Completed Magazine Advert

I created my magazine advert in Photoshop Elements, which allowed me to have control over precise edits to the photo.

The original photo I used was this one:

It is set in the same place as the digipak cover and the artist is wearing the same clothes, which is a convention that I noticed many times in the research I did on magazine adverts. This allows the customer looking at the advert to easily make the link between the two. 

However, I didn't want the two pieces to look exactly the same so instead of doing the cracked paint effect on the face as on the album, as shown here:

I wanted to do something different, whilst continuing to use the cracked paint imagery used in the music video. So I surrounded the artist with cracked paint, showing how it was overwhelming her, and providing a contrast with the slight smile on her face that portrays the calm feeling of some of the songs on the album. 

I then added the text to the ad, ensuring to use the same font and colours that I used on the digipak cover to unite the two products. I added a review to the top of the advert, as I had seen this ton a few times and this is an effective way of getting customers interested in the product. I also added a hashtag with the name of the album to the bottom of the ad as this is a helpful way to get "hype" and buzz around the release of the album. If the hashtag gets trending on social media, more people are likely to check the album out. So although I am using older more traditional means of advertising an album with the magazine advert I think it is important to combine old and new marketing techniques to ensure maximum promotion. 

Here is the finished magazine advert.

Researching Magazine Advert

I've been looking at how magazine adverts align with the album covers of artists and also the conventions of adverts.

Magazine adverts always have the release date of the album, usually in very large font. This is because it is the most important piece of information on the ad.

They also nearly always use either the same or very similar design to the album cover. This is so that customers can very quickly spot the album when they go to buy it, as it looks the same as the magazine advert. This is done both through photos or artwork and having the same fonts and colours as on the album cover. So this is something I will be looking to do, as I took a lot of photos of the artist I will be using, so I can use two photos of her in the same setting to create that link.

Another convention of magazine adverts is that they often include the website of the artist. This is so a customer can visit the website of the artist to find out more about them and that site may also have clips of songs, as well as any music videos that artist has produced. This allows a customer to decide whether they like the music of the artist before purchasing the album.

Finished Digipak Front Cover

I got a digipak template from the internet and wanted to ensure that my front cover that I had created fit well, by cropping it to the needed size.

Here's the template:

I then cropped the design to fit the proportions shown on the template and got this final front cover.

I decided to use this photo of Kirti as she links the music video and the digipak in a more subtle way than just using myself and Megan on the cover. This is because she appears in the background of the music video several times.

I also used a photo set in the location of a key scene in the music video, where my character is confronted by her parents.

Font is also a key part of the branding of an album release and so I used "Adam CG. Pro" and "Messenger Pigeons", both of which I downloaded from the internet rather than using default fonts already installed on the computer. This meant that the fonts had more chance of being uncommon and standing out.

So now I just need to put together the other 3 elements and the cd cover is complete!

Tom Odell Digipak Analysis

I have analysed Tom Odell's album cover as his music has a similar sound to that of the song we used for the music video and so I wanted to see how his management and publicity team approached representing his sound.

Using Photoshop Elements

I have begun to put together my digipak and as part of that I am going to include the image of cracked paint as a link to the music video and the themes of it. As in Tessa Violet's album cover, I want to blend the image with a portrait of the artist, in order to get across the surreal calm feeling of the music.

To do this, I need to learn how to use Photoshop. I'm practicing on the thumbnail of a YouTube video I made a couple of months ago.

Here are my two images:

I found it was quite easy to blend the two, simply using the Opacity tool:

Opacity at 100%

Opacity at 20%

But I also wanted the cracked paint to fit over only the face of the artist so to do this I had to crop the cracked paint layer to fit where I wanted it to. I used the Lasso tool for this. 

making the selections with the lasso tool

the first rough draft using this technique

In the final piece, I would then get rid of the cluttered background to ensure the artist is clear.

I have now learnt how to use Photoshop Elements in the way I will need for my digipak. Now I need my photo of the artist for the front cover of the album and the magazine advert.

Megan's Bag

During our music video, Megan's character drops her bag off as shown here -

We decided to do this because we thought that although Megan's character runs away from home with the bag that she packed, halfway through the narrative she realises she wants to leave everything behind, hence dropping the bag full of reminders of her past.

I needed to clarify this as there was some confusion amongst the audience at the screening over Megan's character's motivations.

Tying together the digipak and music video

Something that I've been thinking about in terms of my digipak is linking the album cover and the magazine advert with the music video in a way that will be easy for audiences to understand. So I've been looking at the album art for Tessa Violet's EP Halloway. 

The album cover uses very similar imagery to the music video for her single Dream with images blended between the artist and nature. A cream background is also used for both which makes the artist the focus of the image. Blending images is something I am interested in doing for my digipak and so this is good inspiration. 

However, despite there being such clear links between the album art and the Dream music video, the other video from this EP has no link to the album art whatsoever, showing that although it can be helpful, links between digipak and music video are not essential.