Magazine Advert Reflection

The purpose of a magazine advert or tour poster is to advertise a commodity and it is done by conveying an artist in a particular way, depending on the genre they lie in, in order to appeal to a large audience and raise knowledge. This produces revenue for their signed record label, allowing them to venture and grow as an artist. When conducting secondary research into magazine adverts, it gave me an a greater understanding of what is to be included, the conventions to follow, where the commodity is placed and so on. By analysing Nina Nesbitt's magazine advert I was able to look at how she, being an indie artist represented herself, what location she used, as well as the size and type of font she used for the her name and tour dates. I learnt about certain conventions within my chosen genre and that it has to be thoroughly thought about and planned. Through analysing Nina's, ideas came to mind about possible design ideas for myself, which lead to me carrying out a paper design. When looking at an individual poster of Nina's, I was fascinated by the editing techniques used, however still remaining simplistic and informative, I found it extremely effective in the way it instantly caught my attention and was so straight forward to a T. Looking at the poster, instantly an audience can see the type of artist she is, by the casual, laid-back clothing, natural long blonde messy hair; something any teenager or above could relate to which really creates a connection.

My ideas and inspirations behind my paper design were very simple and straight forward, I wanted to have as much focus as I could on the commodity, being Georgia with little of anything else that could detract any attention. At first I didn't have many ideas of what I wanted on my magazine advert, but this was the design I began with this (shown on the right). Obviously the first thing I thought was fundamental to include was Georgia, the commodity we wish to promote. I drew Georgia with big blue eyes, the commonly worn eyeliner by most indie artists, bright lips and with voluminous blonde hair. I felt that this look suited the style we aimed to portray within the music video, however obviously not doing her much justice in terms of my drawing. Another vital element was adding her name, the thing that people are going to know her by. I wrote it in large, curly writing to try and meet typical indie conventions; something that would stand out, however not being very clear in this image due to lighting. The elements in which I would have liked to still include were the album name, logo and a release date which is something that I have not on my paper version, but wish to when creating it on Photoshop to make conventional even more so to the indie genre.

When creating my paper version I wanted to have the characters face focused on, in order to make a connection with our audience as she shows off her artist image. I feel that in many ways despite my paper version being extremely plain it is conventional to the indie genre; the curly writing to almost give the effect of it being signature like, the blonde hair; giving the audience the impression of her purity, the dark lips and eye makeup to highlight her facial features and so on. There is no dominant colour used within my paper version to suggest that its targeted at a particular sex, making it clear to our audience it's for both men and women. A colour scheme is very important, and making it unisex attracts a greater audience which will result in Georgia becoming a greater success within the industry.

By creating a design on paper, and then experimenting on Adobe Photoshop CS6, I was able to visually have an idea of what I would like it to look like. I created a magazine advert promoting Georgia as a commodity and created awareness to her audience of the album and when its out. Her name stands out in bold white writing and the picture clearly portrays her indie style (denim shirt with a tartan shirt wrapped around her waist making it conventional to our chosen indie genre. Georgia's facial expression conveys her bubbly personality and that shes taken on the natural and pure look, which in fact reflects her songs in the way she sings from the heart. We chose to take these observational photos during filming as the clothing seem ideal, her makeup was toned down and Georgia look particularly natural, portraying normality; someone that can be relatable to our target audience wearing high street fashion.

At first, I did find the challenge of creating a magazine advert on Adobe Photoshop CS6 hard, as I have only used the software on a very rare occasion, however by doing so I was able to develop my skills and broaden my knowledge in developing from a consumer into a producer.

I made the text clear and bold to stand out against the image and inserted a spray-painted brick wall in the background and an image of Georgia in the foreground. In order for the two to blend I used the blur tool in order to soften the rough edges from where I cut the original background and then played around with the contrast and saturation. I came across a little issue along the way when I realised  the spray-painted brick wall background would not cover all of the empty space, therefore I copied and pasted the image again and used the opacity tool to blend the two together creating a dynamic effect. I chose this background as I felt it would attract others visually with all the bright colours involved, and that through spray paint a piece of art has been created. It also has that grunge effect which makes it a little different but unique in comparison to other indie artists. With Georgia's clothing in this mid shot differing from any colours involved in the background, she as a result stands out as the focal object. 

Obviously within my design i aimed to promote Georgia as a commodity and as a result gives the opportunity to promote herself to our target audience. It allows the audience to see snippets of her personality shine through. The more we portray to the audience, the higher the success rates. In my opinion, I feel that it is simplistic yet effective through being conventional to our indie genre, however if I were to improve on this I would aim to use more editing effects to show further development and practise with a variety of images to see which suited best.