Magazine Advert - First Stages

As part of my A2 coursework, I have been tasked with creating a Magazine Advert for my chosen artist.
To do this, I'm again going to be using the programme Adobe Illustrator CS6.

As I've done my research and analysis into the codes and conventions of magazine adverts, and as I've already begun to dabble with album cover ideas for DigiPak, I had a enough of an idea for my own advert to begin an initial exploration. 

So, the first thing I did was to open a new document in Adobe Illustrator CS6, and place a black rectangle shape over the page. This gave me a base to work off of, and matched the choice I made for the black background on the front and back covers of the DigiPak.

As I'd already worked with Illustrator, I conveniently had all the vectors I'd previously used readily available me, so when I decided to recreate the appearance of the album cover, all I had to do was select the previously downloaded images, such as the capricorn vector and the island records logo vector. 

Due to the importance of making the magazine advert congruous with the the DigiPak, I chose to use the same font - Lucida Blackletter - that I used on the DigiPak on the advert. I created a text box using the text box tool, and then I placed the artists name, "Bishop Briggs" in large at the top centre of the page, in line with the horns of the capricorn vector I placed below. 

At an equal distance of spacing beneath the capricorn, I decided to place a review/rating of the album (taken from a real review). I created another text box and then chose a smaller size for this, as people will be more intrigued as to what the smaller writing says and will therefore pay attention when reading it. 

Like I did with the DigiPak - and as I've noticed it as a convention of numerous other album magazine adverts - I placed the record company logo in the bottom right hand corner. I'd already downloaded it as a vector before, so all I had to do was open it as new and then change its colour to white (so that it would show up against the black background.) 

At this point it still felt rather lacking as a magazine advert, so I looked at my list of magazine advert conventions and decided to add a release date, information about where the album is available, and Bishop Briggs' website address.

To get the right look for the website address I tried placing a screenshot of the actual address so that I could have the fancy "B" symbol it uses at the start. However, I was dissatisfied with how this look, so I instead typed out the web address using Lucida Blackletter for the "B" (the closest font I could find) and Arial for the address. This provided me with a similar enough look and avoided me having to use a screenshot. 

This is the screenshot of the actual website address

This is my recreated version of the website address

To advertise where the album is available I decided to download the vector for iTunes (granted, it's not the most recent logo, but it'll do for this practice run.) 

I then opened it in Illustrator and placed it in the bottom left hand corner of the advert, opposite and aligned with the Island Records logo.

I wasn't quite finished yet though, as the iTunes logo by itself - while the message would've been clear enough - felt a bit unfinished.
So I typed "Available at" and "iTunes.com" and placed them above and to the right of the logo.

Admittedly, this looks odd. But for now in this trial it'll do.

Overall, by this point the advert was definitely looking more appropriate.

Still very simplistic in terms of the visual design, but as I'd included enough of the codes and conventions to make it clear what I was advertising, I decided to conclude my trial here.

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In conclusion, as a first attempt I am satisfied with the results. I like the simplicity of the capricorn logo and definitely intend to keep using it; however, I do think the design may be too clean for the genre. I'm planning to try working with photoshop to incorporate some photography in the design, possibly using the frame of the capricorn...
But we shall see!