Magazine Advert Reflection (changes made)

In order for our target audience to be aware of our artist and her music, the promotion of both are vital in making her successful, for without it there will be lack of awareness. Therefore, we shall first design our initial ideas in terms of the content and effect our magazine advert will consist of so that we can progressively create out final idea on Photoshop. Below, are the stages of design and research we have done in order to create our final magazine advert.

An idea of our magazine advert

The first stage carried out, was the group meeting in which we all designed and drew our own interpretation of what our magazine advert would look like in order to fairly compromise as to what we liked and disliked of each others. Here, is my first initial drawing of our magazine advert.

What are your ideas and inspirations behind your paper design?

As our artist is particularly unknown, I felt that it was vital in establishing an effective and accurate artist representation, so that the appeal of the advert was tailored according to our target audience. Therefore, the setting of the advert was designed to be in a field, typically for 2 main reasons; the first being the role that nature plays in the indie genre, as it typically represents the artist as down to earth and therefore, the target audience are able to effectively relate to the artist, a quality in which they find appealing. The second being, the a field itself is symbolic of liberation, for there are no obstacles or interruptions. This is further symbolic of the indie genre, for it subverts the mainstream conventions, an example of liberation in terms of taste, what people like and find appealing. Additionally, the artists' name is Daisy, also a flower commonly found in a field and therefore this reinforces the idea that the artist is natural, rather than falsely constructed in order for consumption and therefore the field is drawn as evidently filled with daisies.Therefore, I felt a field was successful in representing the artist as a down to earth, conventional indie artist, a clear coherent representation the audience can relate to. Furthermore, an image of the artist in the field will be present. Although originally designed as if walking with her back toward to audience, I later felt that this was isolating the audience and therefore decided to change this and have it so that the artist was facing forward, resulting in the engagement between both artist and audience in order for them to become familiar with her. This will also convey her playing the guitar more effectively and therefore, will provide the audience with a short representation of the artist in which they can relate to through a similar interest or talent in terms of instrument playing. This is a typical convention of the indie genre too, so this reinforces that the artist is in fact indie. Moreover, I decided to put minimal but informative information on the advert so that the audience were engaged but not overpowered with information. I included the artist's name in order to make the advert clear as to who it was about; a selection of her singles so that they were encouraged to listen to them in order to stimulate interest in the artist; and finally, I also included the statement 'out now', to inform the target audience that such music is available for them now, creating a sense of immediacy as well as exclusiveness. Each piece of information was designed to be in it's own box to draw attention to it, rather than having it merged with the background and therefore prone to being overlooked.

How did you use your research into magazine adverts to start planning your own?

Previous to designing my own magazine advert, I research into pre-existing adverts that consisted of other Indie artists; however I found that not many Indie artists had magazine adverts available to analysis, which could arguably be a result of the typical indie artist representation in that they are not interested in promotion of image rather just focused on their music. When I did find relevant magazine adverts, there was minimal information, conveying their humbleness in that they are not 'showy' of what they have achieved nor does their target audience find such representation appealing, and therefore, they subvert this. However, when searching for magazine adverts for artists such as Beyonce or Rihanna, many were available because this gives their target audience an opportunity to relate to the artists in which otherwise, they would not be able to, as such artists are deemed 'extraordinary' rather than 'ordinary' and therefore hard to relate to. I decided to incorporate such method in my own magazine advert, in that additional information about the artist was not included in order for the representation to remain intended; the artist is natural, easy to relate to and not over the top. Furthermore, the adverts that I did come across were heavily focused on nature, evident in the post 'Magazine Advert Analysis', in which I found effective in representing the artist as nature has connotations that are easy for our target audience to relate to; simplicity, down to earth, liberation etc. As a result I decided to incorporate such motif in my own magazine advert to convey representation of the artist as being all these qualities.


How will this help you with creating it on Photoshop?

First of all, when going to create my magazine advert on Photoshop, I will need to take some pictures on the artist in order to have this evident in my advert, so that the audience can identify who she is and hopefully go on to relate to her. My previous research will assist me in the final design of my magazine advert as it has established the conventions of an indie representation which the target audience will find appealing. These include, a natural setting, image of the artist, evidence of additional instruments that can be played and the artist name.

Here is my individual attempt of a magazine advert for the promotion of the album release of our artist. However, the effectiveness of the advert is very weak for many reasons; the first being its lack of convention according to the indie genre. The artist herself appears very indie through her image as she is wearing eye liner, red lipstick and denim and therefore such image will be incorporated  in the final making of our magazine. However her surroundings are only black and white, colours often associated with rock and goth as they connote an eerie atmosphere and therefore will not appeal to the target audience. Therefore when creating our final magazine advert, we will incorporate more colour so that it is less dull and engages the target audience to look at it and become aware of the artist herself; ensuring that such increase of colour will conform to indie convention rather than pop. Contrastingly, the font used on the advert is very conventional as it is slightly playful and relevant to the song; for example, the word 'shoestrings' is written in a font that connotes the visual of a shoestring and therefore visually interprets the song. However, to increase the effect of the artist's image, a good idea would be to use the same font throughout the digipak so that the audience can relate such font with the artist, reinforcing the coherence of her image and therefore establishing a clear representation.

Conclusively, the changes need to be made are:

1. The advert needs more colour so that is stands out. However, the source of colour must remain indie as this could confuse our target audience. For example, if we were to put florescent lights on the advert this would connote the dance genre and therefore our target audience will not find it appealing.
2. The font must be coherent in style and therefore be the same throughout to establish a clear image in which the artist will be associated with.
3. The album name was not included and therefore must be in the final advert as this promotes the rest of her tracks as well as the song of our music video. This encourages the audience to maintain an interest as they have several songs to listen to, not just one.

Final Group Magazine Advert:

Go to: Group Magazine Advert for the making of this advert