After we had finshed our individual magazine advert, my group and I came together and we discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each others magazine adverts. We disscussed which elements of each magazine advert would be most successful in conforming to the indie genre. We then developed one magazine advert to make it better and more appealing for the audience. We took elements from all of our work in order to create one that all group members were happy with. Some elements that we kept the same was the font, colour of the title and the colour of the text. We believed that these elements were already successful in creating an indie genre magazine advert, so keeping them the same was the right thing to do.
Within the magazine advert, there is high use of the conventional colours stereotypically associated with the indie genre, this is use of natural/earthly colours. These include light blues, browns, greens an greys. By researching magazine adverts within the indie genre it was clear that main colours used were blues, browns and greys. Because of the information that we received whilst researching, we believed it would be successful to follow the conevntions of the indie genre as we wanted the artist to be portrayed as a successful artist and to make the audience fully aware of who she is and what she is about.The colours that are included in the final magazine advert are all related back to the title of the song that we are trying to promote, which is Burn. All of the colours represent fire and burning. These colours are reds, yellows and oranges. As well as giving the audience an insight to the album and what type of music may be included, it also gives the audience an indication of her personality. Reds and oranges may perhaps represent her as feisty and a strong female character. The audience may be attracted to this and make them want to find out more about her, resulting in them buying the album. The colours give the audience an insight to what she is going through as an artist. The fire related colours make the audience believe that she is going through hard times, with the colours representing anger and fustration. The audience will sympathize with her and will buy the album to find out more about her problems and difficulties.
The conventions of the indie genre are still successfully portayed within our final magazine advert. This is shown through the mise-en-scene elements such as clothing, body language and iconography. The body language in which the artist is showing within this advert is her with her head back and leg up on the guitar, the pose portrays her as easy going which is conventional to the indie genre as being laid back and easy going is stereotypical of indie genre personalities. This enhances the audience and artist relationship as the audience are able to believe that she is down to earth and someone whom is true to themselves and have achieved success of their own hard work and efforts. The clothing that the artist is seen to be wearing is a denim jacket, jeans and big boots. These clothes are all conventional to the indie genre as they make the artist seem laid back and down to earth. Her everyday clothing choice makes her seem more relatable to the audience which means the audience can connect to her more and makes the artist seem someone whom is relatable which means the increase of people buying her album. The guitar is also comventional as it a stereotypical instrument played within the indie genre, we included the guitar as it allows for the artist to promoted as mulit-talented and skilled. This therefore makes the audience more intrigued into her and will want to find out more about her. Another convention which the magazine advert follows is the use of typography. The writing looks as if the artist has handwritten it herself. This gives a more personal feel to the magazine advert as the artist is showing that she has personally given a message to her audience despite it only being the title of her hit single ‘Burn’ this being made to look like it is made from fire. It lets the audience connect more with the artist as they can see that the magazine advert is about the artist themselves, and it also makes the audience feel as if she has written the magazine advert herself. I have also included an image that shows a more rebellious indie artist, which would of subverted the indie music genre and makes her have a more powerful appearance instead of the stereotypical innocence they usually have about them.
The picture that we decided on using was taken from our group member Leandra's individual magazine advert. It shows the artist to be in a natural envoirnment with a brick wall as the background. We believed that this surrounding and with the mise-en-scene elements included, makes it highly conventional of the indie genre, whilst at the same time promoting the artist successfully. The image shows the artist standing up straight with her head tilted back, the body language that she is presenting makes the audience believe that she is strong, bold and a confident person. This builds the relationship with the audience as it shows that the artist is independent and successful, making the audience aspire to her and want to be just like her. Whilst we were editing the magazine advert together, we used the 'contrast' effect on Photoshop which allows for high key lighting to highlight the feature on her face. The audience will then be able to clearly see the artist looking directly at them, again enhancing her confidence and making the audience intrigued to her. The image shows off her figure whilst following the conventions of the mis-en-scene elements clothing and the baggy top half, whilst the trousers are usually tight fitting. This creates a better relationship with the audience as she will be able to appeal to a wider audience including males as she shows off her sexuality as a female artist despite not looking provocative. This then therefore makes her look more independent and strong despite trying to look like somebody she isn't.
The layout and the design of the magazine advert is rather simple and easily reabable for all audiences. We wanted to make the artist the centre of attention and therefore we made the image of the artist to take up all of the room on the advert. This promotes the artist in a positive light as because she is centre of attention, it shows her to be successful and Her name is boldly written abover head which makes the audience identify successfully what her name is and who she is. The use of putting her name above her head allows her to be the main focus of the advert, the audience are led to look at the most important aspects of the advert, promoting the artist successfully. The song and album name are written to the right hand side of her. We made the name of the song and the album name next to her at eye level so when the audience look at the image of her, they are immediately encouraged to look at the name of them both. We placed them here in order to associate the artist and the word 'burn' together successfully. This allow for the audience to see the word Burn elsewhere and think of the artist.
The typography on the magazine advert we decided to use a bold font in an orange colour. We decided on doing this for many different reasons. As the image on the advert is extremely dark, we thought that the use of a bright orange for the song name 'Burn' would contrast to the dark background and make the word stand out, making the name stick in the audiences mind. Another reason to why we used to present the artists personality to the audience. The colour can represent power of the artist and that she is dominant in the music industry. Another reason to why we made the writing like this was to make the name of the song more clear to the audience. The orange and yellow colour of the font makes the audience have more of an insight of what is going to be sung in the song. Typically, orange and yellow and reds are associated with danger and anger, this makes the audience believe that the artist may be singing about her emotions or events that have occured in her life. This gives the magazine advert a more personal feel as she is revealing her emotions to the audience and makes the audience want to know more. The language used within the advert is plain and simple which is not too difficult for the audience to read and understand. We made the wording easily readable in order to attract a wider audience instead of targeting one type of audience. This shows that the artist is versitile when it comes to her music by appealing her music to all types of people. The typography that my group and I decided on using is the use of yellow and green writing which is easily readable.
My group and I believe that my magazine advert conforms to indie genre as it uses typical conventions to the indie genre by using elements from mise-en-scene such as body language, cothing and iconography with use of the natural setting gives the indication of the indie genre and reinforces the artist as being an indie genre. We believe that the magazine advert will appeal to my target audience as it shows a strong independent women who has a musical talent due to the guitar iconography used. This will appeal to our audience as it may influence them to take up a musical instrument possibly the guitar just to be like the artist herself and to be more connected and have a personal feel and connection with the artist too.
As well as creating an individual magazine advert, I also created my own digipak. The purpose of creating a digipak is to attract fans and promote the artist. Digipaks have 6 sides to them, all in which give information about the artist and more background information about her. Its important for an artist to have a digipak as it allows for the target audience and fans to connect with the artist more and build their relationship as the audience are given pictures and a paragraph from the artist herself.
It is important to make a digipak conform to the genre of the music in which your artist is, which is why I planned carefully what I would include in my own digipak. I thought about the colours, the images that I would use, the typography and the layout and design. The colours that I used were mainly dark colours such as dark greens and blues. I used these colours to make the artist seem mysterious and therefore leading the audience to want to know more. The blues and greens hint towards the feel of nature, representing the artists personality as friendly and warming. The darker colours used within the digipak, subvert the conventions of the indie genre as it allows for the artist to seem negative and gives a hint to the audience that her song are gloomy and unhappy. However, another picture included within the digipak includes the element of high key lighting, this in which conforms to the indie genre as it enable for the artists personality to be shown to the audience as positive an happy. The high key lighting also makes the generic conventions highlighted, such as the setting, iconography and clothing. These enable for the indie genre to be enhanced, attracting the target audience.
I have used many different conventions of the indie genre within my digipak. Specifically through the use of mise-en-scne, with the elements of clothing, body language and iconography. On the middle page of the digipak, I have used a close up of the artists face, and the artist is looking directly into the camera, this allows for the audience and artist to make direct eye contact. This is conventional to the indie genre as the artist is able to look into the audience's eyes and show off her individual features. Through the eye contact, this builds the audience and artist relationship as the audience feel as if she is looking directly at them and making the digipak have a more personal feel. The use of the clothing use throughout the digipak is again highly conventional of the indie genre. For example, the audience are shown a denim jacket, tight leather jacket and bug boots. This gives a high indication to the audience of the indie genre and enhances the stereotype of an indie music artist. The iconography used is the use of the guitar and a cigarette, the guitar alows for the artists talents to be portrayed and which the audience may find appealing. This also shows her as multi talented and that she is successful because of her talents. The cigarette makes the artist seem rebellious and which shows off another aspect of her personality and makes the audience intrigued and want to find out more about her. The inconography is coventional to the indie genre s they make the artists personality more aware to the audience and the audience are able to connect with her more as her personality may be appealing to them. Overall the conventions o the indie genre included within the digipak, allow for the target audience to be attracted to the album. As my target audience is indie genre fans of the age of 16-21, I believe that the conventions included are highly stereotypical of the indie genre and will ultimately make the audience attracted to it and will make them want to find out more. The guitar, showing off her talents, makes the artist an inspiration for them.
The layout I decided to use within the digipak was to include the artist on each section of the digipak. I did this in order to make the artist the centre of attention and that it would allow for the audience to focus soley on her. This allows for the audience and artist relationship to build as the audience are seeing her many different angles and shots, making the audience feel more connected to her and are more able to see aspects of her and her personality. The close up image of her, allows for the audience to have direct eye contact with her. The way in which her hands are placed on her face, allows for the audience to see the quirky side of her personality, which they may be attracted to and want to find out more about her. This image makes the artist seem bubbly and funny which the audience may like and like her more. I Ultimately wanted to include the artist on all parts of the digipak in order to make her stand out and to make the audience aware of the fact that she is challenging the stereotypes of the indie genre.
The typography that I decided on using for my own digipak was flowing and bubbly font in which is easily readable for all audiences but also, making it conform to the conventions of the genre. The colour that i used for the font for her name was in blue. I used this in order to make her name stand out against the dark background, making it aware to the audience she is a bold, stand out, artist. I also wanted to use a bright font to reinforce her name to the audience, with her name being Lola Starr, the bright colour enhances the idea of a star being bright. I believe this is successful as it allows for the audience to make the connection between her name and her artist image. The language that I used within the digipak is also very simple. I wanted the digipak to be accessable to audiences and to do this I had to use simple language that all audiences could read. The simple language however makes the digipak more relatable for the audience.
To create my individual digipak I used photoshop in order to create the effects that I wanted. I had some difficulties when using the photoshop programme as it was one of the first times I had used it so therefore simple tasks seemed to be much harder for me. One weakness that I found was trying to recolour an image. I wanted to brighten an image in order to make the image stand out more, however, when I tried to do this the image when to bright and didn't look effective and successful enough to put as a side to my digipak. However, I overcame this difficulty by filtering the picture adding lighter tones and highlights in order to make it brighter. This worked and looked successful which I then included in my digipak. Another weakness I found was cropping an image successfully to the corners. I wanted to create a ripped look for the back page of my digipak. To do this I went on to the internet and found a ripped paper image which i then transferred onto my image. To make it look successful I had to clip around the image to make it looked ripped. I found this difficult as the clipping had to be precise in order to make it look good. I blurred out the extra bits of the image to speed up the process. The strengths I found with using photoshop was adding effects to the image. I added a darker border to one of the images, I did this in order to make the background darker and to make the artist stand out. This was highly sucessful as it allowed for the artist to stand out and make the audience fully focus on her.
I believe that my individual digipak conforms to the conventions of the indie genre. I have reinforced the genre by using such elements from mise-en-scene, being clothing, body language, iconography and make up. By including these things in my digipak I was able to promote the artist and the indie genre. This enables for indie genre fans to be attracted to the album and makes a wider audience seemed interested in the artist. I also believe that some aspects of my digipak subverts the genre. For example, the location is in an alleyway, giving the digipak a more grungy and darker look rather than the typical indie look. The personal message also will make her fans feel a more personal connection with her. Creating an individual digipak will help to ensure that our groups final digipak is successful as it will allow us to show all aspects of the indie genre and will promote our artist successfully. Putting all of our ideas together will allow us to make sure we have included every aspect in which we want.
**** screenshot of digipak****
I have created a magazine advert in order to promote and sell my artist. Within my group, we all individually created a magazine advert. I have created a magazine advert which I believe will attract my intended audience and is also able to show off the artists key features. Magazine adverts are used to capture the audiences attention towards the artist and make the audience want to find out more about the artist. Through the magazine advert, the audience are able to find out more about her personality and are given an overview of herself. The use of the mise-en-scene, also, gives the indication of the genre which audiences may be attracted to.
Within the poster, I planned everything from colours to the layout and the design in order to make it appealing to the audience and promote my artist. The colours that I used were dark, with use of greens, browns and blues. I used these colours as a reflect of nature, representing the artists personality, which can be seen as friendly and warming. The earthly colours portray the artist as innocent, friendly and well grounded which is how we wanted to represent her which I believe is done successfully through the use of the colours. The writing of her name which states 'Lola Starr', is written in blue in order to again portray aspects of her personality, the light blue represents her as bubbly and fun which the audience may be attracted to and will want to find out more about herself. These colours are conventional of the indie genre as they enable meanings to be conveyed and the audience can find out more about the artist. They will allow the audience to see sides of her personality and will give clues to what may be included in her songs.
Another element of my magazine advert are the conventions of the genre. I have followed the conventions of the genre within my magazine advert which is seen through the mise-en-scene and camera angle. The mise-en-scene elements that conform to the indie genre are the clothing, setting and iconography. The long shot that we used was in order for the audience to fully see her and see her surroundings and that it is typical of the indie genre. The clothing that she is wearing is a large denim jacket, tight jeans and big boots. This is highly laid back clothing and makes the audience relate to her more a they are able to see that she is not about the wealth or the stardom just a down to earth person, which the audience will find attractive. Another convention of the genre is the setting. The setting is seen to be a dark, hidden alley way. This is conventional of the indie genre as it allows for the artist to be portrayed as laid back and easy going. The darkness of the alley way represents her feelings and emotion, portraying her as upset and angry. The blackness and the fading away of the alley way makes the artist seem suspicious and mysterious. This can make the audience feel sorry for her and want to find out more about her and why she is feeling such way.
The image used within the magazine advert is a picture of the artist by herself with a guitar. I used this picture as it allows for the audience to know who she and what she looks like. Because she is the only person on the cover, this makes the audience focus on her and realize she is the centre of attention. The audience are led to look at her and her guitar which makes them believe that the artist wants the audience to understand how she got to where she is now and wants to tell her story. I decided to include the guitar within this advert to portray her as multi-talented, a guitarist as well as a singer. This makes the audience attracted to her and want to listen to her song as it is produced and sung by herself.
The layout of the magazine advert was important to me as I wanted the artist to be the centre of attention. By doing this, I placed the image so the artist was in the centre. The audience are able to see her clothing, body language and facial expressions clearly,allowing them to make an opinion on her. The writing of her song name is placed above her in order for the audience to see it clearly and what the magazine advert is promoting. Her name is placed next to her in order for the audience to know who she is. The typography of her name is italic and easy flowing. I decided on this font in order for it to be easily readable for the audience and also gives clues about her personality. The flowing font makes the audience believe she is easy going and laid back. The audience then start to like her personality and want to buy her album. On the other hand, the font of her album name is in bold and again easy to read. I decided on using bold font for the title in order to make it understandable to the audience that she is a bold character. The colouring of the word 'Burn' is in orange/red to represent the anger and the pain that the artist is in. These colours make the audience keen to know what she is going through. The bold lettering makes it clear to the audience that she is keen to tell her story and what she is going through regarding her relationship.
The language that is used within this magazine advert is easy to read. The words and vocabulary written is easily readable as we want all ages and all audiences to be able to read it and what the artist has on offer. The readable text not only attracts the targetted audience but also a wider audience.
To create my magazine advert, I did it on photoshop where I was able to edit, crop, add text and add colours to my image. However, I found some weaknesses whilst using photoshop as it was my first time doing so. As a first time user of the programme, I found that editing the the picture was a difficult task as I was unsure what each effect would look like. However, by experimenting and taking my time with editing, I found the right effect and what looked best. Also I found that certain images had to be cropped and resized which I was unsure how to do. I overcame this by taking my time whilst cropping and taking out certain parts of the image, making sure that it suited the genre and looked successful as a magazine advert.
I also found some strengths whilst creating my magazine advert. I found it successful to add text to my advert and create colours and fonts that successfully suited the indie genre and look effective on the magazine advert. Also, another successful point was the lasso tool. This allowed me to crop out any unnecessary image that I didn't want to include.
To conclude, I believe that my magazine advert conforms to the indie genre and is successful in targetting the correct audience. Through the use of mise-en-scene and setting, the indie genre is shown. Individual magazine adverts are useful a each member of my group can create their own ideal advert. We can then come together as a group and create a group advert that we believe has successful conventional indie genre aspects and what would be most appropriate in targetting our intended audience.
**** SCREENSHOT AT SCHOOL THEN ADD IN***
