre. I have shown the front panel of this digipak on the left and right (there was reversible artwork).

Furthermore, other major parts of the pop music industry use bright colours - especially pink - in their graphic designs. HMV is a significant example of this. The logo for HMV is completely pink, helping it to appeal to its target audience, stand out, and conform to the conventions of the genre (pop) it is trying to fit into. HMV's focus on pop music - e.g. a point of sale display of One Direction (a popular boy band from the pop genre) merchandise is in one of my local stores - means that they need to advertise themselves to fans of the pop genre as much as possible.

All of this influenced my decision to include some colour into the two black and white parts of my print productions: the front panel of my digipak, and my magazine advert. I wanted to keep the unique black and white aspect of my print productions - which is linked to The Script - that stood out and challenged the generic conventions of the pop genre. Because of this, I decided to just make some of the titles bright pink. I made both of the logos for the artist - The Colours - bright pink, as well as the text on my magazine advert that read:

"The Debut Album"

"Available April 2013"

After this, I felt that the font of these pieces of text needed to be changed along with the colour. I changed the font of these pieces of text to a font that fitted into the generic conventions of the pop genre in a similar way to the new colour of the text. The new font resembles the font used for the logos of many pop artists, such as Coldplay and Lady Gaga. This link furthers strengthens the connection between my print productions - and therefore my whole brand - and the pop genre.

After changing the colour and font of certain pieces of font in my print productions, I made some other adjustments. I had too few tracks listed on the back panel (panel four) of my digipak, so I added some more tracks. I also changed the sizes of the new pieces of font so that their size was optimal for the effect I was trying to make.

The new designs for my Print Productions are below:

Digipak:

Panel 1:

Panel 2:

Panel 3:

Panel 4:

Magazine Advert: