While creating the product and the ancillaries we had to make sure that there was some sort of link between them to make sure that the products contained some form of synergy/ or at least something that linked them together. Most products tend to use some form of image or text to signify the album. Famous acts can use their own name to create a sense of synergy between the products.  That meant that somehow in our main product and ancillaries we had to create something that appeared on all of them to create a link between them, while also subtly linking them together with ideas within the piece.

 

One way that we did this was to create our own Muse logo that would appear on the poster and the album cover in noticeable places and at the beginning of the music video. This created a link between all the products as this logo appeared on all three. I feel like this was a good decision as it meant that there was a clear sense that all of these products belonged together, and weren’t just three different products created for no reason.

 

To create a specific link between the poster and the cover we decided that we would incorporate the same idea into both of them. We did this by using the idea of a scientific but natural kind of image, much like in the Muse album ‘The 2nd Law’, with this cover they had a brain mapped out with various neurons in different colours, with the brain being the natural part of this and the neurons and colours making it look scientific. We did this by using an image of a tree that I had taken and manipulated it so that it was full of colour and then we made another version that was black and white; this created the scientific but natural look that we had been looking for. We used this image as the poster to make it both eye-catching and interesting; we had it so that the title of the album was in a different colour to oppose the colour of the tree in the background. This image also featured on the album art and so this also created a link between these two items. I feel like this worked really well as in the music video we were exploring the lives of the people and this is a very natural thing to be looking into so it seemed to fit to have the album cover and the poster to reflect this somehow.

 

The idea of reflection is one that we used as a way to synergise between the three products. This is subtle but is present in all of the pieces. The music video features all of the same shots playing forward and backwards at different points in the song on both the left and right hand side versions of the video.  This in itself is a form of reflection and I feel like it worked really well when combined with the ancillary products. Within both the poster and the album cover we used the tree reflection picture to again show this link between all the products and although a subtle one, one that I feel works really well.  

 

But we decided not to use things like the ring and the glass in the ancillaries as although they were key to the music video; they had no relevance to the overall album that we were creating. As we were creating the artwork for the entire album not just the one song. This then meant that we had to create a theme that applied to all of them and not just the music video.

 

The name that Muse had for this album was “Origins of Symmetry” and so this was what gave us the idea for the reflection theme and that means that the name of the album combined with the poster would also provide some sense of synergy between all of the products.