Website Research: Taylor Swift

Website Research:

Taylor Swift

At first glance, I really liked Taylor Swift's homepage. It has a lot of pictures but not an overload of information. It only includes links to the information, which means you can focus on the photos and the artist themselves. Taylor swift has a reputation for connecting with her fans like they are friends, and the homepage of her website shows that because even though it promotes her products like her new music video, her world tour and her new album, it isn't overpowered by self-promotion and plugs, and incorporates professional photos taken at red carpet events, but also selfies and personal photos taken of her with friends or at home. This makes the audience feel closer to her because she is sharing intimate photos with them.

The navigation menu is straightforward, and includes a hash tag like Katy Perry's page but one that isn't as blatantly self-promoting as hers. This works well with Taylor Swifts view that music is the most important thing, and not the fame. The menu bar has most of the typical pages like About, News, Events, Media etc. The one that stands out on the menu is the Taylor Connect page. It essentially has the same function as a Social page, but by putting her name on it, it reinforces the idea of a connection between the audience and the artist. The logo on websites is usually in the top left corner of the page, but hers is in the right corner. It is usually in the top left corner because people tend to look from left to right when viewing things. This is another show of music first-fame second.

Like everything on the website, her biography page is simple looking but interesting. Contrary to how other stars write their own biography page, hers is written by someone else. This makes her seem less self-obsessed because its someone else talking about how successful she is. It also doesn't say things about her personal life or her personality, it only talks about her achievements. This emphasises that the awards and fame aren't her.

The biography is impersonal so of course the bottom part of the page is dedicated to Taylor's Tumblr page. It is a collection of text posts, pictures and videos that come from her Tumblr page, which is (supposedly) run by herself, even though its common that many celebrities have people that run their social media pages for them. It makes her seem more authentic this way. 

Her news page looks quite sparse and there isn't a lot going on. The news stories are mostly recent awards, her place on the charts and titles she's earned like 'Female of the Year'. I think this is good because it doesn't overload the audience with  too much to take in. Sometimes simple is best. The style of the page reminds me of a scrapbook, which keeps with the idea of nostalgia that she presents with her new album '1989' which features a polaroid of her from nose to hips. I like the way that the website is consistent with the album in its theme but it differs in fonts and pictures.

When you click on the music page, it automatically shows the most recent album first and its track list with a button that plays the hook of the song for around 30 seconds, but it also has options to buy the album on Itunes, Amazon, Google Play and the Merchandise page. This is unique because most websites wouldn't have options to buy the music from all of these different platforms, but this website takes into consideration all of the different ways music is consumed these days.

Underneath the album and the track list on the same page is a list of Taylor Swift's album dating back to her debut self-titled album. When clicked on, they reveal the same layout and options to buy depending on which albums are available on which platforms.

I think the way that the music is presented on the website is clear and simple, and I also think that it does well by advertising the album for people to buy because it comes with bonus tracks like original demos and acoustic versions. This gives the audience incentive to actually purchase the album rather than listening to it for free on YouTube. Interestingly, Taylor Swift decided to remove all of her music from Spotify recently, which gives the audience more reason to buy it because they cant own it for free on Spotify.