Individual magazine advert reflection

I created my individual magazine advert to increase awareness of my artist. Also it helps to promote the artist album and no1 single.

For this photo I used a darker filter than in my digipak, this is to show that Sharna has two sides to her. This is showing her more confident and bold personality, reflected by the dark blacks, browns and blues used. These have connotations of her being fierce and outgoing, which would appeal to her audience because it shows them that she has high confidence in her music. And it highlights to them that her music increases her confidence so they could listen to it to try to gain this feeling that Sharna has when producing it.  My writing consists of two different colours, the orange used for 'illuminate' and 'wings' is used as it connotes happiness and energy. It also can reflect creativeness and success. I used it for these words specifically because these are the connotations I want to be linked with her album and number 1 single. These are all things that Sharna would want to be associated with her music, as it presents her as passionate about her album and music. By displaying this passion to the audience it would encourage them to listen to her songs. Also I used the white colour for her name and the other text. I used it specifically for her name because I think it connotes her as pure and innocent. Sharna is new to the music industry and has therefore not been involved in the darker side of the industry yet. As a result she would be seen as a very pure artist in the industry. This white also contradicts the darker colours used for the actual photo of her, implying that there are two sides to Sharna, the more confident and outgoing side and the innocent and pure side. These colours that I have used help to promote my artist to her target audience because it reflects her as being a real person. She does have a darker side with her past experiences but she has turned it around with her music and has made them into positives.

The first indie convention that can be seen in my magazine advert in the setting that the photograph is taken in. Behind Sharna the low budget setting of a forest can be seen. It is conventional of the indie genre because their productions are usually lost cost, this is reflected in my setting I have chosen because the forest is a public place therefore would not cost anything to film there. This would appeal to the audience because it shows Sharna is not trying to hide behind a big fancy production and is more focused on the music itself. It also helps to further promote that Sharna is real and relatable as she is not going to hide behind a fancy setting and layers of make up. Also as Sharna is the only person in the advert which shows that she can stand alone and face the issues that she has experienced, implying she is a strong individual. This bravery shown by Sharna would appeal to her audience because it shows her as a positive role model for her audience that they can look up to.  

The image that I used for my magazine advert is a mid shot of Sharna looking straight at the camera. A clear shot of the artist is highly important to in a magazine advert because some of her target audience may not be aware of who she is therefore need the clear photo of her to stick in their heads.  She is not showing much emotion, it shows her to be direct and simplistic, as there is nothing very extravagant about the photo. I chose this shot because her confidence is pouring out of the photo, this could reflect that her music makes her feel empowered. Which would encourage her audience to listen to it.  Her confidence in the photo feels quite contagious, this could make her audience want to be like her and see her as a role model. I really like her facial expression in this photo, its so simple but effective. She is making direct eye contact with the camera, connoting her as strong and powerful. I think this creates a good role model that her audience will want to look up to. The darker feel to the photo could resemble that her songs are based on true experiences that she has been through and darker times in her life, but shows she is strong enough to face them head on. However, this strong and powerful representation of Sharna could be seen as subversive as this is normally a representation of a female pop artist. But I think it would intrigue her audience.

For Sharna's name I used a quirky looking font, I decided to do this for two reasons. The first was simply as I think it helped to make her name stand out amongst the other text on the advert. But also because I think this font helped to represent Sharna. It implies that she is different and doesn't follow the norm, this is conventional of indie music artists as they are stereotypically seen to not follow the mainstream and do their own thing. This would appeal to her target audience as it is showing them that it is okay to be different and do your own thing, listener's of indie music are likely not to listen to mainstream music. Therefore will enjoy Sharna presenting herself as different. For 'Illuminate' and 'Wings' I put them in a more ordinary font, and the text was slightly smaller then Sharna's name. This is because this information is still important but obviously not as important as her name. Also with 'illuminate' I put a glow behind it to give the impression that the word it shining and glowing as these have connotations on illuminating. The other text on the page 'new debute album' and featuring no1 single' is in a much smaller font then the rest of the writing as it needs to be there in order for the advert to make sense however it is not as important as the other information. As it is an advert and I need to attract my audience I use minimal writing and simple language so that it appeals to them and their not overloaded with irrelevant information. 

When using  Photoshop I struggled with using the magic eraser tool, this is because it was hard to rub out the specific colour needed and not loose the rest of the other colours as well. However, I overcome this because I soon realised that you are able to zoom in really close to the subject, therefore making it easier to be more specific. However, I feel I was good at using the blur tool, this is because I used it in quite a few of my photos in order to blur to the background, so that the focus could be more on Sharna and any writing would be easier to see. After using it on the first photo I found it really simple and easy to do. This helped me to create a successful advert because it allowed me to have time to focus on making other elements of my advert better.