Screenshots of EPK here:

Commentary  

I am an aspiring touring and session guitarist, and my EPK is centred around this career path. It is focused on my versatility and experience in playing a range of styles, ranging from rock and funk to jazz.   

In creating my EPK, I have considered a range of approaches from artists whom I aspire to emulate aspects of. This is in terms of structure and professional aesthetic of their website or similarly functioning press kit, as well as their digital presence. I want to showcase my unique style on the guitar, which is influenced by ‘rock, funk and jazz’ (from my EPK ‘short bio’). Specifically, my brand identity and focus are on being a versatile touring and session guitarist, who excels in live performance. My experience for this comes from creating, recording and performing material in several different bands.   

To create an EPK centred around artists who are known as good live performers, I identified regularly touring artists who appear as highly ranked from a range of genres, but specifically taking different parts from each artist that I liked. For example, the grammy winning live album from the guitarist ‘Kingfish’ (Grammy website, 2025). Although I am not marketing myself as a ‘blues’ guitarist, Kingfish’s website design (Kingfish website, 2023), colour scheme and use of live action shots was inspiring to me. I used these ideas to present the idea of a captivating live performance to the reader of my EPK. For example, my opening page being a live action shot, with the blurry focus helping to add to this aesthetic. Furthermore, I noticed a clear colour scheme throughout Kingfish’s website, specifically gold, white and black. As a result, I tried to focus my photos in a similar way, using red and purple. I have tried to select images that match this, to add a layer of consistency and professionalism to my EPK. Through gaining more experience, I would still like to eventually standardise both the quality and availability of photos I have, so I am able to fulfil this to a greater extent.  

Furthermore, I have used testimonials similarly to Kingfish, Mateus Asato and Matteo Mancuso on their respective websites. This approach intersperses larger font, standout information throughout the artist bio. For example, in Mateus Asato’s ‘About’ page (Mateus Asato website, 2025), he is referenced as winning ‘outstanding player of the year’ at GIT. By using this approach, I can direct the key information I want to get across, in case the reader doesn’t fully go through my long bio section.  

Structurally, I start with a short bio, to contextualise who I am and give the reader an overview of roughly my skillset and what my services are. This is to see if they are interested in my unique selling point (USP), which is my ability as a live performer in a range of genres. The guitar player Matteo Mancuso uses this approach in his shorter ‘About’ page biography (Matteo Mancuso website, 2025), immediately highlighting his ability to ‘transverse musical genres’, which acts similarly as a USP. After this section I have a longer bio, explaining in more detail about me. This is mainly focused on my experience of projects in a live setting, like Julian Lage (Julian Page website, 2025) and Dave Simpson’s trio (Red Giant, 2025) in their respective websites.  

My next sections outline the various projects I am part of and include links to live footage and music that I have released with each. The links to live performance is only applicable with my band ‘The Chynes’, but I hope to have these soon with my other project DAIS!, after upcoming recording work and performance opportunities. My focus on current projects in my EPK, as opposed to referencing work on social media and using this as a platform to gain attention, is a conscious decision. I recognise I don’t have the following of many artists whom I have researched as competitors, and I aspire to emulate. However this is something I am actively working on, and I have a short section linking to a video on my Instagram account, though the quality and number of posts here are not at the level I would like yet. The importance of social media as a live touring and session guitarist is shown through players like Mateus Asato, who is now a touring with Bruno Mars. Asato actively references the importance of social media in his career on the ‘about’ section of his website, reflecting the importance of this as a modern touring and session guitarist.  

Furthermore, focusing on my current projects being the centre point of my EPK is something inspired by the jazz guitarist Julian Lage. Lage has minimal focus on past accolades, instead concentrating on his ‘new album’ (Julian Lage website ‘About’ section, 2025) and having a list of tour dates. By me using this approach, it enables a clear overview of my current projects, making it easy for my target audience to engage with me. As a result, I also have a list of tour dates as a main section of my EPK, further reflecting my brand identity being around a live performer. I have also put my contact information to make it easy to get in touch. 

It is also important to say that although I am building my jazz work currently, my current projects still mainly pop, rock and funk styles. This is something that occupies my future interests, and as I build more experiences in jazz I will incorporate these into my EPK to strengthen this as a core aspect of my style. 

In terms of cost of assets to produce my EPK, I used professional photos from PippaFest festival which I recently played with licence to use them in my work. However, other photos I have used are not at the same quality, and professional photos are industry standard in the artists promotional materials I have looked at. As a result, investing in my own photographer and obtaining a licence to use them for ‘commercial’ purposes (UK Government website, 2021), should positively correlate with revenue in the long run. As my live performance experience builds up, paying for ‘action shots’ would be good in relation to my ‘live performance’ brand identity too. 

In consideration of intellectual property (I.P), I have ensured to not share intellectual property such as musical recordings or demos, before they have been released. This is to protect them from being copied. This must be considered for original work posted on social media too, for example the short Instagram clip included in my EPK (Aubergine legal, 2024). I have not published my EPK as a website, but as I accumulate more experience it would be worth doing this financially, so that am I level with the industry standard of artists I have researched in my field. 

To protect ‘brand identity’, you can trademark a logo, and this must be renewed every ’10 years’. This ‘warns’ others from copying yours and gives you an alternative way to be recognised (UK Government website, 2025). This can be almost any combination of colours, letters and images. Again, this is industry standard with the artists I have investigated. For example, Kingfish’s ‘crown, letters and guitar’ logo and Matteo Mancuso’s logo, on their respective websites.   

Group work considerations: 

My first draft for an EPK was initially centred around being a ‘session guitarist’, but I had little consideration for how to apply this in a way that could be marketed. Through some group evaluation and peer feedback, I found my first draft of an EPK was lacking a ‘coherent way’ of conveying exactly my career was. This was due to just listing all my experiences, without refining to appropriate examples of session experience I had. Through this process, I realised the skills that I have developed are predominantly from live playing in various bands. Considering this, I decided a focus as a ‘live touring guitarist’ would better suite my skills and future aspirations. Furthermore, this would allow me to achieve consistent messaging through my bio sections, my focus on live photos and structuring my EPK around my live experiences. 

To do this, I sought some peer feedback on another draft, which considered these initial improvements. Through this, I received positive feedback on my brand identity, with it becoming ‘clearer’. As a result, the commercial application of my EPK also became much more relevant. This is as I have had direct experience in the field I was advertising my brand in, through evident examples. However, I also had negative feedback. This related to three things, which was my choice of photos used, not having enough future events on my ‘Tour dates’ page and not having testimonials like numerous touring guitarists use.  

In relation to my choice of photos, this was specifically due to ‘inconsistent’ themes and colour choices. Considering that I didn’t have as many photos as I would have wanted, I decided to get around this by choosing a ‘base theme’, as I discussed in relation to Kingfish’s website. Once I had done this, I had more consistency in nearly all of my photos. Going into the future, I will try and maintain this theme in my ‘live performance’ photos and dress wear, to again add a level of consistency and professionalism. In relation to number of ‘tour dates’, this is something that is difficult to achieve immediately. However, through improving the quality and following of my social media and continued work in my current projects, this is something as I see as part of my broader professional development. Lastly, to address the issue of including testimonials like professional touring guitarists, I used similarly descriptive language, such as on Matteo Mancuso’s ‘About’ website section. Instead of referencing accolades and appraisal from world renowned guitarists, I worked around this by using people that have commented on social media, as well as in person after performances I have done. 

Bibliography:

Aubergine legal (2024) ‘Who owns your social media content, legally?’. Available online: https://www.auberginelegal.co.uk/post/who-owns-your-social-media-content-legally [Accessed 25/4/25]

Gov.uk (2025) Intellectual property and your work. Available online: https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview [Accessed 23/04/25]

Gov.uk (2021) Copyright Notice: Digital images, photographs and the internet. Available online: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/copyright-notice-digital-images-photographs-and-the-internet/copyright-notice-digital-images-photographs-and-the-internet [Accessed 23/04/25]

Grammy Awards (2025). Grammy website, Kingfish. Available online: https://www.grammy.com/artists/christone-kingfish-ingram/251818 [Accessed 23/4/25]

Julian Lage (2025) Julian Lage ‘About’ section. Available online: http://www.julianlage.com [Accessed 23/04/25]

Kingfish (2023). Kingfish ‘bio’, ‘photos’ and ‘video’ section. Available online: https://www.christonekingfishingram.com/kingfish-home/ [Accessed 24/4/25]

Matteo Mancuso (2025) Matteo Mancuso ‘Home’ section. Available online: https://www.matteomancuso.net/home [Accessed 24/4/25]

Matteo Mancuso (2025) Press Kit. Available online: https://www.matteomancuso.net/_files/ugd/99be0f_d6f259d77b5a457b82a2323e4290f37b.pdf [Accessed 23/4/25]

Mateus Asato (2025) Mateus Asato ‘About’ page. Available online: https://mateusasato.com/en-us/about/ [Accessed 23/4/25]

Red Giant (2025). Dave Simpson Trio. Available online: https://www.redgiantofficial.com/gig-list [Accessed 27/04/25]

The Chynes (2024) ‘Stuck on Tomorrow’, Single [Stream]. Self-release.

The Chynes (2024) ‘Waiting to fly- live at Hillsborough’. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntcHF75N8dQ [Accessed 25/4/25]