Magazine Advertisement - Abandoning Sunday // "Struggle"

Above is the design for my Magazine Advertisement for Abandoning Sunday, created in Adobe CS6 Photoshop.

For analysis and explanation of the image of the front cover, see here.

The magazine advertisement's purpose is to support the digipak itself, to achieve more sales. Hence, the front cover of the digipak, that the audience will be able to identify with, takes up a prominent position, centre aligned in the top third and centre. Regarding composition, this is where the image is most noticeable. I help the digipak to stand out by juxtaposing it with a slightly darkened background- the image, of Marriott's Way (taken about 1 mile further down from where the rear cover was taken, on an Autumn/Winter morning), provides a clear but detailed backdrop that still allows for the text to be read clearly. It is in keeping with the autumnal theme and is also aesthetically pleasing, and creates a partial link to the back cover of my digipak. There are regions of colour contrasted with the browning leaves, helping these colours to stand out, such as the yellow leaves to the right and the leaves that are not yet brown in the foreground. The bare trees and dying leaves are perhaps indicative of some of the issues the album deals with, such as themes of sadness (winter or seasonal depression could be dealt with here), but more so gives a sense of tranquility. 

Regarding the advertisement, the text contains several features of persuasive writing that are typical of advertisements and also includes many other features that are conventional to this text genre. As expected, the name of the artist and album takes a prominent position at the top of the page in a large font so that it is recognisable to the audience once they have seen the eye-catching front cover, which also stands out due to the drop shadow effect placed on it and angled to 45 degrees. The persuasive features come from the form of the reviews that are below the album cover- of course fictional, but for this purpose, contain superlatives, to help sell the album to the audience- "the best", for example. The source it comes from also matters too- for the quote review, I chose Alternative Press, an esteemed American based magazine whose counterpart in the UK would be Kerrang!- although Kerrang! tends to focus towards more typically "rock" and metal acts, which doesn't share interests and musical tastes of my audience (see audience research). Alternative Press have a broader audience and the magazine can also be obtained in the UK. One of the other reviewers, AbsolutePunk.net, is an online news and forum site that focuses on reviews in the alternative and punk genre as well as there more mainstream genres. Putting 5 stars for this review will mean fans of various different genres will recognise that this is a very good all round album that everyone can enjoy, similarly using esteemed newspaper The Guardian for the other review will allow a lot of the British public to access the advertisement, and see that the album is well recognised. The text is all in white and in the same font, "Please write me a song", that I have used across my products, creating a link. The text below the reviews picks out the two previously released singles, typical of advertisements, so that people who are familiar with the artist will know what songs feature on the release. "Out now" is in an increased font size to help it stand out at the bottom of the page.

Regarding other effects I have used in Photoshop here, I have inserted logos for each of the social networking sites my band uses, Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud, and placed these logos in the bottom right hand corner, so that the audience will recognise that this artist is on each of these services and that they can search for them. I did this by importing a png version of the logo into a blank photoshop, ensuring it was on a transparent background with no white area, and then copying it across to my design before adding a colour overlay to change it to white, making it fit in with the house style of my advertisement and look aesthetic. The website however is typed across the bottom, which also makes the general design more accessible as it is in an easy to view area and does not disturb the layout of the other icons. To the left, there are png images stating that the album is available on iTunes, and the increasingly popular Google Play store. These buttons have been adjusted to be the same size on the page so that the design is still smooth and ordered and not disrupted by large variations in the image. The record label image, for Remedy Records (see digipak post) also features in the advertisement- although it is fake, the purpose of this is to create a recognisable logo that can be identified with by audiences so they recognise the style of music this artist falls under, and also gives a mark of authority.

I would place my advertisement in British magazine(s) Kerrang! and/or Rocksound.

Kerrang! was first published in 1981 and was named after the distinguished sound a guitar made when playing a power chord. Originally devoted to the new wave of British Heavy Metal acts and hard rock acts, it is now the most devoted rock music magazine in the country and since 2000 is the best-selling music magazine in Britain. 

I would place my advertisement in this weekly magazine because Kerrang! is an esteemed magazine in the UK for it's association with the musical genre of rock as a whole, and all of the sub genres it incorporates. It plays a vital role in bringing bands to the forefront, for example, scottish rockers Biffy Clyro once headlined the Kerrang! tour in 2007, and now they are one of the largest rock bands of current times. On the left, the image of a recent Kerrang! cover (at the time of writing), with the main focus being on the Kerrang! Tour 2015. This tour is sponsored by and ran by the magazine, and features British rock band Don Broco as the headliner. The magazine cover also makes reference to You Me At Six, who, in my audience research, I found as a band my target audience enjoys listening to, as well as pop punk bands like Blink-182 and We are the In Crowd, popular/well known acts like Muse and Young Guns and post-hardcore bands like Bury Tomorrow and Slipknot. The magazine is the most apt for my artist as it reaches a wide target audience, who are dedicated through subscriptions to the magazine, who are interested in various musical genres and are open to new music and new bands. The magazine features reviews, where the album could also be featured, and posters. The target audience is typically younger audiences, from teenage to young adult, who are interested in music. Kerrang! also has a TV channel, where it plays music videos, and has the esteemed Kerrang! Top 100 bands every year, a platform on which my artist could develop- my artist is American, as stated from the start of my coursework, due to logistical difficulties, and hence building a UK fan base is very important, which could be made possible by being placed alongside such esteemed acts in a popular UK magazine.

Alternatively, I could place my advertisement in Rocksound. Increasingly in popularity and championing rock music along with popular sub genres pop punk, post hardcore, punk and emo, Rock sound is a UK magazine that offers a contrast to the popular and more recognisable Kerrang! and has more of a focus on lesser known acts, and aims at being "more underground and less commercial" - an ideal starting point for my unsigned artist. 

Similarly to on the Kerrang! cover, popular bands are featured and are recognised, such as Fall Out Boy, and We are the In crowd and Don Broco, possibly due to the UK tour the bands were on in the Kerrang! Tour recently. In the bottom left, lesser known bands such as Alkaline Trio, Thy Art is Murder and The Story So Far feature, most of which are lesser known, meaning my band could have more of a chance of successfully reaching a dedicated fan base in the rock genre's audience. 

Each year, the magazine comes up with it's album of the year, which is yet to be announced for 2014- the last winner was post-hardcore band Letlive. with The Blackest Beautiful in 2013. Previous winners include Biffy Clyro (Puzzle, 2007) and Bring Me The Horizon (There Is a Hell... 2010), and also has a Hall of Fame where esteemed albums are recognised. Weezer, Queens of the Stone Age and the Offspring feature, showing that this magazine has more of a potential to reach an older fan base who are more familiar with these bands, as well as british bands Bring Me The Horizon and Enter Shikari, whose albums were coined as genre defining. 

As my artist is American, it should also be considered that for an American magazine, Alternative Press would be the most ideal medium, as the monthly magazine incorporates a large variation of music and distributes in reviews, interviews and features to the localised American audience and worldwide, and would also be a good platform for my artist to gain recognition.

Ideas for my Digipak and Magazine Advertisement

For my digipak and magazine advertisement, I will be making alternative artwork for my artist's recently released album, "Struggle", as the artwork for his upcoming EP and LP have been made already.

The current artwork for Struggle is a drawn image of a boat in a bottle at sea (see right), with the "message in a bottle" connotation symbolising hope, which, contrasted with the title of the word "Struggle", to me suggests finding things that give hope to get through a tough time. From the digipaks I have analysed (Deaf Havana's "Old Souls" and Real Friends' "Maybe This Place is the Same and We're Just Changing"), I thought it would be good to create a sense of freedom, and thought the way in which Deaf Havana used the child to create a sense of vulnerability and freedom simultaneously as well as a blank canvas was very effective as it was subtle. From my audience research I have also found that my artist is similar to this band and hence I can draw from it for inspiration in my ancillary pieces. I also wanted to create a link to my music video for "Real Talk" in the artwork as this is common amongst digipaks from my research. 

So, I decided I would take some photos of things I thought were not only striking, but perhaps warming. So, when out walking my Dog, Macie, one sunny morning, I took some photos of her on the field where my video opens and where the man from the video, Elliott, is seen at the end. My favourite photo(s) were of when she ran towards me when I was taking a low angle of the field, shown below.

I think these photos would be good for the front cover of the digipak, as they are eye catching and also capture many different ideas- using a dog, not a human, in the digipak, is engaging, as it is subtle. The bright colours will connote happiness and the image is meant to be uplifting and bright, ie it looks like the dog is smiling too, and then in the centre will be the album title, Struggle, creating a juxtaposition that will hopefully connote using the good things to get through the bad- which could be seen semantically in the dog running. I will edit the image in Photoshop to create a front cover design.

For the Magazine advertisement, I had it set that I would have a near symmetrical image taken on Marriott's Way in the Autumn, as the band and album has a very autumnal feel to me- although these images were taken in December/January, the path is covered by brown leaves and the trees still looks quite brown with some colour in the foreground. I think this would benefit the advertisement as it will help a bright album cover to stand out against a slightly darkened background and text would be easy to read. Below are my two shot variations for the magazine advertisement. Alternatively, I could use the other shot from the field to continue the bright themes and give a sense of continuity in the design.

 For the inside of the digipak, I had in mind creating a similar effect to in Deaf Havana's "Old Souls" rather than the Real Friends album, which was creating a continuous image which the Uses and Gratifications model could be applied to where my audience will make of it what they will, whilst it will humbly represent my artist. The image below is similar to that of a shot I use in the video for when I introduce the song name, looking up through the trees on a clear bright day, but this time the leaves are mostly gone- semantically, bare trees are synonymous with winter, which in turn is synonymous with darkness, even in health with seasonal or winter depression, linking to the title of the album and the challenging theme of countering that with good things, in this sense brightness, a clear representation through the light vs dark theme. Although I am unsure about this image and making it work for the interior of a digipak, I definitely want to create a similar shot, possibly using a wide angle lens or panoramic image. I am also unsure as to whether I will have a 4 or 6 panel digipak and hence where the CD will be stored in relation to the image, and how the CD and image will interact, if it all. From the images I have at present, it makes sense to do a 4 panel digipak, but I will see what works through trialing in CS6 Photoshop.

Lastly I am quite set on the back cover- an image taken from the day of the shoot for this section of the video, although I only used the shot where I begin to tilt down from the trees above to an image like this. I may include a similar image in the start or end of the video where I have several seemingly unrelated images after one another. The symmetry of the image is created by the straight path and a vanishing effect at the end, giving a sense of a long road ahead but also direction, themes that can all link to the word "Struggle". Forest and woodland walks like this are also therapeutic to many and so people may find environments like this comforting, and the brightness of the image from the blue sky also helps to create a positive feel. The text for the tracklisting will be centre aligned and will go down the middle of the pathway so that there are trees either side. The text on all of the artwork will be the same font that I use in the video to create a house style, as in Abandoning Sunday's artwork for Struggle it is a new font that was also seen in In Your Dreams. It will not be overly large and will instead be small but easy enough to read, so that it remains subtle and in keeping with a "less-is-more" theme that I am trying to achieve with my designs, to create more meaning rather than taking any photo. At the bottom of this image will be some small print, typical of rear covers, a barcode and other details. The inside cover will contain details about the songs and artist. I am unsure about whether or not producing a lyric booklet is necessary or not, but it is still a thought to consider.

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