Since i was ahead in my product i was allowed to design an advertisement page to go between the front cover and the contents page.
I started by looking through music magazines like NME, Q and Kerrang because the music genres these magazines include are the same kind of genres that my magazine promotes (Rock, indie, alternative, Brit pop and grunge). From looking at the magazines i concluded that the most popular advertisements in music magazines are either advertisements for album releases or gigs therefore i decided to have my advertisement of an album.
I wanted a grungy/ sarcastic album of which the most successful album covers usually are therefore i decided to base my album on the concept that nothing is original anymore, it's all been done before so that people claiming to have a 'new sound' are probably copying something. From this concept i decided to take a picture of a statue of knight suggesting that the last time something was original was long ago and has become stagnant and lifeless like a statue.
I decided to call my album 'Renaissance is futile' because its a pun on the phrase 'Resistance is futile' and suggests that no one can resist music or a 'rebirth' of music can not be achieved through lack of originality. It was also a nod to the historical denotation of the knight statue.
After i had decided what my image would be and the album title, i needed to create a band name to go with the album. Since my magazine is a rock genre i needed to make the name have rebellious connotations but i also needed it to be easily memorable therefore i came up with the name 'Begging Brandy'. The 'Begging' is meant to suggest a lack of scruples and desperation which is then juxtaposed against 'Brandy' which has connotations of drunken/ wild abandon. When the two are put together it suggests that the band is desperate 'begging' for a chance to rebel. It is memorable as it uses alliteration which makes it easy to remember and say.
I opened the image on 'A4' size and started to edit the image:
1)First i made the image smaller by using the 'move tool' to make the image smaller and placing it in the top half leaving room for the advertisement information.
2) 'Enhance' - 'Auto levels' : To improve the image's levels automatically with the computer rather than trying to do it myself.
3)'Enhance' - 'Auto contrast' -:To improve/ balance the images level of light and dark contrast to make a clearer image.
4)'Enhance' - 'Adjust lighting' - 'shadows/highlights': to change the highlights of the image manually so that i could emphasise the highlights and shadows to make the statue shiny but have its shadows greatly accentuated.
5)'Filter' - 'Adjustments' - 'posterize' : this was to give the image a rough grainy effect to make the image seem old or hazy like a memory.
6) 'Enhance' - 'adjust colour' - 'Adjust Hue/saturation' : I changed the hue and saturation to work with the posterise effect to created rusted colours of browny red and dark yellow oranges and pinks to add to the concept of a decaying rusting past glory of music.
7)'Text box' - 'Reboard' - 'Begging Brandy' - 'black' : I placed the band name in the top left corner to comply with western eye flow. I used three text boxes to create the band name. The first was a large 'B'. The second was used in half the font size 'egging' and then used the 'move tool' to position near the top half of the 'B' so it now looks like 'Begging'. Finally i used the third in half the font size of the 'B' to say 'randy' and then used the 'move tool' to position near the lower half of the 'B' so it now looks like 'brandy'. So now the whole thing says 'Begging Brandy'.
8) 'Text box' - 'Angelic war' - 'Renaissance is futile'- 'white' : I created two text boxes, one that said 'Renaissance' and the other saying 'is futile'. i positioned them center and right below the knight. However because of the elaborate nature of the font i needed to simplify it by erasing part of the design of the font so that i could position the two text boxes closer together. I did this by duplicating a layer, linking them and using the 'Eraser tool'.
9) 'Paint bucket tool' - black' : I then used the paint bucket tool to fill the space left for the advertisement information to serve as a background to the text. I made sure that the black was of a slightly lighter shade of black so as to not interfere with the black of the image.
10) 'Image' - 'HMV logo' : i decided that 'HMV' was an appropriate sponsor/advertiser for a music album in a music magazine. Therefore i searched for the hmv logo on the search engine google and 'copy' and 'paste' it into the advertisement using the 'move tool' to re size and place in the bottom right corner as there are often placed with enough room for the company's website underneath which most commonly follows the logo in advertisements.
11) 'Text box' - 'The album of the year' (White) - '2 disc version featuring 5 bonus tracks'(White) - 'Out Now' (pink) - 'www.RIFFRAFF.co.uk' (white)} Rockwell font- 'hmv.com'} Times New Roman Font (white) : The album of the year is in the second largest font above the rest of the advertisement so that readers will notce that it is the album of the year. I then positioned below this the contents of the album '" disc version featuring 5 bonus tracks as an incentive to buy the album as they are getting something 'extra'/'bonus' for their money. In the largest size font and center beneath the 'The Album of the year' and the contents i put 'OUT NOW' so as to inspire a sense of urgency to encourage the readers to buy. I then put the two websites so as the reader can find out more about the album from the magazine and from the sponsor.
