Brand identity in similar products

Our genre for this song is elctropop, and these are 2 artists of the same genre and style as my artist:

1. Lily Allen

There is a relationship between the advert and other products, as they link together using similar themes, colours and images.

(A) Website:

The website isn't as colourful as her videos and magazine articles, but the main background colour links to the colour of the background of her album. She may also want to draw more attention towards the articles on the page instead of on the page.

(B) Albulm Cover:

The 'L' on the album cover links to the artists name, and the pink colour links to the sweet, pastel colours on her magazine advert and in her videos.

(C) Magazine Advert:

Features include sickly sweet pastel colours, and the balloons and cakes are both used in her video. The effect of this suggests the artist is innocent and childlike. The designer has tried to make the commercial eye catching by using an interesting font which links to the artist and by using a light green colour around the edges which is an unusual colour to find in a magasine. This suggests the genre of pop because she looks happy and is surrounded by 'sweet' things, but the fact she is not making eye contact and is not wearing particularly provocative clothing suggests her music has a twist on the pop genre; elctropop. It develops the artists star image as themes of balloons and cakes etc. are followed through in her videos, as is her style of clothing, make-up and hair. Industry information that is included is;

and I will consider this when creating this for my own artist.

2. Katy Perry

(A) Website:
The theme and main image on her website links to her music video 'California Gurls' whilst also advertising the release of her new album, 'Teenage Dream', which is also the name of one of her songs.

(B) Album Cover:

The clouds at the top of her album link to the clouds in her new video and albulm, whilst the font and colouring of her name retains the sweet, sugary theme.

(C) Magazine Advert:



Although this is a magazine advertisment for the singers new perfume, she has kept subtle references to her songs by having bright pink and purple colours which are common in her videos and clothing, and an extravagant outfit, also typical for Katy to wear. Her hair is also styled similarly to how it is in many of her new videos.

They have created a brand identity across all their promotional products by using the same colours and ideas that run common in their videos, albums, magazine ads, promotional events etc. Star Image Motifs such as sweets have been used.

I intend to create a brand identity in my music video and two ancillary products by doing the same; we want to use bold colours such as pinks and greens,

The story behind the artist

We thought to get a better understanding of how to promote our artist and come up with good ideas about her look and image, we should think of a reason behind why she is singing this song, and how we will run this theme through the album and the names of the other songs.



Our artist is a 19yr old girl who has been in an abusive relationship, and 'Dollhouse' will be the seventh track on our digipack as this is the turning point when she decides to make a change in her life. The previous tracks leading up to 'Dollhouse' will be about her thinking she's in a happy, fairytale relationship, but then discovering her boyfriends flaws and the way he treats her. Audiences will be aware of this by the subtle track names on the digipack which hint at these ideas. After 'Dollhouse' there will be seven more songs, about exploring life without her boyfriend and trying to find herself again.



We feel as a new artist it is important she is honest about herself, and that the album and the songs featured are based on real life. This will improve the relationship between the audience and the artist as the target audience will be able to relate to her and perhaps understand what she is going through.


'Dollhouse' will be the main track, and her main promotion for her digipack, including images, font, and ideas, will be ones linking to this song.



Many artists do this such as Katy Perry; one of her first albums, 'One Of The Boys' was the name of a track, as is her new album, 'Teenage Dreams'.

It was hard to carry on thinking about our artist and how we could promote her when we hadn't given her a name yet. We didn't want to use the real artists name, as we felt our work should be original. The actress we used to play the part of our artist sugggested her own name, but we felt 'Sarah' wasn't catchy enough for an up and coming artist, and often artists with common names change them to something more unique and memorable. We chose the name 'Scarlett' as we felt despite being unusual, it wasn't a completely uncommon name, and represents the way we want our artist to be represented: fiery, independant and passionate.

Initial Ideas: take two

• Shots with the artist in a dollhouse


• Having her boyfriend click his fingers and her clothes change


• Her shoes changing on the lyrics 'you called the shots, right down to my shoes'


• Using the boyfriend to control the artist by holding her and making her do things like a 'doll'


• Using a picture frame effect or getting the artist to hold a picture frame for the line 'picture perfect girl'


• Having the boy dressed in a tuxedo and the girl in a prom dress in the streets


• Shooting a scene where people are walking, then quickly rewind and fast forward this


• Have the artist walking and then only show certain shots so it looks like she is jumping quickly forward


• Use a glass lift which the boyfriend sends the girl up in dressed scruffily, then when she comes back down she's dressed perfectly agian


• Using the Barbie section in Toys R Us


• Shots of a tea party in a forest


• Having Barbie look in the mirror and her reflection is the artist

Lyrics Of The New Song Annotated

The black font are the lyrics, and the coloured font is me annotating and analysing them:

Priscilla Renea - Dollhouse lyrics


I’m just a girl, you’re just a boy
This line demonstrates her views that they're still acting like children
This is my heart, it’s not a toy
This idea is continued with 'its not a toy'
So what’s with you playing with my mind
This shows she wants to grow up and move on and him to as well
We used to be cool, this used to be love
Now it’s become, something like a job
Implies her boredom at their relationship
Like it or not, maybe things were changing right before our eyes

I tried to be a picture perfect girl
But you were in your own fantasy world
Tryna control me like some kind of Barbie
but that just ain’t me
Demonstrates her objection at becoming what her boyfriend and society deems as being 'perfect' and how she just wants to be herself

Cause I ain’t a doll, this aint a dollhouse
You’re way too old to be, puttin me down like this
Shows shes aware that the way he controls her is ridiculous and wrong and that he should know better
and playing around like this
I ain’t a doll, this ain’t a dollhouse
No, I could never be, stuck living life like this
behind these four walls,cause I ain’t a doll

You call the shots, right down to my shoes
I liked what you liked cause you told me to
And i don’t think that you could even tell
I fell out of love, but it never showed
I gave up on us so long ago
But you’ll never know
baby don’t pretend like you know me so well
Summarises her abusive relationship and how although he could control her body he couldn't control her mind

I tried to be a picture perfect girl
but you were in your own fantasy world
try to control me like some kind of Barbie
but that just ain’t me

I ain’t a doll, this ain't a dollhouse
You’re way too old to be, puttin me down like this
and playing around like this
I ain’t a doll, this ain’t a dollhouse
No, I could never be, stuck living life like this
behind these four walls,cause I ain’t a doll

Demonstrates her claustrophobia of being trapped within the box of society and her boyfriends 'fantasy world'.

I’ll never be made of plastic
So glad that my heart’s elastic
No matter what you do
I’ll bounce back offa you
Cut me but I’m not bleeding
Links again to her being human and being changed physically but not emotionally

I tried to be a picture perfect girl
but you were in your own fantasy world
tryna to control me like some kind of Barbie
but that just ain’t me

I ain’t a doll, this ain't a dollhouse
You’re way too old to be, puttin me down like this
and playing around like this
I ain’t a doll, this ain’t a dollhouse
No I could never be, stuck living life like this
Behind these four walls, I ain’t a doll

And I come with imperfections
Epitome of perfection
if you can’t understand, loving the way I am
then you’re no good for me, so glad i kept my receipt
Shows she accepts that she isnt perfect, and that if he can't then shes glad she has the option not to be with him.

oh no.. we had to find a new artist!

We took out the cameras today to test our setting and the lighting to see if there were any issues. We are really worried as most of the song will need to be shot inside or in a dark place to demonstrate the 'long night' the artist is singing about and I don't think we will be able to do this anymore. We watched back our footage and the lighting makes the video look really grainy which doesn't look professional, and we don't have access to better cameras or lighting equipment unlike other schools so need to rely on natural lighting. For this to work we decided that although we already have lots of good ideas for our video we will need to find a new artist and start from scratch again so as to make the best video possible.

Looking for a new artist...

We spent some time last week looking for a new song, and we found one! Its completely different to our other song; the genre is pop, and is sung by a woman, with a fast paced, upbeat feel. The song is called 'DollHouse' by Pricilla Renea, who although being a signed artist to the music production company Capitol Records, unlike our previous artist Rozelle, who was unsigned, she isn't very well know; her debut albulm was released in December 2009 but failed to generate success, and none of her songs have videos. This means we are able to think of ideas ourselves without being distracted by the knowledge we already know about her like we would if it was a more famous signed artist.

Once we decided upon this song, we thought we should still keep most of the aspects and ideas from our previous video as we still think they would look effective, but lose other aspects which don't fit our genre.


Aspects we are planning on keeping are:

The photo album effect; we think this will be good to show memories of a past relationship as if the artist is looking through a photo album.

Ripple effect; we thought this would be good if the artist was staring at his reflection into a river or something and then we used the ripple effect to dmeonstrate sadness.

Page curl left effect; we thought this would be good to demonstrate a new page turning in the artists life and to emphasise the idea of chapters in his life.

Swap effect; we thought this would be good to show the two sides of the story (the artist and his ex-girlfriend he sings about) and the swap of them demonstrates this.

Doorway effect; we thought this effect would be good to show how his ex is dominating his thoughts and taking over his life.

Mosiac effect; this would represent there are more than two sides to any story, and would show good and bad sides of each character explaining their emotions.

Cube effect; this would give a view of his life constantly flipping round to reveal a new side, and how he is trying to cope with it.

Circle open effect; this effect would draw the viewers eye to the singer immeadiatly and establish he is the artist.

We really want to learn how to use this effect as it is used in many music videos and we think it looks really good and proffessional. We are unsure about this but think it is something you put in editing afterwards:

Audience Feedback

We did a presentation to our class of all our ideas, here's the link below on slideshare so you can watch it yourself!



Check out this SlideShare Presentation about our (now previous) artist Rozelle:

Presentation on rozelle

View more presentations from gemmaaa.

they all completed an 'audience feedback' form as they are our main target audience, and we discovered some interesting things...

Below is a chart of improvements suggested by the class:

And here are some positive comments about our ideas:

We will use this data to help us improve and reconsider our ideas.

Ideas

There are lots of techniques we want to try and do in our music video. On iMovie we are thinking about using these editing effects:

• The photo album effect; we think this will be good to show memories of a past relationship as if the artist is looking through a photo album.



• Ripple effect; we thought this would be good if the artist was staring at his reflection into a river or something and then we used the ripple effect to dmeonstrate sadness.



• Page curl left effect; we thought this would be good to demonstrate a new page turning in the artists life and to emphasise the idea of chapters in his life.



• Swap effect; we thought this would be good to show the two sides of the story (the artist and his ex-girlfriend he sings about) and the swap of them demonstrates this.



• Doorway effect; we thought this effect would be good to show how his ex is dominating his thoughts and taking over his life.



• Mosiac effect; this would represent there are more than two sides to any story, and would show good and bad sides of each character explaining their emotions.


Cube effect; this would give a view of his life constantly flipping round to reveal a new side, and how he is trying to cope with it.





• Circle open effect; this effect would draw the viewers eye to the singer immeadiatly and establish he is the artist.

We really want to learn how to use this effect as it is used in many music videos and we think it looks really good and proffessional. We are unsure about this but think it is something you put in editing afterwards:

Below is a slideshow presentation we made with all our ideas together: