Artist Website Analysis

For this task I have analysed the website of UK Urban artist; Skepta. His website URL is www.doinitagain.co.uk as his catchphrase is "I'm doin' it again". This is unique as most artists just use their name or a variation of their name as their website URL.

This is what the website's homepage looks like.
When logging onto the website, the viewer immediately sees a big picture of the artist to promote his image, accompanied by his name clearly written in a grafiti style font to match his urban genre of music. The whole theme of the website is quite urban as this will appeal to his fans more. In the top right corner there is a small music player where the user can hear samples of his most popular tracks to give them a taster of what the artist sounds like. Underneath this is a much bigger clue of what the artist is like, as there is a video player which automatically plays his latest music video in full length. To the left of the music player are links to Skepta's profile on other popular social networking websites such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and Ping. This allows people to follow him on their favourite websites and means Skepta will constantly be appearing on their newsfeeds for these websites if they choose to follow him. This also means that fans can easily and conveniently recieve updates from these sites without logging onto Skepta's official website all the time.

On the left is the navigation panel. The 'News' option will take users to a page where Skepta's most recent important news and updates are displayed along with 'Headlines'. The 'Gigs' option will take users to a page where they can see details on any upcoming gigs Skepta may be performing at. The 'Releases' option takes users to a page where they can download Skepta's latest free mixtape. The 'Videos' option allows users to watch Skepta's official music videos and 'other videos' such as freestyles for the radio. The 'Gallery' option shows users other press pictures of Skepta. The 'Store' option takes users to a store where they can purchase Skepta related accessories, clothing and of course Skepta's CDs. Fans can even purchase signed copies of his latest mixtape on this page. The 'About' section provides users with an informative text-based page which tells the story of Skepta so far and also mentions many of his associated artists, which promotes them too. The 'Contact' section then allows people to personally send Skepta fan e-mail or ask him any questions they may have. It is however unlikely that Skepta personally replies to these messages, and more likely that he has a PA or agent to do it.

Towards the bottom left of the screengrab is an option to log-in or sign up to Skepta's website. This means that hardcore fans can become a member of Skepta's website which would give them added  benefits of recieving official update emails on such things as upcoming albums, gigs and general information. At the bottom of the screengrab are images of his most recent album and mixtape releases so that fans can easily see if they have missed any recent releases. This is accompanied by a 'News' section so that fans can easily see if they have missed any important updates about Skepta's personal life, plans for any gigs or tours, and information on any upcoming releases.

There is also a list of gigs with dates and locations in the bottom left although this is empty as his tour just finished a few weeks ago and he will not be doing gigs for a while. At the bottom there is a massive section called 'Skepta Social' which allows users to instantly 'like' his page on Facebook, and also shows all of his most recent and most popular tweets on Twitter.