LM / MJ - Magazine Advertisement.

• To create the magazine advert we looked in a couple of editions of 'NME' and also 'Kerrang' to see real examples of digipak adverts and other general album adverts that were from the genre that we were working in (alternative rock and post-hardcore) and so we could also get some inspiration. 

• We have decided as a group that 'Kerrang' and 'NME' would advertise our digipak and that the target audience for both the band themselves and music video that we made would definitely buy these music magazine as opposed to others such as 'Q' and 'Mojo' etc. 

Backgrounds:

• We decided that either of these images would create a good magazine advertisement background.

• From looking at existing adverts (in 'Kerrang' and 'NME') and CD covers by 'We Are The Ocean', we noticed that most were very graphical like and not just photos, so we decided the picture of Emily under the bridge would work well. This was chosen rather than the brick/ wall image because it had a bit more depth as opposed to just a boring brick wall which was quite plain and it also links to the genre of music that we were working with. 
• We didn't want it too link too much to the music video because the advert was selling the digipak album  and not just the music video. We took this on the digital SLR camera during the music video shoot.

What steps we took to make the advert:

• We used 'Adobe Photoshop CS3' extended to edit it all.
• We imported the picture and added the coloured pencil effect. (Filter -> Artistic -> Coloured Pencil). Another good effect that we could of chosen to use could have been Poster Edges, but that would make the writing harder to read but we did experiment with this and other effects that were available.
• We then added on the band name (in size-> 200 and-> Times New Roman (the band always use this specific text in other albums and adverts that they have produced before so we used this so that fans of the band would recognise it was theirs).
• Then we added the tour dates and other information that we found other magazines advertisements (such as those found in 'Kerrang' and  'NME'). We also added the logos of shops and online stores such as iTunes, Amazon, and Play.com etc where our digipak album could be purchased.
• We then found that the writing was hard to read so we selected an area and altered the brightness and saturation till it was easier to read. (Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast).
• We then uploaded the file onto websites such as Facebook and Twitter to get audience feedback..

First Draft:

From feedback that we collected from Facebook, I decided to change how the 'sold out!' covered some of the dates

I also decided to change the bottom of the advertisement so that there wasnt an empty corner.

Second Draft:

So, Mary deleted the 'Sold Out!' at the angle covering 2 of the dates and replaced it will single 'sold out!'s at the end of the date. She also put the logos at the bottom in a line and deleted excess space.

From this feedback, we will make the darker area even darker which will make the red easier to read.

Third Draft:

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  We have decided to made the darker area even darker, therefore making the writing easier to read. (Unfortunately this has highlighted that Apollo has a comma in the middle).
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  As this is nearing the final tweeking stages we chose to gather feedback from a wider audience such as the  We Are The Ocean Fan Site on Facebook, people in our media class and also family and friends.

Final Tweaking:

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  From our feedback from various places, we kept getting people saying that the dark area needs to be darker or lighter, so we decided lighter. We also got mixed views about the red on the 'sold out!' parts, some people said lighter others said darker. Again we went for lighter because it was easier to read and stood out more.
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  We also thought we should fix the spelling mistakes :)

Final Draft: