Evaluation Task 1- In what ways do my media products use, develop or challenge the form and conventions of real media products?

Forms and Conventions of Our Website

On our website, we made sure to reinforce and contradict common forms and conventions of artist websites. We chose many of the pages ourselves but adhered to many of the standard conventions found, such as a home page, "gigs" page and contact page. 

As seen above, we reinforced the standard conventions of having a large feature photo of the band, a promotional label of their work and productions, easy-to-follow links to other pages and their name in a large bold font, often found at the top of the page. 

One feature we chose to include was the music tab, an optional music player that plays 'Mardy Bum'. We chose to do this because it reinforces the bands belief that the music is what is most important and it gives the audience a chance to listen to the most up-to-date material by the band. 

A common convention that we chose to contradict is the convention of having a link to purchasing the music or merchandise on the home page. This is because we feel like it would have felt like we were pressuring our audience to purchase our music and merchandise and wouldn't have fitted with the layout or style the website has. We felt like it would have gone against the bands morals and beliefs as they believe it is all about the music and not the money. We felt so strongly about this as we felt like it could have tainted the success of the band or done the opposite of what it was supposed to and deter the audience from wanting to listen to the band. 

One convention that we chose to conform to is the convention of having information about each band member. We put a separate page up for this because we felt like it was important for the audience to know each band member and know where they come from. This will improve the bands fan club as the audience will feel closer and more personal with the band members. 

Another convention we conformed to included having a page centred on the bands upcoming gigs. This is beneficial for many reasons, it gives the audience the chance to see the band live and be up close and personal with the band, and it also gives the band the chance to widen their fan base.