Critical reflection

 This is my critical reflection essay blog for my comp 3 Music video project

For our component 3 project, My group chose the music promotion package. We decided to  promote “Shapeshifter (2025)” by Lorde, covered by our fictional artist named “Kika Laene”. The song belongs to the electro-pop genre and we targeted female young adults aged 16-28. Furthermore, we created a digipak, social-media page and music video to ideally showcase our artist’s persona.

 Branding refers to the way a brand is perceived and recognized by its audience. It is built through the impressions and ideas that consumers associate with the brand which are shaped by a clear and consistent message. A brand’s message should be thought of and planned from the beginning because it strongly influences how consumers see and connect with the brand. For our Music video, all the elements work together to create a clear and consistent overall brand for our artist. The music video, digipak, and social media all share the same message. Our artist 'Kika Laene' represents growth and building back confidence for her emotional strength. In the music video, we showed her past self with minimal ‘no make-up’ make-up look and warmer lighting to showcase her vulnerability while in contrast, her present self wears bold and glittery eye make-up inspired by the HBO series ‘Euphoria’. The purple eye look is symbolic because they represent her bruises and emotional scars shown in the MV but instead of completely disregarding her past, she uses it as a form of self-expression. Across the MV, digipak, and social media, the overall look is dark, but there is always a small splash of bright colours that we intended to pursue to symbolise hope and the saying “there is always a light at the end of the tunnel’’. An example would be the digipak. A splash of yellow sunlight breaks through the dark blue colours to showcase this. This supports her star persona because she is shown as someone who had a hard and traumatic past but has grown from it and instead turns the pain into strength. This links to Richard Dyer's Theory of stardom which states that a star needs to be both relatable and someone you can look up to. 

our research into the pop and electro-pop genre strongly influenced both our music video and digipak. Especially in how we conformed and subverted genre conventions. We researched existing album covers and music videos and found that our genre typically follows the same patterns that are bold colours and visuals, strange visuals, creative, expressive personality, euphoric, and dramatic. Rather than just straight-up copying all this we instead focused more on how electro-pop artists construct identity through these elements. We decided to use a full body image of our artist in the front cover  instead of doing abstract art like most electro-pop album covers do. However, we didn’t position her in a clean or glamorous way. The duplicated pose on the front creates

Final product

  Here is the Final Product to our Blogpost! from our Video, Digipak and Socmed!

Final Video

GDrive Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RioFwh6nffjjbqU17qNb_sjTPRntlDCy/view?usp=sharing 

DigiPack

Social Media Page

Branding Research

 

Branding Research

This is our research on branding and how it will influence our artist for our music video project.

Zara Larsson

Who is Zara Larsson?

Zara Larsson is a Swedish pop singer who becomes famous after winning the talent show Talang in 2008. She is recognised for her strong vocals, confident personality, and popular pop songs like "Lush Life" and "Symphony." Today she is known as an international pop artist with a modern sound who often uses her music to promote confidence and independence.

To deeply understand the purpose of using Zara Larsson, it is important to look at her current persona / branding and the reasons behind her shift. Beforehand, she was seen as a more generic pop singer with a safe and cliche image, but now she has rebranded herself with bold colours, a stronger pop vibe, and a clearer personality that helps her stand out more in the music industry.

Zara Larsson's 

Social Media Platform

Throughout her social pages, we can clearly see her shift in style, branding, and persona, moving from a simple artist image to a more bold, expressive, and personal presence.

Zara Larsson's 

Music Albums

Even though she started as a generic artist, she has now developed a strong aesthetic persona. This change is also show in her albums, as many of them follow her new branding by featuring the symbolic yellow hibiscus flower on remixed versions released after her rebranding.

Zara Larsson's 

Music Videos

Before Branding

Lush Life 

(2015)

After Branding

Midnight Sun 

(2025)

In this case, Zara Larsson's rebranding faced a minor downfall due to controversy around Midnight Sun. However, because she had a strong branding and clear identity, it did not seriously damage her image. Instead, it helped her stay recognised and relevant, showing that strong branding can protect an artist from a major downfall.

Zara Larsson's 

Magazine Shoots

In shoots like this, magazines avoid showing the 'model's' usual persona and identity. Instead, they change her image using styling, makeup, lighting, and concepts to show a different side of models. This helps audiences see the transformation and prevents image from feeling repetitive, as for Zara, her vibrant aesthetic. As a result, the model stays interesting and relevant to viewers.

What Caused Her Shift?

Overall, this matters to our artist because gaining popularity often requires rebranding. This can be seen in Zara Larsson, who changed from a generic singer into a colourful, summer-focused personality. This idea is applied to our artist, who shifts from an ordinary girl with big dreams into a euphoric persona that reflects who she is now. This transformation helps audience build interest and recognition. This links to the theory of stardom, which states that stardom is contracted by media to attract audiences and create profit. Zara Larsson is an example of this, as her song Symphony went viral on TikTok through the dolphin meme trend, which then explains the textual productivity in the theory of fandom where fan-made memes gives fans a sense of ownership which increases her visibility and strengthening her branding through audience interaction. 

What brand identity are they giving off?

Zara Larsson's brand identity is confident, bold, and expressive. She presents herself as empowering and independent. She is no longer a generic pop singer but a recognisable international artist with a clear personality. Her branding shows strength, individuality, and confidence, which attracts audiences and makes her memorable.

What is their persona?

Her persona is confident and playful. She is seen as someone who is strong and self-aware. Even though this persona feels natural, it is carefully constructed through her music, social media, and visuals. Fans read her as a symbol of empowerment and individuality, which connects to the theory of stardom where a star is created to represent certain values while staying relatable.

What image are they creating for themselves, how?

Zara creates the image of a bold, expressive and colourful pop artist. She does this through her music videos, album work, social media, and fashion. An example would be as her albums now feature the yellow hibiscus flower as a visual symbol. Even magazine shoots allow her image to transform with makeup and styling, which helps maintain her vibrant, evolving brand.

How do they speak to their fans?

Zara loves to speak to her fans in a fun and expressive way, often using the GenZ emojis like "💕✨🐬🌺🌞" and lots of repeated exclamation marks (!!!!!). She uses these emojis to show excitement, personality, and a playful vibe. She shared opinions, test new lows, and responds to fan reactions. Fans help shape her rebranding by giving feedback and she uses this to improve her image. This makes her brand feel fun and visually connected to her bold aesthetic.

What visuals link all of the media products together?

The visual linking her media products include bold colours, bright lighting, confident poses, expressive fashion, and symbols like the yellow hibiscus flower. This consistent visual style makes her branding recognisable and memorable across all platforms.

How could this artist influence you?

1. The big shift of persona

Zara shows that changing persona is an important part of growing as an artist. At the start of her career, her image was safe and generic, which made it harder for audiences to remember her. By shifting into a more confident, bold, and expressive persona, she became more recognisable and relatable. This teaches our artist that rebranding is not a weakness but a strategy. A clear persona helps audiences understand who the artist is and builds stronger recognition.

2. The aesthetic, reversed to a euphoric look

Her current visuals focus on bright, summer theme aesthetic with bold colours and playful energy. Our artist can take inspiration from this but reverse it into a more euphoric look, using expressive visuals that reflect emotion, freedom, and personal growth. This shows that aesthetics are not just decoration, but a way to communicate mood, meaning, and identity to the audience.

3. Magazine shoots do not define her identity

Zara's magazine shoots often show her in different styles and concepts chosen by the magazine. These images are creative and eye catching, but they do not fully define who she is as an artist. Her true identity is build through her music, consistent visuals, and interaction with fans. This teaches our artist that while magazine shoots are important for promotion, the brand remain consistent across all platforms.

4. Social media shift after career blow up

After gaining major attention, Zara used social media to strengthen her rebranding. She communicated more directly with fans, shared her personality, and reacted to feedback. This helped her stay relevant and rebuild trust. This shows our artist that social media is a powerful tool for controlling image, responding to controversy, and maintaining a loyal fan base.

5. Very explorative with her style

Zara is not afraid to experiment with fashion, makeup, and visuals. She tries new looks, changes aesthetic, and involves her style over time. This shows confidence and creativity. Our artist can learn to explore her own style freely, test new ideas, and take creative risks. Being explorative helps an artist grow, stay interesting, and avoid becoming repetitive or predictable.

social media: research & development

This blogpost contains more detail research and development for our social media. This blogpost was made by Eileen.

RESEARCH

Our (initial) Instagram Page

(this is image 1)

Olivia Rodrigo

Design by Eileen Milano

Does it feel personal or is someone else creating content for them?

Olivia Rodrigo’s Instagram page feels more personal rather than fully controlled by a management team. Even though it’s clear that some of her content like professional

photoshoots and brand collaborations is carefully planned (because she still is a singer), the overall page still feels

very much like her.

This is because she continues to post about her teenage life, such as spending time with friends, doing things she

enjoys, and sharing small everyday moments. These posts make her feel more relatable and authentic, instead of

appearing like a celebrity whose account is completely run by others. Although professionals are likely involved

behind the scenes, Olivia still seems to have a strong say in what gets posted, which reduces the feeling that her

page is overly managed and instead makes it feel genuine.

What do they post on their social media page? Can you group the different posts into categories?

From the three screenshots I took, Olivia Rodrigo’s posts can be grouped into personal and promotional (or career-related)

content.

Her personal posts show her “ordinary girl” lifestyle, such as baking, hanging out with friends, and sharing random

moments from her daily life. This makes her appear down-to-earth and relatable to her audience. She also posts

promotional content, including brand collaborations like her partnership with Lancome’s Juicy Tubes, where the visuals are more polished and clearly used to promote a product. Additionally, her career-related posts

focus on her life as a singer, including behind-the-scenes moments from tour, photos from performances, and

professional photoshoots on stage.

By mixing these different types of content, Olivia is able to balance her personal identity with her professional

image as an artist.

How does this artist promote their music?

Olivia Rodrigo promotes her music in a way that feels natural and subtle where she still shows somehow that she’s

also still just this teenager that has developed to an artist through her emotional songs from her backstory of her

teenage rage, rather than overly forced, structured, planned or repetitive. From the screenshots, a lot of her promotional

content is blended into her everyday posts, such as behind-the-scenes photos from tour, on-stage performance shots,

and studio-related content. This makes her music promotion feel like a part of her life instead of a separate marketing

strategy.

She also uses professional visuals when necessary, especially for tours, album-related posts, and collaborations, which

helps reinforce her credibility as an ARTIST. However, instead of constantly pushing links or announcements, Olivia

relies on storytelling and visuals to remind her audience of her music career. This approach allows her to promote her

work while still maintaining a personal and relatable online presence.

How has this social media influenced you?

Olivia Rodrigo’s social media has influenced the way we approached creating our own account, as her page shows that an artist does not need to be overly polished or strictly aesthetic to be effective. Instead, mixing personal moments with creative and music-related content can make an artist feel more authentic and relatable which is where she can show her ordinariness.

This is reflected in our own social media page, where we chose to post freely and express ourselves without following a strict or forced concept. Similar to Olivia’s page, our content includes casual, personal moments alongside creative work, which helps create a more genuine connection with the audience. By referencing Olivia’s approach, we learned that allowing personality and real-life moments into an artist’s social media can be just as impactful as professional content, especially when trying to build authenticity with viewers as a new upcoming artist.

Lizzy Mcalpine

Design by Eileen Milano

What do they post on their social media page? (WHAT)

Based on the screenshots, Lizzy McAlpine’s social media content can be grouped into personal, career-related, and promotional posts.

Her personal content includes casual photos of her daily life, such as hanging out with friends, selfies, nature shots, and random moments that feel unplanned and genuine. These posts make her appear very down-to-earth and emotionally open. Her career-related content focuses on her life as a musician, including studio recordings, acoustic performances, live shows, and behind-the-scenes moments from tours. Lastly, her promotional content includes album announcements, song-related visuals, and posts that still subtly promotes her music without being overly commercial. Overall, her page feels calm, minimal, and more emotionally driven

Does it feel personal or is someone else creating content for them? (WHO)

Lizzy McAlpine’s Instagram page also feels highly personal like Olivia’s, but also with some hints telling us that she has a manager from her professional team. Many of her posts though appear unfiltered and spontaneous, showing that she is still directly involved in creating and choosing what she shares.

Unlike highly polished celebrity accounts, Lizzy’s content does not follow a strict aesthetic or branding style. Instead, it feels intimate and raw, which aligns closely with her identity as an indie artist. While some professional involvement may exist for music-related promotions, the overall impression is that Lizzy has strong creative control over her page, making it feel authentic and emotionally honest rather than manufactured.

How does the artist promote their music?

Lizzy McAlpine promotes her music in a subtle and emotionally driven way. Rather than constantly posting announcements or advertisements, she integrates her music naturally into her content through studio clips, live performances, and behind-the-scenes moments. This approach makes her promotion feel organic and sincere, rather than forced.

She often lets the emotion of the song speak for itself, using simple visuals and minimal captions. By doing this, she creates curiosity and emotional connection, encouraging listeners to explore her music without feeling pressured. This promotional style fits her genre and helps maintain the personal tone of her social media presence.

How has this social media influenced you?

Lizzy McAlpine’s social media has influenced the way we approached our own Instagram page by showing us that

simplicity and authenticity can be more effective than perfection. Her page does not rely on a strict aesthetic or

heavy editing, which made us feel more confident in posting freely and expressing ourselves naturally.

This influence can be seen in our own account, where we chose to focus on mood, emotion, and creative expression

rather than a highly curated layout (image 1/ our instagram page screenshot)Similar to Lizzy’s approach, our contentprioritises honesty and personality, allowing our page to feel genuine rather than staged. Through researching Lizzy’s

social media, we learned that being real and emotionally open can help build a stronger connection with our audience.

Gracie Abrams

Design by Eileen Milano

What do they post on their social media page? (WHAT)

Based on the screenshots, Gracie Abrams’ social media content can be seen as promotional, career-related, and limited personal posts.

The majority of her content is promotional and professional, including magazine features, album visuals, tour photos, performance shots, and “carefully curated imagery” related to her music releases and journey. These posts are highly polished, which from my research, often follows a specific mood or colour palette that reflects her brand as an artist. There are fewer personal or everyday-life posts compared to Olivia Rodrigo and Lizzy McAlpine, which makes her page feel more focused on her identity as a professional musician rather than her personal life and what she does on a daily basis as an ordinary human being.

Does it feel personal or is someone else creating content for them? (WHO)

Gracie Abrams’ Instagram page feels more professionally managed compared to the two other artists I've researched. While her personality is still present through emotional visuals and expressive performances, we can clearly sense a strong act of planning and curation throughout her feed.

I've concluded this by her very minimal Instagram bio, which mainly includes information to reach her music, suggesting that her page functions as a professional platform rather than a personal diary. Although Gracie likely still has creative input and obviously SOME personal content, the consistency and promotional focus of her content suggest that a management or creative team plays a significant role in shaping her online presence and is clearly shown alot more than Olivia’s or Lizzy’s.

How does the artist promote their music?

Gracie Abrams promotes her music through common expectations of a known artist, which are highly curated visuals and strategic promotional posts (which is super different compared to Olivia’s and Lizzy’s since they do not DOMINATE their page with these type of content). She frequently shares content related to album releases, tours, live performances, and media appearances, such as magazine covers and professional photoshoots.

Unlike more casual promotional styles, her music promotion relies heavily on mood, storytelling, and visual consistency, but through promotions of her release. This helps create a strong artistic brand and positions her music as more cinematic and professional. By focusing on quality rather than more casual updates, her promotion feels intentional and aligned with the industry standards for artists.

How has this social media influenced you?

Gracie Abrams’ social media influenced our understanding of how an artist can use Instagram as more of a professional promotional tool rather than more of a personal space. Compared to Olivia Rodrigo and Lizzy McAlpine, her page showed us that maintaining distance between personal life and public image can also be an effective strategy.

This contrast helped us reflect on our own social media choices. While we leaned more towards a personal and expressive approach, researching Gracie’s page made us more aware of how structure, branding, and consistency can shape an artist’s image. Her approach highlighted that there are different successful ways to present an artist online, depending on the message and identity they want to communicate.

UPDATE REBRAND: Major Shift in Socmed

UPDATE REBRAND SS by Eileen Milano

Explaination:

After receiving feedback from an actual artist/singer (Lamiya’s sister Assia Keva), we decided to make a major shift in the direction of our social media project. While our previous research and development focused on balancing personal and promotional content, Lam’s sister said that our page felt too much/more like an INFLUENCER account rather than representing a new or upcoming music artist. This feedback became such a sudden and major turning point for our project, as it allowed us to redo and redirect us to see how artists in the music industry actually present themselves online.

Instead of starting from zero and completely deleting our earlier research, we chose to continue and kind of BUILD ON IT. Our initial analysis of artists such as Olivia Rodrigo and Lizzy McAlpine helped us understand the importance of authenticity and relatability. However, through further reflection and industry feedback, we realised that many artists, especially during an album cycle, intentionally shift away from “ordinary” content and focus almost entirely on promotion, branding, and artistic identity. This led us to fully rebrand our social media page into a more professionally driven and promotional platform.

Talking more about the shift from our “Influencer content” to almost fully “Promotional Artist” branding

The main change in our rebrand was moving away from casual, everyday influencer-style posts and focusing instead on “high-quality” or “industry-focused” content like posts from magazines, awards, and professional photoshoots. This aligns more closely with how artists

are showing themselves through their instagram within the music industry, where their social media often acts as an

extension of their current project rather than a personal diary anymore BECAUSE of the new launch.

Our aim was to make the page feel less like someone posting for engagement and more like an artist building a

COHESIVE era. This means like prioritising visuals that feel intentional, cinematic, and connected to the music,

rather than more spontaneous lifestyle posts. So the account now is more as a “professional portfolio” than a personal

space.

Artist References (including Industry examples)

To support this rebrand, I researched artists who use Instagram almost entirely as a promotional tool, specifically during their album launch timelines.

Lorde is a clear example of this approach. Her Instagram contains a very limited number of posts, all of which are directly connected to her current album and promotional posts from her new launch. Examples are like the Truck with her “Ultrasound” tour dates and details, and her NewYork magazine. Rather than posting frequently, Lorde carefully curates what appears on her page, making every post feel more straightforward and deliberate. This reinforces the idea that her Instagram exists to serve the music, and less of her everyday life as an ordinary human being instead of a well-known singer.

Kanye West takes this concept even further by using his Instagram as a temporary and focused space. He often deletes previous posts and only uploads content relevant to his current project or things he just wants to post during that timeline even aside from music, but in this context, examples are album announcements, visuals, or statements. His page does not function as a traditional social media profile, but rather as a timeline for whatever “artistic phase" he is currently in. This shows how an artist can completely remove the expectation of consistency or personal updates and instead treat Instagram as an extension of their creative work.

Charli XCX also strongly influenced our decision. During her album eras, her Instagram becomes fully saturated with promotional content tied to that specific project as I've mentioned above. Although she posts more frequently than Lorde, almost everything she posted relates to the album she just released, which is Brat. Starting from visuals and typography to colour schemes and performances and especially the promotional content like the Vogue magazine post and other posts of events she’s in FROM her album launch. This reinforces a strong brand identity and clearly separates her role as an artist from that of an influencer.

Application to our OWN Socmed page

Inspired by these artists, we decided to restructure our page to function to this “newer way”. Our rebranded account

now focuses on fully promotional content, where each post contributes to our goal of building a clear artistic identity, especially as a new upcoming artist.

Rather than trying to appear relatable through everyday posts, we aimed to communicate professionalism, seriousness

, and commitment to the music. This is also to not get the wrong idea of being an influencer rather than an upcoming

singer, based on/from the feedback we received.

This shift also helped us understand that being an artist online does not require constant personal exposure to prove

her ordinariness. Instead, it can be more effective to let the work speak for itself as an upcoming artist. By limiting

personal content and focusing on visuals related to music, performances, and industry recognition, our page now feels

more aligned with how real artists present themselves during important career moments.

Reflection on the Rebrand decision

This rebrand is technically the whole point of us realizing and learning on parts that we got “wrong” during our

progress with the rebrand, therefore this rebrand represents growth in our understanding of social media within the

music industry. Initially, we believed that balancing personal and promotional content was the strategy we are going

for. However, through feedback and further research, we learned that context also matters. For an upcoming artist

entering a serious phase of their career, a fully promotional approach can be more impactful and not off track.

Overall, this major shift strengthened our project by showing adaptability, reflection, and responsiveness to real

industry feedback. Rather than treating social media as a place to “post anything,” and parts of our set just so we

HAVE an instagram for the artist, we want to be more serious on it and now we can also understand it as a powerful

tool for branding, kind of storytelling, and also artistic positioning.

The new DEVELOPMENTS of our Instagram Page

(From initial concept to FINAL rebrand) (How we want it to look like now)

Our Instagram page went through clear development from the initial concept to the final rebranded version. Before, the page focused on a mix of personal and promotional content, based on the research I made inspired by artists such as Olivia Rodrigo and Lizzy McAlpine. This included more casual posts that aimed to build relatability and emotional connection with the audience, similar to influencer-style content which we thought could prove her ordinariness.

However, after reviewing our page and receiving feedback from Lam’s sister who fortunately is an artist within the music industry, we found that this approach did not fully reflect how a serious music artist is typically represented online. As a result, we developed the page further by shifting towards a fully promotional and artist-focused Instagram. This completely affected the page in our choice of content, tone, and visuals of the page.

The new Instagram page now prioritises professional imagery, performance visuals, and industry-style posts, such as promotional photos and music-related content. Unlike the previous version, which felt more personal and informal, the rebranded page presents a clear artistic identity and functions as more of a “platform to support her music” rather than everyday life. This development shows how our project evolved from an initial idea into a more realistic and industry-appropriate representation of an artist’s social media presence.

DEVELOPMENT

Magazine (Promotional Content)

Design by Eileen Milano

Rather than taking inspiration from overly commercialised and globally dominant magazines such as Vogue, we chose to model our visuals after Bazaar Indonesia, a more “niche” option and is known for its refined, artistic, and culturally grounded editorials. This decision allowed us to present our artist in a way that feels elegant and credible without being overly mainstream or overexposed.

As part of this development, we conducted a garden-themed editorial photoshoot, using natural settings to really show her sense of growth, calmness, and finally her maturity. The imagery was then edited and styled by Kristine to follow a Bazaar Indonesia editorial way, enhancing the idea that the artist is being introduced through a high-fashion, magazine-led lens (professional). This approach supports our rebrand, as it shifts the Instagram page for it to function like a “digital magazine” showcasing highly curated visuals, professional photoshoots, and promotional content that emphasise more on the professionalism side rather than more of her everyday lifestyle.

In addition to this, we also conducted a smaller editorial-style shoot we put for “Miu Miu” (as she was wearing the miu-miu glasses) for the artist’s AMI Awards appearance, where the look was shown as a sponsored moment by the brand. Unlike our main blue, euphoric colour palette, this shoot we made intentionally created a different tone and visual direction. We want this decision to show how real artists often adapt their visual identity when collaborating with fashion brands, while still maintaining their overall professionalism and credibility.

Although the colour palette of this shoot does not follow the gloomy blue tones of our main era, it was included to demonstrate versatility and realism within the music industry, being able to ADAPT to dress for award shows and being able to fit into many kinds of Fashion herself, as an artist in general and not always as the persona of her MV theme. Fashion sponsorships and award appearances often require artists to temporarily step outside their established aesthetic. By going for this Miu Miu inspired shoot, we show an understanding of how promotional content can vary depending on context, while still fitting within a curated, editorial Instagram feed.

POST DETAILS (Background & Caption)

Another key reason behind our rebrand was the realisation that our previous posts were way too much green-toned photoshoots, especially from the garden visuals. While the imagery itself was aesthetically pleasing, the overuse of green began to shift and stray our artist’s identity we wanted from the start and made the page feel inconsistent rather than cohesive. This highlighted the need for a more focused visual direction.

The green arrow i have put on the image above shows how we only had ONE post that was on our theme and following the color tone we initially wanted. And this picture was taken from set.

After the major switch-up, we knew this was what we really wanted.

As part of our development, we made the conscious decision to strictly limit our colour palette to blue and navy tones, focusing on a muted, gloomy blue atmosphere inspired by Euphoria’s vibe. This tonal shift allowed us to better understand our emotional depth of the artist we built and align the Instagram feed with the aura we want her to give off. By committing to this restricted colour scheme, the page feels more intentional, cinematic, and structured (neat in a way), showing how the idea that every post is part of a larger concept and has much more meaning to it rather than it being just a posted image of the artist.

Choosing a Profile Picture

BEFORE

AFTER

I learned that the profile picture is treated as a crucial element of first impression, as it is one of the first visuals audience see when viewing an artist’s page. Initially, we considered using an image of the artist laying on grass in a full glam look, including styled hair, makeup, and silk outfit. However, after reviewing this option, we felt that the image was visually overwhelming and did not clearly communicate our intended theme. The heavy styling combined with the natural background made the concept feel too busy and the complete OPPOSITE of the message we wanted to convey.

As part of our development process, we decided to take a more straightforward and intentional approach. We chose a profile picture with a blue background and a zoomed-in focus on the artist’s face, allowing the makeup and facial expression to become the main point of attention. This decision was inspired by the visual style of our Euphoria vibe, where close-up shots and dramatic makeup are also often used to express emotional chaos, vulnerability, and intensity.

By simplifying the background and emphasising the face, the profile picture more effectively communicates our theme and emotional tone. The blue colour palette reinforces the gloomy, introspective mood of the artist, while the euphoric makeup visually represents inner conflict and chaos. This final choice strengthens and ties together the artist’s identity and ensures that the profile picture aligns clearly with the overall branding and concept of our artists' Instagram page.

Instagram LAYOUT

First Draft

Revised Draft

We planned everything out on paper in class and even got to revise the plan again together so we had a clear path of what we wanted to showcase and how we really wanted to tell Kika Laene’s journey. This planning helped us stay organised and think ahead about the flow of our content. However, after a big last-minute change and rebrand, we were no longer able to follow this plan, as our page shifted to being fully promotional with no clear personal timeline. Despite this, the planning process was still important, as it helped shape our understanding of storytelling and structure before the final direction was decided.

Picking out a Username

We didnt really have much of an issue creating the username for Kika Laene's account as we wanted

her username to be simple and follow more of an artist standard/stereotype where they keep their

username simple with just using their real name. And fortunately the username @kikalaene without any

additional extra letters were available on instagram, so therefore we decided to just go for it straight away.