SHR4C007R~002 Option 2: Electronic Press Kit Template
Task 1: Electronic Press Kit
THE WEBSITE CAN BE ACCESSED AT
https://bensaunders.bandzoogle.com/home
Code for entry: vNGiCRJheT
Task 2: Supporting Commentary
The primary purpose of this EPK was to create a central site from which promoters and fans can access all of my projects and view my achievements. By listing and summarising my roles in several band projects alongside my individual skills and releases, I created a clear outline of the genres and styles I am most comfortable and experienced with, and presented opportunies to book each one for gigs.
Beginning with a third person summary of my skills and academic achievements I immediately present myself in a clear, professional manner, ensuring I mention where I am based, where I’m studying and my prior training. I structured the EPK around an audience of both fans and potential employers or promoters, therefore choosing to provide demo material of playable music immediately after the introductory bio. The tracks include a self produced and performed alternative-indie-rock track ‘Part of the Plan’, a demonstration of both my live performance and live sound skills in the acoustic stereo recording of ‘Ventura Highway’, and completely contrasting self produced/recorded track – the jazz and psychedelia fusion of ‘Make U Mine’. Across the tracks, I display my various skills of guitar/bass playing, singing, instrumental programming, mixing, live room capture and drum miking. I also chose to put the contact information heading before the main body of writing to ensure it can be found quickly and easily.
Reflections and Future Improvement
Due to the majority of my projects being fairly new, little to no recorded, fully finished music has been officially released. This means that in order to have useful links to streaming and advertise the quality of my work, I had to display sub-par, unfinished tracks. They were useful for the structure and aesthetic of the EPK, and certainly provide the essence of my material, but are not completely representative of what I can do. Additionally, I would like to have a wider array of high quality pictures to avoid repetition of gigs and recording sessions – therefore appearing more experienced.
Image and ethos
For the primary background image that is ever-present behind the scrolling text, I used a professionally taken photo of me from a well lit, atmospheric gig in which I was both singing and playing guitar. I was dressed smartly, but not overly formally, to appear employable but also evidently an artist rather than purely a session or function musician. I kept the overall brand image clean and cohesive, using predominantly dark blue and purple for my photos, and a bold but simple white font for my name and information to stand out legibly. The press shots for each band are also defined in terms of palette and positioning, alternating side to side under different headings; the photos for Cab Driver utilise darker, colder colours and scenery, whereas the Wintons shots are warmer and brighter – somewhat indicative of the music.
Relevance
In the modern climate, most successful artists have instagram accounts to reach a wider audience. While they are excellent for making connections and consistently reaching a large audience with news, updates and content, they lack the level of sophisticated professional control seen in an EPK. The format allows for an ordered journey of information portrayed exactly as the artist intended, and can reasonably feature far more detailed writing and longer form videos. Instagram is first and foremost a social media platform and is therefore revolves around attention grabbing, short form media and followers, which is excellent for appealing to young people. An EPK exists solely to be a sleek and informative representation of the artist’s achievements, skills and interests.
Appealing to the audience
For this project, I did research using EPKs of several current artists and bands who I feel have a similar sound or genre to the music I make (and therefore a similar audience). For larger bands, it is clear that EPKs are not necessary and they typically only have websites with links to music and merchandise, paired with socials. Smaller bands have more of a reliance on them as promotion is more difficult. I therefore took inspiration from indie surf rock band ‘Foxtide’, who’s EPK features a large, striking image of the band that matches their musical aesthetic, and a memorable logo clearly stating the bands name. There is a brief summary of the bands formation and genre, with a detailed description of their sound paired. They also mention their main visual and sonic thematic thread in their work – “sunny California”. The rest of the page features pleasantly simple colourful visuals and a list of their achievements, with statistics and links to their streaming platforms. Finally there is a contact section, an in-site window of their latest music video, merchandise purchasing options and links to press articles with reviews about the band. It feels perfectly cohesive, aptly displaying the bands visual and sonic aesthetic while being informative and acting as an all encompassing platform from which Foxtide’s media can be accessed. I used the majority of these assets in my own EPK.
I also evaluated the success of the EPK belonging to post-punk band ‘DEADLETTER’. I liked the format of having a main banner photo followed by a list of song previews linked to the in-site player, as it allows new listeners to get a good sense of the band’s sound straight away with minimal effort (this is why I added my track player at the top of the site). I was less keen, however, on the format of the text. The content of it was useful and informative, listing off the high status collaborations and support slots they have filled, as well as the major radio station plays they have received (a point i used in my own EPK). I did not however like the layout of the text and rest of the website as it was plain black and white with the text all in a chunk in small font. It was not visually appealing and lacked any indication of the band’s aesthetic.
I read the EPK of the band ‘Geese’, a new indie rock/post-punk group exploding in popularity in New York. I liked that their important links were placed directly above the main header. I also liked their list of touring dates as this is likely their main source of income. The choice to place all of their photos in small format in a list did not look professional, so I made sure to place mine tastefully throughout the page and make sure they were large enough to be clearly made out (like the Foxtide EPK).
Perhaps the most informative research I did on things to avoid was when I viewed Marcus King’s old EPK, which is still publicly available. He has since rebranded and has a website, but his EPK from when he first started releasing music displays a large block of text in the centre of a busy background. The photos are also placed in a list in miniature preview format, and the website is overall hard to navigate and has no focal points.
Financial and Legal Elements
EPKs are hugely important in driving audience engagement and sales, essential to boosting overall revenue. Apple Music claims they are essentially a digital “business card” and are needed to “cut through the noise” of the saturated industry (Apple Music, 2025). Bandzoogle (the website I used to create the EPK) also stress the importance of having an EPK to be easily seen by professionals as they are unlikely to bother searching the internet for scattered clips and images. (Bandzoogle, 2024)
All of the press images were taken by friends and therefore did not incur any cost, however I would certainly consider investing in professional photography for a more striking and coherent image. I would also invest in having the site officially published as a domain to ensure it is universally accessible. I used stock font for my main header, but I am looking into commissioning a logo to be more distinctive and stand out.
Group Work and Evaluation
While creating my EPK, I observed and discussed several pre-existing indie band press kits with the other members of my WITCI seminar group. We concluded that:
- large blocks of text immediately disengaged the viewer and made the band seem less interesting
- footage and audio recordings should be the primary focus of the EPK. Although the visuals are appealing, the sound of the music is the most important aspect.
- A short introduction and summary of available music was the most efficient and engaging way to begin
- Links to streaming platforms should be at the top of the page – the viewer should not have to search for them
I showed the beginnings of my work to some friends also writing their EPKs, and they advised me to change the background image to something more recent, as the original photo was not quite an accurate representation of me any more.
They also suggested I include video footage of my band’s performance to evidence my claims of playing full shows in grassroots venues. I added the video of Funky Monk’s original track ‘Phase’ – also mention this being played on the radio and wanted to have a version of the song available.
2022 words – including EPK
References:
Keary. M, Bandzoogle, “What is and EPK, and why do you need one?”
Apple Music for Artists, “Why an electronic press kit matters”
Foxtide, accessed 2025, https://foxtide.band/home/epk
DEADLETTER, accessed 2025, https://www.umusicpub.com/uk/Artists/D/DEADLETTER.aspx
Geese, accessed 2025, https://rapidconnect.minyvinyl.com/artists/4174-geese
Marcus King Band, accessed 2025, https://artistecard.com/TheMarcusKingBand#!/bio
