Applying the Star Image to my Artist.

After reading through theories on the 'Star Image', I have begun thinking about how I could apply this theory to my main artist, Rickielee. After continuing with him from my AS media coursework, I decided that if I were to decided upon an iconic 'look' then it would most probably have to be relevant from the artists past career as a solo artist without the band. I thought that to do this, I would look at mainstream artists and their iconic styles and construction, as they are the artists that are the most successful and are most likely to have long term artistic careers.

Something I noticed alot when researching artist construction and artiist imagery is through the use of their hair, for example, 'Florence Welch' from 'Florence & the Machine' with her firey red locks and 'Jessie J' with her edgy black bob. This is a feature of artist imagery that I think would work extremely well with Rickie and his -could be iconic- quiffed up hair.

In order to do this, I believe that I should make his hair a feature of the Digipack artwork somehow, this is something that I need to look further into and how to market it to the right audience.

Creating a Star Image.

One theory on the 'Star Image' is by Andrew Goodwin which he calls 'Dancing in the distraction factory'
His theory is that the importance of creating a character and an identity of an artist allows them to gain fan loyalty and maintain a long career. He also believes that creating a character image adds visual recognition to an artist when lyrics in a song may lack depth, something a record company relies on in the industry in order to make profit. For example, Madonna and her 'cone bra' or Michael Jackson and his silver glove.
Another theorist is Richard Dyer and his theory entitled 'Stars'(originally about cinematic stars).
He believed that a star builds a relationship with an audience, and he spit this theory into four categories;

• Emotional Affinity - whereby 'an audience feels a loose attachment' which is the most common relationship among a star and their audience.


• 
  Self Identification - this is when an audience is empathetic to a star and puts themself in the same situation and persona.


• 
  Imitation - This is most common in young audiences where an audience views their 'star' and a role model and aspires to be like them.


• 
  Projection - This is the most obsessive relationship which is quite rare, whereby an audience member imitates a star to the extreme through their choice of clothing, the way they act etc.
  

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