Problem with scheduling and filming.

Due to heavy work load and commitment, my female artist has been very limited in time and I have been unable to plan with her when to film as she has been committed to a lot of things and hasn't had a lot of time. I am very understanding that she has to focus on her studies and my schedule has also been quite hectic so we have not had any time when we were both free, so due to this I have been unable to film. I have explained to her I am in need of filming soon as I am running out of time and she understands this, so hopefully we can both organise a time when we are both free so we can do this. My male artist is very flexible with his time so I know he will be available pretty much when I need him so this is good, I am now just relying on my female artist.

I will update on the situation as soon as I know anything and hopefully I will get the footage I need as soon as possible so I can edit the rest of my video. 

Record Label Research

For my music label, I have decided to look at an existing record label rather than creating my own as this will take a lot of time and research and I want to be able to use my time productively. I thought about what type of record label I would want to have and I would prefer to have an indie label rather than a label from one of the major conglomerates in the 'Big 3'. The reason I have chosen to research and use an indie label is because I feel as though the song I have chosen to do is originally from an indie artist so it would make sense to have an independent label for my products.

I have chosen to look at the indie label XL Recordings. The reason I have chosen to look at this label is because I am quite familiar with it because for my AS coursework I looked at this label so therefore I already know a bit about it and I feel more confident talking about it.

Artist/Album Name and Experimenting with Fonts

For my ancillary texts, I need to think of an artist name and album name. I have thought about many ideas like: Lewis Ryan, Lewis and Lewis Stewart. I feel like Lewis and Lewis Stewart is too basic and having his full name doesn't really make him sound like an artist. Due to this, I think having my artist called Lewis Ryan will work best as it sounds more professional and would be taken more seriously. I kind of took this idea from the existing artist Troye Sivan as his full name is Troye Sivan Mellet so therefore he has only used his first and middle name. I think this is a really good idea and as I knew I was looking for an album name, I thought I would search about Troye in more detail.


Troye Sivan is a singer/songwriter,actor and YouTube Personality from Perth, Western Australia, originally born in South Africa. On 15 August 2014, he released his first major label EP which was titled 'TRXYE' and it peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200. The lead single, "Happy Little Pill", reached number 10 in the Australian charts. He is currently in the process of writing and recording his debut full-length studio album.

I really like his album name 'TRXYE' and I think this could work really well for my own album so I have decided that I will use this idea and call my artists album 'LXWXS'. Having my artists album be called this makes him really stand out and I think the idea is quite unique. Also, I have decided to put the 'X' in the place of the vowels 'I' and 'E' because I think it looks better with the 2 X's as opposed to the one.

I am now going to experiment with some different fonts from dafont.com and see which ones work best for my digipak.

 This font is called Aku&Kamu. This is the first font I looked at and I really like it and think it would work well on my album cover as I am wanting something that is quite bold and eye-catching. My only problem with it is that it is too basic and would make my product look unprofessional.

                                      

This font is called Atlantic Cruise. I really like this one as I don't think it is too over the top but it is also not too basic. I think it could work really well for my album, especially because of how bold the font is. If I were to use this I would probably change the colour so it is more visible to read.

 This font is called Biscuit Pro. I also really like this one, again because of how bold it is. This time it is a little bit thicker, which is what I am wanting so this is good. The only problem with this one is I don't like how the 'Y' is designed because it looks really odd and out of place.

                                     

 This font is called Limbus. I saw this one advertised and I liked the look of it but when I put in the artist name and album name it didn't really appeal to me because it doesn't look like a font which would appear on an album cover. I could see this font on something like merchandise rather than a CD cover.

 This font is called More Candy. This is one of my favourites and is one I will possibly use because I love the painted effect it has and I think it will look really good on my album. As my artist's genre is indie, I want the text to reflect this which is why I like the look of this alternative font style.

                                     

 This font is called Neoteric. I really like this as I liked how spaced out it is. I really like how the 'W' crosses like it does as well, which I think makes it look more interesting.

This font is called Nusantara. I really liked this one when I saw it on dafont.com and I think it could work but I didn't consider the detail of it and how it would look on the type of album. Due to this, I feel like this would not work for my own album cover. 

                                        

 This font is called Paramore. Obviously, I immediately recognised the name and the type of font. Paramore are an existing band who are in the rock genre. This font was used on their self-titled album. As much as I really like this font, I feel like because it has been used on an existing product, I could get done for copyright if there is any.

                                     

This font is called Zyana. This is my least favourite out of the fonts I've looked at because I don't like how the 'x' looks in LXWXS. Also, I don't think it will really fit in with the rest of the album and the overall look of the album.

My favourite fonts out of this list are:
Aku & Kamu
Paramore
Neoteric 
More Candy

I will experiment with these fonts on some mock up album covers and I will show these in another post.

CD Disc Conventions

This is my YouTube video on the conventions of a CD. I looked at different existing products which had different designs on to see the different conventions and to also see what type of CD design I would like to use when creating my own CD. (Please pause at the relevant parts because the slides aren't on long enough and they will go through them too fast).

 

CD Spine Conventions

This is my presentation on the conventions of CD spines. I have looked at a variety of different album spines to compare and also to see the difference and see what the main conventions are.

Back Cover Conventions

This is my presentation on back cover conventions and my opinion on whether I think it will work for my album.

Front Cover Conventions

This is my emaze presentation on existing album covers for research for my own album cover when I begin to make it.

Magazine Advert Research

                        
This video shows the conventions of artists tour posters, which I think is good to look at because it is part of the coursework brief that we create an advertisement of some sort so by looking at these I can see the conventions. To fully read each slide you will have to pause the video as each part comes up due to the video being really fast.