1st Draft of Magazine Advert

This is the first draft of my magazine advert for my subsidiary product. So far, I am really happy with the outcome of it, and I think that it looks like a suitable magazine advert for my artist. The image that I have used for this magazine advert, as it is the product that I am trying to sell. In terms of the page layout, it is very chronologically ordered. The first thing that my audience will look at is the title of my artist. I made the font the biggest on the page, as it is the artist that I am trying to sell. I used the colour pink as the title because it stands out, and also because I have that colour and the colour black running all throughout my digipak. I used some white for the fonts because I found that making them all pink looked slightly boring and plain. The white gives the audience more to look at and read. Originally, the background colour of the magazine advert was pink, and the fonts were black, but I thought that it looked a bit too girly, not representing the rock genre very well. Also, the fonts did not stand out as well as they do on the black background.

I included my label on my magazine advert, which is Sony Music, because I wanted it to look professional, and I believe that it has done very well in doing so. On other magazine adverts, I noticed that most of them included a online shop in the corner, for example Amazon and Play.com. I included one in my advert again to add to the realist look, creating verisimilitude against other products. I also found that every magazine advert advertising albums included the artists/bands website. This is due to selling purposes, promoting the product and prompting the audience to buy the album.

The ideology of my product is promoting rock and pop music, so it is presenting a rebellious type of attitude. This product, as the genre is also pop, will want their audience to perceive this album as an insight into teenage life, as does my music video, therefore appealing to my target audience. In relation to the colours of the magazine, they are there to promote the product to the girl target audience. As for the photograph of Blossom, that is appealing to both males and females, with relation to Laura Mulvey's theory, girls will look at her wishing to be like her, and men will look at her finding her attractive.

My magazine adverts would be included in magazines such as NME and Q, as these are quite indie music magazines, and also include artists such as Florence and the Machine in them, which is similar to my genre. In terms of improving my magazine advert, I feel like it looks slightly plain, for example the fonts. This advert could look better with more fonts, but not too many, as it could get overcrowded and too much to look at. But, I feel like this product does look professional and does create verisimilitude to other magazine adverts that I have looked at.

1st Draft Subsidiary Product - Digipak

This is the first draft for part of my subsidiary products, the digpak. Starting with the front cover, this was a photograph that I took the other day of Blossom. I decided to use this photo as the album cover because I thought that it looked really professional, also the clothes that she is wearing suit the rock genre, with just a baggy shirt. This gives of the impression that she doesn't care about what she looks like, and it also gives her the scruffy type of look, relating back to the rock genre again. The colour of the shirt however are pinks and reds, which are bright and happy colours, giving connotations of the pop genre to my artist. I think that front cover is the strongest point of my full digpak, because it looks the most professional. Throughout the digpak, I kept a certain colour scheme running through it, which is pastel pink and black. These colours were chosen on purpose to reflect both styles of my genre. I also find that the pink is quite girly, which tells the audience that Blossom is not all rock and roll, that she actually is also quite feminine. I really like the fonts that I have chosen on the front cover, and would like to stick to these in the future when making my final product. The font of the name 'Emilia' is scruffy and rough, suiting the rock genre, were as the song title 'Still into You' is in a light and calm font, suiting the pop genre.

Onto the back cover of my digipak, I feel that this is the weakest point of the whole digpak, as it doesn't look very professional. It looks very bland and plain. From doing this, it has shown me that plain back covers in  fact do not look very professional, and I find that it is nothing to look at. This has given me the idea to take an actual photograph of Blossom and use that as the whole of the back cover, but I do not want it to be too overwhelming, as it will give the audience too much to look at. In mind, I had the idea of Blossom wearing the same shirt, in her Dr Martins facing away from the camera on a huge field, with her arms spread high as if she is flying. I feel that this would be a effective back cover to the album because it is flowing with the front cover photo, linking the whole album in, and her position that I want her to stand in looks as if she wants to fly away, or that she is head over heels, linking to the album title 'Still into You'. To do this, I will be organizing a photoshoot throughout the week. The fonts on the back cover are also very weak. They are too plain, and do not really have any similarity to the other two fonts that I have used on the digipak. In my next draft, I will stick to a font that matches the other two. The fact that I have used a barcode and and music label logo on the back I think looks professional and gives the album realism and verisimilitude to other albums that i have looked at.

On to the CD's, I really like the colour that I have chosen to do them in, because it flows with the rest of the album, making it look neat and not all mismatched. I coloured the CD's on Photoshop with the tool 'paintbrush'. This didn't turn out to be as easy as I thought it would be, and it ended up looking not as neat and professional as I wanted it to be. Due to this mistake, I will be looking for another tool to use in order to make this neater. Other than that, I think that my design on the CD's look like any other CD, with the artists name and their song. I decided to include an acoustic CD on my digipak because I wanted to keep linking it in with the pop rock genre. Acoustics are very popular with rock genre albums.

Moving onto the inside of the album, I found this picture on Google Images, as it is only a draft. I chose to have the inside cover as light pink roses. This is because I feel like the roses tie in the album name, relating to love. Instead of choosing red, I chose pink because again I wanted to keep the colour flowing throughout my digipak, and I feel that I established this very well. When moving onto my next draft, I will not be using a photo from Google Images. Instead, I will be using a photo of my own. I had in mind taking a ECU photo of Blossom smelling pink roses, which I will have to buy from the shop, or if not roses, pretty flowers of the same colour, as roses may be hard to find. This photo would be effective because it shows Blossoms feminine side, giving off the look of the pop genre to the audience.

Lastly, the spines of the album cover. I kept these simple because I found that it would be too much to look at, as it is so small. The background colour of the spine I chose to be black, keeping with the colour theme, and to have my artists name 'Emelia' and the album name 'Still into You' in the pastel pink colour, with the colour theme. I like these spines because they are simplistic, but link in with the album, like everything else on the album cover.

To improve next time, I will be taking some more photographs to include on the back cover and on the inside cover of my album. I will be re thinking the fonts and layout on the back cover as well, as I feel like these do not flow very well and that it looks untidy. I will also be finding another way to paint the background of the CD's and the paintbrush tool is too messy and not neat enough.

Researching Into Digipaks

This here is the indie/rock band Arctic Monkey's digipak. I chose to look at their digipak in particular because they are similar to my own genre. I would that out of the digipaks that I have looked at that this one is my favourite. The front cover is very simple, with the mise-en-scene being just of a man smoking a cigarette, with the bands logo on the top left. I like the way that it is simplostic, yet it is interesting to look at, because this photo is not something that you would see on every album covers. Taking my digipak into consideration, my genre also has an element of pop, so it cannot be as 'grunge' looking as this, so I need to make it look slightly girly. My favourite of this digipak is the CD itself, with its image being cigarette butts. At the moment, I am in the process of making my draft of my digipak, so when it comes to refining the product, I may take something like this into consideration, maybe not something as harsh as cigarette butts, but something like a rough look location, or maybe even Blossoms lips. This would be good because the lips will connote the pop genre, but if she wore red lipstick, it would make it look sensual and also have connotations of danger, which would relate to my rock genre. The back cover relates to the front cover, which I like because it keeps the same theme running through the album, in this case the man smoking the cigarette. The font of the song titles are very tiny, and in white, this is something that doesn't appeal to me in particular, unless I was using a main image for the back of it.

This digpak is of rock/indie band 'The Kooks'. The image on the cover of the album is the band themselves. playing on their instruments. I like this photograph as it shows clearly to the audience what the genre is and what type of music they play. The font of their album name is small at the top of the album cover, this is because the photograph is already telling the audience what genre their album is, without them having to even read the title. The CD in the digipak is what stands out, as it has the colour theme of red, white and black throughout the album, which is something that I wanted to maintain throughout my album, except with colours such as pink and black, with the pink connoting the pop genre and the black connoting the rock genre. The back album of the cover again has a main photo of the band playing. This is something that I have noticed that rock/indie digipaks have in common. The song titles are in small font again, just like the arctic monkey's digpak. From looking at these, it has given me ideas when coming to my final digipak product, to use a real photo of Blossom on the back and front, with only small font on the back covers. It has also showed me that using a certain colour theme throughout the digipak works well as it links them all in together.

Richard Dyer - Theorist

Dyer is a representation theorist, he studied representation in media generally and looked at how media texts represent them selves to society and an audience. 'How we are seen determines how we are treated, how we treat other is based on how we see them. How we see them comes from representation'.

Representation is so important because it enable us to understand the media text, without representations texts would be meaningless. Without representations texts would have no messages, and there would be no denotation. Also, texts would not be able to translate a narrative to an audience. Dyer formed a set of questions when analysing media representations in general:

1. What sense of the world is it making?
2. What does it imply? Is it typical of the world or deviant?
3. Who is it speaking to? For whom? To whom?
4. What does it represent to us and why? How do we respond to the representation?

With the questions, I am going to answer them in relation to my music video so far.

1. My music video relates to younger girls of this generation, particularly teenagers, when wishing that they had a boyfriend. It is very realistic in sense of the locations, outfits etc, creating verisimilitude. I needed my music video to be realistic because other wise, it wouldn't make any sense of the world what so ever, giving my audience nothing to relate to, therefore, making them not enjoy the video as much.

2. It implies that a lot of teenagers go through a similar situation to what my female actor is going through, making it easier to relate to. Although my music video narrative is a bit extreme, teens are still able to relate to this in some way, even if they are wishing for a boyfriend but not as dramatically. It shows a typical view of the world, but the way that Blossom is acting is very deviant, and could even be labelled as a 'psychopath'.

3. My music video's target audience are female teenagers, aged typically 13-21, as the narrative is the only age group that it would be associated with typically. It could be argued that it is also aimed at some males, either relating to Mulvey's 'male gaze', with the fact that males only want to watch the video to watch the female actor, or they could view themselves as being the male actor in the video, and have some kind of relation to this.

4. It would depend on how people respond to this text, depending on whether or not they can relate to this. I would hope that all teens can relate to it as it is a typical 'love' story, but with a slight twist ending, then making it not so 'typical'. Some audience may respond well to the text, giving them a sense of something to relate to. Others may respond badly to this, having nothing in common for the video and thinking of it as a waste of time to watch.

Angela McRobbie - Theorist

McRobbie was a feminist theorist and stated that feminist ideas from the past are not relevant to young women now. She looks at gender roles and how they are represented. She suggests that we behave the way we do because of the media. She also argues that magazines can be seen as positive, as well as negative. They can be seen as empowering or helping people with their personal identity.

She looked at the 1970's girl magazine 'Jackie'. She suggests that magazines like 'Jackie' strive 'to win and shape the consent of the readers to a particular set of values'.

McROBBIE'S SUBCODES

1. The code of romance: girls must fight each other over men. Girls cannot trust other girls and    Hetrosexual romance is the only path to happiness 

2. Personal/domestic life: values from other code must be installed into the life of a female. E.G 'problem page'.

3. Fashion and Beauty: wearing make-up and dressing nicely is 'paramount of importane'

4. Code of pop music: Pop stars (male) are a suitable release for young, female emotions. You can look and listen but you cannot touch.

Final Photograph for Album Cover

I changed my mind in using the other album cover as the draft, because I decided that it didn't look realistic, so last night me and Blossom organised a small scale photo shoot to test out for my album cover. After taking and testing with some photos, I decided that this photo would be the best to use as it looks very suitable to my rock pop genre. The mise-en-scene was in Blossom back garden, and I chose for it to be here as she has a old bath there, and I took advantage of this. The plants around the bottom of the photo add to the tatty and old looking location, which is similar to the location that I took from Google images for my first ever draft album cover which I took a liking to. In relation to her costume, I chose for Blossom to wear just a shirt because I thought that the style looked very grungy and rock looking, which suits my genre. Her hair looks very natural, but it is also quite scruffy which is what I was aiming it to be like. I decided for Blossom to have bare legs because it again it adds to the grunge and rock scene, but I think that it will make her appeal more to the male audience, in relation to Laura Mulvey's male gaze, and how men see women as objects. Also, I think that it makes her look quite innocent. This is because she is quite pale skinned, and the paleness of her skin connotes her being innocent and fresh, relating to her being 'fresh' in the music industry.

Album Back Cover Research

Before creating my own back cover for my album subsidiary text, I wanted to research other artists back covers of the same genre, to see what they all had in common and what their differences were. Firstly I looked at pop rock girl singer Avril Lavigne's back cover. The main photograph on the back cover is a photograph of her that is placed on the left hand side. In relation to mise-en-scene, Avril looks pretty, fitting in with the pop genre, but her hair and make up look scruffy and dark, fulfilling the conventions of the rock genre. I like this idea of the contrast in her costume with her girly clothes yet dark looking features, as I think that it represents the genre extremely well. I think that the photo below on the left hand side would look
 really good as a back cover photo, but I am going to crop the bottom part of the photo off. This photo will be effective because Blossom is wearing girly clothes, but her facial expression is quite dark, conveying the rock pop genre. I am wanting to also put this photograph on a black background, because the front cover of my album is a dark grey colour, and I think that black will go best with this theme that I am going for. Back to the Avril back cover, the track songs are down the left hand side of the cover. I really like this layout because the audience are able to see Avril and the track songs. The font of the track songs are all the same font in white, but it is quite a scruffy font, like type writers, connoting the scruffy rock look. At both the bottom and right hand side of the album cover are the institutions, which in this case is Sony Music. It is important for these to be on the back of my album cover in order for it to look professional and realistic, creating verisimilitude. The bar code is also at the bottom right hand side of the cover, again this needs to be include to create the look of it being realistic.

Onto the P!nk back album cover, this has a different layout to Avril's cover, but it is still effective and eye catching. The back cover photograph is of P!nk herself sat in almost a little dress tutu. This is related to the title of the album 'Funhouse', as she is representing herself as a fairy or ballerina, which for an adult to do, is quite childish and 'fun'. The track lists of this album are placed right in the centre of the back cover, making it the first place for the audience to look. The fonts of these are all different, in fun, clown type of writing, again this is relating to the album name Funhouse. This has given me an idea for my back cover fonts, to relate it to my song title. As the song title is 'Still into You', I could use different types of font to represent the theme of love in the song, for example using little hearts around the song tracks. But, not forgetting that my artist is from the pop rock genre, I need to not make it so girly, and keep the grungy look conveying throughout my album. On the left hand side are all of the institutions. Again, P!nk is from the Sony Music corporation, and that is labelled on the bottom right hand side of her album cover. On her album, unlike Avril's, it includes on the back of the album the executive producers of the album and of her songs. This looks very professional and realistic. The bar code on this album is placed at the top left of the album back cover.

The last album back cover that I looked at was Florence and the Machines album 'Ceremonials'. I chose to look at this album back cover because the band shares the same genre as what my artist does. This back album cover has no picture, yet it is still effective. Instead of using a picture, they have used the title of their album spread across the back. The track lists of the album are placed in the center of the back cover, and is in very basic black font. This is effective because it is not giving too much away of the album, and could make people wonder what it is like, therefore making them have an urge to buy it. The font is all the same, but it does look a little but dull and plain, as it doesn't really give the audience much to look at. The institutions of this album are in very small print at the bottom of the back cover, unlike P!nk and Avril's. The barcode of the album is placed at the bottom right.

From looking at these album back covers, I am going to design two of them, one being with a picture of Blossom on, and one being without, like Florence and the Machine's back cover. From doing this, I will be able to decide which one I think is most effective and what changes I need to make.