I chose this layout after careful investigations into
several different “Professional” bands websites layout. Overall, I consider
this to be a combination of my inspiration and my own design ideas. It has a
generic feel about it; the layout could work for various genres of music.
However, it was inspired by indie/alternative/rock websites because the band
that I am producing this for fit this genre.
Most of the pages
I looked at all had a top banner; a banner which included the name of the
artist and links to the pages on that website. It almost appeared to be the
website standard. However that’s where the standard design ended. I wanted to
include a social section as that is the way most musicians communicate with
there fans in this modern age. Many of the texts that I examined actually
followed this idea too because I feel if they did not do this they would loose
some of there audience who use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to
find out about gigs by there favourite band/musician. An image section was
included on the home page of many of my inspiration and since I enjoy
photography, a section was added to mine. I left the most room for the news
section as I considered it to be the most important part of the website. It
normally contains the most words as well so this increased space allows for
those words to be displayed more easily; the increased space which affect the
target audience as they will have to be keen readers to read the contents of
the news section.
The advertisement banner was one of the key aspects of my
design. I added it upon seeing that it was almost standard across all my
inspirational texts. It seems it adds an additional layer of promotion to the
website; to directly advertise via the homepage. It may influence visitors to
the website to buy some merchandise; thus providing income for both the band
and their management. It also benefits the consumer as they now feel like they
support the band by owning a piece of their merchandise/music.
The colours chosen
for this design fit this type of music too. Black and white although on the
more mysterious end of this genres colour scheme it will still makes an impact.
I took inspiration from the debut album of Joy division which is exclusively
black and white. The font styling for both my album and website design will be
chosen for readability and not because they look visually eye-catching. I made
this decision upon discovering several album sleeves where the font was so
visually obscure I couldn’t understand what it said. A font like “Arial” or
“Calibri” fit this description. These design elements will mean that my target
audience will be very similar to myself; open minded, late teens and who
consider the modern ways to the wrong way. I say this as most of the bands
design for albums and merchandise will be back dated to the late 70’s punk DIY
aesthetic.
The styling of my website is very dark and almost gothic
in a way. The look reflects the bands aesthetic and music. If this didn’t match
the band would be trying to target the wrong market which would be counter
marketing. This wouldn’t be good for the band or anyone related to them.
