Advert Reflection

As a group we decided to each design our own advert so that we could compare and gain inspiration from each other. It is important to design your advert first in order to investigate what works well and meets the codes and conventions and what doesn't. Here is an image of our individual adverts (my design is on the far left):

From the start I had this idea that I wanted a brick wall within my design as I feel that a distressed brick wall gives a 'grungy/indie' vibe which is very conventional to our chosen genre. I also felt that by using graffiti we could demonstrate the unique twist that we are trying to portray within our project as graffiti isn't really conventional to indie, its more conventional to the urban genre. I also wanted to incorporate my guitar within the advert because instruments are conventional to the indie genre. I think the use of instruments promotes the artist as a singer/songwriter rather than an image which is conventional to the indie genre. 

However I also liked Drew's design. I liked his 'poster' concept as I thought that that was a creative way to display the typography. Therefore we decided to combine our designs:

This is my final design:

I am very pleased with my design as it actually turned out better than I though it would. I used Photoshop CS6 to edit my design. I used photos of myself that my group and I took whilst we were filming. It is important to organise a photoshoot when producing an advert as it gives you the opportunity to promote your artist the way that you want, using codes, conventions and genre characteristics to make the photos and the artist relatable to the target audience. I also used a photo of a brick wall that I previously took. 

Within my final design I cropped the photograph of myself, allowing the brick wall to be visible behind it. This gives that 'poster' look that I admired from Drew's design, however still maintains the same layout as my design. I used the font 'Chalkboard' as it looked like the type of writing that you could find on a brick wall. I decided to incorporate a comment from NME as positive comments like this reassures the audience and persuades them to buy the product. I also used a tag line "Featuring the hit single 'The Apple Tree'". This is something that I noticed a lot of album advertisements use and I thought that it would promote the music video also. I like the combination and the contrast between the 'urban/grunge' styled brick wall and the 'indie' feel to the photograph with the use of instruments. Using genre characteristics I think that this design would be relatable to indie audiences, however the 'grungy' edge makes the design original and unique and could be relatable to other audiences aswell.