Promotional Websites

After looking at the theory behind designing a promotional site, I anaylsed various existing sites to see how they used the conventions and features.

Janelle Monae (http://www.jmonae.com/)

(Click to enlarge)

Janelle Monae's site has a lot of images and moving sections. It uses more colours than most websites, particularly black and white, orange, and different shades of pink. These multiple colours help to reflect the complex and varied nature of the music and her style and are extremely eye-catching.

The main page has a simple and stylish logo and a very simple but bold font showing her name. It has easy-to-see links to the different sections of the website, such as music, videos and photos.

All of the important text, like the artist's name and the sections of the site that most people will be looking for, are in a bold, sans serif font, and are white on a dark background. This makes them stand out and makes the website easy to navigate.

The latest and most sought-after updates on Janelle Monae, like her latest releases, new music videos and new projects. These are in a slide show to save space and add some motion to the website.

The website includes a simple player for listening to the artist's songs, making it easy for someone looking at the website to get a feel for what her musical style is and to decide if they are interested in buying it.

I think the website could actually be improved by having a link to buy each song on iTunes while it is playing, since people who are interested might be put off by not knowing where to buy it.


An interesting feature of the website is the prominent 'Sign Up Now' button, which allows fans to automatically be updated via email when the artist has any news. This is very easy to do and helps to build a list of people who are interested and who can be targeted as an audience for the music.


Continuing the theme of allowing fans to easily follow Janelle Monae's progress and remind them about her on a regular basis, the website has a blog of her latest news and apperances, which can be subscribed to using RSS.

The Adjusters (http://www.theadjusters.com/)

The Adjusters' website is extremely simple, without any animations or interactive sections. They use a lot of white space, and some muted reds and blues but no other colours. The website contains all the information needed, but doesn't look very professional because of the blocks of text and the bad design of some aspects, like the font.

The simple banner is, however, very effective. It uses a lot of white space, making it clear and easy to read. There are three different types of font used, making sure that the band name stands out from the rest of the banner. A basic but attractive logo is used to draw the attention of users to the band name and the links. The links do give a fairly clear way to navigate the site, but they are not as intuitive as on Janelle Monae's website.

The main page includes a succinct and interesting summary of the group, although the way it is all in one paragraph and in an unattractive font makes it less effective. There are no colours or images, just black text on a white background.

There is a simple news feed on the site, with the latest update shown on the homepage and the rest on the news page. However, there aren't options to subscribe to the updates by email or RSS, like Janelle Monae's website, so their usefulness is limited.

The bottom of the page has an email address to contact the band and a copyright notice. Although these are not features that make the website more interesting, they are important features to include in any website.

Beirut (http://www.beirutband.com/)

Beirut's site has a seemingly simple design, with all the content fitting onto one page. It has an old-fashioned and artistic feel to it, resembling a framed painting. The colours are all muted or black and white, adding to the old-fashioned feel and reflecting the music - inspired by traditional folk music from around the world.

One of the few splashes of colour is surrounding the band name, making it stand out. The rest of the colour is in the simple, animation that has a hand-drawn or perhaps lino-cut feel. The balloon moves across the 'painting' and the waves move, adding a dynamic feel to it and drawing the attention of anyone browsing the site.

A song from the band's latest album starts playing as soon as the website opens, and can be paused or controlled using the options in the top left. This gives an immediate taste of the music and hooks casual browsers in the first few seconds, but allows the music to be stopped by those who are simply looking for information.

The top edge of the 'painting' also has links to different areas of the site: the same typical sections as other artists' websites. These stand out in contrast to the light sky in the scene and can be clicked to open the desired page. The interesting way that the site works is that each section opens without navigating to a new page. Instead, the content of the frame simply changes, leaving the music playing. This is a clever and effective way of getting around the problem of the music stopping when a link is clicked, and also makes the site stand out as interesting and different.