Research Into Established Artists Websites

Lily Allen

Lily Allen is an already established artist with a similar style music to our artist 'Dani'. We have looked into her website in order to see what is necessary to have on a website and what it consists of to help our artist become for successful.

• Lily Allen has a very simple artist website which features a small picture of her and her newest single. This shows us that, due to the fact that she is an already established artist, it is important for her to sell her music rather than herself, however, since Dani is an upcoming artist, we know that it is important to sell herself and her star image as well as her music, in order to create an image for herself and build up and audience base
• Lily Allen has used a black Background in order to make the Single cover and the title of the song to stand out, and to allow the audience to focus specifically on her music. We will use this technique when creating our artist website as we need to make her stand out, therefore we will use a black background to ensure that Dani and her music are the main focus on the website homepage
• The font on the website is very retro and stands out due to the white colour. The retro font suits lily Allen's style of music and so therefore we know that the use of font is going to influence the making and star image of our artist as the font can tell the audience what style of music to expect. For Dani, we will use white writing in a bold font to express that her music can suit everyone.
• Lily Allen is placed in a small picture within the centre of the website homepage, However, she is with another person and is not looking at the camera. This could connote the idea that she is rebellious and does not need to sell her star image any more as unlike other artists, she is not selling herself as the main product. Additionally, the rebellion is also seen as the other person in the picture is smoking. This is unusual to put on a website as they would usually want to attract as many people as possible, but Lily has her own fan base and so does not need to act innocent. We cannot do this for our artist, as she is new to the music industry and so needs to be the main attraction on the website and look innocent in order to attract as many people as possible
• There are no other tabs on Lily Allen's website which shows that the main way in which she earns her money is through the promotion and the selling of her music. Additionally, she has clearly placed the links to all her social media pages which tells us that she can sell herself across a range of platforms and connect with her audience directly. This is important to keep her audience interested and to make them feel connected with her.

Overall,  By Researching into Lily Allen's website, we have noticed essential things that we need to include when creating one for Dani. For example we need to include:

1. a plain background, in order to focus the attention on her music and her star image. This is important for Dani in order to be successful and build a large audience base as she is a new artist and so therefore it is essential to sell herself as well as her music
2. We need to have a clear font, which should be white in order to stand out. The font can tell the audience the style for the artist. Our artist is quite innocent and so therefore, she should not have a font that could indicate otherwise
3. We need to have clear links to social media as it is important for our artist to promote herself on other platforms and connect personally to her fans

Beyonce

• Beyonce is the biggest, well known women artist, so when looking through the design of her website we are looking at what an established artist website consists of.
• Beyonce's website has an overall colour of black in order for everything else to stand out

• Beyonce has the ability to draw the attention away from her image and show pictures of other people. For example Michelle Obama, and it isn't even her website. She can do this, however the website for Danis cannot include other people because we have to sell herself to the audience, emphasising the importance of her star image 
• The font on Beyonce's website is white and is very bold, drawing the audiences attention. Therefore because Dani is an upcoming artist we need to try all techniques in order for the appearance of the website to stand out. Therefore, the use of font is going to influence the making of our website because we are going to use a bold font and make it white. 
  
• Beyonce doesn't even have an appearance of her website, which reinforces the idea that she is so big in the music industry. Although, Dani is not well known like Beyonce is, so her star image needs to be sold as well as her music because this will attract her target audience. When placing Dani on the website we will make her central, so that she is the focal point 
• Beyonce has 7 tabs, which are all clearly labelled. She has a tab dedicated towards social media links. This is to sell herself across a range of platforms and engage her global audience across her several media platforms.  2 of these are focused on her clothing line 'Ivy Park' and her merchandise. This is because in the 21st century music artists are making less money from their music, so they need to find alternative ways to make money, which she is doing through clothing. Within her merchandise tab, Beyonce has a section dedicated to accessories. This includes accessories like, coffee mugs, phone cases and bags. As Dani is upcoming, she will also need to make money which is not from music. So, Beyonce's idea of accessories is going to be included in our merchandise. For example, phone cases which can be aimed at our audience and can have several designed which can attract to the audience. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Due to Beyonce being an international, world wide artist, she is able to target her website globally, with no specific audience. Her popularity is wide spread which guarantees her success and allows her share any information instantly. We know this from her website because she shows us a variety of people from her family on her home page, reinforcing the idea that she is not the main focus because she already has this established name to her. 

From looking at Breyonces website it has given us an overall impression what is needed for a successful artist. Her website is going to influence the design of Dani's website because we are going to use a bold, white font to attract her target audience. Beyonce sells phone cases which is another merchandise which we can include because this is an accessory which shows Dani has a variety of products on her website. It Is necessary to have a merchandise tab because it is known that in the 21st century artist make less money from music so rely on merchandise.