R+P Post 11: Artist websites that have inspired and influenced my ideas

After looking at several different artist websites, I have made a list of particular features or points-of-interest on the various websites that I feel may be logical to include on our website.

Martin Garrix website

• Social media bottom left
• Play track in middle of screen
• Home, Tour, Music, Lifestyle, Contact, Multiply
• Multiply allows users to interact with website by editing photos
• Lifestyle shows a feed of pictures (like Instagram) showing off his life and what he does
• "Join Team Garrix" at bottom allows user to connect through Facebook

Calvin Harris website

• Video of latest track is focal feature
• Can scroll down for videos, instagram feed, random things
• When the navigation button in the top right is clicked, a new menu appears with links to pages such as "News, Live, Releases, Videos, Store, and Newsletter". 

Click-able icons for his YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify accounts also pop up.

1. All of these websites have links to their store either on the homepage or in the homepage menu. I think this is something we should do as it makes it fast and easy for our audience to head to buy merchandise, theoretically maximising our artist's profits.
2. Tour dates and dates of other events are made very clear. This is something very important that I think we should take into account with our website as tours provide the biggest financial profit for most artists.
3. Most of these websites also have optional sign-up forms to receive updates and newsletters from the artist. This acts as a great gratification for dedicated fans as they will feel like they're getting the important news first, and that they are 'in-the-know'.
4. These websites show off the artist's latest music video on the homepage, something that can instantly attract and divert the audience's attention from what they were doing onto the video.
5. The websites I looked at also include numerous links to the artist's presence on other websites, most notably social media like Facebook, Twitter, and SoundCloud. We will definitely include these kinds of links at the bottom of our artist's website as this will allow greater publicity for the artist due to people sharing, 'liking', or following the artist's social media pages. Furthermore, due to the recent proliferation of technology, it is likely all of our audience will have their own social media accounts.
6. The websites aim to reflect their artist's music and constructed personality as well as possible, this includes through the style of the site as well as the colour scheme and any graphics there may be.

Porter Robinson's website has a massive emphasis on interactivity.
It has a chat box where fans can talk to each other whilst they watch
countless Porter videos. There are also navigation links at the top, and
social media links in the bottom left.

The overall function of these artists' websites seems to be as follows:

• To reinforce their brand and style
• To keep audience (specifically fans) updated
• To inform the audience about things such as tours and events
• To promote new songs and albums
• To act as a way for the audience to feel like they're able to 'interact' with the artist
• To encourage sharing and spreading via word-of-mouth on social media