Research and Planning: Target Audience Feedback (Digipak)

My target audience feedback on my draft of the digipak came back all complimentary.
I think I have found the right balance of contemporary modern simpleness that easily captures the bands individuality.
I have used ideas based on their other albums and their other covers to create an effective and different digipak for their album. The band is individual when it comes to CD cases and digipaks because they don't do the same 'mainstream' thing like all of the other bands/artists do. Hard Fi unlike other bands does not have an irrelevant expensive photo shoot with the band members in it; instead the band chooses to signify themselves by using primarily yellow with black and white writing or images. The images are usually computer generated and they have clean cut simple lines which gives the band a modern feel.

I feel that I have created a digipak worthy of the band and there is one more surprise I have left in store to distinguish it from other albums.

Research and Planning: The Genre

Hard Fi is an Indie Rock Band. Ultimately Indie rock is a sub form of rock that originated in the UK and the US in the late 1980's. The main roots of the genre lay in three or four different categories of rock: - Alternative, Post-Punk, and New wave are where the basic origins of the genre came from.

The term Indie comes from the saying Independent Music. The genre is not to be confused with Indie music.
The artists in this genre like to have control of their own music and they work hard to maintain the values of independence. To keep independence and control of their music the bands use only independent record labels. This means that the band can have control of their music and they do not have to bend the lyrics to what the major records labels would want. The major record labels such as EMI and Universal Music Group like to change songs that their artists write so that the lyrics are more politically friendly or less explicit etc. By making songs more acceptable the record label will sell more copies of the song and make more money.

I shall bare this all in mind when I am creating my products for the band because the band does not like to make a 'mainstream' fuss over what is happening in their career. Hard Fi uses primarily simple designs and ideas to attract fans and not loud outlandish statements.

Research and Planning: The Artist

Hard Fi are and English Indie Rock band from Surrey. The band formed in 2003 with four members.

They achieved chart success with their third single, "Hard to Beat" and then followed by other successful singles such as "Cash Machine" and "Living for the Weekend", which all reached top 15 in the UK Singles Chart.

Their first album Stars of CCTV had three singles in the charts. "Hard to Beat" was the first single that got Hard Fi noticed as a band. This was followed by "Cash Machine" and "Living For The Weekdend".

The band was marketed to audiences mainly on the radio and music channels. The band also used poster advertising to project their record sales further.

After looking into all of the old covers that the band has had for various singles and albums I have found that the band likes to use bold colours mostly yellow to contrast well with black and white. This is a signifier that has been anchored into the minds of the audience. When the three colours appear on a CD cover it instantly reminds people of the band and by staying with the same style and colours it is a very effective way of creating a large number of record sales.

I plan to use the basic idea of simple is better to create my advert and digipak. This may sound easier but it's actually harder trying to get the right combination of things together to make it simple.

Animatic Audience Feedback

I have asked for audience feedback on my animatic.


George Caswell - "it'd be a good video but i 'm not sure about the location and how there would be a clear shot"

Dominic Carson - "good concept, looks like a nice flow and has a good rhythm"

Jacob Dickens - "it's a good concept that fits with the song."

Beth Morrall - "I like the concept and the video goes well with the song and genre"

Charlotte Butcher - "I think it's really good."

Matt Hopper - "meh, it's alright I guess :)"

Music Video Animatic

This is my story board for my music video.
I have created this using still images that I have taken of slides that I have drawn.
At first I tried to do it in iMovie but the images kept on movnig. If i wanted the stills to move I would have made them move, but as I didn't I was left to use Windows Movie Maker. Movie Maker suddenly decided no matter what format the song was in it wasn't going to add it to my movie. I evetually gave up and so here is the links to both the song and the Animatic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcKwUSNi0l4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cKNa0DQ0I8

My Target Audience

My target audience is mainly men from the ages of 14 - 45.

I have chosen to aim at this audience because the genre of music is listened to mostly by men aged 14 - 45.

Magazine Advert Audience Feedback

After asking some people what they thought to my advert concept I collected their feed back.

Jacob Dickens - "cool"

George Caswell - "it's effective because it's simple"

Beth Morrall - "it's a bit boring, put in a picture"

Jonny Langford - "I think it's a really good idea because it's not something you see everyday and more people would pay attention to it."

Charlotte Butcher - "it's very bold."