Individual magazine advert - Miss Miller

Individual Magazine Advert

The purpose of having a magazine advert is to make the album known, it gives the product publicity and attracts more buyers. The advert follows conventions other elements which link to the digipak and the artists in order for the audience to see what the album is like and show the different representations for the music included. It promotes the album by creating different macro meanings for the audience and showing them the emotions behind the music and the artist, further making them want to listen and buy the product to find out how these representations are lived up to. The advert also promotes the music video which I have created because it shows the style of it, in the image my artist is performing, showing the audience that there is a performance scene within some of the music videos.The audience then want to watch the video not just listen to the much they want to shed how the artist can perform their music and what emotions they create. 

For creating my magazine advert I used a software called Photoshop CS6. This software was chosen because it allows you work in layers, each element of the advert is a separate piece meaning everything is easily changed or moved. The layers make the process a lot quicker to edit, each piece of text can be moved to different places, made different colours and font, the images and be on top of one another and both can have different effects. Therefore all assets can be made individual whilst being able to fit in to everything else. 

I came up with my advert idea by researching into other female soul artists and their previous advert for the albums. I then elaborated on these ideas when planning for my own advert. A lot of my ideas were from Adele's 21 album, I took most of my inspirations from her colour use and expanded on them to make them fit int my product and my artist better. When planning my advert I made the ideas I took from Adele's advert and elaborates on the emotions changes elements so that the would link in more with my music video and the artist. For example her stand out colour was lime green but I didn't like the emotions it created, so I decided on using an equally vibrant colour to create different emotions but attract the audience in the same way.

I decided to use certain elements in my magazine advert to appeal to my target audience and promote my artist effectiviley;

Colours -  For my magazine advert I have used a black and white effect over the image. I believe the basic colours shows the two most conventional emotions when it comes to soul music, the black connotes sadness and mystery and the white connotes happiness and hope. The dark greys and black represent the more depressive songs which show the sad side to the artist and the negative effect the songs messages have on her. Whilst the whites and light greys represent the positive songs which shows the artist with a brighter and happier persona. The two colours help to promote the artist because they inform the audience of her emotions within the album they are enable to build a relationship with the artist throughout the common feelings, this promotes her because see is seen as relatable. I also used pastel purple for the text. This colour show another side the artist and the album by representing a more classy image, purple connotes luxury. Therefore the colour shows the audience the professionalism of the album and how it is a serious piece of work that means a lot to the artist. Whilst also giving it a little touch to make it look appealing and interesting to the audience. This colour also promote the artist because it show the audience her professional side and how much her work and music means to her rather than it just being a hobby, it shows them that she takes pride in it and wants it to be the best it can be. The relation the colours give to the audience also promotes the artist because the more able to connect with her and know that they will enjoy the songs on the album, so if the audience can immeaditaly relate to the colours through the advert they are more likely to buy the album bcause they are attratced to the artist.

Conventions of genre - One genre convention in my magazine album advert is the black and white effect on the image. It is conventional to the soul genre because it is often to used to portray a classical look, this is because soul music has been around since the 1950's. Everything back in the 50's was in black and white there was no colour in pictures or videos, so having this effect takes the audience back to where to music originated from. It keeps the audience aware of when soul was created and makes them feel as though they are connected to the roots of the music genre.
Another conventional element I have used in my magazine advert is the font of the writing. I have chosen two different types of font one that looks classical, it is curly and the end of the letters swirl off and the other has straight letters and is in bold. The first font is conventional because it looks pretty, most soul adverts or album cover use font which looks attractive because it make the overall product and the artist seem elegant and fashionable. The other straight font represents the boldness of the artist which is often how female soul artists are represented because they are stereotypically strong independent women.
Both these elements make the advert appeal to the audience because they make it look nice, they are easy on the eye and appeal because of the attractiveness. The black and white edit gives a unique look and therefore intrigues the audience whilst the two different fonts support the female artists image. The two elements discussed above show the audience the visually attractive side to the album and the artist which appeals to them because they can idolise it. They also promote the artist as they both give a hint about her music and her emotions, the black and white allow the audience to see the negatives and positives in her her life, allowing them to relate to her and feel a connection with he product. Whilst the font show her feminine side, her personality amd her strength, also allowing them to relate to her and they can also relate the attractive font to her image and begin to idolise her.
Another convention in my magazine advert is theiconography in the image. The artist is seen singing into a microphone, the is conventional because of the realtion it has to the soul genre. Often soul songs cotain a performance seen, so havung this in an image shows how the artist follow the conventions by performing her music. It also portrays her as passionate about her work because she wants to perform it not just let the audience listern to a pre-recorded piece

Image -  In my magazine advert there is only one image which is a close up of the artist, this image is placed behind all the other elements on the advert and fills the whole page. As the images is a close up to shows the audience the facial expressions of the artist and her singing into the microphone. She is looking straight and has barley any emotions showing, the fact that her face is blank may infer her mixed emotions as she is unsure of what to show or how to feel at that point. Having mixed emotions links to the black and white edit which is used, it shows the audience the different emotions for the songs within the album and how the messages and feelings of each may vary, some positive and some negative. The image appeals to the audience because of the relationship it enables them to build a relationship with the artist, they are given a the chance to connect with her through her emotions, being able to take them into account and relate them back to their own lives and experiences, meaning they can understand what she is feeling. This therefore making them want to buy the album as they will feel as though they can understand the music within it and will gain a deeper relationship with the artist. The image promotes the artist as it makes the audience feel a connect with her and they therefore feel close with her and the music.

Layout/design - The layout for my magazine advert is very simple and plain. The image of my artist takes up the whole page and the text is placed over it but to the right. The artist name Cara-Lily is on the right centre of the screen and the album name, Your Girl, is just above. This layout is simple and easy to understand, the audience can get all the information they need without being over powered by other things on the advert. Having the text to the side of the image makes both elements clear to the audience and easier to see and understand. The layout if appealing for the audience to understand because they able to see everything they need to clearly, they can see the artist and her emotion, her name and the album title which is all they need to see. From this they can decided if they will enjoy the music and go on to buy the album. The layout also promotes the artist because the audience are able to see the big image of her, meaning they can see her mixed emotions and relate to her. This is a promotional asset because they can build a relationship with her and will want to buy the product in order to gain a deeper understanding of her messages.

Typography - One of the typography's for the advert looks very feminine, the font is very curly and looks signature like, showing the gentle, pretty side to the advert, artist and the music. Some of the text is white whislt the rest is a pastel purple colour which was chosen because it makes it stand out from the rest of the advert, the audience eyes are immediately drawn to it and therefore read the information they need to in order to buy the album or see if they will enjoy it. The purple also connotes the respectability of the advert and how it is a piece of work and a piece of art, it shows the audience that the artist is serious about her music and it means a lot to her. The of tyography is a staright fotn which is plain and bold. This fotn show the stronger independent side the artist and show how she is a bold person whom doesnt follow others. The different elements of the typography appeals to the audience because it shows them the elegance of the advert and boldness of the artist. It also shows that it isn't just about the music but it actually means something to the artist. Not only do the audience find it visually appealing, they also build a relationship with the artist through learning her style, they can see what she likes things to looks like and taste. This goes onto promote the artist because the audience are enable to build this relationship with her and may like her idea of how to make things look nice, they make look up to this and idolise her for it.

Language - The language for my magazine album advert is formal. There is not a lot of text within my advert but what there is of it is formal, there is no slang used just the name of the artist, the album and a list of songs included. This shows the audience that the product it respectable, it is not just music and that the artist depends on it. It shows good selling and promotional skills for other products relating the album and the artist. This appeal to the audience because they are shown that the album is a serious piece of work and should live up to the expectations. It also promote the artist because the language reflects her, she is represented as respectable therefore the audience will want to see her work and will want to build a relationship.

Connotations - As said before there are connotations of the colours in my magazine advert. The black and white edit over the image represents the contrast in emotions for the album. The white shows the happy, hopeful images, whilst the black shows the depressive feelings of some songs. The purple text connotes the more classy image, as is represents luxury. Not only do the colours give macro meanings but so does the facial expressions of the artist. Her blank face infers her mixed emotions as she is unsure of what to shows or who to feel at that point. Having mixed emotions links to the black and white edit which is used, it shows the audience the different emotions for the songs within the album and how the messages and feelings of each may vary, some positive and some negative. Another connotion within my advert is the femine font used for some of the text, it is made to look signiture like, possibly showing that the artist had a lot to do with the creation of the piece. The audience can see that anytime her name is mentioned it is in this curly font, hinting that the artist was very involoved with the creation of the album and advert and it therefore realte to her. All these connotations appeal to the audience because they provider macro meanings and therefore they can understand the product better and the artist, the can build a relationship with her and connect with the messages of the songs. They also promote the artist because the audience are given a better insight into what the artist feel about the music and her she take pride in her work, the are allowed to build built a relationship with her and idolise her.

Photoshop - When using photoshop I was faced with a couple issues. The biggest issue if had was with the black and white effect over the image also effetcing the text which isnt not what i wanted. Once I put the effect on the image I then added text, which included white and purple. Further through the creation I realised that the purple fron the font had gone and that the black and white effect had also been placed onto the writing. The problem was easily resolved when i simpy move the text layer so that it was above the effectes. The font them went back to the colours I originally had and it didnt happen again.
The other problem which occued when creating my magazine advert was making the image fit the page without being over stretched or misshaped. When placed my image on to page I dragged it out so that it was the size I wanted it to be, but it enlongate the artist and made her look off shape. I tried again but the same thing happened, so I asked my teacher and he told me to hold down 'shift' and then dra it out. This ment that the top and side lines stayed in the right place they just zoomed in, this ment that the image didnt change shape it just simply expanded and didnt become disfigured.

I also had some strengths when it came to using photoshop for my magazine advert was the magic eraser tool, this ment that I could take out any backgrounds from images that were unnecessary or didnt fit well witht he other elements. I found this easy to use because I have used it alot before when creating other project, for example a film poster. I used this tool on the stars in my advert, as they had a white background and therefore left a white box onto of my main image. This didnt look professional so I took out the white and just left the four stars on there own, this ment they blended into the rest of the advert better.  As this made the advert look more professional it was therfore more successful because of the high quality the audience are attratced to it and go on to learn more about the music and the artist.
Another strength of mine on photoshop is the colour copy and paint brush tool along with the blur tool. I had to use these three techniques together a one point in the advert creeation, this is because they was a white mark on my image from the way that the picture was taken. To get rid of ths i knew that I could use the colour copy tool and take orginal colour just above the white spot, I then chose the paint brush tool and went over the white patch with the copied grey. This got rid of the mark and made the image better quality. But the paint brush left a few lines around the patch, i knew that i could get rid of these by using the blurring tool to smudge out the lines, this made all the colours blend together and white mark was no longer visable. I think these tools are a strengths of mine because I was able to work very quickly with them and I knew what to do. I was able to make the image for my advert look professional and flawless, which goes onto make it more successful because they audience see it as respectable piece of work.

Inspirations - I gained many inspiration from my resarch into music videos and soul artist and genres. One of the main idea i took from my research was from Adeles 21 album advert which I analysed. She used black and white for her image whcih i have also used. I thought this would be a good element to have because it is conventional and shows connotaitons of the songs included. Iwanted to used this in my product because I thought it was very effective on Adeles piece and i wanted to have the same effect for my work. The contrasting emotions of happy and sad are how i want my artists album to be shown. She also used one brighter colour for the text, which was a lime green. I wanted to do the same with my product as I thought it made it look overall more professional it gave it a hint of excitement rather than just having the black and white. So I decided to follow this but instead on the lime gren I used  a pastel purple. It had the effected I wanted and made my advert look professional and gave it an element of excitment.
I also used an inspiration from the reserach I did into chosen artist, Amy Winehouse. In the video in analysed for Back To Black, throughout the video Amy has very serious facial expressions, she has a constant black face which does show happiness or sadness it is just plain. I think this is effective because the audience can see that the artist is experienceing all differnt emoitons ans that her songs are of all different meanings that she can not show them all in one facial expression. I used this look for my main image of the artist in my advert. I have chosen and image which showsmy artist with a blank face it show my audienc that sh edoesnt have one specific emoitns but many, it allows them to see that she is experiencing a lot and that they at some point in the album will be able to relate to her.

Adaption - There are some element of my advert which do not completely follwo the plan I made but most ideas have just been adapted into something more fitting or more effective. For exmple in my plan I spoke about having one font for the whole advert, which was a feminie curly font. This idea was still used but the text wasnt all in this font. I found that when i was creating the advert is was boring to have all the writing in one font, so I thought I would have two. I chose a contrastingfront which was plain straight and bold. This made the advetr stand out more and the audience were more able to tell the difference between the imporant infomation e.g. the artists name and the ablum from the other text which wasnt essential to them.
Another change I made from my plan was that I was think about having the text in the centre of the page but because of the image i chose it fitted better to the right side of the page. Hvaing the artist on the left side ment that changning the text to the right rather than the middle made it more visable and clear to the audience. I think it made the advert look more professional and the elements fitted in beter when they werent all over lapping. The more spaced out layout fitted better and made the product more effective as the audience could see the infomaiton they need and could also read the meotions of the artist.

Conclusion 

I think my advert matches with the conventions of the soul genre because each element was created to relate with soul themes. The black and white effect was specifically chosen because it link back to the orignal ea of soul music, whilst the image of the artist shows the convention mixed emotions of soul music and shows the audience that soul artist use a variety of emotions to allow their audience to relate to them. I think the elemtns in more magazine album advert following the conventions well and make the product more appeling. 

I think it appeals to the audience because everything is clear and reatable. Each element has a different way of connecting with the audience and enabling them to build a realtionshio with the artist. This draws them in because they want to find out more about the songs and the artist, they are given hints about the music but arent shown the full extent of it meaning they are intrigued to find out more. 

I think the creation of my magazone advert will help with the promotion of the artist and the album because hte audience are given an insight of what they might gai from buying the album. They are given tasters for the music and can see wether they wll enjoy the emtions it provides or not. The different elements promte the artist and album in different ways and intrigue the audience be doing so. I think this all promotes the album and artist because they are shown and professional and worth the money.