Magazine Advertisement

The first thing I did was to look up some existing advertisements and try to work out their conventions to help me create mine.
I found an initial 4 examples, and when editing them together onto a single picture to post on my blog, I noticed that all of them had something in common; they all used the album artwork in the advertisement, to show this I've also added the album artwork below its corresponding advertisement. All of these adverts are portrait, and could be a small advert in the corner of a page, or it could be a full page.

I then analysed a single album advert.

Above is the advert for the album, and below is the album cover itself.

The first obvious thing about the album advert is the fact that it closely matches the Album Cover itself. This creates a sense of a 'house style', that allows audiences to link the advert with the album subconsciously, and help them to recognise it. The point of an album advert is to sell the album, and by creating this subconscious and obvious link between the album advert and the album cover itself, the record label's designers are hoping to generate more sales. 

The background of the advert is dark, which helps to create contrast upon the white pages of a magazine, this can help it to stand out and catch magazine readers eyes. The images of pink flowers and bright skin of the artist also stands out more because of the background. This use of colour could have been used to connote a dark, depressing album, 

A mixture of two types of typography are used, the artists logo is a hand written decorated font, which will match all of the marketing done by the artist as it is a continuous logo, whereas the rest of the text is in a serif font, similar to Times New Roman. The connotation of the logo font are feminine and almost childish, whereas the fonts of the album name and other text is serif, masculine and more mature. The difference between the two fonts could be compared to the difference between a letter written by a child (written by hand) and a letter written by an adult (typed, Times New Roman style font). This technique could have been used to separate the childlike creativity needed to create an artistic piece of work, such as an album, and the corporate, mature information needed to actually buy the album.

The large image of the artist has many connotations. The flowers reinforce the femininity of the album. The greenish tint of the background contrasts well with the ginger hair and burgundy lungs of the artist. There is juxtaposition in the mise on scene, flowers are in front of a curtain, which are found usually inside the house, while flowers are found outside. This could be to connote that the album is personal, and the artist is exposing her secrets, and inner emotions, some of which are dark (enforced by the gloomy, dark curtains) and some of white may be light and happy (enforced by the bright pink flowers)

 A real sadness can be seen on the artists face, and she's looking down with her eyes closed and her hands up, this could represent her surrendering to her inner sadness that is expressed in the album, and fits the overall gloomy look of the advert. Little makeup is work which matches the Victorianistic look of the album. The clothing the artist is wearing is see through, which connotes how she is showing the world her inner emotions through the album, and it almost looks like bars - trapping the lungs on her chest. This may connote the fact that she has been silenced by something, possibly her sadness, and the album is helping her to express this inner sadness. The fact that the lungs have been removed from her body also may connote that she has been stopped from expressing herself. The lungs are smooth and cartoonistic, unlike real lungs that would be rough, organ like and bloody if removed from the body, this may connote that she has 'sugar coated' what's in the album.

The album also says a simple date, '6.7.09', this may be in order to not draw attention away from the focus of the advert - the artist - but still offer the information needed by the audience. The included singles are also shown, along with the formats the album can be bought on. This is all at the bottom as its not vital information, but it is useful to help sell the album and again give the consumers the information they may want to know about the album. At the bottom of the advert is the web address that audiences can visit to find out even more marketing information about the album.   

There are a few types of magazine advertisement, for example:

• Double Page Spread
• Single Page Spread
• Half Page
• Article Style

One of the ways advertisers are now promoting products in magazines are 'article styled' adverts. This is where the advert looks like an article in the magazine, but is covertly promoting the album. Jennifer Lueck, from the Department of Communication at Texas A&M Univerity says "People are very good at recognising the source and the persuasive intent [of adverts]. And that's why the majority of advertising's really not successful". One example is below:

So from my convention research, I knew the best place to start would be a simple portrait rectangle advert to go on a full page, or as a small inset advert in the corner of a page. I started with the pictures I'd already taken, and chose my favourite 9, from them I created a few advertisements.

I created a hand drawn draft and then set about creating and changing the design.

 

Above are two separate designs I came up with, one with a white background, and the other with a background created by stretching a single vertical column of pixels from the face out, this helped show the colours. Both designs feature a picture from the album artwork, and the "I'll find my own Bravado" logo from the album. The shape of these adverts allow them to be presented as either a single page spread or an inset advert within a magazine, and they can also be used for other publicity (the example I've used below is a bus shelter advertisement)

It could also be a landscape advertisement, and using the same image and logo, but with a different layout, I can create a completely different advertisement, which still fits with the advertising campaign and album artwork, for example:

I especially liked this fourth mockup I created. The white background matched that of the album, and I think the pictures and text all works really well together. The different features of the advertisement can be repositioned to fit other mediums, like a double page spread for example:

To show this, I have rearranged these pictures, and the style and colour scheme to create three new adverts. The first is a Double Page Spread, the second is a Single Page Advert, and the third is a double page, 'Article Style' advert like I discussed earlier in this post.

A DPS Advert

A single page advert, with an unrelated article to the right.

A DPS advert, the left page is graphic, and the right page has an article selling the article. 

After speaking to my teacher and getting feedback on my designs, we decided that they weren't perfect and needed a few adjustments. Firstly we established that I needed to use more conventions in my advertisement, so I analysed some adverts to get an idea of their codes and conventions.


We also decided that the "I'll Find my Own Bravado" kiss logo was insufficient and didn't fit with the theme of the advert, so I'm going to remove that.

I created a new version of the advert (above) using every single one of the conventions. I then analysed the changes I'd made:

After reflecting on my draft, I decided I didn't need all of the conventions, as none of the adverts I'd looked at used every convention, I decided to remove the review section of the advert. I also increased the size of the website and twitter text, and edited the "Out Now" lipstick to fit the size of the text better. I also changed some of the text to match the logo typography. The images below show some of the process.

I also created hand drawn drafts

 

Because of the size, this advert can be used as a full page, quarter page etc.



And again this graphic can be used for more then just magazine adverts, for example:

What magazine would the advert feature in?

According to my audience survey, the majority of my audience were female aged 17-18, therefore the best magazines to advertise in would be magazines who's audience were also female aged 17-18. The magazines I could advertise in could be Cosmopolitan or Glamour, as they are aimed at the female 18-25 audience, which roughly fits my audience. But the majority of popular culture or music magazines would be sufficient for advertising, as my audience survey showed that the possible target market was broad.