Creating my Record Label's Website

As my role as a Record Label, I need to promote the release of my video to the world. I am going to do this by creating a website for Pride Productions, so that the Artist can feature as if they have just been signed to the label and have recently dropped their first single. I had never made a website before, so to make my website, we had a workshop with a teacher in my school as a class. He taught us the steps yet I wasn't feeling very confident with the process as IT isn't a strong point of mine. 

My brief is to create a website that has two pages and feature information about the label, artist, with pictures and videos. I want my website to look very professional so that my new artist, Sam Singer, is taken seriously in the industry. 

To gain some inspiration, I looked at a couple of popular label's websites, such as Sony Music. I did this to also make sure that my website is similar to these examples because I want to use the same algorithms to make sure my label is popular. 

Sony Music Label's Website

What I like about the website:

- Simple

- Puts emphasis on the artist instead of their label

- Colour palette 

What I do not like about the website:

- Not many bright colours, quite muted

- The buttons at the top are very small (not very accessible)

-  Plain

XL Recordings Website

What I like about the website:

- Modern and professional

- Focus on new artists that are not popular yet

- More mature

What I do not like about the website:

- Not many colours

- Not many buttons, the buttons that are there are quite limiting

- No images of artists

Creating my  DREAMWEAVER website

DreamWeaver Software

The first method I used to create my website was by using the software 'DreamWeaver', which a staff member from my school showed me how to use. The member of staff spent about an hour with the class and showed us the steps, however once I was left to my own devices to create my own website, I had forgotten the steps and I was not naturally gifted in this area. 

Below are some of the steps I took to make the DreamWeaver website. I followed many different YouTube tutorials however I was very confused by the whole process and found it very complicated.

In the end, I managed to create a very basic looking website that can be seen below. The website has most of the information on it that I wanted to include however it does not look appealing at all. This is because there is no colour or pictures. It does not look like it has been professionally made by a company, instead it just looks like it was created on DreamWeaver or another software. An advantage of DreamWeaver I found was that it allowed you create a website that did not require sponsorship, whereas with Weebly, which I discuss later on in this post, had a little icon. This looked cheap and tacky because a real label would not use a website like Weebly to create a website - instead they would have employers to create one from scratch. 

Final Website

Creating my WEEBLY website

Because I was unhappy with how my DreamWeaver website looked, I decided to try again and make another version of the website using Weebly. It was a much easier and user-friendly process and the finished result looked a lot more professional. The process was not a long one however it took me a long time to add in all of the imagery. I am very happy with the final outcome of my website, and I have made a video to display what it looks like for users on a desktop as well as a mobile device:





















View my Weebly Website here:
https://prideproductionslabel.weebly.com/

Creating the ALBUM COVER

As you may have seen, Sam Singer's album was being promoted throughout the website. Here is how I made the album cover:

The creation of my website was actually one of my most challenging posts to date because technology is not my strong point. Weebly definitely was the way for me to go because of this as it allowed beginners like me to achieve professional outcomes. I am glad, however, that I at least attempted to use DreamWeaver as it made me realise how complicated it is, and I now have a lot of respect for website creators. I am proud of my finished website which I created on Weebly as it is fully functioning and looks good. To improve, I would make sure some of the images are of a better quality as well as the website as a whole. The software was very easy to work with, and allowed me as a beginner to express my creativity and most importantly, promote my artist, Sam Singer, he was definitely at the forefront of my website. One part of my website which I liked was the tweets that I placed further down as I think customer interaction is really important to prevent seeming like a prestigious brand. By listening to consumer's comment, Pride Productions seems like a company that listen to their audience and value their time.