Creative Critical Reflection Essay

The main theme I wanted to tackle with this project was "mental health awareness." The song itself has heavy values about mental health awareness, especially for men, with the artist expressing sorrow for his current circumstance that he's been put in and wishing for a better life. This is something many other men can relate with, as uncertainty and societal pressures are known to overwhelm young men at times. In this way, I wanted to represent men in a very vulnerable fashion, specifically portraying the artist in the products either laying down and using camera angles to display weakness and vulnerability.

However, that's not to say the product is only targetted towards men, as it's other themes deal with addiction and a feeling of not belonging, which any young teenager can sympathise with. The artist expresses his feelings of "escapism," using substances to escape the monotonous life which has had terrible consequences, as he struggles to battle his addiction. Addiction and escapism are two very prevalent issues in society especially for younger audiences who are commonly seen abusing substances in media in order to "fit in", without realising the dangers that come with these substances, and the feeling of not belonging can be attributed to social ostracism, where most minority groups in the world are prejudiced against, such as the LGBTQ+ communities.

Keeping my audience in mind, I strategized a way to market my artist. It helped that the artist himself is a young man, therefore other young teenagers/men who are part of his audience are more drawn to his likeness and image. The audience is able to self insert themself and their experiences into the music, enhancing the parasocial aspect which can cause individuals to build a one-sided connection to the artist.

This allowed me to easily treat the artist as the image of the brand I wanted to build, showcasing him in all aspects of the promotion, to make the artist more like a "household name" in the music industry, in that everyone knows his face and name even if they don't listen to him music. I also used repetition as my branding, using similar elements and typographical styles when making promotional material so that people recognize the artist's distinct style when viewing, maintaining the "Arial Bold" font throughout the social media promotional material and the digipak.

Through consistent imagery and tone across several platforms and mediums, the messages and core values of the brand and artist are relayed directly to the audience. This spread of influence the brand has on the feed of the audience allows for brand recognition amongst the general public, and amplifies exposure. 

This can also allow for subtlety in the branding, which can help emphasize the aesthetic of the work itself. Therefore, forming an emotional connection exclusive to the artist and the audience, immersing them in the ethos of the brand, and work of the artist. While at the same time maintaining enough visual representation to interest new viewers and get them equally involved in the work itself. In this way, the striking visual uniqueness shining through the artist's personality across all the products is what gives the project its branding. 

As previously mentioned, I aimed to highlight the artist during my branding in order to attract more audiences through a more parasocial aspect, displaying the artist as the main focus of my product to attract audiences allows audiences to build a connection with him and gain a sense of belonging within the music. It's important to recognize which specific demographic of audience is being targeted with the product (mostly young teenagers/adults) 

Similarly to how Taylor Swift uses her face and vulnerability in her lyrics, which can attract the demographic of younger female audiences who sympathize with her, creating a sense of community within her fanbase. This type of branding has brought Taylor Swift an almost cult-like following and judging the nature of the song during my analysis, I drew the comparisons between the style of music and deduced that it would be the best course of action.

My project targets young men and teenagers struggling in life using the artist's face as the branding, posting pictures across Instagram and highlighting the artist during promotional material, and in the music video itself. According to the Henry Jenkins' "Fandom" theory, this allows the artist to accrue a closely-knit community, who can share and relate their own experiences to those of the artist. So in a way, the product uses the audience to engage with themselves, and simply acts as a medium for community members to relate to one another.

Initially, during my research, I observed contemporary practices in the music industry using examples from artists that I personally listen to, especially in the rap genre. However I came to realize that I would need to expand my research in order to get a better grasp on the full scope of the media industry and see how different types of music videos might compliment some artists better than others. For example, Lewis Capaldis "Wish You The Best" is one of my personal favorites, along with "I feel it" by Bryansanon, which are two completely different genres of music and hence different styles of videos (elements of which I described in my earlier post). I observed how the artists used the visual aspect of a music "video" to compliment their styles and incorporated it into my own project.

The video contains many standard conventions of rap music videos, for example, I observed the fast-paced editing, exaggerated movement and set pieces of rap music videos to involve in my own project. While at the same time, I wanted to add some unconventional features of rap music videos by adding a story element to it, choosing the shots in chronological order of the day and using a more realistic take to end off the music video, signifying the end of the characters journey. 

Since there was no original music video for the track of my final project to grab inspiration from, I had to visualize the artists style through the music and attribute it to how they might make a music video based on it to represent their feelings through the video itself, which was in itself unconventional. The video and lyrics showcase male weakness, which isn't standard for the media industry, especially rap, where males are portrayed as dominant and ruthless.

As for the digipak and social media page, I've had generally more practice with running social media pages, so I used the standard conventions of that and took inspiration from other works around me that I've seen (and that I've done) to create what I thought would be an accurate reflection of how the artist would promote their song. Using standard techniques such as the combination post on social media and the format of popular CD album covers, taking inspiration from bands such as Led Zeppelin.