my final products.

our final video -


Toes from Ashen Page on Vimeo.
our final website -
https://ashenpage.wixsite.com/cigarettesaftersex

our final digipak -

Here is the front cover - Here is the back cover -

Here is the spine for the album -

Here is the inside cover -


Here is the CD cover -

evaluation task 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

evaluation of our music video -

Our final video -

evaluation task -

Click Here for the transcript from the video.

evaluation of our digipak - 

our final album design - 

evaluation task - 

In the research and planning for our digipak we had used multiple technologies such as google, phones, myfonts, youtube and email.

For the research stages of the pre production process, I found it a necessity to use google as platform to navigate not only inspiration but in enabling me to create a library of similar products that I could compare conventions with enabling us to be able to design a piece of work that would contain this conventions. Google is a platform that enables the user to search for the majority of the content on the internet, indexing all websites, images, videos and more. Using Google I was able to compare the conventions of similar products which created the basis for my work, I was able to learn the formatting of Digipaks from the front cover to the back. Also I picked up certain mannerisms used in the style of each product developing my style plus inspiring the final product. One of the most important elements I learned was that the name of the band was bigger then the name of the album and that is exaggerated on my final piece, allowing audiences to easily identify the product, but also strengthening the brand image and star image. 

The most important product used in planning for the production stage of album design was of course the use of email communication. Email is the formal distribution of messages to one email client to another, usually used in businesses as a core form of communication. We used email to not only organise our band members but also to contact photographers that would be able to help us with setting up lights and the camera, so we could get what we wanted. The outcome of using email meant that we could stay on top of our communications and clearly establish what we wanted. For example the clothing for the band members where significant as it would be important for them to be consistent with the star image of being creatives and misfits, with unique clothing that would appear to be independent from commercial styles, enabling for target audiences wanting to not only buy into their image but be intrigued by their style, but also following the symbolic conventions of other indie rock band members. Overall being an effective means of planning for what we wanted.

Now, the production stage happen in two waves, the first wave the other members of my group attempted to put together an album design. And while their attempt was good it was at the standard we all believed should be for our final design. So therefore on or final attempt at creating the album cover we used technologies such as the Canon DSLR, a lens and lights.

The most important aspect in capturing the pictures for the album design was the Canon 5D Mark III. This was our photographer friends camera that she allowed us to use for the shoot. We used a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens which allowed us to get wide shots of the band as a whole but also get up close and personal for some individual portrait photography. The outcome of being able to have this flexibility with the lens means that with the close ups we can get up close and personal with the individuals, therefore our target audiences are able to see their true expressions. The face is the first thing we usually judge when we see someone, to see whether they look like a person that is going to bring goodness into ones world or not, and this is what we where trying to capture with the photographs of the band. We wanted to show them as true artists and nothing more, therefore strengthening their star image. This means that target audiences would be more accessible in connecting with them as it would be less about sexuality and more about the true characteristic they are trying to portray. The closeups also opens the band up to a secondary audiences as it allows an audiences to make a judgement upon them instantly, and due to the band all being very pretty we would assume the judgements to be positive. What I feel from using this camera is that it has been successful in enabling us to capture the look we where seeking.

The lighting was important for creating a heavy contrast and making the band members stick out from the back ground. We used two red heads, which are industry standard lights. We didn’t use any gels, which alter the colour of the lights, as we knew we wanted to get the flattest image as possible so I could alter it how I wanted in post. The harsh contrasted lighting followed the convention within the Smiths album cover, who had a dark black background with the side of a person face. And this is how we had lit the scene. We had the boys stand in front of a back background to create heavy contrast with their skin tones. This lighting also strengthens their star image as it adds to the edge aspect of the brand, and follows once again the conventions but also is what our target audience with be attracted to, as it shows the boys to be extreme and different. Overall I felt the lighting enabled us to capture beautiful contrasted images that would give a strong impression of the band.

Now onto the final stage, the post production of the Digipak. This was the most fun area for me as I could get super experimental with it. We used technologies such as photoshop, my laptop and surveys.

For the creation of the album artwork I used photoshop. Adobe photoshop is a software that is widely used for image altering and art creation. I worked from our original prototyping. In the creation of the album artwork, I followed the conventions of typography with the band name being larger then the album cover name. I had everything very small but entered within each side of the album cover, while not only looking simple and clean it added to the star image of the band being originators and curators, due to aspects such as how we presented the name of the album multiple times, having origami tutorial engaging audiences, and using the origami swans on the back cover and finally having the cutout faces as one. Therefore creating intrigue not only for target audience but secondary audience which would allows those audiences to buy into the image due to the original aspects to it. However we followed many conventions, such as the type, but most importantly the names of the songs that would be on the album. Which used abstract words mixed with other words and then a name of person, or something that would appear to be a name for a memory, this allowed for our audiences to relate to our piece due to it not only being a conventions but also due the names tapping into core human conditions, such as relationships and past memories.

After all this design work we needed feedback for what we had done. We used Mircrosoft Word to collect feedback from our target audiences so we could make adjustments to our final work. Microsoft Word allow use to make tables for quantitate data, so therefore closed questions and then we could use text formatting to allowed us to show open ended questions. This means we could refine our designs but also how we could better translated what we wanted to our target audiences. We where able to see whether we had accomplished in following the conventions necessary to appear like our similar products.

evaluation of our website -

https://ashenpage.wixsite.com/cigarettesaftersex
evaluation task slide show -

[Task 4] evaluation of the website from Ashen Page

here is a video on the website creation process -

Evaluation Task 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We used audiences feedback through out the creation of our media products, it allowed us to create products that better suited the INDIE ROCK genre and overall making final products that appealed to our audience.
Here is a PREZI on our audience feedback and our developments from that. 

video first concept -
http://hurtwoodmedia15ashenpage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/gesaffelstein-idea1.html

here is the feedback for that -
http://hurtwoodmedia15ashenpage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/gesaffelsteinfeedback.html

video final product -


Toes from Ashen Page on Vimeo.

digipak first concept -

http://hurtwoodmedia15ashenpage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/album-designs-drafts.html

digipak final product  -


website first concept -



website final product -

ashenpage.wixsite.com/cigarettesaftersex

what have i learned my audience feedback?

Lets begin with the gathering of feedback from the audience. We used two methods quantitive and qualitative.

Quantitative research aims to measure and quantify information, using numerical and statistical analysis. Its main focusing is quantifying info, the most common method of measure is surveys. Quantitative research focuses on closed questions for example yes and no questions, therefore there is a clear distinction and no information is left up to researchers interoperation.

Qualitative research on the other hand focuses more on open ended questions, for example “How does the colour red make you feel?”. Qualitative research looks at info that often describes emotional and subjective responses using words, rather than numbers. Qualitative research is usually taken place on small groups of participants as it examines the subject in more depth and can be time consuming.

Using these two different methods of collecting data meant we could create an accurate representation of what our audiences liked and disliked.

Here are the links to the stats, feedback from the questionnaire and focus group -

quantitative - http://hurtwoodmedia15ashenpage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/feedback-quantitative-data-from-focus.html

qualitative - http://hurtwoodmedia15ashenpage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/feedback-qualitative-data-from-focus.html




Our demographic was boys and girls in A1 therefore they where aged around 15-17. Another extraneous variable was the fact that the psychographic profile of the students was that they all go to a boarding school in surrey, with the majority coming from spoilt background there perception of what is good and not would not be representative of the general public and therefore the results would be tricky to generalise. Another issue that we had open discussion and due to it being the students first year it is more likely for them to conform to a leaders view and therefore all the students would be repeating what the other student had said.

An advantage of using these sources was that they where easy to get access of the disadvantage was that they weren’t necessarily honest on what they thought our products due to the other students, on top of that due to the small sample size and very similar demographic and psychographic profile it means that the results aren’t representative, therefore making the feedback somewhat unreliable.

Overall a strength found in music video indicated through the feedback was the flow of the overall video worked - therefore the audiences was constantly engaged, and overall felt that the editing felt right.

A weakness found in music video which as indicated through the feedback was that there was not enough shots of the dancer - this meant we should add in more shot of the dancer to make the video overall more engaging and interesting to watch.

Here is a a powerpoint i made on applying the theories of audience to our campaign and whether it has been effective, with the help of our focus groups -

applying audience theories to my music campaign. from Ashen Page

evaluation task 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?  Here is a video of myself and my group discussing the effectiveness of the combination of our main product and ancillary texts. Overall, what I would conclude is that through out our products we have attempted to maintain a sense of familiarity, therefore connecting all the products up, for example the colour red and the origami swans. This therefore makes the whole promotional campaign one, instead of an array of different elements. We found that this strengthened their star image but also made them appear somewhat organic, making the band feel more natural and genuine, therefore making it more likely for our target audience to buy into our products.

evaluation task 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Throughout the campaign we used conventions and forms to create products that would be recognisable to the INDIE ROCK genre, and therefore we would be able to capture our target audiences attention and a wider audience of indie rock fans. Here is a video I made on evaluation task 1 -  click here for the transcript of the video.

music video comparison made in the video with -

alt-j - something good, breezeblocks

foals - What Went Down

imagine dragons - gold

london grammar - wasting my young years 

the killers - shot at the night

the smiths - how soon is now, the charming man

album comparison made in the video with -

radiohead - in rainbow, the bends

glass animals - zaba

bastille - bad blood

kanye west - life of pablo

the smiths - hateful of hollow 

vampire weekend - contra 

website comparisons made in the video with -

alt j

milky chance

Lets begin by talking about the music video conventions. Here is a screen shot of the total conventions that we conformed too, developed or challenged 

[music video conventions] Overall we found it a priority to maintain major conventions as with this music video it was meant for the indie rock genre, and we thought it inappropriate to make something too out there that it was unrelatable to anything but would have looked really cool, therefore conventions where important in grounding our project. In the pre-production stages I went into it with the intention of adding something to the medium that I hadn't seen before and that is what I attempted to do with the VFX, challenging conventions. For the album cover, we attempted to push some ideas further from which we had seen in our research stages. As I speak about in the video we used inspiration from a HIP HOP album by KANYE WEST - called "LIFE OF PABLO".

[album conventions] 

While for the back cover we conformed too conventions as the back seem like a place of sanity, an area where the audience go to get information not to see some crazy images, therefore we kept most our innovations to the front. However, a second convention we did conform too that I forgot to put on the tally but mention in the video is that the name of the band is bigger on indie rock album covers than the name of the album, building the bands brand.

Finally the conventions for the website. We developed the landing page too have the album as the first thing the audiences see, this should probably be a convention we challenged rather than developed but anyways on the tally I said developed.

[website conventions]

But anyways as I mention in the video in research I noticed that non of the INDIE ROCK bands had there album on the front page, which i believed to be a very silly move, with the constantly stimulated minds of the millennial we would need to catch there attentions straight away. Therefore I put the album on the landing page as this could be the last and first thing they see so they know where they can listen/buy the album. While with the rest of website we conformed to conventions as it would make an easier navigational experience. 

In conclusion I believe we followed conventions when necessary but when we could we tried to either develop or challenge these conventions in the attempt to make a better final product, that not only attracted our target audience but maybe even a secondary audience, therefore increasing the chances of the survival of our band.

[feedback] developments and changes

From our feedback we where made aware of 2 major issues. "Cigarette" being spelt wrong on not just the album cover but on the website. So this is a blog post to highlight those changes.

First I began with the website.
Due to the gif being a separate layer to text, thankfully I only need to change the text and not the whole gif.

Next onto the album cover.

There where a few spots on the album cover I had to make the changes, for example the front cover and the spine.

[feedback] focus group for website and overall promotional package.

We conducted a new focus group of around 10 people to receive feedback for our final website and our overall promotional package.

Here are the questions we asked -

website -

Here is the main feedback for the website -

• The name for the band was spelt wrong on our gif we had on the landing page.
• the website was clearly not just aimed at the single music video

overall campaign -

Here is the main feedback for the overall campaign -

• the digipak and the website work well together 
• while the video is much more darker than the website and digipak
• although there is a obvious theme through throughout 

Here is our feedback video - 

final website

Here is the final design for our website -



You can check it out by clicking here or by putting this link into your URL [https://ashenpage.wixsite.com/cigarettesaftersex]
Overall I believe the final design for the website works. Its clean and simple, continuing on our design ideas of the colour red and the swan, which maintains now consistent throughout the media campaign.
So why did I use a gif on the homepage?

I animated the [origami] from the cover to add a somewhat USP to the website, make it something that is worth sharing, which would be appealing for our secondary audience. This as well pulls the audience in, there is something going on, and with the constant stimulation we receive with the internet i feel this fits its trend.

The rest of the website I believe follows the conventions very closely of the similar products, and I wanted to keep it like this, as this meant it would be easy to navigate for all users as this would be a common layout for most indie band websites.

Overall I believe it fits the campaign and launches the star image of the band to appear original and talented and therefore i believe it to be effective.

website creation

Here is a short video I made on the creation of the website, starting from the prototyping stage to the final creation in WIX.

website draft mock up

Here we attempted to create the website in WIX. We wanted to experiment with the look and feel of the overall website and see if we could make something that fitted our overall campaign.

We followed the conventions of having the band on the front page, with the alert of the album being released. We as well integrated social links within the website which we also saw from the conventions.

We added the video, from our campaign.

Then tour dates, which we found was a major element used within indie rock band websites.

Then we had a small bit about the band.

Overall I think the design is nice but lacks character. Its boring and could be for anything, but I personally think it appears to dead to be for our band. Therefore in the next design I will start from the ground up, with a pen to paper prototype then straight into WIX to finish off the design, making something that is personal and fits with the overall design of our promotional package.