Initial designs for magazine advert

My rough copy (David Odumosu)

This is my rough copy design of a magazine advert that I feel we should use some ideas from it. My ideas came from researching and analysing already existing magazine adverts in the same genre as our music.
I dressed the artist wearing a plain white t-shirt and wearing a gold chain with a cross on it. The cross I feel follows the convention of hip-hop artist as they normally wear flashy jewellery to connote wealth and status. In addition to this I put the artist in a white t-shirt so that it would make the chain stand out more.

In my magazine advert I positioned my artist in front of artwork which had the title of the song on it and a design of one of the areas which we filmed in.

The body language I feel is also an important part in the magazine advert because it is creates the characters persona. We can give the artist a negative body language which would imply that the songs he makes are sad, violent and other negative connotations or a positive body language which would imply the music his music is happy and positive. However in my design I mixed the body language to portray that the artist music is a mix.

Ayo's rough copy

Ayo created a magazine advert with just text on it and no picture of the artist. He did this because he felt that our artist was already well know and the audience did not need an image of him to know who he is and they could already tell who the artist is just from the name. 

He also above the name gave where the songs could be found. This is something that I missed out in my design which I feel I should have implemented.

Although his reasoning for not having an image of the artist is credible I feel that we should adhere to the conventions of having an image of the advert on the magazine advert.

David Aluko's rough copy

David Aluko's design included an image of the artist central of the whole advert with the song title at the top of the advert and the artist name in a smaller font next to the image.

He also had where you can purchase it on the magazine advert which Ayo also had and I didn't include. After discussing with my group I now realise it is very important to put where you can access the music on the advert. 

However in David Aluko design one of the text says "Out this friday!" and below it says "Available now" this will need some clarification when we are making our final design.

In conclusion, we will integrate all our ideas to create a final piece which we will use photoshop to design it. We aim to create a precise and professional advert. 

Initial designs for Digipak

In this video my and I group discussed each of our digipak initial designs that we created and we concluded that we will add each of our designs to create our final product as we will all of our ideas added together can create a great final piece. 

The video is below:   

Behind the scenes 2 - Editing

This is the behind the scenes video of us as a group editing. All the changes in this video were done towards are final piece. We as a group each took part in the editing equally and we all grew in confidence (In editing) throughout the making of our music video.

Magazine advert analysis - Drake

"Take Care is the second studio album by Canadian hip hop recording artist Drake. It was released on November 15, 2011, by Young Money Entertainment, Cash Money Records and Republic Records." 

In this magazine advert there is one picture of Drake which is the exact same one as the album cover where he is sitting at the table with golden theme. When people see the album in store they will be able to recognise the album as the same one they saw in the advert this is a good marketing technique.

In terms of text, we are able to see the artist name in capital letters "DRAKE" which is at the top of the advert, this means Drake's name is the first thing you see when look at the advert. Drake is a popular and well-known artist so seeing the name Drake in capitalised writing will attract a huge audience. At the bottom "NEW ALBUM OUT MONDAY" this again draws the audiences attention because it is in capitals as well. It also discloses information about when the album will be released this is a difference from other adverts where they do not disclose the information in capital letters like this. The fact that the album just says "NEW ALBUM OUT MONDAY" is as if everyone should be buying it on Monday.

The most used colours of the advert are black and white these do not really have any underlying meaning however the colour gold usually represents wealth and status. Most rap artist use the colour gold in their albums artwork/adverts.

The use of gold connotes the artist having money and those who listen to Drake and his genre will usually identify that the advert is likely to be advertising a rap album. From this analysis I am able to identify that artist will try and draw their audience attention by doing the conventional things in their album artwork and advert.


From this advert I learned that Drake has a sense of simplicity in his magazine adverts as he know he is a well known artist and doesn't have to do extravagant designs for people to notice him. In my group magazines advert I will try to include the simplicity of the font which I learned from Drake's advert. 

Magazine advert analysis - Chris Brown

"With the 2007 album Exclusive, he released a record so stuffed with radio-ready singles that it almost imploded on itself. Not content to simply allow Exclusive to sit on its own as a great R&B record, a fresh and new package had to be created to maximise the buzz around this talented young man."



Chris Brown is a Grammy award winner who is know for his dancing and his singing approach he is a hip-hop and R&B artist.

Chris Brown is shown as a medium shot and is covering the whole right side of the magazine whereas his name only covers a small section of the left side. This draws our attention to Chris Brown.



We portray Chris Brown as an artist who stereotypically targets the female audience by removal of his clothes whereas in this magazine advert he is dressed in a suit looking very formal this goes against the stereotype. I feel this is done to target a wider range of audience. If Chris Brown was to have his top off and be posted on a magazine which would be sold worldwide in shops would only target a small number of a particular audience whereas his being in a suit attracts a number of audiences of different ages and gender.



The title name is in capital letters "CHRIS BROWN EXCLUSIVE" and is printed above the picture this allows attention to be paid to both of them equally due to the use of capital letters. His name is printed in gold against the background and connotes wealth and status this could be Chris Brown implying that this album will cause him to have a status and it did.



The advert involves all the singles on the album in a list manner, this would attract the audience more as they know what they are buying. The advert also says "with guest appearances by Kanye West, The Game and Lil Wayne this again attracts the audience to buy it as they will feel as if they are getting added value because not only are they hearing music from Chris Brown they are also hearing music from other well known artist for no extra cost.

Digipak analysis - Rihanna

Rihanna is a similar artist to Drake as they make music within the same genre: Pop music, R&B music and Hip-hop music. This is why I have chose to analyse her digipak as well.

 

Characters

The characters on the front of the digipak is very limited only the artist name 'Rihanna' and the album name 'Loud' which is place above and below Rihanna faces. The colour of the text is white which connotes innocence and purity. The colour white also relates to Rihanna audience of females as it links to the feeling of romance (due to a bride normally wearing the colour white). Even inside the digipak minimal characters are used as Rihanna uses images of herself to create a message which is done by her body language and her facial expression.

Setting

On the inside of the digipak Rihanna (the protagonist) is pictured laying on red roses. The image is very eye catching and also allows the audience to create plenty interpretations for the image. The image creates a story like image and Rihanna even is wearing a marital dress which could connote that Rihanna wants to feel loved. Stereotypically woman are portrayed as emotional characters and wanting affection this would mean that Rihanna is trying to reach to her target audience which is females of the age 16-21+ years old. However Rihanna reveals parts of her body as well while she is laying on the red roses this would also appeal to the male audience.

Colour 

The colour red appears to be the main colour scheme throughout the whole album. The colour red connotes love, passion, danger and fire. The fire aspect of red could relate to Rihanna's fiery personality. Her songs are usually passionate and relate to her life from the colour red we could infer that Rihanna is passionate about her career and what she is singing about. Although alternatively her red lips may symbolise a woman who is in need of romance and is innocent. The red lips may reassemble a sexual provocative element to Rihanna. The way she is laying in that white portrays her and trying to seduce someone which goes against the initials inference of her being in a white marital dress signifying innocence and purity.  

CD

On the CD the design is of pink roses which represents beauty. The CD being in roses could also portray that its not only Rihanna that is beautiful (from the pictures on the album art work) but also the music itself is beautiful. "Light pink roses are associated with gentleness and admiration, and can also be used as an expression of sympathy". The CD appeals to the female audience as the light colours and the design of the rose will attract the female audience and they symbolise roses as something much more meaningful than a stereotypically male.

I feel that the theme of the digipak and the title of the album differ from each other. From the pictures Rihanna is pictured looking innocent however the album title 'Loud' would go against innocence and would probably connote someone who is confident and bold. From my own knowledge I would say that the title 'Loud' represents Rihanna more than she is pictured in the artwork design.

Digipak Analysis - Drake

What is a digipak? 

"A type of packaging for CDs or DVDs, typically made from cardboard with an internal plastic holder for one or more disk."

The image below is Drake's digipak for his album "Take Care" the genre of this album is

a mix of R&B, hip hop and pop music. 

The CD for the album itself follows the colour scheme of black and gold of the album front cover. It has no picture of anything and only has DRAKE and the album name. This could imply that Drake feels as if he is a well known artist and everyone knows who he is already. 

The colours still connote wealth (Gold and black) and it also implies a classic as the colours are so simple. 

The back of the album is simple and only includes the track names and credits to his producers. The simplicity of the back cover suits Drake's target audience because it is stereotypical for males to like simple designs as they are mostly interested in the tracks. The capital letters of all the songs makes it more bold and more forthright which links to Drake as an artist. The colours, black and brown, create a serious atmosphere which links to his style of music and he normally mentions the struggles of relationships and life. The design creates an unfinished effect which could represent his songs as an unfinished battle.

I feel that Drake's 'Take Care' album is conventional to the stereotypes of black male R&B and rap artist. In my opinion the design on his digipaks links with his target audience due to various reasons which I have explained in the paragraphs above such as the back cover of the digipak having a simple design to link to the male audience as they stereotypically like simple things compared to females who are stereotypically more complex.