Website Research: The Temper Trap

For some reason there is a huge blank space at the left of The Temper Trap's website, which continues for the length of the page. This could simply be a technical fault but it is certainly not something we should do ourselves. However, this is the first website we have research that includes some photos of the band themselves (not counting live performances).

Images and Logo:
Band's logo used at the top of the page. Band iconography. This clearly promotes the band and their relaxed image.

Genre, colour and style:
Like all the others we have reserached the style is very simple here, with a blank background and some photos and links on top of that. Unlike the others though, the predominant colour here is white rather than black/dark. So the website has a lighter, more informal feel to it, as do the band.

New Technology:
Like the others there are links here to the band's blog, social network sites, youtube and store (some of these are further down the page than the screen grab covers).

Written content:
Headlines are used to attract the suer to links for news stories and other content, these are often supported by appropriate pictures as well. Straight forward, informal written style.

Font and Layout:
Standard, easy to read font. Layout is very simple, everything's just in a line going down the page with latest news at the top. This seems kind of lazy and unimaginative, but does work.

Target Audience:
Informal style and colours. Nothing complicated or heavyweight going on. Straight to the point. Mirrors the band's image, as shown in photos on the site.

Website Research: The Boxer Rebeliion

Images and Logo:
Background image of the band's live performance subtly advertises their concerts to the suer. Logo used is from both of their previous albums. Some other images relating to news stories or releases. Perhaps a few too many.

Genre, colour and style:
Predominantly dark colours, though not always black reflect generally darker mood of their music. Style is fairly simple though they cram quite a lot into the simple style which it seem a bit chaotic. Colours and images do reflect the band's music and live dynamic though.

New Technology:
Links to The Boxer Rebellion's page on several social network sites, as well as Last.fm, Youtube and blog links.

Written content:
like Snow Patrol they do not use much and what they have is generally headlines to draw the user into further reading.

Font and Layout:
Tries to be simple and easy to use, which is mostly successful but could be better with less images. Font is plain and easy to read, similar to logo font.

Target Audience:
Effectively targets audience on basis of their live shows (tour dates are in an obvious place, like Editors' site) and the mood of the band's music.

Website Research: Snow Patrol

Images and Logo:
Uses the band's logo and a photo from one of their concerts. The colours of both compliment each other and the second image makes for a more interesting website. This suits the band's more grand, studio-polished sound. There is also a simple background image.

Genre, colour and style:
More use of colour here and less simplicity. Like the images this is fitting of their image, a band slightly more pop than indie, used to playing huge stadium's (as the picture shows). There is more life to the site.

New Technology:
Myspace link, built in audio player and a link to Snow Patrol's web store.

Written Content:
Again little, but here they have used (you can just see them at the bottom) news headlines to draw the user into the website and encourage them to read the more detailed articles.

Font and Layout:
Layout is easy to sue, it is obvious what everything else but there is still plenty of colour and image. In the grand scheme of things though it is still quite a simple design, everything is where you'd expect it to be. Font is simple and similar to the band's logo.

Target Audience:
Use of image, colour and minimal written content effectively targets their more mainstream audience.

Website Research: Franz Ferdinand

There is simple, and then there is this. There is so little going on here that the website does not really inspire you to look further into it. With everything accessed via the links on the left of the page there is nothing to attract the user on the homepage.

Images and Logo:
Uses the band's logo, this links with their other output and albums. Record label logo, we may need to think about including that ourselves. No other images.

Genre, colour and style:
Could be anything really, except that most people know Franz Ferdinand are Indie/Pop band. Colours link to their most recent album cover but in this setting look bland. Not a very communicative page.

New Technology:
Myspace link again and also an option to sign up for a mailing list.

Written Content:
Again very little, which we should take note of. Here however there is none aside from logo and links and that is probably too little. Nothing of itnerest.

Font and layout:
Like Editors' page these reference the band's latest album.

Target Audience:
Perhaps the simplistic, straight forward style partly suits Franz Ferdinand's audience. But as a more energetic, fun-sounding band this homepage just seems boring.

Website Research: Editors

What's good about this website is that it has a built in video player on the front page. Since the main feature of our website will be the video we should probably do this as well.

Images and logo:
Few images, banner at the top is a detail from the Editors' latest album cover. Despite the darkness and simplicity it still looks good, enough colour so as not to be dull or depressing. Constructed profesisonally.

Genre, colour and style:
Dark colours, reflective of music. Simplistic, does not risk confusing the user. All the information refers to the musical side of the band, rather than their image or life. As gigging is so important to Indie bands the "live dates" section is near the top.

New Technology:
link to their myspace page. Interactive video player. Also there is a forum link near the bottom that you cannot see on the screen grab.

Written content:
Very little on the front page. If the user is interested in lengthy news items they can find them through the link to the news section of the website. Straight to the point and simple, like the Indie genre often is. Serious as well, the band writes serious music.

Font and layout:
Simple font, nothing fancy and complicated. Font is taken from their latest album artwork. Reinforces the image of a down to earth band, focus on the music not the presentation.

Target Audience:
By referencing the band's other output so heavily and with the simple, down to earth mood the website fits with the band's music and targets the same audience.

CD Cover ideas, part 2

In this rough ideas we have built on our initial mock-up and gone with the simple approach that we found in our research. There is also a link to the video/song through the photo frame (in our video the girl is searching for a photo), though inside is a picture of the band. If we were to use this as the final idea, however, the photo would be of the actors playing the band in our video, rather than the actual band as it is here.

The main problem of this design is the text, which is dull and unprofessional. For a final idea we would have to design a more interesting logo and text to use throughout the artwork. Though the background is plain and simple, like our research, it is not wholely successful here either. This is probably as there is simply too much of it, the image is very small and does not command enough attention. A better idea could be to have the entire cover in photoframe style, so there would be no digital background at all.

Storyboard

Today we finished storyboarding. All 103 shots. Here's the final page of it.