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An Introduction

When I look at this website I see everything I expect and could want from a musical artist’s site; we have interaction, creativity, news, updates, a store for the artist and numerous ways to contact him all on a very simple and easy-to navigate page.

Ed Sheeran truly captures the audience he’s appealing to with this site, it’s almost amateurish look grounds it tightly to the audience who wouldn’t have anything else, anything flashier would be too glamorous but anything less and the page would look empty. Looking at this site you wouldn’t guess he’s one of the most famous performers in recent years, and that’s what I love about this website, it doesn’t try to be more than it is and caters perfectly to the audience receiving it. Parts of the site do look quite amateurish in a bad fashion however, the sign up box and store for example look a bit out of place against the rest of the colour scheme, but overall a great site.

Interactivity

Starting with one of it’s strongest points, the website is engaging for the audience, it’s more than a simple page to look at, it’s something to explore. Along the left of the screen we have a simple list of sub-pages detailing each of the listed content; one thing that stands out to me in this list however is the “lyrics” section, never before have I seen this in another site, and it’s a great idea it’s encouraging the audience to join Ed’s performances. If I design a website it would be sure to include this, to the acoustic audience who commonly perform their own covers of artists like Ed Sheeran its great and likely extremely utilized. While lyric sites can also offer lyrics, this is the official site and with this you have all the lyrics of every song up as soon as the song is released, (I’ve checked this).

So when you open this page you are hit with a multitude of options, you can see what Ed’s been up to via his latest video and album, you can see what his fans are saying via the latest tweet, you can see the latest stock in his official store and so forth. The first time I visited this site I easily spent 40 minutes exploring it, compared to say Dashboard Confessional’s which took 5 minutes to read and cover; this difference speaks volume for the level of interaction the audience can find in this website. The site also has countless external links

One of my favourites is the audio player you can launch at the top of the site, so whilst exploring the site you can tune into any of his past records furthering the emersion this website offers. Next to this we have 5 of arguably the biggest social media formats in current internet, each able to provide heaps of entertaining content for fans. I am however surprised there isn’t an Instagram or snap-chat link there though, after some reading I’ve found Ed Sheeran pretty active on there and makes the odd post with 4.7 million followers and 930 posts maybe this is to reduce the clutter of the site? The picture and video section of the site could also have made these two formats of social media redundant, they don’t have the same content as his Instagram though. Similar to Patch Bawn Ed Sheeran has his YouTube video up on his site, however in a playlist rather than an individual video, this is much more effective and allows the audience to watch more videos than 1.

While each of the interactions may be small at a glance, opening the link will display full pages dedicated to each subject, giving much more to the audience than they may first expect, which is always a good thing if it’s something they actively clicked on. The subscription option is something that is a regular occurrence on the bigger artist’s sites, and a great one, updates on the artist and his merch is optional and a great feature for fans if they have an interest in it.

Multicultural

It’s rare for an acoustic artist to become huge, let alone famous overseas and so I was surprised and glad to see that this website has 7 current versions, each catering to the cultures needs such as language. On the French sites and such even the tweets listed are taken from French fans to minimize the language barrier. The language modifiers are located distinctly in the top right of the page making them clearly visible. This while obviously practical shows that the artist tries to cater to his audience as best he can, wherever they may be.

This language modifier obviously doesn’t extend to his music videos and such, but the idea of maximising accessibility to his fans is certainly praise-worthy.

Artist Bio?

One thing that I didn’t actually consider, was that when an artist becomes so big is a bio worth putting in their website? Ed Sheeran is known to have at least one book with his biography in, and this book couldn’t fit onto a website, in some aspects a bio on his website would make the book redundant and with such a level of fame achieved most fans would know who he is and what sort of music he creates. I feel like an artist bio may also overcrowd the content of the website, there’s already plenty to keep you busy for at least 40 minutes as I said earlier, it’s certainly interesting that an artist of this level no longer needs a bio of any sort anymore though, it was something I’d not previously considered before my research.

Layout

The layout of Ed Sheeran’s website is one of its best qualities, it’s easy to navigate, to the point and not too overwhelming. At the top of the page we have “Ed Sheeran” written in his iconic font throughout the page much like dashboard Confessional did, this creates a sense of the artists identity throughout the page. Unlike other artists however, Ed’s links to subpages are on the left side of the page, equidistantly spaced and strangely, the same size and typography as all other text below the title with exception of the bold prices in the store. Instead of being at the bottom as the usual conventions would follow, Ed has placed his social links at the top of the homepage, this may be due to the fact he’s heavily active on these and these are the best format of obtaining up to date news/going-ons of him. All of these social media are each displayed in their iconic names and font styles too, this bad has a lot of refreshing font as oppose to a comic sans or something more common as seen on Patch Bawn’s site.

The layout of the page is similar to Patch’s though in the sense that it divides sections of the home page into blocks, however unlike Patch, there are no literal boxes doing this here, instead the colour scheme and an under striking line does this. The line itself isn’t thick though, it keeps with the aesthetic of the page as a thin line that’s not quite as dark as the font around it. By doing this the blocks don’t appear as clear-cut and stiff making the page look more dynamic and fluid to navigate, both attractive aspects to a website.

In the upper right of the page where our eyes naturally fall, is Ed Sheeran’s latest release, this in essence is boasting his achievement, but it also signifies how far he’s come thanks to the work of everyone around him and his fan base. This is also the only feature on the page that is outlined by a thick black box, telling the audience it’s important and drawing their eyes to it using the contrast of bright and dark colours. When we’ve finished reading our eyes will typically fall the bottom right, using this to his advantage, the designers of this page have placed a “*View all” link to a subpage which we will feel inclined to click if we enjoyed the related content.

The News section has a particularly interesting layout, there’s an image of Ed Sheeran next to each title, giving the audience some engagement with the artist’s image, and a news link below it containing the full story. This pattern of slowly enticing the audience to visit more detailed page is evident throughout the page, with various links and icons acting as a sort of clickbait for the viewer.

Colour Scheme

The colour scheme is focused on green, black and white on this website, an unusual mix of colours, however this works to make the image of the site more unique and memorable to the viewers as the colours, especially the green and black complement each other well.

The colour scheme is likely orientated around the new album art’s colour scheme and the site may change in theme with this in a similar to Dashboard confessional and how their website changed while they were touring.

The font also has a small change in colour depending on the content, regular content is in a black font and sales and money related text are in a white text surrounded by a black background, this creates identification for sales related parts of the page and the change in colour scheme in these small areas draws the audiences eyes to them.

The lack of colour range is quite boring though, after spending a small amount of time on the site the colours appear quite bland and loses its dynamic edge unfortunately as the bright green contrasting against the black loses its initial excitement.

Contact

Contact with Ed Sheeran is advertised all over this page, through means of social media or a whole sub-page dedicated to contacts and links. This is great and of importance because among the genre connectivity with your fans is a vital part of sustaining your image as an acoustic artist.

The subscription for notifications is also a great tool for fans following Ed’s activities and frequently purchase his merchandise and tickets.

The range of social media is also commendable, as a person he’s covering so many parts of his audience, a youtuber may not be on tumblr and vice-versa so by having presence on such a diverse range of media he’s ensuring that he can branch out to all his fans whatever their interests without trying to herd them into one format, embracing the free spirit that backs the acoustic genre.