BY PHOEBE NOEL

How does my Digipak and magazine advert use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

Here is my Magazine advert and Digipak:

My Magazine advert

Before creating my magazine advert I did lots of research into existing products in order to gain an understanding of the typical conventions of this type of media text. I analysed two magazine adverts and found the typical conventions were:The advert should include: Name of the artist/band (usually positioned at the top of middle of the page). Name of the album (also usually positioned at the top of middle of the page). A main image, that relates to the digipak or is of the artist. What ‘Hit singles’ the album includes. Record company logo. Star rating. Release date. Continuity between this and the digipak.My magazine advert includes all of these features apart from the star rating as I felt that it didn’t need this, as all the information on my advert is positioned at the bottom on the page in the text box, which was filled by the main information the advert needed to include. For this reason I didn’t include it as I would have had to make the textbox bigger and then I would lose some of the main image, I would have also had to make my font smaller of the other information that is already included for example the release date. This I didn’t think was suitable as the release date is more important and therefore I kept the font big in order for it to stand out. Also not every music magazine includes a star rating and therefore I felt it wasn’t needed.

I conformed to conventions of a magazine by including all the necessary information an advert needs and applying a similar layout of existing products to my magazine, for example positioning the album name in the middle of the advert. In my audience feedback, my target audience said that my poster included all the information they would want on a magazine advert and that it looked authentic, this demonstrates how by conforming to conventions of existing products I was able to create a product that looked realistic and included all the features it needed.

Analysis of my Magazine advert and how it conforms to conventions

The main image: I chose this image to be the main image for my magazine advert as I felt it was a representation of my music video. This image shows the main character of my video holding a knife behind his back. This image captures the essence of my music video as the narrative is about this male who murders the girl who comes to stay at his hotel. This connection between the main image and my music video creates continuity between my products, which is conventional as I found with research particularly into the band Bastille’s magazine adverts as they use screen grabs of their music video as the main image for their advert. I also used this image as my front cover of my digipak.

This is done as continuity allows the product to be more recognisable, as if the same image is used then it has more chance of being recognised and therefore, someone who wants to buy the album has more chance of noticing it in a record store, and thus more chance of consumption of the album. This demonstrates the advert as being effective as the main purpose is to get the target audience to consume the album.

Continuity is also a conventional feature of a magazine advert, demonstrating how I used conventions of existing products in order to create an authentic product.

I was also conventional through the positioning of my information, for example I placed the album name and band name in the centre of the page. This is done as this is were the audience will look first on the page and the name of the album and band is arguably the most important information as this is how fans will identify the poster with the artist. This positioning of the name of the album and band is used on many magazine adverts as it is also used to draw the audience in to read the poster as fans see the artists name and then want to read what it says.

I also positioned the release date at the bottom of the page as the audience will read the bottom of the page last, and therefore ,this date will be one of the last things they read. This is important as the release date is one of the most important features of the magazine as the advert is used to promote the release of an album and therefore to be effective the release date must be remembered, so the target audience can buy it.I included other conventional features of a advert, to my own product for example, adding ‘The number 1 uk album’ and ‘Featuring the Hit singles No angels & Get back’. Through research I recognised that these type of pull lines are encouraging for the audience when persuading them to buy the album, for example by saying it is the number one album, the audience can recognise that trusted individuals who have knowledge in the music world, have said that this is a very good album and thus encouraging them to buy it. Also by informing the audience that this album includes ‘Hit singles’ they know that this album will feature the popular songs that they like and again encouraging them to buy it.

Analysis continued…

Colour scheme: For the colour scheme I decided to go with dark colours in order to reflect the conventions of my genre as the ‘indie pop’ genre songs usually are centred around darker and more sad issues, for example heartbreak and therefore, for indie pop songs their promotion packages usually use darker colours to reflect the songs of which they represent. For this reason I used mostly black backgrounds and white writing, which due to the contrasting colours allows the writing to stand out.

I also used the colour orange for certain aspects of my magazine advert, such as the 1 and the featured songs, ‘No angels & Get back’. I felt it was important for these to stand out, for the reasons I previously mentioned, on their encouragement to the audience to buy the album. I chose the colour orange in order to conform to my genre as both males and females listen to indie pop and therefore I needed a gender neutral colour in order to appeal to both, so I chose orange, as this also stood out really well due to the colour scheme being vey dark.

Before choosing my own font I researched into fonts of existing products, in order to make sure I could conform to my genre in terms of the font chosen. I noticed that many fonts used by bands relate to their genre of music. For example the font used by the band kings of Leon could be described as different and unique as it is not a basic and simple, thus reflecting the indie pop genre of music.

I also included the record label logo, the bands website and the available at iTunes plug. These are also all conventional aspects of a magazine advert as it allows the artist to reach out to their audience through the medium of a magazine advert. For example the audience can use the bands website to get updates meaning the artist has another means of reaching their target audience. I also chose the iTunes logo as through my audience research I found that most of my target audience buy their music through ITunes and therefore they will recognise the logo easily and the familiarity will encourage them to look for the album or get a preview of the album on iTunes, increasing chance of consumption of the album.

I took inspiration from this when creating my font and after narrowing them down to three, I chose this one shown. I felt that this font reflected my genre as it is very unique and not basic although it is still clear to read, which is important. This font looks quite scruffy and not neat, this reflects my genre of music as indie could be described as ‘unconventional’ in the way that the music tries to push boundaries and be an alternative to pop music. So for this reason my chosen font conforms to conventions of the genre as through its scruffy but unique look, it reflects my genre ‘indie pop’.

My Digipak

Before creating my digipak, like with my magazine advert I decided to look into the conventions of existing products, as again for this product I wanted it to be conventional, in order for it to look again authentic and appeal to my target audience as much as possible.I found that the conventions of a Digipak are:Name of the album. Name of the artist.Front cover image.Back cover image.Inside panel images.Track list.Record label logo.Copyright information. To makes sure my digipak was conventional I included all of these features listed, to make sure my digipak included all the information it needed for the audience.

I again felt it was necessary to conform to conventions within my digipak as I wanted it to appeal to my target audience as much as possible, and existing products have experience in this and their products are made to attract the target audience. For this reason I felt my digipak would be more effective within the promotional package if I followed conventions of successful existing products.

My main inspiration for my digipak was the media/promotional packages of the band ‘Bastille’, not only for the reason that they sang the song of my music video, but also because they mainly do strictly narrative videos and therefore my products could relate to this. Bastille uses screen grabs of their videos to use for their promotional media texts, and this was something I wanted to do in order to create continuity between all of my products, which is again another conventional feature.

Analysis of my Digipak and how it conforms to conventionsFor the inside panels I thought very careful about which pictures I was going to use. For my digipak I wanted to reflect my music video narrative using the chosen images, so for this reason I picked the image of Yem looking out of the window and a shot of just the window. Both these images reflect an aspect of my narrative, for example, the image of Yem looking out the window is symbolic as it could be suggested that as she has come to the hotel she is now trapped (as she never leaves because she gets murdered). The other image of the window also reflects a similar idea of particularly in relation to the Psycho intertextuality as anyone who visits bates motel gets murdered, this is the same thing here, therefore as this is a shot from inside of the window it represents that there is no escape once you come to the hotel, foreshadowing what happens to Yem in the narrative.This is conventional as through research into existing products I found that bands like ‘Bastille’ use screen shots of their music videos on their promotional media texts such as their adverts. So for this reason my music video is conventional as it uses images that relate to the artists media products, making it relevant and establishing continuity.

For the front cover image I used the same image as the main image on my magazine advert. This creates continuity between all three products, which is a conventional technique used in existing products. An example of this is shown below as you can see the same main image is used for both the magazine advert and digipak main image.

For the font I again wanted to be conventional as it was important that my digipak is clear and appeals to my target audience. I used the same font for the band name which is conventional as band names are always presented in the same way, as this furthers visual identification of the name to the band. I also used the same font for the album name as this is also used in my existing products as the album font , which also becomes a form of identification of the album and therefore can be easily recognised within record stores.

With the colour scheme I wanted to use basic colours. I also didn’t want to edit my pictures too much as I wanted it to be easily noticeable that these images were taken from the music video, to allow the flow of continuity between all of my media products. For the font I decided black writing was best as the track list is one of the main features of the digipak and therefore must be clear to read.

Analysis continued...For the Back cover image I felt that this image was the most effective as it is again a screen grab from my music video, but also because this is the last shot my audience see of the video. This creates the effect that as this shot represented the end of my music video, I felt this shot would therefore be the most suitable to represent the end/back of my digipak. This allows this one image to represent the same message through two of my media products. I also used this image as not only did it allow me to establish continuity between my products but it also provided a clear background to apply the track list on top, as the other images I chose where too dark and therefore the writing wouldn’t stand out as clearly.

I chose the images on the CD’s as I wanted a symbolic image to represent the essence of my video. For this reason I chose the rose, as it was used a motif within my video and was shown at both the start and end of my music video. This symbol due to the colour red, represents danger and also as it is a flower, delicacy. This connects to my narrative as my female character is portrayed as delicate and as she is murdered, this demonstrates the danger within the connotation. I also chose the image of the shower switch to be the image of my second CD for similar reasons. The main intertextual reference within my music video is shown with the shower scene, connecting to the famous shower scene in the film ‘Psycho’. This image represents this scene as it shows the female character turning on the shower, and for anyone who has seen the video, this image therefore reminds them of what happens next. This is conventional as symbols are commonly used as the image for the CD in existing products. For example Katy Perry's Digipak uses a symbolisation of sweets, which connects to her music video in which she was in a ‘candy land’, representing the continuity between products, just as I did with my Digipak images.

My Digipak includes all the conventional features that I established through research, for example the barcode and record label logo on the back cover. I also even created my own copyright information, using my band and my chosen record company. This shows how I conformed to existing products as I felt it was necessary to make sure I included all of the information to make it effective towards my target audience.

After research into Digipaks I found that there was information that needed to be included on the ‘spine’, for example the album name, the artists name and the record company logo. This is done so if the digipak is stored on a side, the name of the band and album can still be seen and recognised. I also included this information on the spine of my digipak, as you can see. I also used the same front for the name of album and artist, as this is also important for identification. This demonstrates how I used my understandings of conventions tocover all bases in terms of identificationof my album in order to increase consumption and appeal to my targetaudience.