Magazine Advert Making Process

In the process of making my magazine advert, i particularly wanted to follow the typical convention within album adverts of using the imagery as the main image of the advert and it become intertwined with the text and other pieces of info. As i found very rarely in magazine adverts did they have a image of the album itself on top of another separate image, the only example i could find of this in my magazine was this album cover:

Where in the bottom right corner is the actual picture of the product, separate from the main advert image.

I also wanted to go one step further in my magazine advert by not only just using the imagery of the front album, but the imagery of the back as well. I wanted to combine them by putting the two image side by side so the two characters in each image look like they're in a singular one.

First of all i had to flip the back cover image to make the two white blank spacings of the picture flow together, to look like one picture.

Below is the process on photoshop of me flipping the image:

Next step was to combine both the images on one canvas. So i had to create a new canvas; preferably the size i want my overall advert to be and then insert both image side by side. Once they were side by side, i then underwent a process in photoshop in order to make the two images blend together more effectively, creating a sense of fluidity between the back and front cover. I did this using the gradient tool on photoshop:

Next step was  to place the text into advert. Specifically intertwining the text in with the imagery like in real media magazine adverts. Therefore i placed the album title and the artist name in the middle of imagery in the blank space. And then baring in mind that the date of release also has to make a significant impact in order for people to actually feel the urgency to by the product, i then used the white space underneath the images and in the same font as the album title and band put the release date in a large font.

Initially i decided to have all the red in the dark red, in order to really play upon the significance of the red scarf in the imagery and the imagery of the music video. Next step i cropped the advert down to the size that was best:

This was my initial first draft of the magazine advert. However after considerations of what other elements were presented on an advert, i decided mine looked rather empty in terms of information. And from the result of the digi pac and magazine advert questionnaire the audience felt the most important feature to a magazine advert was the information:

Question 3: What do you expect to see on a new albums magazine advert?

With this in mind i then made some improvements to the amount of information that was on the advert. I started by adding the logos of the record labels and adding more encouraging promotional text to make the audience buy the product, for example i changed 'new single' to 'brand new single'. I also added text that mentioned what the product included, for example 'features bonus music video footage' - this being a key convention on album magazine adverts. Also from my research i similarly incorporated the use of having the artists website onto the magazine advert, in order to help promote the artist and products. Here some of the process of me adding extra information in order to fit to the conventions of meal media music adverts more successfully and appropriately:

My last step in producing the magazine advert was my decision to change the colour of the font of the promotional writing. I changed it from the red to black. I did this as i felt the red was being over used, and if it was over used it would loose its effective in being specific the actual product Lost in Colour - Searching for the Sun in the Dark. I also made the name of the artist and album title twice as big, this being as i felt the title was not capturing enough when it was smaller. The text needs to promote and sell as much as the imagery does in an advert and i felt before the imagery was over powering the text. Therefore i solved this by making it bigger:

Overall i think my changes made to my magazine advert help it fit the conventions of read media album adverts and my advert would effectively appeal to fans of alternative/rock pop bands, link to the music video and digi pac and secure sales for the product.

Magazine Advert Research

Now we had our digi pac made, me and Amelia did various research to how the digi pac as a product would be promoted in a magazine advert. We found a series of The Fly magazines and flicked through album adverts also various V Festival magazines which also included album adverts.

http://www.the-fly.co.uk/media/magazine

Here are some images of us looking at various adverts:

Below are some of the album adverts we looked at and what conclusions we came to from looking at them, and what we needed to include in a magazine advert.

The main features we discovered from looking at variety of magazine adverts was:

- Magazine adverts do not fit to any particular format, they can be landscape, portrait or square, predominantly being landscape.

-Most magazine adverts use the same imagery they have for their album covers, they use this imagery by using more of it, for example extending the background like in the Taylor swift advert so that the promotional text can fit in. Magazine adverts intertwine the imagery of the album cover onto the advert in a different way. This is defiantly something i will be using in my advert.

- Also noticed that specific promotional text is used to sell the album. For example 'brand new' and 'debut album' and 'album of the year'. Positive promotional text will also be something we will be considering in our advert.

- Furthermore i noticed that adverts tend to include text that gives indications to what is on the album, for example a list of two songs that are particularly successful.

- Another common feature on album adverts was the date of release or when its being released, is usually the biggest text on the advert, joint with the artists name.

- I also noticed the use of the artists website on the magazine adverts, in order to help promote the album and artist.

- Also another feature was the logos included on the advert, usually logos of where you could purchase the album or the record institution releasing the album.

Final Stages of Making the Digi Pac

The final stages of making the digi pac included finalising the album cover to make sure it appeals to the conventions of alternative/rock-pop music products the best it can, also ensuring it appeals to the target audience the best it. Also the final stages include putting in the institutional research into the digi pac, particularly the back cover. Final stages also include creating the inside pages.


Firstly in the process of finalising the digi pac, i went on to finish the back album cover, especially considering the lay out and the specifics that were included. What elements i included on the back of the album cover were primarily inspired by the research i did by looking at the back of the Boys Like Girls first album:

I Specifically looked at elements such as what was included in the small print bottom left corner, and applied the same elements to my back cover. I also looked at the way the artists website was on the back of the album; this was also the case for numerous album back covers i looked at. Furthermore looked at the way on this particular album the name of the artist/producer of the product was, i thought that added a nice touch - so similarly wanted to apply this elements to our product. Also looked at the positioning of the bar code within the bottom right hand corner. Which i felt the layout of this was more natural, as people read from left to right, so it felt natural to have the least visually pleasing aspect as the last thing the audience reads.

Below are some print screens of the processes i underwent in photoshop to achieve a similar professional outcome for the back of my album cover:

Above is the process of me selecting the institutional logo and transferring it onto the back cover, so it is effectively branded.

Above is the process of entering a copy write sign. I did as all the back album products i looked had this before a miniature paragraph on the institutions and a selection of album release dates etc.

 Above is my own version of the miniature information paragraphs seen on album back covers, this paragraph was primarily influenced by the paragraph on the back of Boys Like Girls album. Also here i have entered the website of the band, as seen in nearly genres of musics albums. Also have written who the product is produced like, similar to Boys Like Girls back cover and the way they have positioned it central under neath the contence of the album.

Above shows the process of my transferring the bar code to the back cover and positioning it in the bottom right hand corner.


For the front album cover i didn't do much finalising. But a key feature i did think to change was the text, as i felt its not big enough to grab the audiences attention. Also i felt it was not playful enough like suggested it needed to be from the audience questionaire on the digi pac. Therefore in order to meet the conventions expected of a alternative/rock pop music album, i made the font bigger, i also under layed the red font with black, to give it a shadow, to make it stand out more and look more playful and three-dimensional.

Below is a print screen of this process in photoshop:

Next part of the final stages was to produce the inside pages, i experimented with a few layouts for the inside pages, a few of the initial designs are below:

This was my first initial idea, i particular liked the idea of including exclusive imagery of the band as this was one of the features of the inside pages of digi pacs that i discovered when looking through a selection. However the lyrics did not quite fit on, and the right hand side a little bare. Therefore decided to think of another layout.

However one of the most successful elements of this first design of the inside pages was the way the imagery is faded into the background, i did this by the below functions on photoshop:

This technique still appeared in my final design for the inside pages, i also took the idea of using just the heads of the band members and putting them next to their name and role in the band; as i have seen this as a common feature in inside pages of rock bands, as lets the audience have more information about the members. I also re laid out the lyrics so all of the lyrics fitted on to the pages without the pages looking too bland. Also i included just that hint of the colour red again in the members names and role, further making sure all elements of the digi pac followed together and had links, this also done by the use of the same font throughout.  This was the outcome:

Institution Record Label Research

Now i am coming to final stages in the production of my covers for my digi pac, therefore i need to know about the type of institution that will be the record label of our product, and how exactly similar products position their record label information.

Firstly i researched what record label would be appropriate for our product. I did this by searching the record label of similar artists to Lost in Colour and seeing if that particular institution looks like it would sign Lost in Colour Searching For the Sun in the Dark.

I began with Red Ink Records:
http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/label/Red+Ink/a/Red+Ink

Specifically looking for similar artists that were of the alternative genre or the rock -pop genre, whilst also looking for artists that aren't that well known or new to the music industry, to see if the institution is appropriate for Lost in Colour as a band that has never been signed before and are new to the professional music industry.

With Red Ink Records i found two relevant artists:
- Boys Like Girls
- Quietdrive

Hopeless Records:
http://hopelessrecords.com/

Similar Artists found
- All Time Low
- Yellowcard
-There For Tomorrow

Virgin Records UK:
http://www.virginrecords.co.uk/

Virgin records UK i found particularly appropriate as it had similar artists and was specific to UK bands only. However most the bands were well established in the music industry.

- We The Kings
- The Kooks

Epitaph Records:
http://www.epitaph.com/

- You Me At Six
- Sing It Loud
- Alesana
- Thursday
- New Found Glory

Epitaph Records i found to be the most successful as it had the most similar artists to Lost In Colour listed under its records. It also has a mix of English artists such as You Me At Six and American artists, which suggests to a wider audience appeal. It also has a variety of quite established bands in the industry such as New Found Glory and You Me At Six and a variety of bands that are new to the music industry for example Thursday and Alesana; which are not high profile bands. Therefore i believed this to be the most successful record label for our band and product.

I also looked at Columbia Records:

http://www.columbiarecords.com/

That also two big similar artists under its records

- Metro Station

-Boys Like Girl

Also Columbia Records logo i found appeared on alot of album accompanying another record institution. Columbia is owned by Song Music Entertainment, the second largest global recorded music company, therefore it has a lot of trade marks on music and does joint deals with other lesser developed music institutions.

I found an example of this on the back of Boys Like Girls album:

I found this would be relevant to my product and band, and therefore also decided to you columbia as a sub record dealer institution.

Making Stages and First Drafts

Next step was the to produce the front and back cover, i did this by using photoshop.

- First step of the process was to alter the colours of the images, to make them fit in with the colour scheme in the music video. We did this by altering the saturation, contrast and vibrancy of the image:

After the colour altering stages our front and back cover looked liked this:

Next i made the images to the scale of the digi pac, and then moved onto text, using the appropriate features of photoshop to creat this:

I experimented with a variety of fonts in this process. Eventually i choose the one used on the below images, because it added that little extra bit of fun to the album, to contrast to imagery used. I also felt it meant as there is alot of confusion to Lost in Colour's genre as a band, it would satify both alternative fans with the use imagey, and the rock-pop fans with the use of a playful font. Also i was also inclined to use a playful font when our audience questionaire came back with results that the majority of rockpop/alternative fans prefer a playful font on a music album.

Question 4: What typography would you expect to see associate with a pop-rock band magazine?

Question 11: What typography would you expect to see associated with a pop-rock band digi-pack?

Below are the back and front album cover after the text process.

These are my first drafts of the digi pac. I think both back and front match perfectly, creating links to eachother and the video. Also with the use of similar mise en scene and text font creates fluidity between the two images.

Initial Making Process of Digi Pac

We began by starting with the front and back cover. We felt the below image was a successful image for the front cover, as it fitted our previous investigated conventions of alternative music alums. This being as the image was photographic and the imagery is slightly surreal and odd from the use of mise-en-scene; for example a scarf wrapped around a girls face is not a common sight within the real world. The image would also be effective as a album cover as it makes clear links to the music video, having very similar composition and mise en scene; both products then would subconsciously remind the audience of one another. Also we choose this over the 'stereotypes' idea - having the different representations all in a line, as we felt the scarf scene and its meaning were continuos throughout the video, for example throughout the whole duration of the video there is frequent shots of the girl pulling down the scarf gradually of her face. Connoting her efforts to escape from society and its judgment.

However we do not want to take a direct still image/ print screen from the video; like above. As the quality of the image is very poor and would not be as successful in capturing the audience attention than from a high quality image. Therefore our first task was to recreate the above shot. We did this by going to the same location we originally filmed at, i used the same actress, got her to dress in the same costume, used the same props and tried to recreate the composition to the best we could. Here are some of the images that were produced:

 We tried to re create the composition the best we can, but obviously we could not get the exact hand positioning and the exact way the scarf falls onto the actresses face. However we felt our images were still successful in providing direct links between the video and digi pac; as this image would remind the audience of the sequences throughout the music video where the girl gradually pulls down the scarf bit by bit.

Whilst doing this photo-shoot we also began to think about the back cover of the digi pac. We wanted the back cover to link to the front in some way, so the images showed fluidity. Also this is seen in other alternative digi pac's, for example arctic monkeys album; where the man is showed smoking front on in the front album image and then in the back album image the same man is dressed in the same clothes, still holding a cigarette, just now his posture has changed to appear like his rubbing his head in stress, confusion, shame or sadness. Therefore we have confidence that this technique of fluidity between front and back album images will be effective in enticing the alternative music fans.

We similarly wanted to create this sense of fluidity in our digi back, so therefore we decided to similarly like the arctic monkeys album, have the same mise en scene; costumes and props as the front cover for the back cover, but the positioning and composition differing. This is the image we produced with this in mind:

I felt this image is highly successful, as it mets the conventions of having same mise en scene and props but used in a slightly different way with different positioning and composition; for example the scarf being fully over her face rather than pulled down over her nose, and her in a side on position rather than front on. I also felt the composition was particularly successful as a back album cover, as we purposely aimed to have the blank space to the side of her face, so we could position the contence of the album successfully and visually effectively. This shows we understood the basic requirements for back covers from looking at them, and therefore thought about this in our planning and developmental stages of our digi pac's.


Overall our final decided images for our front and back cover were the below:

Photographic Research

From more research on the target audience, alternative music genre and photographic album covers i have decided that i want to pursue down the photographic imagery route for my digi pac.

Ive done more research into how the band want to be portrayed in order to confirm this decision. For example the band have clearly stated on their myspace they want to be known as an 'alternative' band, rather than rock- pop. Therefore it would make more sense for their album cover to represent the alternative genre with photographic album imagery rather than represent rock pop with cartoon like imagery.

Furthermore, from looking at their presentation on myspace, they have a lot of photographic material, and only one piece of non photographic imagery, this being this simple logo:

This suggested that even if the band did present themselves in a more cartoony, artwork way it would only be a simple design. Therefore indicating that the album cover would have more potential to be creative and intriguing with a photographic images. From the photographic images it is clear that they aim to promote themselves primarily through photographic imagery, also the experimentation within colours, also suggests they are particularly aiming to promote themselves through creative and artistic elements within photography. For example playing around with the colours in photoshop etc.

Further more also from their recently released music video there are no elements of non photographic material. All the footage being highly photographic:

Also i researched into the creator of the music video to give me an indication of the type of way they wanted there music video to look and appeal, by the film makers typical style and other products. The film maker they used was a graduate called Daniel Broadley:

From looking at his website

http://www.danielbroadleyfilms.com/index.html

it has given me a great insight into the way the band want to be portrayed in their music products. For example on Broadley's wesbsite it is very clear that he is photographic from the imagery he uses himself on his home page, e.g the picture of someone holding an old fashioned video recorder, rather than someone holding a pencil or paint brush -which would instead imply a more artistic and cartoon style to the photographer.

Also Broadley's portfolio also included through a previous research similar artist to lost in colour, called make out kids. This reinforcing our idea to use photographic imagery as even similar artists promote themselves in this style; and clearly Lost in Colour aim to as well.

Furthermore our audience research, in particular the questionaire we carried out helped us decide on what should be included in our digi pac. For example majority of the rock-pop/alternative fans we interviewer stated that they prefer photographic imagery for album covers, back covers and magazine adverts.

Question 2: Do you expect a pop-rock bands magazine advert to be animated or photographic?

Question 8: Do you expect a pop-rock bands digi-pack to be animated or photographic?

 This further encouraged us on our decision to choose photographic imageyr rather than animated or cartoon like imagery; as the research shows that the product would be more successful in appealing to the audience with photographic imagery.

 

Overall from my research into how lost in colour want to be portrayed, i can i conclude that photographic imagery would be best, especially through the design of their myspace and current music video. Also the fact that they have classed themselves as an 'alternative' music band suggests that they want alternative music conventions to apply to their music and products - therefore photographic album imagery being a key to real alternative media means that it would seem like the best option to pursue a photographic approach to the digi pac. So effectively we are promoting the band as a they want to be and in the genre they class themselves, therefore securing and appealing the correct target audience that they aim to appeal to.