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

I believe the combination of my ancillary texts and the main product is really effective as a representation of our artist and the pop genre as they have a strong theme that ties them together as a successful media campaign. Throughout my media products there were several elements that I decided to carry across my work as motifs that helped to create an identifiable and unique brand for my artist. 1950s Style To help create a strong theme throughout all element of my artist branding, advertisements, music video and album packaging I decided to use an era for inspiration, doing this helped me to narrow down a style for my artist that reflected her as an individual artist as well as the products within her branding. Within the artist profile that I created, several artists from the 1950s were mentioned as inspirational to my artist, the idea for the name Lexi and the Spectrum also came from the spectrum album art used in Pink Floyds album Dark Side of the Moon, an album that was a strong influence on my artist, and released in the 1950s. For these reasons, I decided that the 1950s era was the best choice as a style basis as it best represents the artist and her influences. Having this strong underlying theme allowed me to create a distinctive image within the video by using costuming, hair and make up that was all inspired by this era. Costume and Mise-en-scene All items used within mise-en-scene where inspired by our 1950s theme, for example, the use of props such as an old retro telephone, mirror and Chanel No.5 perfume. These items helped to emphasis the main theme as well as give easy options on ways to tie the main product and ancillary texts together to create a strong and effective brand as using these items within my digipak created a link to the video. The costume we chose to use was also 1950s based and helped to create a distinct look for our artist. Although there was more than one costume within the final video, many of the shots featured the statement 1950s red dress; for this reason I chose to have the artist wearing this costume within the digipak and advertisement as it helped to create a motif between the products, strengthening the brand. Hand-drawn Images Some of the elements I decided to use are most obvious between my digipak and advertisement, as several elements of these two products are the same, for example, the use of hand drawn images helped to create a distinctive style, which I used across both these ancillary products. The drawings themselves contained objects from the mise-en-scene within the music video; this helped to make an effective link between the main and ancillary products. Originally I had planned to use photographs within my digipak and advertisement but later felt that this did not create the distinctive and unique appearance that I wanted within the branding, as a more unique image would better represent the artist. Due to this I decided to consider other ways in which I could make the digipak and advert a different look, whilst making these considerations I looked at other genres such as the Indie genre. The indie genre gave me several ideas that would help to enhance the products and their representation of my artist; these ideas all involved hand-drawn images and artwork. After making the decision to use my own hand-drawn artwork, I experimented with creating a unique look for my drawings, to produce my final designs for the digipak and advertisement. The final images I used worked well as they helped tie in all elements of my branding as well as creating a unique and intriguing appearance for both the campaign and artist herself. Colour Scheme Having a distinct colour scheme throughout my branding and products helps to create a strong theme and link between all aspects of the artists campaign. My colour scheme mainly consists of red, browns and whites. Although this is continued fluently throughout my ancillary texts, this colour

scheme is less consistent within the music video as there is variation of colours within location, however the main motif shots within the video repeatedly show the artist in the distinct red dress costuming, from the digipak and advertisement, featured on a plain white background, helping to emphasise the costume and, consequently, the link within all the branding and more specifically between my main product and ancillary texts. Overall, the video has a much brighter appearance in comparison to my ancillary texts due to the larger use of white, brighter reds and higher saturation. However, I feel that there is still a strong link between the main product and ancillary texts as the browner, sepia appearance of my digipak and advertisement create a strong vintage feel that, although different in colour to the music video, ties in with the overall look and setting of the video as the locations and props create a vintage appearance. Vintage Glamour The branding as a whole has a very strong vintage, retro and glamorous feel that I had intentionally wanted to achieve. This sort of theme was one that successfully helped to emphasise the 1950s theme, and vice versa, throughout the branding of the artist and all three final products. The vintage and retro ideas are mainly exaggerated through both props and costume, for example the furniture within the locations of the music video have the vintage look that ties in with the 1950s theme. As a secondary theme I have incorporated the idea of 1950s retro American diners and the Americanised 1950s glamour that I wanted to show within both the video and ancillary products. To do this I used fonts within the ancillary texts that reflected the 1950s diner style, I also used images of props such as the Chanel No.5 perfume, which is an iconic item from 1950s American glamour era, and the Marylyn Monroe image. I also included images, such as the milkshake, within my digipak that he relate to the 1950s American Diner theme.