Evaluation Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

When it came to designing the album artwork, we gained inspiration from popular contemporary bands, like Coldplay with their album ‘Life in Technicolor II, The Kooks with their album ‘Inside in the Inside Out’ and Oasis with their album ‘Definitely Maybe’. The albums had the band members in the cover posing in a certain way that would suit the style of the band and album. We picked out different things from each of these albums to create our own album cover in a diverse way. In the Coldplay album, the way the moving graphic colours interacted with the band member was very attracting. It also linked the album name to its actual image of ‘Technicolor’. The Kooks and the Oasis album showed the band members in simple settings with their instruments.

Our final front cover of the CD cover shows the band members inside a hand replicating the shape of the moon. The album name was ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ so in order to try and convey this in a new unique interesting way, we felt by creating shadows from the hand image could recreate the moon. We felt doing this would be better than having an actual moon in the reason that having a moon could be seen as generic and we wanted to do something new and special. The font used had a 70s, psychedelic style to it which I feel showed the relation with the period of time the song was released. The back cover shows the door which was featured in the music video. The door was very significant as it represented the entrapment of the lead singer’s mind. The public would notice the similarity and in a way this would promote the album, the music video and overall the actual song, creating a promotional synergy. So, realistically this style of font should continue in the rest of the album and the poster in order to signify the song’s genre. The feel of the ancillary texts should all be dark and symbolistic.

Our CD Front Cover- Dark Side of the Moon

Our CD Back Cover-Dark Side of the Moon

The poster featured the band members again posing with their instruments. The black and grey colours retained the dark symbolism of the album name ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. The font kept the 70s, psychedelic theme. We felt it was also important to include websites where a viewer could purchase the album, which is the main objective of an Album Poster. 

Advertising Poster

 As for the music video itself, the music video was a dark unique representation showing insanity of the main character in this narrative and performance piece of the 70s psychedelic themed Pink Floyd song, Brain Damage. In order to create this type of ambience, the clips were slowed down and had coloured filters which showed the differences in reality. The video told the story from the lyrics in order to inform the viewer the message and emotion connected that may not have been easy for them to identify with just the song itself.

Overall, Music videos and its ancillary texts have an objective to promote the song and the artist’s image which I feel we have definitely fulfilled. Also, giving the video a more modern approach, this was done with the costume and the locations of the video, but still retaining its initial 70s retro fundamentals.

Raph Jims