Magazine Advert - Audience Feedback

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As my results show, 100% of people felt that the magazine advert was effective in drawing their attention; this proves that the advert is effective at being eye-catching. 

I spoke to the 2 people who answered "I'm not sure" and their reasoning was that they chose that answer because they were unfamiliar with the genre. It's also important to note that they are both outside of my primary and secondary audience. 

The reason for this result is the same as the above result.

Based on the audience feedback I have received, I can conclude that my magazine advert is successful in advertising Bishop Briggs' album to my target audiences. 

Magazine Advert - Final Version

This is the final version of my magazine advert for Bishop Briggs' self-titled album.

In my previous post this advert looked different; the following changes - the opacity and the colour of the Capricorn icon, the font colour becoming black, and the iTunes logo changing completely - have been made at the advice of my teacher, who says the previous edit made the appearance of the magazine seem "slightly off". 

The choice to make the font black emphasizes to the audience that this album is self-titled, and puts the focus on advertising Briggs. 

Since the font became black, the Capricorn had to become white to create contrast. While this is the reverse of the DigiPak, it still uses the same design and colours and therefore still links clearly back. 

I chose to make the white slightly translucent as it connotes a sense of fading; it's almost ghostly. I liked the way that this linked back to the themes of memories in my music video, in that it reflects how things can fade over time, but that they never truly vanish. 

Magazine Advert - Development

Having designed the DigiPak cover, I knew the style and appearance that I was going for with the magazine advert. 

Using Adobe Illustrator, I opened a new document, inserted the water colour version of the river picture that I used for the DigiPak's front cover, and made a clipping mask so that I could correctly resize the picture to fit the portrait layout of a magazine advert. 

I then used the vector of the Capricorn Icon that I had saved, and opened it in the same document. I resized it without the changing its proportions (by holding down the shift key.) At this point I had the opacity set to 70%, as I liked the blended effect that this created.

As I had done with the DigiPak, I used the font Trattatello in white, as it faded nicely with the background but was still clear and seeable. It also created a striking contrast between the artist's name and the icon, which is more eye-catching. 

I decided to enhance this contrast by changing the opacity back to 100%, which made it far more striking. (My decision to change the contrast of the icon caused me to change the opacity of the icon on the DigiPak cover as well, as the ancillary products must follow the same artistic decisions so that the overall product - the singer - is presented in a consistent and professional manner.) 

I'd already decided on how I wished to layout my magazine advert (for example, with centre alignment) and what information I wished to include in it, as I'd explored this in my magazine advert ideas post.

The only changes I made were to the font (which became Trattatello), and some very minor size and placement adjustments. 

I changed the colour of the link to Brigg's website, as it was more seeable in black than it was in white, and I removed the "Available at" from above the iTunes logo and placed iTunes.com beneath it instead as this made for neater formatting. 

And so, pictured below, is what I would like to be the finalised version of my magazine advert. It's minimalistic in its information, but it does display all the necessary informational conventions of a magazine advert, contains links to the music video (i.e. the watercolour is of the river where the opening and ending scenes take place,) and is centred around the defining iconography of my artist, the Capricorn icon.

Magazine Advert - Ideas

Based on my research into the codes and conventions of magazine ads for albums, I know that the magazine ad is essentially a variation on the album/DigiPak cover.
As I intend for my advert to follow these conventions, I will be basing my magazine advert off of whatever my final DigiPak cover looks like.

In all likelihood, I will be using my own design of the Capricorn icon - as it appears on the front of the DigiPak.

Keeping in form with the DigiPak, I plan to also use the same parchment paper background (of course I will need to see how it looks in actuality before I finalise any decisions.) 

I reckon that I'll probably stick with the layout of my draft magazine advert (pictured below), as it contains all the necessary information and clearly identifies what the advert is about, without losing the striking simplicity.

As I've already considered with the DigiPak, I plan to explore using one of the fonts below for all the typography featured in the advert (with the exclusion of the record label logo, the artists website address, and the iTunes logo/website.) The font I ultimately choose will of course be the same font that I use for the final DigiPak.

This font is the most similar to the brush with which I created the Capricorn drawing. I'm inclined to use it, save for the possibly juvenile feeling it creates. I will be showing three edits - one with each font - to members of my target audience to gain feedback and opinions to help me make a final decision.  

This font has the same uneven edges, but in a slightly more toned down version making it less juvenile looking. However, I'm not sure if the thinness makes it feels too clean/simple. 

  

I think this one is my personal favourite. It's style makes it feel as if it's been carefully handwritten, and it looks good in lower-case and upper-case letters.

At this stage I can't decide anything else, but I am now ready to begin bringing my ideas to life with Photoshop and Illustrator.

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!