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.