Brad Sucks Album Poster Drafts + Annotation

This is one of our main draft posters for the album "I Don't Know What I'm Doing" by Brad Sucks. We went with the plain black fading to white background because of the simplicity of the two colours, and also because it is quite an effective fade from one end of the spectrum to the other. There is a very high contrast between them, and ebcause of this emphasis of colours it makes the poster stand out, in particular the box figures standing on the boxes and the white writing across the black banner at the top. Because there is very little detail on the poster itself, this makes the title immediately grab your attention so you know who is being advertised, along with part of the cover art at the base of the poster. This use of media synergy and convergence allows easy identification of the album being advertidsed, making it easier for our target audience to find the album.











This is our alternative first draft of the poster advertising the debut Brad Sucks album, although this time we opted for a colour change of the background. This is in the form of a less dull colour but still offered significant contrast with the writing, so we avoided colours like yellow, grey etc. The light blue we have used still makes the writing stand out, however i feel it reflects the gentle mood and general feel of the song we are producing the video for. This is helpful to our target audience as, again, they will be able to recognise the artist if they heard the song and saw this poster. A great example of using colour to identify genre would be most popular metal bands, such as Machine Head or Slipknot who use a lot of dull colours which offer less contrast, such as black and a dull red. This represents that they are a heavier band, compared to a pop artist such as Britney Spears who uses colours such as pink and blue to represent pop music. Also, unlike the black poster, we have included some artificial 'star-ratings' to see if this has any effect on the layout of the cover art and the title, as well as a caption underneath the title banner. We felt that after looking at a variety of album posters we should include these details to make it look more realistic.

Target Audience

With a target audience for any artist/band, the key thing needed is to establish a connection with them, especially in terms of using any feedback they might give you so that any product you create will be directly related to them. I asked a sample of 16-24 year olds (the main age range for our target audience) what they would like to see in the video we would be producing, and the responses varied from a dancing scene, to a food fight scene. We took the results in and decided that the main features we would use would be a roughly even split between narrative and performance, along with possibly a disco scene with any main characters dancing in the middle of a larger group. These sort of ideas are quite commonly seen with mainstream music, such as the video for the Fallout Boy song "Dance Dance" and Run DMC and Jason Nevins' "Its Like That". We felt that we could apply these different concepts to the target audience as successfully as any mainstream artist with thousands of pounds/dollars of funding.

'Full Circle' Creed CD Covers Analysis

This is the front cover for the "Full Circle" album by Creed. This album features the song "Overcome", which i analysed the video for. As you will probably notice, most of the artwork is mainly situated in the middle third of the cover, which is seen as the main band logo. The band name banner stands out above the picture, not simply because of the unique style, but because it is a brighter colour than the logo. The light parts at the top of the tile also draws your attention away from the bottom towards the band, rather than focus on the album title below the picture. The goblet-style picture is shot from an angle to show the circular shape at the top, which can be seen as subtle symbolism for the title of the album. The combination of the band name and the picture, being the two largest objects , enables you to link the cover to any videos, or other ancillary products such as posters, as most people memorise pictures over writing. In the video for "Overcome" which i analysed, the band title banner features above the stage, which i immediately felt allowed me, and other audience members, to relate to this product.

'Overcome' Creed Music Video Analysis

In the music video for the song "Overcome" by metal band Creed, there is a lot of fast paced camera work, which is based around some of their past live stage shows. During the first verse all the shots of the band are in grey and black, which reflects the calm nature of this particular part of the song. The shot timings are relatively slower paced, which is also reflective of the tempo and general mood of the verse. As the chorus comes in with the line "I'm entitled to overcome..." the shots start to utilise a wider variety, in that more shots are used in the sequence where the chorus comes in. At this point in the song, the music switches from electro-acoustic picking and calm singing to full-on electric riffs and power chords accompanied by shout/rock and roll style singing. The mood of the song has now shifted, and this is emphasised by the colour of the shots. The fact that the shots are now in colour and that an audience is there watching them, and also the presence of various pyrotechnic stage effects relates to their target audience. Younger people, particularly between the ages of 16 to 25, and possibly 30's onwards, would be more likely to listen to this style of music. You can clearly see that most of the audience are within this category. This allows the audience to make a link between themselves and the video, meaning it is of interest to them and thus they will watch it. During the course of the song, the rest of the shots remain in colour, as most of it now, with exception to the 2nd verse, is played in an electric guitar tone. The video has great shot variety, from longer panning shots to quick low angle shots, which keeps the audience interested.

'Boxhead' Designs

These are the initial two 'boxhead' character designs we did. The sad face will be used nearer to the beginning of the narrative in the video, gradually the mood of the boxhead will improve up to angry, and the costumes worn will all be slightly different to help represent the mood. We will possible integrate another expression in between these two just to give the narrative a better flow so our audience doesn't get confused.

Poster Analysis; Marmaduke Duke

The poster advertising the release of Marmaduke Duke's 'Duke Pandemonium' album, aims to use the concept of synergy to promote the album in several ways, such as..

• The use of a similar colour scheme to the album, e.g. black with various different colours around it
• The font used for the band name banner is also the same as what has been used on the album, and it is the same size in relation to the rest of the page. This allows the audience to make the connection between the two.

Both of these concepts work hand in hand to help make the album the poster is promoted easy to identify, even though the album name is neither on the album cover or the poster. The unique font style which is rarely found for any other artist or band is the main element for the poster as well, because it is the biggest object on each product.

Poster Analysis; Slipknot

The poster promoting the self titled 1999 'Slipknot' album release features all the band together in the centre of the picture in their trademark orange jumpsuits. The band name banner is central in the picture as well, which clearly tells us the artist of the album. In conjunction with the album, the writing is in the same font and similar size in proportion with the rest of the poster and the digipak. The synergy from this lets their target audience know that both items are from the same artist and the poster is advertising the album. The picture used underneath the writing is identical to the cd front tile, which adds further synergy, however the information about the album and its release date do not feature on the CD. This is the only real way for the album to be properly advertised, as it is presented practically in its most simple form, enabling easy communication with their target audience and possibly a wider audience who may want to listen to the band.