Creating Magazine Advert

The secondary part of our ancillary task is to create a magazine advert promoting our music video. Considering that our music video centers around distress and sadness we have based both of our ancillary products on this and have therefore made the photographs in black and white and some of the photographs convey Alice with smeared make up which relate back to our music video. As a group we chose the photograph which we thought would work well to express the whole feel of the album and song itself. We chose a photograph of Alice holding her hair up with a sad look on her face as she does this repeatedly in the music video.

The screenshot above portrays the photograph we chose to use in black and white which has been edited in Photo Shop. 

We decided to have a black background for our magazine advert as it links back to our CD cover which also has a black background. The actual photograph being in grey scale stands out more as an affect of this. We achieved this effect by using the 'Paint Tool' and 'Eraser Tool' around the edges of the photograph.

Highlighted above in the red rectangle conveys the areas on the photograph which were hardest to edit. For the image to look professional on the final cover we had to use the 'eraser tool' to create a smudged effect around the photograph. We got this idea from our research into the Adele magazine advert.

Placing the photograph on In Design on the black background highlighted the minor details which needed to be changed in order for our magazine advert to look professional.We were unsure of were to place the photograph as being close up, the top of the photograph was evident.

By opening the photograph on Photo Shop again we were able to adjust the outer spacing around the photograph and use the 'Eraser Tool' to create a bigger smudged effect and highlight Alice in the image. By using this effect on the photograph we are portraying Alice as the most important figure on the advert. This conveys continuity to our music video as the whole video is centered around Alice and her emotions.

The photograph was then placed on In Design again however the top of the photograph was still noticeable which we did not feel was professional. The only way we would be able to overcome this problem was by decreasing the size of the magazine advert, which in fact worked best for our advertisement as all of the information we needed to portray could still fit on the advert.

To keep strong continuity throughout our ancillary tasks we used the same font, colours and spacing on both of our ancillary products. This allows our target audience to relate both products together and become aware that the magazine advert is promoting the main song on our CD cover. The above screen shot conveys the texts we have used which are exactly the same on both products.

This was our predicted final product, however we received negative feedback from our teacher which suggested getting rid of the white outline as it did not look professional. 

I began editing the original photograph in order to get rid of the white smudged background. I did this on Photo Shop by using the 'Eraser Tool'. I have conveyed my editing in the screen shot below by highlighting the background behind Alice's arm in a red rectangle. It was extremely difficult to edit as I had to be sure that I did not erase away part of Alice's arm.

After removing the white edge around the picture I placed it back on the original magazine advert and as a group we decided to add more text about the product to increase interest in the final product as we thought it looked too plain.

I have highlighted on the screen shot above the changes that have been made within the production of our magazine advert. We centered the image of Alice to make her the most prominent feature on the advert as the advert is promoting her song. We added ratings from popular music magazines and newspapers which allow a link to be made into real media products as we have seen this on real magazine adverts in our research. We also changed the colour of the 'Available now' text box to draw more attention to the fact that her songs are available for purchase, we changed it to red which links with the red 'A' on the album front cover. We also added a 'Debut' text box with a date of release for the whole album so that our target audience of teenagers and young people were aware of when the whole album will be out for sale. We have used the same font throughout our whole production of both ancillary tasks as this promotes strong continuity and allows our target audience to link all of our products together.

I have highlighted above the similar factors between the newest magazine advert with our other ancillary task. By using the same features on both products we are able to link all of our work together to convey a clear thinking process. We aimed for our products to link together well in order to promote a strong product, we have used a picture of the frontal album cover on the magazine advert so that our target audience are aware of the album that is being promoted. We have also used the same 'SONY MUSIC' text from the CD disk and back of album cover on the magazine advert to portray the music company which links to real media products. By making these changes to our magazine advert we have been able to create a more professional looking advert and it also looks less plain and simple by adding more information about the product we are promoting.

This is our final magazine advert:

Sketches of Magazine Cover

After researching magazine adverts we were able to sketch our ideas of what we would like our advert to look like. We will be using one of the photographs from our previous photo shoot in order to create this magazine advert. 

The advert will need to contain:

• A feature of the album cover
• Artists name and Album name
• a theme that links all of the products together
• text which conveys responses e.g. newspapers 

The font we will be using will be the same the whole way through all of the ancillary tasks to highlight the continuity, as well as the strong theme of black and white with some aspects of the writing in red. The photograph we want to use is of Alice holding her hands against her head in distress much like her emotions in the music video. We are basing the magazine advert heavily on the advert by Adele which is in black and white and contains the same theme as her album cover, which we have also used in our research. Hopefully by sketching out how we want our ancillary tasks to appear we will have extra guidance when producing the final product.

Magazine Advert Research

As a secondary part of our ancillary task we have been asked to create a magazine advertisement to go with our music video and CD cover. We have all researched the magazine advert and discussed how we would like our advert to look, I will then go on to create the magazine advert all whilst referring back to my group for their opinions and changes they would like to make.

We have already discussed this aspect of the overall task and we are aware that this advert will be promoting the music video we have created. Considering that the main emotion throughout the music video is one of vulnerability, sadness and depression we will be using one of the photographs from our photo shoot with Alice that conveys a deep sadness which will mirror the lyrics of our chosen song. 

These are the images that my group and I are most likely to use in our magazine advert:

These photographs portray Alice with smeared eye make up which relates to how she is presented in our music video. We have chosen to dress Alice in the same clothing as it highlights the continuity throughout our music video and would remind our audience of the music video when looking at our magazine advert. 

I will now research real magazine adverts and promotions for music singles and decide which layouts and colours I think work well together in order to guide our work.

General Research:

I began to research general magazine adverts and focused quite intensely on photographs which contain hands and arms as these are the photographs of Alice we have roughly chosen. 

These images of Beyonce are quite plain upon first look however the second photograph contains Beyonce as a different persona with a lot more make up and accessories. We will not be doing this with Alice as we are focusing more on the emotional turmoil of her lyrics in her songs and less on her external image to the public. The use of two CD covers in the corner of the magazine advert convey the continuity between Beyonce's products and we are eager to use this in our own work.

Jessie J also uses her hands in her magazine advert, however her main theme in this magazine advert is attitude and we were not looking for this. The positioning of the photograph is central which is useful as the artist is the main focus. The layout is simple which we liked as a group because we think this may be achievable. The artist is wearing thick black make up similar to Alice's however, Alice's make up will be more smudged and convey a deeper upset.

Specific Research:

I have decided to look more into emotional artists song, such as Adele and in some cases Rihanna, as they focus their promotions on the individual song being promoted rather than an image being portrayed to the public.

Considering that our other ancillary task has been based on the album covers from Rihanna and Adele, I decided to look into their magazine adverts which supported their albums to see how they incorporated their own themes into the production.

After using Google to research Adele's music magazine advert I noticed that her album cover for the magazine was featured on the magazine to highlight the continuity. The pictures are also very similar of Adele looking down with the same make up and slightly different hair style. The advert much similar to the album cover is very plain and simple yet very effective as it highlights that they are representing the same song/songs. The fonts used are also the same including their colours which is useful to know as when creating our magazine advert I will be using the same fonts and colours to highlight to continuity we will have.

Rihanna also has the same featured effect in her magazine advert, although in a different way. The same photograph has been used on both pieces which is the best way to present continuity. The target audience of this music would be able to recognize the photograph immeadiatley and be able to relate the two advertisements together with the artist. The fonts used are similar to the ones used on the album cover which also portray continuity. 

Both artists are also using their hands and arms in the positioning in the photographs much similar to our idea of Alice holding her hands against her head in the photograph. Her make up being smeared is similar to Rihanna's advert, although Rihanna's make up is more prominent. Although the simplicity of Adele's album and magazine cover has influenced our ideas most as this is most similar to our album cover. I will now go on to create our magazine advert, all whilst referring back to these two adverts.