Planning magazine advert - Miss Miller

Planning the magazine advert

A magazine advert is an important form of advertising that an artist can use to promote themselves as part of the music industry, for example, the advert usually contains an image of the artist, either a close up of their face or a candid looking shot that shows them as being caught in the moment, both of which allow the audience to get to know what the artist looks like so that if they ever see their face again, for example, on the cover of an album or magazine advert, they will recognise who they are and if they like the music that the artist produces they may want to read more. On the other hand, a long shot image is likely to create a sense of mystery around an artist because the image does not give much away about the artist, therefore this may make the audience feel more interested and entice them to want to find out more. I am going to use a close up image for my magazine advert because my artist is new to the music industry, therefore I want the audience to be introduced to her and I want to promote her in order to aid the success of her career. Furthermore, most magazine adverts are released just before the release date of the album itself, therefore the audience are made aware of when the album is being released which may cause them to anticipate the release of the album and ensures that they know when they can buy it which increases the likelihood that the album is going to sell. It is common for albums to be released just before special holidays, for example, Christmas due to the fact that this is the ideal time because a CD is an ideal Christmas present and an artist will seek to maximise the chances of their album selling by putting it up for sale during a period where people are more likely to have the money and a reason to buy it.

I will be creating a magazine advert that promotes my chosen artist and her album which includes the song 'Salvation' that I am basing my final media project on. We had to analyse existing magazine adverts that have been created for our chosen artist and for another artist within the indie genre, as this allowed us to compare the two in order to identify any differences or similarities that they had which may have been conventional to the indie genre. We looked at what each magazine advert contained, the design and layout that they followed and the information that they included in order to ensure that I included all the necessary information when creating my own advert, due to the fact that I want the audience to be able to identify my advert as a magazine advert. It is important to plan in order to create an effective magazine advert, firstly because it will help me to ensure that my advert includes conventions of the indie genre so that the audience will be able to recognise our chosen artist as part of the indie genre. It is also important that the chosen artist is recognisable, and sometimes an artist, especially within the indie genre, will have an individual style that their fans will be able to recognise them by, for example, although she is part of the pop genre, Lady Gaga has a very individual and controversial dress sense that often creates a lot of buzz around her, and due to the fact that her outfits get a lot of people talking about her, they remain interested to see what she is going to wear next. By creating an individual image, it is more likely that an audience are going to remember who the artist is and be interested to find out more about them and their music, which could result in more sales of their music.

The colours that I have used on my magazine advert are mostly light colours including yellow, blue and green due to the fact that music from within the indie genre is often perceived as being emotional because indie artists write songs that are based on real life experiences that the audience can relate to, therefore the use of these colours may imply that the music on the album that is being promoted is going to have a deeper meaning and that it will help me to show the audience how the artist is feeling. Specific colours are often purposely used in order to help the audience understand how an artist is feeling and can sometimes foreshadow the mood of the songs from the album, for example, the use of the colour blue may cause the audience to think of the term 'feeling blue' which implies that the songs are going to make the audience feel sad. Furthermore, I have used colours that I believe will help my artists to be represented as being more natural and down to earth, in the sense that the colours are not too in your face, which could therefore imply that she does not want to be the centre of attention, which is conventional to the indie genre as indie artists are often perceived as viewing their music as more important than themselves. The use of these colours may make the artist appear more relatable and as someone who the audience can view themselves as being similar to, and they may feel closer to the artist due to the fact that they will feel as they she is sharing personal experiences with them as if they were friends. Also, the use of these colours on the magazine advert helps to promote the artist effectively because they are not too in your face, therefore it is likely that she will stand out and the audience will notice her which is beneficial to her because she is the artist and the magazine advert is promoting her music, therefore by getting to know what she looks like the audience will be more likely to recognise her in the future. Furthermore, I plan for the image of the artist to be black and white, due to the fact that I feel this will make the advert more conventional to the indie genre which is often perceived as being old fashioned, therefore the colours black and white suggest the idea of going back in time. I was inspired to use this colour scheme for my magazine advert after analysing the advert and digipak for Gabrielle Aplin's debut album 'English rain', especially through her use of more natural colours such as light blue and cream which helped to portray the artist as being more natural and as someone whom the audience were able to relate to which is conventional to the genre due to the fact that indie artists do not tend to seek to keep up with the current fashion trends that are often set by artists from within the pop genre, and there will be people within the audience who may not like or cannot afford to buy designer brands that are often associated with famous artists because of how much money they make from the music industry.

The main image that I have decided to use on my magazine advert is a close up of the artists face, due to the fact that this is conventional to the indie genre because it will give the audience a clearly view of her face which may help them to understand how she is feeling, which is conventional because the indie genre is often perceived as being an emotional genre of music, due to the fact that indie songs are often based on real life experiences that allow an audience to get to know more about an artist and help them to build an emotional connection with the song which is beneficial to the artist because if the audience feel as though they can relate to a song they will be more likely to want to listen to the song again and buy the album. In the close up image of the artist, I plan on her being dressed in plain, baggy clothing which may appear quite old fashioned, and natural looking makeup which is conventional to the indie genre due to the fact that indie artists are often perceived as having an individual style and as doing their own thing which often goes against the mainstream. Nowadays, the 'norm' is for female artists to wear revealing outfits and tons of make up that help them to conform to the idea of what society thinks they should look like, however, I want my artist to appear relatable, due to the fact that this established 'norm' may be an image that most impressionable girls cannot live up to. I was inspired by Ed Sheeran’s magazine advert for his album ‘+’ to use a close up image of my artist for the cover of my own magazine advert because it gave the advert more of a personal feel to it due to the fact that she is completely exposed to the audience in the sense that she has nowhere to hide due to the fact that the audience can see exactly what she looks like and how she is feeling. This is conventional to the genre because indie artists are known for writing their own music based on real life experiences, therefore they are exposed in the sense that the lyrics of their songs will relate directly to their life and things that have happened to them personally, therefore the audience will feel as though the artist is telling them things about their personal life which they may not already know.

The design and layout of my magazine advert will look similar to the way you would expect the front cover of a book to look like, which is purposeful because celebrities including artists often release autobiographies or biographies about themselves in order to tell the audience more about themselves. The audience will feel as though the artist is allowing them to get to know them more because books are often used by artists to explain their life stories through the use of their music, which may entice the audience into buying the album because they will be keen to know more about the artist and learn things that they may not already know. Furthermore, this may also help an artist to come across as being more relatable due to the fact that indie artists often write their songs themselves which suggests that their songs are going to based on real life experiences that help to give their music a deeper meaning and allows the audience to make an emotional connection with the song. This design and layout will be especially beneficial to someone like Gabrielle Aplin who was recently new to the music industry, and therefore had yet to build up a loyal fan base who she could target her music at and rely on to always buy her new music. It is important for an artist to establish who their target audience is, due to the fact that without them an artist will be unable to sell their music and will fail to breakthrough within the music industry. This design and layout will appeal to the target audience because they will feel as though they are going to get to know more about the artist which is beneficial to them as they will be interested to know more about their personal life. Furthermore, the design and layout helps to promote the artist effectively because it tells the audience all of the necessary and important information that they need to know about the artist and the release of the new album, which helps to make the audience aware and increases the artists chances of having their album sell. I was inspired to use this design and layout for my advert after analysing Ed Sheeran's magazine advert for his album '+' due to the fact that I felt as though he managed to include of the necessary information in regards to the release of the album, for example, the release date and reviews, without taking any of the attention away from the close up image of his face, which allowed the audience to see clearly what he looked like and how he was feeling, therefore they will be more likely to recognise him if they see his image in other aspects of the media and will have a better understanding of what they can expect the mood of his music to be like. This is conventional to the indie genre due to the fact that indie artists are known for writing their own music based on real life experiences, therefore the lyrics to their songs expose them to an audience similar to the way a close up image does.

The typography that I have decided to use of my magazine advert will look as though it has been handwritten as I believe this will add a personal touch to the advert because the audience will feel as though the artist has written the words herself, which relates to the perception that indie artists often write their own music based on personal experiences which further links to Dyer's theory and the idea that an artist must come across as being extraordinary by express the talents that they have, for example, the ability to play a musical instrument, as this helps to keep an audience interested in the artist and envious of the skills that they have. This may also cause the audience to look up to the artist as they are likely to respect what they capable of doing, as this suggests that they have spent a lot of time and hard work into being able to do what they do. This helps to promote the artist as being someone who writes their own music and produces their songs entirely on their own, therefore the audience may appreciate and respect how talented the artist is and feel as though their music is going to be personal to their lives, which may make them more interested in listening to the songs. I was inspired to use this style of font after analysing Gabrielle Aplin's advert for her debut album 'English rain' due to the fact that handwritten made the advert feel more personal to the artist because it looked as though she had written the information herself. This is conventional to the indie genre due to the fact that indie artists often write their own music themselves based on real life experiences, therefore the lyrics usually relate to their lives and allow the audience to get to know more about them, which is especially beneficial to Aplin who was new to the music industry therefore not many people will have known that much about her.

The style of language that I have decided to use is mainly quite informative, for example, the words 'out now' will clearly tell the audience that the album is currently available to buy which may encourage them to search for the album is shops or on-line if they want to buy it. The reason I decided upon 'out now' instead of making up a date was because these words imply that the audience do not have to wait any longer, which is beneficial to the artist due to the fact that in time, the audience may forget about the release of the album which could lead to a decline in sales. I have also decided to use persuasive language in order to try to encourage the audience to buy the album, for example, I have include a positive review of the album at the bottom of the advert due to the fact that an audience can sometimes be influenced by public opinion and a bad review may discourage an audience from buying an album because they will not want to feel as though they are wasting their money. This is arguably conventional to the music genre as a whole due to the fact that the industry will want to make as much money as it possibly can, which can only be done if they have an audience who wants to buy what they have to sell, which in this case is the music. A record label will feel less inclined to work with an artist who is not very successful and is less likely to make them a profit. A positive review is also conventional due to the fact that the praise of an album can act as an ego boost for an artist who is always at risk of failure in this large and ever changing industry, and they will want to show the audience what other people think about the product due to the fact that some people make decisions based on the opinions of other people.

In conclusion, while we were filming the music video, we took pictures at various points of the artist in different locations wearing different costumes, this was so that we could take inspiration and use some of these pictures for the front cover when creating our magazine advert. These pictures will also ensure that the image on our magazine cover will show a relationship with the music video itself, due to the fact that the audience will see the artist wearing the same outfit and in the same location in the music video, this also means that the audience will be more likely to associate the artist and this album. Furthermore, this process prepared us for using Photoshop because we knew exactly what colours we wanted to use on our advert, and therefore what effects we could use when using Photoshop on the image of the artist in order to create the magazine advert that we had already individually planned. Due to the fact that I had a specific image of how I wanted the artist to appear on the magazine advert, which was a close up of her face, I feel like I knew exactly what pictures I needed to take when filming in order to achieve my planned magazine cover, and by deciding what colours I was going to use I knew exactly what effects I could add onto the image or how I could change the lighting, for example, because I wanted my image of the artist to be black and white, I used as little lighting as possible to make the lighting appear more low key, which itself creates a black and white feel to an image. Most of the conventions that I have included in my magazine advert conform to the indie genre, for example, the use of a close up of the artist to show the audience how she is feeling and the use of handwritten typography which gives the advert a personal touch, both of which suggest that indie music is very emotional and personal to the artist. The reason for using conventions that conform to the indie genre was because I wanted my advert to be recognisable as part of the indie genre, and something that can be associated with my chosen artist, who through the use of natural looking makeup and affordable clothing, and the use of performance in her music videos conforms to the indie genre. Furthermore, the image that I have decided to use for the front cover of the advert will also be seen in the music video itself, which therefore causes the audience to associate the advert with the music video, which may entice them into wanting to watch the music video in order to find out why she looks the way she does. Most of my inspirations for my individual magazine advert came from analysing Gabrielle Aplin's advert and digipak for her debut album 'English rain' due to the fact that I wanted my own advert to compliment her individual style and for her established audience to recognise her from my own advert. Due to the fact that she was new to the music industry, Aplin was portrayed as being more relatable and natural, for example, through the use of affordable clothing such as a plain white dress which would have appealed to the audience who would have been able to find similarities between themselves and Aplin. Most people will often associate people within the music industry as being wealthy and will be envious of their lifestyles. This representation was beneficial to Gabrielle Aplin who would have needed to be able to connect with an audience who were going to buy into her music and continue to buy her music in order to make her more well known and successful within the music industry.