Similar Band Research

Pet Shop Boys

"Pet Shop Boys are a British electronic dance music duo, consisting of Neil Tennant, who provides main vocals, keyboards and occasionally guitar and Chris Lowe on keyboards and occasionally on vocals.
Pet Shop Boys have sold about 100 million records worldwide. Since 1986, they have had 42 Top 30 singles and 22 Top 10 hits in the UK, including four Number Ones: "West End Girls," "It's a Sin," "Always on My Mind," and "Heart."
At the 2009 BRIT Awards, Pet Shop Boys received an award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. The duo's latest album, entitled Yes, was released on 23 March 2009."

I decided to research the Pet Shop Boys, as they are also and electro-pop band who have an inpact on the same age of the public that H2SO4 do now.

Magazine Advert & Rough Cut

Here is our magazine advert which, as you can see, also matches formal codes and conventions. You can also see that our album is featured on here. we all feel as a group that this is a successful magazine advert which features sponsers and adopts a good colour scheme, which is good to attract attention of the viewer. All of the colours and layouts match with each other, and we feel that this is together, a good collective. We also have a good variation in fonts and sizes, this will overall attract the viewer. We also decided to included the original album artwork as we felt it would encourages readers to buy the album, knowing what they are buying and how it would look.

Here is our original design and rough cut for the magazine advert;

Below is some of the refined feedback we recieved from our original rough cuts;

- Add more colour.

- Refine original images.

- Include album artwork.

- Make it more visually advertising.

As you can see we have vastly improved and revamped our final design of the magazine advert. We have changed most of the design according to the feedback we recieved.

DVD Cover And Inlay

Here you will find our DVD front cover, reverse and spine. You will also find our inlay to go with the DVD and the tickets which you win with the DVD. As you can see the DVD matches the formal codes and conventions used, not only with our CD and Magazine advert, but with other music DVDs. Both the DVD cover and the DVD inlay tie in codes and conventions and as you can see link in very well. The colour schemes, fonts and layouts compliment each other, and as you can see, have a strong visual link. We decided to have a competition with tickets as the inlay, simply beacuse this is something different to feature. We also thought that including the tickets would be an extra bonus to feature within our project.

Below is the original rough cuts for both the DVD and the insert;

Here is the feedback we recieved from the original rough cuts we recieved;

- Include more editin

- link design and layout to the magazine cover and disk sticker

- Include more reviews

- Make the design interesting.

As you can see we have vastly improved our final design of the DVD and the inset as you can see. We have changed most of the design according to the feedback we recieved.

DVD Stickers

We also decided to create stickers to go on both disks for the album and the tour DVD. As you can see, they fit formal codes and conventions and also link nicely with the album.

Research on the band.

The band we chose to use for our music promo video is H2SO4. Below is a little bit of background information about the band

Songwriting is what H2S04 used to create its version of blending pop, rock, and technology into a sound that wails with raw energy. The band formed 30 miles outside of London in Kent when Graham Cupples (lead keyboardist and programmer), Darren Till (another keyboardist and programmer), and James Butler (vocals and bass) were experimenting with some remixes. At that time Cupples was leading Mortal and Code, both techno in style. Till played with Code and Butler was doing the vocals and bass for Lobster, which was previously known as Sulpher and expressed a more traditional style of rock. Mixing the three talents together created a reaction like H2SO4, the chemical symbol for originality, the chemical compound that burns you so smoothly you may not be aware its happening. The trio found they had created an area between electronica/techno and rock that was powerful and fluid.

We chose the song 'Little Soul' as this was a very popular club song used in gay bars and clubs across northern america. Also featured on the populary American hit TV series, Queer and Folk, this is a great 80's disco tune loved by almost everyone who heard it.

Album Cover Planning

This is our original inspiration for our album cover. We decided to take a photo of both Hannah and Kirsty and have them split down the centre to form one face made with the two photos. We decided to encorperate a lot of Photoshop editing and we would be creating a 'Deluxe Edition' of the CD with two unreleased bonus tracks. The CD would also come with a limited edition visual artwork book. However if this will take too much time, we will not incorperate the visual artwork, however we feel that it would be an effective extra touch. We also plan on having the cover either very vibrant and colourful or very dull and monochrome, yet effective. Both styles can suit the genre of the music to some extent. We will start off by taking both photos and overlaying them with each other on Photoshop, this will give us a good transisition between both photos and transmitting some sort of image. It will also intertextualise with the music video quite well, as both of the models will be wearing the same costume as they did in the music video itself. We aim for the photo to represent insomnia of the mind and confusion, with both photos linking in and giving reference to one another. I feel that a heavy use of photo manipulation and editing will help me give a more bold and impact effect on the viewer as it will highlight the issue of the video.

Magazine Advert Planning

This is our original inspiration for our magazine advert poster. We decided to keep formal codes and conventions from the album cover, and have both Hannah and Kirsty, who are feature din the music video, have their faces on the split screen idea you can see above. The elements of electronica and disco ties in well with the genre of our song. I believe that this can also tie in with the album cover, as the distortion of the main image again represents insomia of the mind, or can to some extent. both of the fonts and styles will fit formal conventions which will match the video, as the main image selected on this advert will be from the same photo shoot, and will represent features from the music video, with elements such as the costume and make up. A good idea from my point of view, would be in include visuals from the limited edition visual artwork book, which would also be an extra attraction to the CD. Below you can see our initial ideas sketch and first draft for the magazine cover.