Final Magazine Advert

Here is the finished product, the magazine advert. We think our advert ticks all the boxes regarding the promotion of the band, and it's easy to identify who the band are. The picture of Taylor is recognisable from the music video which the audience would have seen on music channels and we have presented the band name very clearly in a biggest font on the poster.


Below I've managed to create an idea of what our music advert would look like in a real music magazine and I think it fits in perfectly with all the other adverts. In fact, it's hard to tell which one is a fake advert.

It's just a real advert right?

Magazine Advert Construction

The picture which reoccurs through our products

As mentioned in the previous post, the first thing we did was import the picture we was going to use into photoshop and then simply build up the poster on top of it. The picture we're using is the same which appears in the digipak, so straight away the target audience will notice similarities between the three promotional products. The picture we are using has actually been criticised by some of our peers because they say it isn't a clear enough picture, but this isn't what we are looking for. With our slightly edgy music genre we have decided to our products slightly different, hence the blurred picture we are using. We think this makes our advert more unique, compared to other adverts which simply use photo-shoot pictures. The blurriness portrays the difficulties and confusion Taylor has gone through, whilst experiencing his 'Demons' or drugs.

The next most important thing was the fonts and making sure that the bands name is the first thing a reader sees. We decided to use the same font we used on the digipak as this is Fenech Soler's very own font which they use on all their products. The target audience will recognise this straight away and so will be drawn straight to the advert. Just like we did with the digipak we placed 'Fenech' and 'Soler' at either end of the product, this shows consistency in the products' style.

The 'Fenech Soler' font

For the rest of the text we put on the advert we used the same font which used for the album title 'Demons' on the front of our digipak. The colour of this font goes really well with Taylor's hoodie and so the colour scheme of the advert all matches well, creating a dark atmosphere about the album.

When  a reader sees the advert in the magazine the first thing they are going to want to know is when the album is available and so we've achieved this by informing the public that it is currently available to download on itunes. To promote the band further we placed the band's website on the advert, this could lead to further revenue for the band because you can find the band's merchandise on the website. This is known as 'add-on sales' in the world of retail.

Lastly, we learnt from competing bands and artists that they place album reviews on their adverts to boast how good the feedback they've received is. therefore we placed a four star rating on our advert from 'NME' a popular music magazine, this going to make the public want to buy it because they now know it's worth buying.

For more information and band merchandise

When can you buy it?

Album rating

Magazine Advert Planning

The main purpose of the magazine advert is to raise awareness of it's release. Fans are going to be dying to find out when the album comes out and so the advert is there to inform all the fans of this information. Also the advert has to promote the artist and so these are the things which we have to bear in mind before constructing our advert.

We plan to put on the advert a rating from an album review from a respected brand in music so the public know that it is worth buying and also the date in which the album is available to buy. We are also going to place Fenech Soler's web address on the advert so the public can find out more about them and promote them even further.

Regarding the design, we need to make it similar to our Digipak's house style so the public can quickly link the two together. Therefore we will stick to the same dark colour scheme and use same fonts we created. The first thing the reader of the magazine is going to notice is the picture, we are going to use the same picture we used in the digipak. This picture of Taylor is clearly from the video so a customer will quickly be able to recognise him from the video and hopefully want to buy the album because of this.

We will create the advert using Photoshop. Firstly, we will import the picture into Photoshop and we can have this as our fixed base layer. We can then work on all the text layers over this.

Final Digipak

Here's the complete four panels of our final digipak. As you can see the four panels all go well together with the colour scheme all matching. As planned the CD is very dark which relates to the 'Demons' and the dark background behind the album and the artist's life.

Below is a photo I've taken with a group of professional CDs, ours is also amongst them. I think that it is fair to say that our's looks as professional as the others and you wouldn't look twice if you saw it on the shelf of a music store.

Which one is the piece of school work?!

Digipak Construction

Front Cover

We decided to keep the front cover simple but effective. Using big font to attract the attention of customers and turn them customers into buyers. We chose to use a black background to represent the darkness of the 'Demons' and use white coloured font for 'Fenech Soler'. The white font will show clearly on the black background so it will be easy to identify on the music store's shelf, but not only this it also represents hope. Although Taylor, the lead vocalist of Fenech Soler and also the charcter in our video has been through dark times (black background) his music and his band gives him hope for the future (white font). As planned we found our font on the dafont website, however we found it difficult to find one which stood out and looked distinctive. So Ellis came up of the idea to pick a font and slightly adapt it using photoshop. We found ourselves a bold looking font and then Ellis put a cross shape inside the 'o' of 'Soler' as a way of showing that it is Fenech Soler's trademark font, almost like a logo. This can now feature in the rest of our media production.

Fenech Soler symbol

For the album title 'Demons' we decided to find a evil and twisted looking font. We chose to use the dark red colour because this is the colour of the hoody he wears in the video of 'Demons', achieving the consistent house style we desired.

Finally, instead of going for the conventional look of a digipak front cover we decided to go for an alternative style by placing the title' 'Demons' in between each word of our band name. This alternative choice is similar to Fenech Soler's style of music and so I think it will please the target audience.

Front Cover complete

Inside Cover

We decided that the inside cover would be where the image of our artist would be, Taylor. Then it was decision time between having a professional-style photoshoot or simply take a shot out of the video. There were benefits for both of these choices but we felt that a photoshoot isn't likely to occur in the Indie-pop culture. So we looked for a pictue in our video simply by watching the video over and over again. These were all the candidates:

Ideas for inside cover picture

All of these photos are quite similar and each one could probably fit in a Fenech Soler digipak. They each identify who the artist is and also indicate some of the difficulties and pain he's going through. However, the one which did it for us was the one with the star. It's actually the most unclear picture out of the 4 but we feel that the blurred effect it has portrays Taylor's confusion and the blurred outlook he currently had on life.

We thought that the picture alone looked a bit boring so we needed to decide what effect we wanted to place on it. The first thing which sprung to mind was to desaturate it.....

This idea was dismissed, too unclear

However, we thought that this didn't leave the picture with much clarity because the picture was already blurred.So we needed to think up of something a bit unique, something which can relate directly to Taylor and his album 'Demons'. So we came up of the idea of blurring the picture even further to emphasise on his complex life further. Then it came to us that we would have more than one copy of the picture but getting clightly more blurred each time. This again is different and alternative like Fenech Soler's music.

Inside Cover complete

Inside Cover with disc 

We kept this panel nice and simple keeping the same colour scheme for it and house style. We decided to use the symbol Ellis created for Fenech Soler to put on this panel. The symbol also goes over the disc as well so if it's taken out the symbol is incomplete. 

Inside disc panel complete

Back Cover

Tracklist

The back cover of a digipak has to show the buyer what songs feature in the album most importantly. We aligned the list to the right.We decided to use the same font which we used for 'Demons' on the front cover for the tracklist. This keeps the house style consistent through all four panels, we also chose to use the black background once again.

Something else which is important on a digipak is a barcode, because this shows that it is professional and real. We decided to place the barcode on the back cover along with the production and copyright details. Finally, we placed the cross symbol on the back cover as well so the target audience can identify it easily.

Barcode, copyright and production details

Back Cover complete

Digipak planning

The digipak is vitally important for our band's promotion because the design represents the whole of their work. To maintain a consistent house style in all three of our products we are going to use dark colours for our digipak, relating to the 'Demons'...the name of the album and the single from our music video.


It's also important to get a picture of our artist in the digipak and so we're unsure at the moment as to whether we are going to do a photoshoot with Taylor or simply take a shot out of our video of Taylor which is suitable. Where the album 'Demons' is about Taylor's past drug addiction we are going to make the digipak gloomy and melancholic, so the target audience can relate to the dark place Taylor (lead vocalist of Fenech Soler) once was.


We need to find ourselves a 'Fenech Soler font' which is going to feature on both the digipak and the magazine advert. We will use the dafont website which we used for our magazine front covers last year to find a distinctive font which is suitable for Fenech Soler's style.


To ensure that our digipak looks as professional as possible we must include every single detail in which we've seen on exemplary products. On the back cover we are going to place a barcode and also the production details to make it look realistic.


The best way to construct our digipak is going to be by doing it a panel at a time. Firstly, we'll work on the front cover, then both inside panels and then lastly the back cover. The front cover is going to be done first so that once we have completed that we can use ideas from the front ocver to complete the rest of the digipak.

Meanwhile...Final Cut Music Video Complete

Untitled from Ryan Sawyer on Vimeo.

And here it is, the final cut. From now on we'll be showing the video to as many people as possible to gain as much feedback as we can. The more feedback we receive, the easier our evalution stage should be.

Album Magazine Adverts compared to their Digipaks

Ellie Goulding - Lights
As you can see from the image to the right both products look very similar, mostly because the same picture is used for both. The advert promotes the album very effectively because the target audience can easily identify who the artist is from a distance and gain an idea to what the album is going to look like. The font used is exactly the same, it's the biggest piece of text on the advert and therefore the reader is going to know who the advert is in relation to immediately. Otherwise they could just turn the page before they read it properly. In smaller text below 'Ellie Goulding - Lights' there are quotes from album reviews and this in a way is the artist's evidence that the album is worth buying. The positive reviews are going to attract more buyers (click to enlarge the image).

Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History
Again both products look very similar with the same picture and fonts used for both. Across the top of the advert the artist name is clearly displayed in the artist's own trademark font. Beneath this and the album title it states that the album is out now and it makes it clear that it is their 'debut album' so it could appeal to anyone. It also lists a number of their hit tracks which feature on the album allowing the public to link the songs to the band/album. One song in that list could be the difference between someone buying it or not. A very clever piece of marketing shown on the advert is how they've listed all the gigs that they are playing at along the bottom and then over the top wrote 'SOLD OUT' in bold font. This shows the public that they are a successful band and that they are popular, so it's worth buying the album.





Florence and the Machine - Lungs

 As you can see on the right the advert promotes the album perfectly with the same image being used on both products. The picture is of Florence herself and so the customer will be able to identify the artist very swiftly. Like we've seen before the fonts are also the same between advert and album showing a direct comparison between the two. The writing on the advert is white on a black background so therefore the text is very clear for the public to see. The most important piece of information is along the top, being the artists name and this is in the font which Florence and the Machine always use, appealing to the target audience. Below the album name is the release date informing the target audience how long they have got to wait before they can purchase it. In smaller text it then states a few of her more popular songs which feature on the album, letting the public know what they can expect when they get their hands on the album. Lastly, in a slightly bigger font it says what forms you can buy the album in, like 'vinyl' or 'CD' for example. This informs the public that the album is aimed at a wide range of people.

Album Magazine Advert

The magazine advert needs to promote the artist's music and create excitement for the target audience. It must showcase the release date for the album because then the public know how long they have to wait until they can rush down to the nearest store to buy a copy. It also needs to display quotes from album reviews and album ratings, like ' **** - A Phenomenal Piece of Work' for example! Most importantly it should highlight the artist's name and the album title, so the public know what they are looking out for. To make the advert stand out in a magazine it needs to have an eye-catching picture, typically a picture of the artist. We need to decide whether we are going to have a photoshoot for the magazine advert or use one which we've used for the album cover. Most commonly magazine adverts show the picture found on the album cover and this is what we're most likely to do.