Research and Planning: Typography for Ancillary

What is Typography?

1. Art techniques of font design.

2. Communicate meaning through font.

In creating the album cover for Amy’s ghost it is essential that we study a wide range of typefaces and fonts in order to establish the correct one for Amy’s Ghost and us. Type faces helps to create the iconography that the group would want to create with their album artwork.

To begin we went back to basics and looked at how each letter is formed in order to establish what makes letters unique.

From my last blog post on Typography we have decided to change the top two fonts we could use.

Font 1:

Amy’s Ghost   Victim of the Mind

Font 2:

Amy’s Ghost   Victim of the Mind

Both these fonts create a somewhat antique aged look but where one is bold and sharp the other is soft and flowing. The two fonts would meet the direction the band is heading in terms of the aesthetic look, the final decision will be made and tested on the finished album artwork.

Research and Planning: Ancillary of Amy's Ghost

After going through a creative process of the collages and looking at similar conventions in other artist's, we wrote down three things about our ancillary process.

1. Establishing iconography;

2. Meeting the genre conventions;

3. Establishing brand with the music video.


We had already successfully met question one and three in our ancillary process, however meeting the conventions of the genre for Amy's Ghost we haven't. Due to Amy's Ghost having a distinct sound which isn't around in the music industry yet, we can't decide on a genre for their music. Therefore we have to think carefully about our use of album work, in order for audiences/future audiences to recognise the band for their music. We came up with some ideas for their album artwork;

Ideas 1 and 2:

Idea 3:

I believe the concept of the white rose would be a image as part of our ancillary. The rose is represented in our music video as a symbol of our protagonist leading our other protagonist out from depression, which meets the convention of establishing iconography. Secondly, the connotations of the white rose is purity, light, goodness, and innocence; which in some ways links to the nature mise-en-scene in our music video. 

Research and Planning for Ancillary: Iconography and Branding

What is Iconography?

1. The use of study of images or symbols in visual arts.

2. The visual images, symbols, or modes of representation collectively associated with a person, cult, movement.

3. Own definition; Iconography is the use of images, symbols, slogans and colour's that have a distinct feature, which audiences recognise. 

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/iconography


What is Branding?

1. The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme.  


2. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. 


http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/branding.html#ixzz2JArlAFGK



When looking at branding for Amy's Ghost, we created two collages'. One representing similar artists or bands that link with Amy's Ghosts concept, and the second one based mainly on the band. I look at the different albums, songs, band posters that shows our artist's existing branding.

Existing Artists'/Bands;

Amy's Ghost;

By creating these collages I managed to establish conventions of similar artists. For example, Lady Hawke's water-colour's album artwork links extremely well with the majority of Amy's Ghost's albums, as they are hand drawn/painted. Secondly Florence and the Machine's Lungs album artwork links with Amy's Ghost. This is due to the interesting image used to attract audiences, which is what comes across in Amy's artwork. Thus, the iconic mystical eye-makeup Amy uses throughout all music videos and in some album work,  creates enigma of who the band are/their style of music. 

Research and Planning for Ancillary

In our Media lesson today to help us with our Ancillary process, we were presented with several album artwork images, which we analysed to find the genre, reasons behind our suggestions of that genre and any ideas/details on the album artwork, that suggest the genre.

Lupe Fiasco

When first presented with this album artwork, I instantly knew that it is an R'n'B Genre. The reasoning behind this is the use of fashion and colour that is linked together. The colourful lighting bolt has connotations of the stars and galaxy, suggesting that his new album will be 'flying through the universe'. In addition to this, the artist himself being the central of the album is a similar trait in other R'n'B album work. For example;

Chris Brown

Rihanna

P Diddy

I believe the reasons behind the artist being the central of their artwork, is to show the power and the icon of their appearance so their audience know who they are. 

Lamb of God

Our second album artwork presented was Lamb of God. Looking at this artwork I had an idea of heavy rock/metal music involved. This is due to the conventions of medieval/gothic fonts. The use of the Phoenix represent fire, flames, death, destructions. Apart from this, some Heavy metal bands use iconic images to hide themselves visually, however being accepted by their audiences vocally. This could be scremo, or dark lyrics. Examples of albums using images;

Stone Sour

                          Wretched and Divine

Iron Maiden

Haim

Instantly again I recognised the type of genre Haim have, which is popular. One of the iconic traits of girl bands or in this case a band of sisters. The similar trait of a black and white image reflects the 'hipster' fashion today, and the dominance of the female power by having the album cover as the artist. In addition to this, there is an inter-textual reference of Prince, Purple Rain font of the word "forever". Examples of black and white images of bands/artists and the dominance of female power;


The Saturdays

                                                   Alesha Keys

                                   

Wonder Girls

The Moons

Looking at The Moons album artwork, I said that they have an Alternative genre. The use of simplistic colours with one colour standing out, the ray-bands, represent an easy-going but connective music, which the audience can relate to. Similar to R'n'B artist, for Alternative genres the artist/band is represented to attract audiences attention, however this is not always the case. In some cases, artists use a symbolic icon or image in order for their audience to regonise them straight away, for example Alt-J. Other examples;

Symbolic Icons/Image; Alt-J

                                                       

Symbolic Icons/Image; The Courteeners                   

                                                                      

Imagine Dragons;