Individual magazine advert - Miss Miller

A magazine advert is used to promote the artist and their upcoming album. The use of the advert would create awareness and grab the audience's attention, which could hopefully increase sales for the album/single. It also helps the artist to reinforce a particular brand image to the audience, which can compliment or contrast with the artists music style. I created a magazine advert for my artist Nico Johnson, to promote his album and hit single Runaway to the audience, to persuade them to buy it. The magazine advert will also allow Nico to potentially reach more fans. Magazine adverts are vital as it helps to build up the artist into a brand which the target audience adore. The reason we made individual adverts before doing it as a group is so we can form our own ideas and designs, we will then feedback to the group all our individual different magazine advert designs to create an improved and better magazine advert and include group members great ideas/design into one advert.

Colours

The colours used for my advert were black and white (grayscale theme) with some hints of green. I chose to use black and white as I felt that it represents the dichotomy of good and evil which I feel could represent the artist as someone who is edgy but positive. Which could relate to his music, which is deep but light-hearted. Black and white appeals to our audience by displaying simplicity and a vintage, original feel to his image. This will allow the audience to view the artist as someone who is authentic as well as unconventional. This could be a unique selling point for the artist, as he is an indie artist. And the fans appreciate an indie artists uniqueness. This magazine advert appeals to what the target audience expect to see, it has also allowed the artist to be perceived as original, allowing him to be distinguished from all the other artists out there.

Green is another colour shown in the magazine advert, green is a colour of safety, correctness, nature, health and envy. In terms of my artist I used the colour green to send out a healthy, positive and environmentally friendly comforting message to the audience. I wanted it to portray my artist as someone of good nature and transfer calmness to the audience as green is a relaxing colour. This maintains a good image for the artist and keeps fans to admire the artist. This great identity portrayed to the audience could lead to the target audience buying the album, all down to these hidden colour signals. 

Conventions

My artist is in the indie genre, the indie genre carries many conventions, I chose to follow them. In my poster the first convention is the grayscale/black and white theme to display the artist. Indie artists tend to use grayscale to emphasise shadows and add depth to the image. It also reflects the emotions being portrayed by the music which is put out by the artist. It is heartfelt and meaningful and connects to our audiences emotions as the grayscale theme is plain but eyectching with a retro oldern day feel to it.

The artists positioning in the camera (body language and facial expressions) emphasise that the artist is self-effacient this is shown a lot in the indie genre. Sometimes, their identity is hidden to convey mystery and eddginess. It also portrays the artists as humble, not too fussed about their appearance but focus particulary on their musical expertise. It also allows the audiences to want to build a closer relationship with the artist and get to know them better due to this hidden identity. It also displays the artist as not self-centered or vain, but a person who is unpretentious which can allow the audience to like them even more. Even though indie artists tend to not want to give out a image, the self-effacient laid back one is a brand identity for the artist. It will promote my artist well as the musical content produced by the artist is with good intent and respectful relating to his image.

The pictures in the background of the advert also create an indie feel to the poster. The pictures are edgy, unkept and cool looking.

The clothing which the artist is wearing in the advert is plain and casual, this is commonly shown in the indie genre. As artists are portrayed to not be very fashionable but to be laid-back in their choices of clothing. It also allows my artist to be seen as someone who focuses more on their music than their appearance. This is also shown by the styling of my artists hair, its scruffy and allows him to be seen as an easy going guy which allows him to be relatable to the target audience and give my artist a humble cool image. 

Images used

Background is a collage of two pictures together, it is a combination of two pictures merged together, to extend the collage. The collage in the background emphasises the artist as being original and creative in an urban view. The picture also displays the artist as humble and reticent, keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself. Indie artists tend to be quite reserved and I feel that the positioning of his body language portrays him as someone who keeps himself to himself, allowing him to be perceived as mysterious. Which can allow the artist to attract more fans, as fans want to uncover this mystery which the artist portrays - allowing them to be continually interested in the artists true self.  

Typography and layout 

The font used is centered in the poster, this is done to show how important the text is and how important the album and single are. It puts more importance on the album itself than the artists appearance as you can identify that the artist is positioned on the right hand side while the text takes the attention from the audience. Furthermore, the text is very futuristic using upside down triangle type font is very unconventional which relates to the artists music style which is also unique. The font is all in capitals and bold lettering emphasising that the artists music and album is the focal point of the album. It also helps the text stay in the audiences minds, so it will become memorable to the audience. Which can allow the artist to potentially increase sales as it will become unforgetable. The overlapping of lettering which allows the poster to have more depth and a 3D effect, allowing the advert to be more visually appealing to the audience.
  The layout of the poster is landscape, I felt to do that to make the advert different from all other musical artists posters it also allowed me to make a more appealing and exclusive poster which relates to the album being exclusive and deluxe which can allow the fans and audience to feel special.

Language

The language used for the album is serious through the review stating that he is 'very talented, unique and memorable' but it is also easy going by the idiom 'watch out for' an idiom is a dustinct style or perculiar way of communicating with someone. Watch out for would formally mean 'to be on watch for the arrival or approach of someone or something'. So I feel that the term watch out for communicated with the audience as if they're was already a relationship/connection as it is informal. But the seriousness at the start of the quote displays the artists music as something serious which it is, the song Runaway also has a very serious tone and meaning.  

Strengths and weaknesses using photoshop

The weaknesses with using photoshop was that when we had to use the laptops to save the project towards the end of the lesson. It would sometimes take a very long time to respond and their would be a threat of losing our work. But I overcame this with the help of a ICT technician and by using a USB to back up my files in case it deleted or did not save, which reduced that threat. I also found it very hard to remove the background of an image and to rasterize some layers. But by using tutorials on the internet and doing further reading of how to use these tools definetley helped me. However, I was already familiar with many of the photoshop tools.

I also had strengths with using Photoshop, I felt that I could position text and images effectively with no issue and my creativity was not limited by this software as there was so much I could do and so many tools to use. I used tools such as the bucket tool, blur tool and filters (grayscale). It definetley helped me to create a successful advert as it allowed me to create layers, add images, design on them and adapt them which was not complex at all. This helped me to design a clean pprofessional poster.

To conclude, I do feel that my advert follows indie conventions as I used grayscale themes, followed the theme of making the artist appear as self-effacing and serious but also portrayed the artist as someone unconventional and isolated. I believe that these are characterstics which indie artists portray. They also tend to make the audience sympathise with them and I feel like by the positioning of the artists body language and facial expressions in the advert allow the audience to feel sorry for him and build that emotional connection with the audience. This is what I feel indie artists tend to do well. The target audience for my artist is 15-25 and I believe that the poster appears to be youthful and exciting by the use of language and collages in the background, it definetley appeals to the target market through these elements.
  Furthermore, by this individual magazine advert I feel that when we come together as a group to share our individual ideas it will allow us to have an overflow of design options allowing us to be even more creative with our advert and perform a clean and great advert to promote our artist. As all our opinions will be involved allowing us to identify the faults in what we have produced and perfect it.