Magazine advert analysis - Miss Miller

The purpose of a magazine advert is to promote an artists album, create more marketing and awareness. These adverts help the artist to reach a wider audience and get support from other companies to push sales. The two magazine adverts I will be analysing are Ed Sheeran's and Lana Del Rey's. These two were chosen because I feel that they are very similar as both adverts are used to promote the artist's upcoming album and both artists have a similar music vision, same genre. So I felt that these magazine adverts will really support me and give me conventional ideas when developing a magazine advert for Ed Sheeran.

In this advert Ed Sheeran is represented as a laid back guy. This can be shown through the mise-en-scene, costume and his hair. He is wearing very casual clothing and has unkept looking hair. This portrays Ed Sheeran as a very easy going guy which will make him very relatable to his target audience. This follows the conventions of an indie artist as they tend to look very placid and plain in appearance. In order to keep a non-materialistic look to the audience. Ed Sheeran does not stand out as an artist in this advert and looks almost shy and meek. Through his body language it looks as if he's hiding behind his face. By his facial expressions he looks at peace and happy, giving a smile to the audience. This shows that he is a very self-effacing artist with a good spirit. This will allow the audience to be led to buy his music as they would identify Ed as a happy person which may make them feel obliged to buy his album.

The typography in this magazine advert puts Ed Sheeran's name in larger letters above the other text. This shows the audience that Ed Sheeran as a brand is important and should be memorable. However, by Ed Sheeran's name not being in large lettering can also relate to the idea of Ed being self-effacing. Not wanting to draw too much attention to himelf, but to his music. This will attract Ed fans and attract the right target audience. Which could potentially increase sales for Ed Sheeran's current song. 
   The font of the writing used on the cover looks very natural and looks like the typewriter font. This can display Ed's rawness and realness. This relates to Ed Sheeran's music style, as his music is very real and raw. It conveys this to the audience, allowing them to believe that Ed is genuine and authentic.

The main colour that stands out on the advert is the colour orange. The colour orange radiates warmth and happiness. The color psychology of orange is optimistic and uplifting, rejuvenating our spirit. This portrays Ed as a very warm kind person, who has an uplifting spirit in his music and personality. Orange is also very bright and bold, which stands out to the audience. This colour was a very good one to use for Ed. It creates and draws attention to him as an artist. Also, the colour contrasts with his bright, ginger hair. Which is a key part of Ed's appearance. Allowing the visuals and colours to blend together nicely.  
  Orange was also the theme to Ed's first EP 'The orange room'. The plus album cover had a theme of orange, we can identify that the plus logo on the advert connect with the design used for his album. This will allow theaudiece to immediatley recognise that the advert is for his album before reading further. Further research shows that Ed Sheeran's favourite colour is orange, so this may be why this colour was chosen. 

The design of this advert is very simple but bold and effective. A quote is given, explaining why the audience should buy his album. Giving positive feedack to persuade the audience, the quote is kept short and simple. All of text is alligned in the centre, showing that the information on the advert is the key focus of the advert. The advert design looks profesional but amateur at the same time, probably to give a raw effect that indie artists like to give off. As you can identify that the paper is most likely matt and grainy, while the detailing of the graphics and text are quite scruffy when zoomed up on. This again, gives Ed Sheeran a laidback appearance, which relates to the Indie genre.

In this advert it can be identified that Lana's image is the central focus of the advert. By the positioning of the pictures, her being centred in the advert. The postioning of her body and body language/facial expression as she has a serious expression on her face. While standing upright, with her chin tilted upright almost looks like a soldier. This can contrast with her album title 'Born to die' Heightening the meaning of the album title by displaying Lana with the body language for someone going to war. Her serious facial expressions convey her as a serious person, which allows her artistry to be taken more seriously by fans. As most of the advert is taken up by Lana's picture, it keeps alot of attention to her image and style (Taking a twist on the modern day 50s retro look). This allows fans to admire Lana's beauty and style. The conveyance of Lana as serious and bold, can make her an ideal role model for her target audience(mainly young girls). As she looks like a women of power, authority and boldness from her body language. 

The font and typography used on this advert has many connotations. Firstly, the title saying Lana Del Rey puts central focus on her name, her identity, making her into  brand. Furthermore, the title itself looks very similar to a title of a trendy fashion magazine title. Taking this idea, it could mean that Lana Del Rey is trying to advertise herself and establish a memorable brand through her name and image. The title also uses bold and capitals, again putting the main focus on Lana's name, making it memorable for the audience. So they can spot out Lana's advert from a mile away. 

The text put around the centre of Lana's chest, shows how much Lana cares about her album. This text is centered around Lana's chest, where the heart is located. This can show that Lana's album is something which is very important to her and from the heart and close to her heart. This can make the album appear to be like a personal gift to her audience, making the music seem more important than just music. The swirly writing detailing the album can display Lana's soft, girly side as the bold lettering is quite boastful and overally confident. The swirly writing can show a different side to Lana's personality. Allowing her audience to understand who Lana really is. 

The colours of the advert are mainly pastel and neutral colours displaying Lana as a calm individual. The colour blue and white are the main colours on the advert. These two colours are associate with kindness and peacefulness, the colours of the sky (the sky is used as the background to the advert) which transmits calmness to audience. This then portrays Lana as a calm and soothing person, which is identifiable through her sound and lyrics.
 The red lipstick can display Lana as feminine but bold, again showing two aspects of her personality. Red is an alarming colour, usually
 used to show danger, love and strength. To use this colour for her lipstick contrasts with the advert, making her mouth stand out. This could be used to emphasise how her mouth is her talent(singing) and how her mouth carried love, danger and strength.

To conclude, this research has allowed me to understand what is conventional for an advert in the indie genre and what effectively appeals to the audience. It will help me to be knowledgable of what elements are put on an advert for example, the record label, website, album name, positive critic opinions and more. So It will deem successful when it comes to me creating my own advert for my music artist and video.