Second Draft of Magazine Advertisement

I have designed a second draft of my own magazine advertisement. I will then present the two completed advertisements to friends, family and peers on which one they prefer, receiving positive as well as negative criticism from their feedback. This will then help me to decide which one will be my final product.

My reasons for this design were:

• The purple striped colour scheme correlates with the colour scheme on the digipak, therefore creating synergy between the two products. This colour of purple is not too dark but not too bright, rather somewhere inbetween conforming to the audiences insight of what a pop/rock advertisement look like.
• I have used a different image from the one I used on my first design. This image is included in my digipak however, on the inside covers. So although it may not be entirely recognisable to an audience, it is still creating synergy between the two products. I have applied the cartoon affect to this image, as explained previously to highlight the comic book influences for the band and myself.
• The layout itself is very simple. Again I haven't tried to pack the advertisement with a lot of information to put off an audience. It includes the important info of release date, outlet and website. But on this design I have included quotes of reviews from respectable music magazines. Not only does this create a synergy between the magazine and the advert, but it allows a new audience an insight into what people think of the band's music.
• The logo of the band has been placed at the center of the poster and I have removed the speech bubble to make the effect a lot more simpler. It is instantly recognisable to fans.

First Draft of Magazine Advertisement

After my initial decisions, I have created a magazine advert of my own following conventions of traditional advertisements, while trying to reflect my genre of Pop/Rock. I will explain my choices for this design below.

• Firstly I chose the image on the front of this advertisement as it correlates with the digipak's image and creates synergy between the two products. The speech bubble is a brand new image however, and although I wanted to originally use it on my digipak cover, I didn't and so I felt this would of been a good opportunity to use it here. It ties in with the comic book theme that predominantly runs through the video, digipak and now the advertisement.


• The band's logo has been included to make the advertisement recognisable to an audience.


• The background design is different to the digipak, something that challenges the conventions of an advertisement. I wanted to use a different colour purple as the magazine adverts I looked at for our genre used a darker colour.


• The font style is the same as the digipak's. This again creates synergy between the digipak and advertisement. It is the band's "signature" font making it recongisable too.


• The musical notes make an appearence here just as they do on the digipak. The musical notes are intended to be a part of the band's logo due to the name and so they felt appropriate here


• The information is structured and clear with not too much packed into the advertisement, making it simple enough to read.

Ideas for my own Advertisement

After looking at other magazine adverts such as Jamie T's Kings & Queens and Blur, I have come to some final decisions about my own magazine advert. These were:

• It was clear that with some of the magazine adverts I researched, I discovered that many if not most use the same image and background from their album cover for the advertisement. I intend to replicate this technique myself in order to create a synergy between both products.
• I will use the same font used on the digipak. This makes the style recognisable to the audience, as well as using the same logo for the band.
• Something that I didn't manage to incorporate onto my digipak but wanted to originally was to use a speech bubble that would reflect the conventions of cartoons and comics, a theme running throughout the music video and digipak.
• Jamie T's advertisement did not seem too overpacked with images and was rather much more simplistic but effective. This is another technique I want to include on my own design.
• The information on these adverts was also quite sparse and so I wish to only include the release date, title and where it can be brought, as well as a website for the band.

What have you learned from your Audience Feedback - Digipak

Audience feedback is an important aspect when designing a new product and so after the final draft of my CD digipak cover, I issued a questionnaire to ten people in order to gather opinions and feedback on my design that would help me to make future decisions and alterations in the next ancillary task. The questions I asked were as follows:

1. What aspect of the digipak design did you like best?


2. What aspect of the digipak design did you not like?


3. What would you change about the design?

I summarised the answers they gave below.

What aspect of the digipak did you like best?
Looking at the answers to this question, many people stated that they enjoyed highlighting the musical references and links on the cover with the use of musical notes and the band's name being Amber RHYTHM. One respondent wrote that they "...liked the band's logo because of it's use of graffiti in the name..." This showed that one of my original ideas to use graffiti font in order to reflect and appeal to youths and being expressive worked. Many people wrote about the fact that they believed the cartoon image of the band's lead singer "...made the cover look more "fun" but also not too serious..." as cartoons are often presented as childlike. Some commented on the use of dark colours, the purple and the black musical notes giving the cover a more dark tone, which they found was present in other pop/rock album covers. One participant liked the way "...the red of the word Amber contrasted against the darker background, making the name jump out at you...", while a female participant added that she really liked the composition of the cover, as the band name and image were set out perfectly and that "...it doesn't look so confusing...". Finally a few commented on the fact that I had used a Parental Advisory sticker, and stated that it made the cover look much more professional.

What aspects of the digipak did you not like?

When asked this question, many participants stated that the image of the girl did not stand out enough on the cover itself as both the background and the picture were dark colours. However on closer inspection you can see that I have blended in the girl's top with the background so she looks a part of the action going on behind her. Some of the participants commented that they "...didn't know if Amber Rhythm was the band name or the album name..." while another wanted the album to have a name. I later informed them that as this was the band's debut album, it was self-titled. Other participants felt that the cover "...looked too plain..." and thought the exposure of the purple background dominated their view, making the cover appear too dark and moody.

What would you change about the design?

Most of the participants replied to this question saying that they would change the colour of the background as it was too plain and not a lot was going on. They also said they would "...adhere to the conventions of pop/rock genre a little bit more by adding subtle hints, but I do like the musical rhythm notes..." Other suggestions included giving the album a name, to personalise it more and to also make it more memorable in the market. Others suggested I should of kept the cartoon theme running along by creating the whole cover itself into a cartoon layout. I never considered this originally, and quite like the idea and so will hope to maybe use this in my next ancillary task of a magazine advertisement.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks? - Digipak and Music Video

When designing my own digipak, it was important to consider the ways in which the combination of the music video and digipak were effective. This is otherwise known as synergy and would allow the audience to build a relationship and spot connections when viewing the music video and digipak design.

Digipak

Music Video
Our group's own music video production to the song "Superman" portrays a strong female protagonist in control of who she wants to date, and so I wanted to further reinforce that theme onto my digipak. I used the image of a young female as the face of the band "Amber Rhythm" and as she is presented on her own and as a main focus of the front cover of the album, she is seen to be independant just as our female character in the video is presented. However we did include a male gaze in the video, the female's chest area highlighting the female stereotype, and so my images for the digipak show this, particularly the third cover, albeit hindering the female's dominance of sorts.

The theme of love is involved in the storyline of our music video and so this theme was also something I wanted to integrate onto my digipak. The heart on the cartoon image of the artist symbolises the love of music as the musical notes flow from within it and in the music video the CD's are placed in the shape of a heart to portray connotations of love.

The scenes involving the female protagonist and her "superman" playing on the swings in a park emphasised the childlike tone to the video but also highlighted the freedom the youth have. And so my digipak portrayed this feeling too with the use of graffiti to create the logo of the band's name as it is seen as an expressive tool to create art.
I created cartoon images on my digipak to reinforce the idea of the song's title "Superman" as the video itself uses aspects of cartoon effects inspired by Marvel comics, the creators of Superman. It too highlights the youthful aspect of both video and digipak.

Analysis of Advertisements

After looking at the conventions of magazine advertisements it would be important to understand and recognise the decisions I will make in the creation of my own advertisement. I have therefore analysed two magazine advertisements. Jamie T's Kings & Queens and Blur's No Distance Left To Run.

Conventions of an Advertisement

When researching a number of magazine adverts it was clear to see the conventions included in the design of almost all of the advertisements I found. I hope that the conventions I picked out will help to aid my own design in promoting my band's, "Amber Rhythm" own mag advertisement. These will be the most important features of my own design.

• Artist name and album title
• Release date
• Web address
• Product content - extra DVD footage, bonus tracks
• Magazine reviews/endorsements - NME, Q, Atmosphere etc.
• Name of Record Label
• Tour dates
• Images - photographs/graphics/combination
• Outlets in which available - HMV, Amazon
• Slogan/Tagline "Freedom to be who you want to be"
• Limited edition. Digipak/standard
• "Out now"/"debut album"
• Offers - free download if you sign up to ... website
• Stars *****