CONVENTIONS ANALYSIS OF

MAGAZINE ALBUM RELEASE ADVERTISEMENT‘THE PRODIGY – THE DAY IS MY ENEMY’

GENERAL/ BASIC CONVENTIONS (LABELLED)

Artist NameAlbum Name

Iconic Imagery taken from their album cover

Date of releasePersuasive promotion of pre-released tracks

Positive reviews

Production CompaniesPromotion of external links

Competition ofRelevant interest/ discrete promotion of their upcoming tour

Colour Scheme/ house style

ARTIST NAME

Probably one of the most obvious conventions of any magazine album advertisement; the artist name dominates the upper region of this media text, drawing most attention to it. This is deliberate to ensure the reader knows exactly who is being advertised before they even look at the other components of the product.

Typographic stylisation is recognisable and iconic, also relating to the nature of music the artist produces. This is strengthened through colour choice, this being a washed out black contrasting with the background and allowing for texture to be noticed within the typeface.

ALBUM NAME

Conventionally, the album name is located just below the artist name within the top 1/3 region of the media product. This ultimately draws attention to the typography following direct notice of the artist name, avoiding any potential confusion of subject of advertisement.

The typographic aesthetics are bold and associable with the artist type, following multiple similarities such as colour, tone, texture, and even nature of font. Ideas inferred from this type style match very closely with those associated with impressions derived through the artist name. This, again, reflects upon the type of music produced by the artist.

ICONIC IMAGERY

This iconic image of the fox references the album being advertised as it is directly taken from the album artwork itself.

This is a frequently noticed convention seen across many of the existing graphic products I looked at, enabling the immediate recognition of advertising presented through the media text; in simple terms, the audience know exactly which product is being advertised with no confusion.

Aesthetically, the image follows a warm colour scheme featuring many reds, oranges and yellows with a diverse tonal range featuring intense shadows and highlights, strengthening the impact of the colours vibrancy.

DATE OF RELEASE

This tagline, located in the bottom third region of the graphic, features the release date of the product advertised. This is in block, bold capitals for noticeability purposes, drawing maximum attention to this information. This is important for a successful album launch, promoting the preparation of rapid sales.

A white colour has been used to provide strong tonal contrast between writing and background making it stand out to the eye of the reader, again for attentive purposes.

The phrase ‘The New Album’ specifies the form of media product to those within the audience less familiar with the upcoming media of the band.

PERSUASIVE PROMOTION

The feature of this text is inclusive for the sole purpose of promoting the product using pre-released media, setting the general theme of the product. This is particularly effective if the pre-sale material is popular as this would encourage a large amount of people to wish to purchase the album as they would assume the product’s content would follow through with a similar trend, suiting their likes.

POSITIVE REVIEWS

This feedback is located in small sized typography beneath the persuasive promotional tagline, to aid this feature’s success in its influential technique. The fact that the reviews have been left by majorly well known companies amplifies the effect of them, increasing their legitimistic values.

The colour of the company names are dissimilar to that chosen for the actual quotes, suiting the house style while allowing the actual quote to stand out more due to harsher contrast in tonal attributes.

COMPETITION

This component is located at the bottom left side of the poster in small engaging the viewer once their attention and focus has been obtained.

The typographic content here follows the same set stylistic theme consisted throughout the entirety of the product for aesthetic purposes. It is also kept simple and clear, so that the viewer understands with little confusion what this component is suggesting. In a discreet way, this feature subtly advertises their place in the media industry, promoting their music and commercial tour sales.

EXTERNAL LINK

This information is presented with consisted design aspects maintained and developed through other components of this particular media text, inducing similarities and consistency in aesthetic strength.

Strengthening the visual effect of this element, a centred composition enables for a subtle domination, drawing attention to the link while providing a sense of compositional balance. This draws the interested audience in, potentially transferring their consumption of The Prodigy’s media from the form of the printed advertisement to visual, online imagery, further promoting their products they have on offer.

COMPANY LOGO

These logos are presented to represent the external companies responsible for the success of the artist; Cooking Vinyl is an independent record company based in the UK, while Take Me To Hospital is a label created for this band specifically. This aids licencing and distribution to be signed to multiple labels, each deserving of credit, and represented by the band.

To create a particular compositional strength, this element is located in the bottom right aligned horizontally with the two compositional aspects discussed previously.

HOUSE STYLE As with the production of any media

product, the development of a house style aids the success of the aesthetic inducing professionality, consistency and balance across components.

A house style is the convergence of design assets across components resulting in a flowing, stable outcome to derive. These collectively set a certain style for the product creating a successful final piece aesthetically.

For this particular example, The Prodigy’s poster features a warm harmonious colour scheme, amplified through drastic tonal variants. This is followed throughout, matched with a similar editorial style with regards to imagery manipulation and typographic aspects. Bold, capitalised fonts have been used to create a dominating sense, capturing the audiences attention.