Audience feedback from my magazine advert

I again asked my peers to evaluate my final magazine advert to ensure I had created a successful piece that not only fit with the house music genre but looked professional and authentic.  

I asked in total 10 people to write down some positive points that they really liked and thought worked well as well as any negative aspects that could require some improvement. These were some of the comments made:

Positive comments

• The use of colour fits with the house music genre
• The distorted image looks effective 
• The busy colours work well with the blandness of the brick wall 
• The colours used on the artists name works well the poster
• The use of the black font on the star ratings stands works well as it stands out from the busy background 
• The link between the album cover and advert is effective because of its consistency

Negative comments

• The middle section of the poster looks quite empty 
• The font looks a bit small in relation to the image of the artist
• The image doesn't look as effective with the shadow removed

I did look in to rectifying these issues by repeating the image over again to cover the empty space in the middle, however I didn't like the effect this created and preferred the advert I already made. I appreciated the comments made by peers but I was happy with my final product and kept it as it was. I was incredibly happy that there was more positive comments than negative ones, this reassured me that the magazine was successful. 

Final magazine advert

After some deliberation, this is the final design for my magazine advert. I knew once I had decided on my final album cover I would use the same image for my magazine advert to keep a consistent link between the two. This also creates a strong brand identity for my artist as it reinforces his image, allowing audiences to recognise him as an artist. I slightly adapted the image used on my album cover by relocating the position of the text, rotating it to a straight angle and putting it at the top of the advert, this is a more typical layout for a magazine advert which I noticed when doing my research into them. I also changed the position of Liam (Alex Fiction) and moved him more to the right as I felt it looked better here. 

I removed the shadow that was created on the album cover to create a slight different between the two, but still linking them together very closely. I added 2 other music magazine ratings at the bottom of the page to make the advert appear more realistic. Over all I am very pleased with the final product, I think it fits well with the house music genre and advertises the artist successfully. 

I included key features to the magazine advert such as the release date, ratings from other magazines such as NME and Kerrang!, the option to download the song from ITunes and also showing the new album includes his new track 'change'.  

Possible album covers

For my album cover i wanted to stick the urban theme of the music video, I chose an outdoor location to shoot the cover with the male Liam who stars in the video acting as song producer Alex Fiction. I dressed Liam in casual clothing; jeans and a t-shirt to fit with the informal, underground theme of the video. 

Here is the original photo of Liam with no edits, or filters. I plan to add colour and blurred effects over the photo to give it a unorthodox, quirky appearance. This was originally going to be my final album cover with no edits, however when questioning my peers they said it didn't really fit the house music genre and I needed to develop it in order to do so. I designed a number of edited version of the picture: 

1.

This was the first edit I created a faded pink to blue effect on this, I liked the effect on this image however I didn't think the colours were strong enough to use my final cover.

2. 

I really liked the effect created on this image, particularly the shadowed effected behind the main image, I think the red and green tinge works well with the dark background created on the brick wall. 

3.

I had mixed views on this edit, I really liked the masked lighting over the whole picture as it recreated a club lighting effect, however I thought the main colour the image was too weak and didn't really fit with the theme I wanted to create. 

4.

This image wasn't edited with any colour, just a swirled effect was put over it to make it look a bit more interesting to the eye, I liked this effect but regret not adding any colour to it because it appears quite bland and boring.

5.

This was another favourite edit of mine, I really liked the pixel effect over the image and how it distorts it, however I dont' feel like it adds enough colour.  

Out of all the edits I created I think I will be using number 2, as it fit well with the urban theme I wanted to create. I will considering using one of the effects used on the images above in the inset of my digipak because I liked all of them in some way.