Music Artist website research

In order to plan our own website, we decided to look at music artist websites in general to identify conventions and styles. The websites of different artists differ mostly depending on their genre and target audience.

Home pages

This home page is mostly plain, with just a few images of the band. This promotes that the band are not the "bouncy" kiddie type, but a serious and sincere artist. From the dressing style of each member you can tell the alternative rock/soft rock genre. Their latest album #3 is the main advertising, and as live performances are the first thing we see below the banner, we can understand that the target audience are the type of people who enjoy gigs and like to interact with the band itself.

Alternatively, this home page is dark with hardly any advertising. The main image is a pair of Nike shoes, therefore the target audience may be teenage males who aspire to be like Tinie Tempah. 
Less so than the more interactive audiences of The Script, this audience may prefer this music genre to satisfy the gratifications of personal identity etc, while the other homepage suggests an audience who prefer social activities.

Female fronted rock bands:

The Paramore website has Instagram quite largely on the home page. This might suggest the target audience are social-media crazy teenagers most likely. There are many pictures of Hayley Williams the lead singer and more of the band altogether underneath. The website is gaudy and loud, therefore attractive to the younger audience group.

Similarly, the music video is the first thing we see on the Evanescence website, therefore fans may prefer to interact with the band.  This is also what is implied by the "recent news" just underneath the banner and like The Script website, fans may want to see when live concerts are etc.

In fact, the banner is not a static one, the pictures change between a set, and each leads to a different

part of the website. This make it more interactive for the audience.

Headers:

If we look at all the above websites, the headers are somewhat similar as they have options to interact via social media. With teenagers and young adults as their target audiences, these are the majority of social media users, therefore it is an appropriate and effective way to interact with fans.

Recent news of the artist also features on every page, again updating the audience, and encouraging interaction using social media regarding news/upcoming events etc.

Footers:

 The footers repeat the menus, keeping a consistent font and also offer social media options and information. Sometimes, there are link to contact/press/feedback/privacy pages, but not much attention is dawn to them as they are directly at the bottom and a lighter and smaller font. Lastly, the copyright information and institutions are credited at the very bottom of the page.

Main Features:

The menus themselves have a consistent colour scheme which is synergistic with the artist identity and rest of the website.

The main features might be present on a music artist website are as follows:

-Home

-Blog

-Videos

-Photos/Images/Gallery

-Music

-Store

-Community

Conclusion:

Social media is crucial to target our audience, therefore options for Facebook likes, or a Twitter widget will be useful for our own website. The colours will also have to be consistent across our entire brand. and font is important to connote our style as well to synergistically tie our branding together across all platforms.

The bands appear to have one (ore more) image as their banner, but simpler backgrounds, therefore drawing attention to the imagery. Often, a music video is available on the home page, perhaps the debut song, so this may influence our own website as well.