To get ideas for my Norah Lane's website i looked at other tween pop artist's websites to see the typical conventions.
Taylor Swift’s website has a sophisticated theme following the awards she has won recently, which include a few Grammys. The colour scheme goes well with the theme as red and gold with a silver background to blend in. There is an image of her performing at the awards on the left hand side and below it a news box which you can flick through a blog that she has wrote to fans. However, this often changes and can sometimes be a music video, video blogs or just other images. From the short blog that she has added on the front page you can see that she is addressing a younger audience as she is using a simple language with a friendly tone. On the right she uses changing images of herself in a red dress similar to the one that she has worn to awards ceremonies to continue the theme. Each image is a mid-shot, which is similar to the shots that she uses in her music videos, although unlike her music videos she doesn’t stand out from the background as much. It is odd that in this image she isn’t looking directly at the audience to make the audience feel like the website is aimed personally to them, although this could be because she doesn’t need to if she has devoted fans already. The images of her looking elegant and showing her success are a good influence to her younger audience; however, on first impressions of the webpage you might not believe that she is targeting “tweenagers”.
The main title on the page is the Taylor Swift signature which has become her logo as the signature is recognisable on her merchandise, singles and albums. Corresponding with the main title there are four icons above her image which are pages created for her possibly younger, dedicated fans. The first icon “Taylor Nation” invites the fans to create their own profiles and websites that look like hers. “Taylor Connect” is Taylors very own social network where there is access to forums where you can talk to other fans, the latest music, videos and her other social networks like twitter and bebo. “Taylor TV” is where people can see videos of her, music videos, playlists and can also create their own fan channel and on “Taylor jpg” fans can uploads their pictures for Taylor to see. For all of this you have to be a member and in one way it’s saying to her fans be like me as they can have their own webpage and TV channel like she does. By having all of these features she is keeping her fan base interested because if they have all the latest information and songs to hand they are less likely to move on to something new.
On the other hand you don’t have to become a member to keep up to date with Taylor Swift as on the top there are pages to news, about her, pictures, videos, tour dates, merchandise and so on, although this is all in black clearly standing out away from her personal pages. Pages like store are exclusive as merchandise can only be brought on tours and on her website. However, even though you can get the latest information on Taylor just by going on her website there is still an icon encouraging her fans to sign up to newsletters and fan forums, constantly pushing and influencing the fans making Taylor Swift a brand as well as an artist.
An important piece of information on the page is near the bottom which in a way shows her target audience. There is a link to a page on privacy policy which is vital to parents as it says that the site isn’t for under 13’s but may be attractive to them, therefore all users are personally unidentifiable, protecting the younger fans. They also suggest that the parents spend time with the children on the page to check that they are ok to use it. All of this suggests that she is targeting a younger audience from under 13’s to teenagers and not really for adults.
Near the bottom of the page there is a white bar which has the latest news on Taylor moving across the screen, so if people want to quickly read up on what she is doing that can flick on to the page and read the news bar without having to navigate away from the home screen. As well as latest news on the white bar there are sometimes Twitter or Facebook updates on encouraging fans to add her. So in conclusion the website is there to persuade the fans to sign up to her site, the forums and for newsletters so that they can hear about Taylor through video blogs, social network posts, images and so on. Therefore By keeping her fans in the know she can keep them interested or even attempt to expand her fan base.
Katy Perry’s website follows her album one of the boys and revolves around the promotion of the album. Unlike Taylor Swift, Katy Perry uses a promiscuous, 1950s style theme with a candy pink and blue colour scheme. Her music targets Tweenagers and young adults, so an image of katy wearing 1950s style lingerie that is quite revealing isn’t suitable for the younger audience. However, this could show that even though Katy Perry and Taylor Swift make the same genre of music, Taylor targets a slightly younger audience than Katy. As Taylor Swift does, Katy uses a Katy Perry signature which has become her logo/tag; this is the main title of the page and is seen on all of her merchandise. Underneath the title are the hyperlinks with the text in the same style as her logo, all of the hyperlinks are on a banner and are easily accessible. The language that she uses is simple so that fans of all age are able to understand.
There is a blue bar at the top of the page which unlike Taylor Swift, there is a number for fans to call and get updates on what Katy Perry is doing. This could be the reason why there is little information on her webpage as it forces fans to pay the charges to call the number. Also on the bar is a media player where you can hear some of the songs of her album which is there to encourage the fans to download her songs, buy the single or buy the album if they like it.
The image that Katy uses is a long mid-shot of her looking directly at her audience and is showing a lot more flesh than Taylor Swift, a reason for this could be that she could be trying to move away from the younger audience that she currently targets. The image blends into the background and fits the colour scheme and theme of the Album which is similar to Taylor Swift’s image.
The information on the right hand side of Katy’s webpage is well laid out and sectioned off into coloured boxes. In the pale blue boxes there are previews of what will be on the hyperlinked pages, like the latest news pictures and so on. Some of the boxes like dear diary, are blank showing that she hasn’t cared to update them recently or that she isn’t doing that much. She uses the pink boxes on the far right for promotion, using image of an item from the online store, an image of her album, ringtones and even information on her street team who promote her. Fans can also sign up to the message boards and mailing lists for extra information. This shows that the website is wholly for promoting herself, her music and her merchandise as there is less inside information about her for the fans which Taylor Swift uses. This shows that Katy Perry has become a brand and that her website is used purely for advertising this.
Another indication that Katy Perry has a slightly older audience than Taylor Swift is that she doesn’t have exclusive sites like personal social networking which the fans need a membership to join and can chat with other fans. Only younger audiences would be interested in being able to use exclusive sites, these would also need to be heavily protected which demonstrates that by Katy not using this she has a slightly older audience.
Both Taylor Swift and Katy Perry are constantly changing the theme of their websites to keep the fans engaged, for example Katy Perry soon has a new album coming out so her new website has been created to advertise this to the fans.
Miley Cyrus’ website is slightly different to the others that I have previously analysed. As you first enter the page you hear the first track of Miley Cyrus’ album, you can hear clip of each of the songs on the album. She uses a white, brown, burgundy and purple colour scheme which is quite a contrast of colours but suit Miley Cyrus’ loud personality.The main title on the webpage ‘Miley Cyrus’ isn’t in the same font that she uses for her logo that is used on her merchandise, as the others do. She also doesn’t use a mid-shot of herself as the main attraction on her webpage instead there in an image of her face used as a border for her webpage. However, a good thing about this is that where the other two artists have a large image of themselves on their homepage, Miley uses the space to update her fans with what she’s been doing recently. Miley has exclusive clips from her latest film and information on awards ceremonies she’s been, meaning that she is still able to promote herself but at the same time giving more to her fans. There are hyperlinks surrounding the updates which are similar to the hyperlinks used on the other Tween pop artist pages. These are home, photos, shop, events, miblog, charity and be a star. Standing out from the other hyperlinked pages is ‘newsletter signup’ where Miley’s fans can receive her latest news via email. Similar to Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus has a preview of what is on the hyperlinked pages on the right-hand side.
Miley Cyrus was the first to have a fan club which is called ‘MileyWorld’ which you can see on the top left hand side of the page. Fans have to buy a membership where they are given a username and can interact with other fans and upload their own videos, images and have their own blogs. They also have access to Miley Cyrus’ images, videos and even concert tickets before anybody else does. They can even write to Miley herself and have their own websites, which are all protected as they can have a family account. Full members get an exclusive Miley DVD, a personalised letter from Miley and member card, photos and much more. However, this costs $29.95 for a full membership meaning that the fans have to pay for this exclusive service, which again makes the artist seem more like a brand. At the middle of the page you can see that
Although without her fans having to pay for a membership to Miley world, Miley Cyrus has enough gossip and information on her website. On the right-hand side you can see that she has activities like the poll asking which movie her fans think is the best of 2009, this is so that the creators of the movie can see how successful it was with Miley Cyrus’ target audience. On her website to show Miley’s fans that she cares about global issues she the face of the charity ‘get your good’ on which is a project she is doing with Youth Service America. Get you good on is an online community supporting youth to do help in their own communities by doing them thing like offering them grants or giving them incentives and so on. Again her fans are able to follow this on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube showing the computer literate audience she has.
Alike the other two stars Miley also seems to be just like a brand. A lot of her page evolves around advertising even if it is for good causes like charity. To get the full experience fans need to pay for a membership to Mileyworld. As well as MileyWorld there are the options of buying her merchandise, concert tickets and albums. So with Tween pop artists their websites are generally used to advertise themselves through their merchandise, charities or even social networking sites.
Now that i know the typical conventions on Tween pop artist's webpages i want to look at what my potential target audience would like to see on Norah Lane's website. So i showed 20 girls examples of websites and asked them 7 simple questions on what features they liked the most.
1. Out of the three websites which do you prefer?
Taylor Swift
Katy Perry
Miley Cyrus
Why did you choose this website?
2. Do you like the idea that the artists have a fan club where you become a member like Mileyworld and TaylorNation?
Yes No
3. Which theme do you think would be best for my website?
USA theme
Nautical (sailor) theme
Football theme
Schoolgirl theme
4. Do you think that it is important that there is a lot of information on the homepage?
Yes
Some information but not too much
No
5. Do you prefer just the song on the homepage or a music video?
Song
Music video
6. Which font do you prefer for my website? (unfortunately you can’t see the choice fonts on blogger)
Blackadder ITC
Kristen ITC
Comic Sans MS
Arial
7. Do you think that I should have a large image of Norah Lane on the homepage or does it not matter to you?
Large image of Norah Lane
Doesn’t matter to me
From the choice of websites the most popular was Taylor Swifts with very few people preferring Katy Perry’s website. Reasons they gave we’re generally because they preferred the artist or because they liked the images. A lot of people liked Miley Cyrus’ website especially because there was a lot of information on the homepage and videos that you wouldn’t often get to see. Another thing that they liked about the websites is that Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift have fan clubs as 18 out of 20 of the girls said yes they think it is a good idea.
The theme that I be will using is the nautical theme as it was by far my audiences favourite out of the four with none of the girls I asked voting for the football theme. The girls believe that I should have some information but not too much on my homepage as 12 out of the 20 said that I should. 14 out of 20 also believe that I should use a music player rather than a video player, suggesting that they don’t like the website to be too busy but have everything they need on there.
When I asked which font they preferred 12 out of 20 said they preferred Blackadder ITC, this is good because it will go well with the nautical theme. I think this may have been the most popular as it’s very similar to the font that each of the other Tween pop stars use. 18 out of 20 of the girls also believed that I should have a large image on the homepage, so it is very important that I include this.
After looking at other artist's webpages and hearing from my target audience i have decided to have a bried look into some webpage designers.
Ten Minute media was Founded by Brendan Ciecko in 2003 and has become one of the leading design, marketing, and branding company. They are a website design company who say that they ‘thrive on creativity’ and that they ‘bring you the next level’ with their ‘effective and cutting edge ideas and effective services’.
Their clients include artists under big record companies like Capitol records, Atlantic, EMI, Warner bros, virgin and many more. Ten minute media have created numerous websites for a similar Tween pop artist Katy Perry. Other big artists include Mick Jagger, The Enemy, lenny kravitz, new kids on the block, which you can see it a wide range of artists and genres.
Halo media claim that they are a are digital agency that specialize in websites that communicate and engage. Projects that they do include website design, website development, branding and logos, mobile applications and much more. Their clients include def jam recording, island records, universal motown, Sony pictures classic and many more. Their artist that they have more recently created a webpage for is Justin Bieber a big Tween pop artist and hearthrob for young girls.
Having found out what my potential target audience like the most in a webpage, looking at webpage designers and websites that they have designed, i can now design my webpage following the typical conventions of tween pop artists.
As you can see I have chosen the nautical theme from my questionnaire and a mid-shot as Norah Lane as the largest feature on my page. The hyperlinks are at the top of my page like you see on each of the websites i have analysed, similar to Taylor Swift I also have a news box with a small blog informing her fans what she has done. Other special features on there i have are a music player and NorahStyle. NorahStyle is Norah's fan club where her fans would be able to become and member and find all her latest news before everybody else, aswell as having the fans being able to have their own social networking pages. As well as the fans being able to have their own social networking pages on NorahStyle they can still add Norah on twitter and Facebook. As you can see I have also advertised Norah Lane's album Voyage Of A Lifetime.
I presented this to a group of girls aged between 13 and 15 to see what they thought. They said that it was quite plain compared to the other tween pop artists site and doesn't match the theme very well.
So following this i have re-designed my webpage and this time i have decided to carry on with my nautical theme but have adapted it to make it suit Norah's image. I have used the blackadder ITC font as my audeince chose for Norah Lane's main title/logo and carried on using this font throughout my website. Although i havent used the same font for the hyperlinked pages along the top so that they stand out more, which is what Taylor Swift does on her website. I have continued to use a mid-shot of Norah as the largest feature on the page. However i have moved a lot of the features over to make them more clear. Before i found that the image of the album cover clashed with the background,, so there is a divide on my page where i now have NorahStyle, links to Norah's social networking sites and the album cover. I have also moved the music player to the left-hand side to fill the space that was there before. Finally to match the nautical theme i will add an image of an anchor to go underneath the text in the 'stories' box.
I have now began the construction of my webpage and tool images of Norah Lane and tried to select one, which as you can see i have chosen to go with the last image of Norah. She looks slightly promiscuous but this is because i would like to follow the conventions of the image used in Katy Perry's webpage.
Here is my finished webpage and as you can see i have made more adjustments to my webpage as i felt that it still didnt fit the nautical theme. So i decided to add clipart images to the toolbar beneath my hyperlinked pages and a compass underneath Norah Lane. Now i believe that my website fits the conventions of other Tween pop websites.
To create my webpage i used Adobe Illustrator which i found simple to use as it is similar to photoshop and Adobe Indesign from last year. Therefore i have created a step by step guide of how i used Adobe illustrator to make my webpage.
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