Evaluation!

Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLXbn91D2LQ

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2DO6kpht0I

Part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P735cf0i_Es

Part 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vGwQbeRcrE

Finished Magazine Advertisement, Digipak and Music Video

I made all the improvements on my digipak and magazine advert, and these are the finished drafts. 

And this is link to the final draft of our music video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qibEJZ3-0A0

Digipak and Magazine Advert Feedback

I showed my digipak and magazine advert to a group of people from my target audience and this is the feedback I got. 

• Very nice digipak!
• Digipak fits conventions of the genre
• On digipak could use more Alice in Wonderland things eg. the props used in the video
• Ace!
• Digipak needs credits
• Magazine advert needs purchase options, eg. google play. 
• Love the smoke photographs, look very cool

Overall I am very pleased with the feedback I got. I will add purchase options to my advert, but I am not going to change the images on my digipak to be more Alice in Wonderland themed. This is just because the whole album isn't Alice in Wonderland themed, just the video for the single, and I think it would be misleading if the digipak was based on just one of the songs from the album. 

Magazine Advertisement

I used the A Day To Remember (see below) as inspiration for my magazine advert.

This is my first attempt.

 I used a band image as the background, and edited this to make the people brighter and more contrasting to fit the band's first music video, 'Her Name is Alice', which is quite surreal, colourful, and Alice in Wonderland themed. I then stretched the image to create room so I could fit the band logo, album title, and necessary information to advertise the album. I used a grey background behind the text at the top so that it stood out, and then I put a grey transparent box around the text at the bottom so that it stood out as well. I also put an image of the album front cover so that people knew what to look out for if they wanted to purchase the album.I have also added the record company Atlantic Record's logo because I noticed that the A Day to Remember advertisement that I analysed had a record company logo on it too. 
I used my analysis of existing magazine advertisements to work out what kind of things to include in my advertisement, and overall I am pleased with my first draft.

This is the original photograph that I took.

This is my second attempt, using a different photograph.

This was quite tricky to do and I'm not as happy with it, simply because the band member on the right is brighter than the other because of where he was stood in the sunlight in the original photograph, and nothing I can do will change that. 

To get this picture to look like this I had to play around with the two photographs below. 

I had to crop out certain band members from the photograph I thought they looked best in, then I put them in a new photoshop page with a black background. Then I adjusted the levels, brightness/contrast, and colour balance, on each person individually. Finally, I used the clone tool to clone the grass and background from the original photos, and then I added it behind the band members on my new photograph. Then I did the same as before with the text, the grey box, and the album cover image. 

Digipak Update

This is the first draft of my digipak. 

I edited all my photographs in Photoshop, and then I put them all together and added the logo, barcode, and text in Illustrator. 

I decided to call my album 'Imaginarium' because I thought the 'Her Name is Alice' music video was quite dream-like and so Imaginarium describes that, and then I could really be creative with the photographs I took for my digipak. 

I took photographs of smoke and trees for the panels because they are both in the music video we created, so I thought it would be a good idea to link the digipak to the video, which is a common convention I noticed when analysing existing digipaks. Also I think they fit with the title 'Imaginarium' because it is quite mysterious and dark, which smoke and trees are. 

I decided to use the black and white colour scheme because I thought the music is quite dark and serious rock music, so I thought the black and white would reflect the music. 
I chose the track names because I thought they were all related to the album title Imaginarium so they look like they could be track names for this album. 
I then added the Atlantic Records logo as they are Shinedown's record label, and as we used their song, I thought they would be the best record label to use the logo of. 
I also put a barcode on the back because this is a common convention of digipaks. 

Overall I am happy with my first draft, and I will be asking my target audience for their feedback so that I can make improvements. 

Digipak

This is just a quick update on my digipak. I've been working on it for a while now, and I've decided to do a post about the different things I have been doing to create the different images for my digipak. 

 This is the template I have been using to create my digipak. I wanted to use the 6 panels because I thought it would give me more room to be creative and show off what I can do using more photographs.  

This is the editing process I used to create the panels I have with the trees. The photograph above is the original photograph I took, and then I cropped it and edited it to make it fit with my black and white colour scheme. The editing process is shown in the photograph below in the panel on the right. 

This is the photograph I have edited of the band to be used on the back panel, and I chose to do this because on the digipaks I analysed, most of them had a photograph of the band on the back. I also think this is a good idea because the point of the digipak is to promote the band, and I think having a photograph of the band on the digipak helps to show who the band are and what their image is so that people associate the band members with the music, making the target audience more likely to follow the band and buy more of the music and merchandise. The photograph I used was one that I took on the day we filmed the music video, so it is in the same location. I think this is a good idea because people may have seen the video and then see this picture and associate the photo with the video, making them more likely to buy the CD if they remember liking the music video. 

This is the disc design that I have created. I found it difficult at first to crop it into the shape I wanted, but I experimented with different layers, googled how to do it, and eventually I managed to do it. I am happy with how it has turned out, and when I put the whole digipak together in Adobe Illustrator I will give it a black outline so that it stands out like a disc would in a digipak. Again, the editing processes I did are on the right in the panel. 

These are the photographs I have edited of smoke for my panels. I created them by cropping them, adjusting the levels, making them black and white, adjusting the colour balance, inverting the colours, and then changing the brightness and contrast levels. I will use the first photograph for the background on the back panel, the second for my front cover, and the third for my inside panel. 

Magazine Advert Analysis

I have chosen advertisements that are for 'Rock' bands because our song is by Shinedown and they are a rock band, and the song we chose was a rock song too so these are good advertisements to analyse as mine should be similar to these.
I have decided that I will be creating an advertisement that advertises our band's new album, so I have chosen to analyse advertisements that are also advertising albums so that I can see the common conventions that I should follow with my own.

This advertisement uses the album cover for the album they are trying to promote as the main image on the poster. It also uses the band logo in a font larger than the other text so that it stands out and makes people aware that it is advertising that particular band. The use of the same logo for everything associated with the band is a way of making people recognize the logo so if they like the band they are more likely to notice the logo and spend more money on the merchandise, CD's etc. 

As this poster is advertising the album the key features of the advertisement are: the date the album comes out, the album name, the band logo, and the website for the band. All these things are very clear on the poster so that people can quickly and easily see all the details they need in order to spend money on the band's new CD, which is the aim of the advertisement. 

This advertisement is a little different to the first one because although it is also advertising an album, the album cover is not the key feature of the advertisement. Instead, the band are the main image, and the album cover is just a small square in the corner with a banner with the album title, the date it is released, and a website where you can order the album from. The banner with these details, I think, is a good idea because the bright blue makes the information stand out over the band photograph, and the font that has been used is clear so easy to read, therefore it gives the audience the information needed in order to purchase the new album, which is the purpose of the advertisement. A colour scheme has been used to match the album cover, and this makes the advertisement flow so nothing looks out of place. Another thing that I think works quite well is the way the main photograph has cartoon buildings in the background, because this matches the album cover which is entirely cartoon, so this makes the poster look similar to the album cover, but making it a separate piece of artwork as they haven't just used the album cover again as the background.  

This advertisement uses the album cover of the album it is advertising as the background so that it makes it very obvious straight away that it is advertising 'Nevermind' by Nirvana. The band logo has been used to make it clear that this album is to do with the band Nirvana because if the logo wasn't there then it wouldn't be as obvious that it was for them. The word 'Nirvana' is in the same font that has been used on the album that the advertisement is promoting, and the same image has been used, and these key features  make the poster look like a more expanded on version of the album cover, therefore making people more aware of what the album looks like so that they know what to look out for when the album comes out, making them more likely to buy it. There is a little paragraph about what the product contains, and this helps make the audience aware of what they would receive by purchasing the product, making them more likely to buy it. The band website is also central on the advertisement so that the audience know where they can purchase the product because if it is clear where they can purchase it then they are more likely to buy it. 

Finally, this advertisement features the album cover in the middle of the page and it takes up most of the space so that it is very clear what it is advertising, and therefore people are more likely to recognize the album when it comes out, making them more likely to buy it. The fonts that have been used are all very similar, and they look quite informal but clear so that the poster seems like graffiti, which matches the band's image as they are quite grungy and rock. The advertisement features the band name, the album title, where you can purchase the album, and also it says 'Includes the single Know Your Enemy' which is a good technique because singles are a way of making people more likely to buy the album. This is because if they like the single then they might want to listen to the rest of the band's songs because they might like them too as they might be similar, so they will buy the band's album to see what they think. All this information is effective on advertisements because they give useful information which makes people more likely to buy the album.

Key features of advertisements that are advertising an album

• Album name
• Band name
• Release date of the album
• Colour scheme to match the album
• Album cover
• Band logo
• Website or store name where album is available to purchase
• 'Includes the single...'