Website Conventions

Homepage:

-Features the artist’s logo

-A menu bar / form of website navigation

-A picture of the artist (Usually the one featured on the cover of their latest album)

-A loop track of their song

-An auto-playing music video (Tends to be the most recent or popular song)

The Artists’ Logo:

The artist’s logo is usually consistent with the font and colour of their most recent album cover. This is used to promote their new album, as the artist will want to gain as much exposure as possible to increase the sales of their new album/song. The logo also tends to match the overall theme of the website.

Navigation:

Most websites have a horizontal navigation bar across the top of the page for easy navigation around the website. However, some websites use a drop-down bar as a tool for navigation. The drop-down bar is popular as you can all of the information on one page so the user can just scroll down in order to find what they want. The conventional tabs are: News, Events/Tour dates, Music, Videos, Pictures, About, Social/Contact, and Store.

Artist Photo:

The primary photo on most websites is one of the artist. This can be the photo, that is used on the cover of the artist’s newest album, or a collage of photos from tours, gigs and photo shoots used for the promotion of their album. In some cases the main image on the website isn’t linked to their newest album, for example, if they are an established artist and have been successful for a long time, their image might be one that generally matches their known star image and style, like P!NK’s website.

Loop Track:

Loop Tracks are used a lot of the time; artists include a feature that allows consumers to listen to their music while on the website. This is a technique used to draw in the audience and the artist’s fans, so that they hopefully buy their music. Sometimes a link is used to open another window where you can listen to the songs. This way you can please both people who want to listen to the songs and people that don’t want the music playing on repeat while they go through the website.

Music Video:

More often than not, there is a page dedicated to music videos, or videos of live performances. This use of multi-media encourages the audience to view more of the artist’s content, especially on YouTube, because YouTube views have recently become another measure of popularity and success, as well as album sales. Sometimes the music videos are restricted to one page on the website, however, other times the music videos are a feature on the homepage, where consumers can view them in a small section.


Annotated Website: