Magazine advert progress - audience feedback

Whilst creating my advert I had two slightly different ideas and could not decide which would be most successful  Therefore I decided to put together a rough version of each advert and ask my target audience which they preferred. Below are the two adverts which I constructed: 

Creating my album magazine advert

This is the plan for my album advert. The background is a 

faded map and there is a picture of Jono overlapping this which I have cut out using photoshop. In order to construct this advert I first of all needed to open the map and lower the opacity so that the image became a lot lighter and softer in colour; I felt that this was necessary because it made the background for my advert more easy on the eye and appealing as the colours weren't harsh.

This is what the map looked like after I had done this...

I then wanted to cut around Jonny's body so that the image of him could overlap the map and still show a large proportion of the map. In order to do this I used the quick select tool on photoshop and selected the space which I wanted to cut out of the picture. I was important to have unlocked the layer so that the chosen space was deleted completely rather than just turned white. I have recorded how I did this using QuickTime Player...

Following this I downloaded some fonts from dafont.com and wrote information about the album, such as the artist name, the album name, album release date, star rating from music magazines, a website address for the artist, the See Tickets web address and a his twitter @ so that our target audience could easily access information about Jono, buy tickets and music and watch music videos.

Changes to ancillary plans

I had originally planned on using the image on the left for my front cover; inspired by Jake Buggs cover. I was aiming to make him look serious similarly to how Jake Bugg looked. However after talking to my audience I have found that they believe that this image makes him look very tired and as though he may have been taking drugs, which is not a habit which I want my album cover to promote, as it is aimed at young people who may be influenced by their favourite artists. It was also felt that he does not look very attractive and that although he is making eye contact, this image does not particularly draw the audience in. In addition it was also suggested that Jake Bugg's album was not actually very appealing or eye catching because the image is black and white. In addition my audience felt that I may be more successful creating an album cover and poster which showed clear connotations of the genre indie/alternative rock.  

Therefore I have decided to use a different image (shown on the right) for the cover of my digipak; I will experiment with different ways to edit the colour of the photo I have now chosen, and see which looks most appealing. I also feel that the new image may be more suitable for the genre because it contains more nature which is a convention of indie rock products.

However rather than editing this image to be black and white and making it fit the size of the cover of my digipak, like Jake Bugg's album. I will instead be editing this image to look like a polariod photo for the cover of my digipak -  therefore it will be in colour and have a white boarder around the edge. This image will not fill the cover of my digipak either, instead it will be rotated slightly and placed in the corner of the cover; in the background I plan on using an image of a map throughout my digipak and also on my album advert - this will connote freedom and adventure which relate to the genre of indie/alternative rock. In order to show a visual representation of my new idea I have drawn new plans for my album cover and digipak. Drawing these plans has helped me materialise my ideas and show others how I aim for my final products to look.

Album advert plan:

Digipak plan:

Ancillary task photo shoot

Below are all the photos when Jonny and I went into Ottery St Mary in order to take photos which I hope to use for the digipak and album poster. It was important to take a lot of different images in order to have enough choice to cover the faces of the digipak. It was also essential to consider how the images will all work together and how the products will be assembled, as I will needs to make sure that I take a wide range of good quality photos.

Photo editing research

The use of Sepia - The cover of 'One Day' has been edited with blue/sepia tones, I feel that these make it look very classic and eye catching, however the colour blue could also have negative connotations which suggest that the relationship between the couple on the front is flawed or that something goes wrong within the film. I believe that this would be a suitable edit for my digipak photos because it would be appealing to audiences and would also connote some of the issues Jono covers in the songs on the album. I need to edit the images to look appealing and eye catching, however I also need to ensure that they look natural as this is a key convention of indie/alt rock products. Two albums which have been particularly inspiring for me are Jake Bugg's and Tom Odell's debut albums. The covers of both of there both focus on the artist, showing them with serious facial expressions and casual clothes on. They seem to be standing in the street and the background is slightly blurred. Although I plan on using a map and polariod photos for my digipak, rather than one large image of Jono; I am going to use a large polariod image of him for the cover of the digipak and some will also be positioned on the inside of the digipak, therefore I am going to use Jake Bugg and Tom Odell's covers as inspiration when I take photos of Jonny for these polariods. When I come to edit my photos of Jonny, I plan on experimenting with black and white and the ways in which colour can be edited using photoshop. 

Digipak cover plan

This is a sketch of my idea for the cover of my digipak, it is a close up of Jonny standing in front of a red brick wall, he will be looking at the camera with a serious facial expression and wearing the same coat as he wears during the rain scene in the video in order to show a connection between the video and the album. The photo will be black and white, similarly to Jake Bugg's album, and the font will be white in order to contrast with the dark wall and stand out. I plan on using a border around the edge to make the digipak look more professional and appealing.

Planning my album cover photo

When researching album covers I have been particularly inspired by Jake Bugg's debut album cover; it is black and white and shows him from the shoulders up. He is wearing a serious facial expression which could relate to sadness or anger which are two emotions which the musician in our video feels, therefore we feel that creating a similar album cover could be very successful for out song. His facial expression is also very attractive and eye catching, it will therefore draw the audiences attention and be particularly appealing to females.


The style of Jake Buggs album seems to have been inspired by Oasis and The Beatles; it is likely that the photographer had purposefully positioned Jake Bugg to look like the band and edited the picture to look similar to theirs. Therefore it is clear that not all shots are totally original as they have been influenced by other artists or people. 

My digipak cover will feature a polariod photo of Jonny; I will  position Jonny in a similar stance to Jake as this is very appealing and eye catching. I also plan on experimenting with the use of black and white - similar to Jake Bugg's album cover - as this will protray the emotions he feels during the majority of his songs (as he is an indie rock artist and therefore the majority of his songs are about his feelings).

 I am going to go in to Ottery St Mary tomorrow and photograph Jonny for my album cover and album poster.  In order to show continuity between the magazine advert, album and music video I will use the same fonts for the name of the artist which we have decided to use - 'Jono' - and for the name of the song as this will show that they are both for the same artist and song.