The approach I took when creating my Electronic Press Kit was to attempt to display my strengths as an artist as clearly as possible and also to use unique visual media catch the eye of the consumer and to communicate my individual artistic stylings. Despite still being somewhat limited in my experience as a live performer, I made sure to go into as much detail as possible about my various influences as a songwriter and explain my musical journey in depth from its earliest stages up to where I am now, to give context and depth to my art for the consumer.
I primarily write in a guitar based rock style and I had this in mind when designing my Electronic Press Kit. I took a great deal of influence from from other artists within this genre and their EPK and website design particularly those of the bands Wunderhorse and Aqualine. These artists both have very strong visual identities and are also huge musical inspirations for me so it made sense to take some influence from there visual and promotional material for my own. Even though rock music is the central focus of the stylistic choices I made for my Electronic press kit I decided to also go into detail about some of my other, more varied musical influences to provide the listener with a deeper understanding of where the music I make comes from.
I deliberately featured many images of me playing guitar in studios, practice rooms and on stage. This gives the recipient a good idea of what kind of artist I am from the get go, before even having to read any text. The guitar I play is a Univox Hi-Flyer which is a great visual indicator of the style I am most fluent in due to its use by other artists in the same genre. I also feel that my style as and individual fits into a stereotypical rock musician image, so I made sure to include as many clear images of myself as I possibly could.
Another deliberate stylistic choice I made to fit into the grungy DIY aesthetic I was going for was to use my own visual artwork as a backdrop for every slide on my EPK. The artwork in question is made by heavily editing blurred images of lights, and is a great visual representation of the more psychedelic characteristics of my music. It is very visually striking and colourful in its nature and adds a level of artistic individuality that couldn’t be achieved through using someone else’s art. It is also featured as the cover art for the two singles that my band have released and is also intended for use on future projects. I feel that this is a good marketing technique because the visual art will become instantly recognisable and synonymous with the music. I also decided to keep the style of my electronic press kit somewhat minimal, again tying into and representing the sound of my music. I was careful when choosing the colour scheme for my EPK particularly with the colour of the text. The artwork that features as the backdrop for the slides is very bright and colourful so it was hard to find a colour that would stand out against that, but also match well with the theme. The Off-White that I eventually settled for I felt contrasted the backdrop well but was also in keeping with the gritty, minimal, DIY aesthetic. The font I chose was called Anton and was very stark and blocky and, again, minimal. All of these elements combine to appeal to the neo-grunge revival niche I am attempting to carve out as a songwriter and artist.
I primarily write as part of a band and therefore went into great detail about the formation of the band, the other members and what we are currently working on together to give the fanbase some lore and to tease some things to look forward to. I gave social media links for the band and for myself as an individual on the opening slide of my Electronic Press Kit so that before anything the reader knows my name and where to contact me. I provide a table of contents on the second slide of my Electronic Press Kit so that any recipients can easily skim through or find any specific piece of information they are after.
It was a new and insightful experience for me to analyse myself as an artist on such a close level and to actually look back at all my musical influences and achievements over the years. I found the experience very grounding and it helped me gain a greater sense of direction as an artist. I will use this as a starting point and a basis to build upon as I develop and gain more experience in my field. Having a record of all of my achievements and experience has helped me to set firm goals as too where I want to be as an artist. Overall, I feel that my EPK fulfils its role to authentically represent who I am as a musician and the kind of music I create by combining strong visual elements that are unique to me and information about my personal life and experience. I achieved my goal to craft a striking and memorable documentation of my artistic development and created a good marker for me to look back at in the future.
Evidence of Group Work
When I first set out to create my Electronic Press Kit in initially consulted with other student on my course who were tasked with the same endeavour. We discussed in depth the appropriate content for an EPK. It was incredibly insightful to bounce ideas off of each other in class as there was a very wide spectrum of experience. Some of my fellow students have lots of experience playing live and intended to go into detail about all the gigs they’ve done in their EPK, some were primarily ‘behind the scenes’ songwriters that were more experience in writing for other artists and also had bigger back catalogues of music that they had released or written under their belt, whereas some were fairly inexperienced in all of these fields and weren’t sure what to write about in their EPK. This variety of different skillsets and levels of experience provided me with a concrete basis and a great pool of different ideas to start my Electronic Press Kit from. The second group I consulted with was the other members of my band. The bass player in my band is a second year student at the conservatoire and had been tasked with the same piece of coursework last year so he was able to provide me with some invaluable tips and pointers for my EPK. One point that he stressed was the importance of making my contact details and social media links as clear as they can be in order that anyone trying to reach me can do so with ease. Another thing my band members pointed out was that I could incorporate some of my own visual art that I had previously used as cover art for the band, in order to give myself a unique and unmistakeable visual brand. We also discussed how we would design a group EPK intended for real world use for the band and what artistic and commercial elements we incorporate for that. I based a lot of my ideas on the mock up EPK we then went on to make for the band. It was incredibly useful to have a group of people I already knew I was artistically aligned with, to bounce promotional ideas off. My brother who also happens to be a Leeds Conservatoire first years student with the same piece of coursework pointed me in the direction of the editing app that I used, called Canva. This was a great help as it was so user friendly and had some really great templates for creative promotional material to choose from.
Overall I found the guidance and help from others crucial to the completion of my Electronic Press Kit but I feel I still managed to make it a distinct and unique representation of myself as an artist.
Bibliography
Aqualine EPK Available at: https://www.instagram.com/_aqualine/?hl=en-gb
Winderhorse’ website: https://wunderhorseband.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorVB-fkpIDlt9L-EVHGP_ElE8pulooKSE48Q7IcNIk5Z2d38Khu
