PLANNING: Artist's Website Analysis

Front Page of the website.

Here is the front page of the website for the artist Florence and the Machine. Straight away the audience is presented with a huge image of the artist against a black background. The image of the artist is deliberately shown to promote herself to whoever visits the webpage. I initially didn't really know what the artist actually looked like until I visited the website itself. Now, after seeing the front page, I know exactly who Florence and the Machine is and what they look like, and this is what their aim is. The huge image of the artist on the front page of the website is there to basically show who she is and who Florence and the Machine is. Against the black background, the artist really stands out with the reflection of her showing both sides of her face as well as the back of her head. This is so we can see what she looks like from every angle. Its a very cleverly thought out image to present/promote the brand, of which it is artist them self. 

To the left of the front page, there is a music video of her latest song, Shake it Out. The main reason this is shown there is to yet again promote the music video as it is one of the first things people will see when they first visit the site. The main reason it is there is so her latest content is shown directly to the audience, thus advertising her music and herself. To the top right of the front page, there is a little button which says "Click for Main Site". This tells me that the objective of the front page is to just promote the artist and her music to the audience, and do nothing more. This is because if you want to find out more, then you can visit the homepage of the website where there will be much more info.

Home Page of the website.

Moving on to the main page of the website and straight away we can see there is a menu of links to navigate around the site. This was not evident on the front page of the website as its soul purpose was to just promote the artist and her latest music, which is why there was an option to continue to the full site if you wanted to know more. The fact that there are links such as Media, Video, Gallery and Live show that the artist is trying to give their fans as much content of them as possible with various ways of accessing it. Yet again on the homepage we can see a large image of the artist so we know who she is and what she looks like as an audience. We can also see News and Blog section which is trying to show the audience the latest information about the artist. This can include news telling the audience about her latest album releases or tours she may be going on. This is yet again trying advertise herself and her work.

As soon as you go on the main page of the website, one of the artists music videos automatically begin playing. I personally find this very annoying as, if I want to watch a video, I would go and search for what I want to watch, then view it. However, the reason the music video automatically plays when you go onto the home page is because the artist is trying to share her music with you. By automatically playing, I as the audience am forced to scroll down and pause it. However even doing this is giving the artist attention from me which is what they want, as I will at least see the name of the song playing while I'm pausing the video, thus advertising the artist's music. If I don't do nothing about the video, the music will just play until it is done, which in a way is the artist forcing their music upon me. The fact that the music video is placed at the very bottom of the homepage is very clever, as it allows me to see all the other content they have on that webpage before I get to the video. This is a very good method in which to show her content as much as possible to any person visiting the Florence and the Machine website.

Florence and the Machine Website