Task 11: Advert In a Magazine - Print Products

The final part of our print products is an advert in a magazine. We chose to have this landscape as we wanted it because we liked the idea of it being an A3 two page spread. The first thing we did was insert the picture of Jess walking down the path and made it slightly transparent, we thought that this would be an effective photo to use as Jess is in the centre so we could have the writing around the outside of her. However, we wanted the artists name and the name of the album cover in the middle of the advert because it is more eye-catching and would therefore draw people in to reading it. Originally, we used the same font as we have used on our album cover for this (Seravek Extra Light) but we felt that it didn't look like a real media product, due to other adverts for albums having more complex titles. We decided to do some research and looked at real life adverts for albums in magazines, for example Jessie J's - Who You Are album and Ellie Goulding's - Lights album. Using 1001fonts.com, we experimented with lots of different fonts before we found one that looked most effective with our advert. Before inserting this however, we decided that the background didn't look bright enough so we inserted some lens flares on Premier Pro, which by inserting one in the top left corner, has made the photo look as if the sun is shining down on Jess. We then inserted the font and put it in the middle like we desired. 

After looking at real album adverts, we decided to include a star rating, a small quote from a newspaper, and information about a certain song on the album. We wrote 'Includes Number One Hit On iTunes "Heaven"' as this is song in our music video. For this information we used the same font as the album cover as the information is only small, and having the new font we used for the titles on the advert would not have looked right. Another feature of an advert of an album is a small picture of the album cover itself, along with the price, bar-code and where it is available on it, which was used on the You Me at Six album. We decided to use the "Available on iTunes" logo because in modern society that is where most people buy their music, and no longer go into a music store to buy it. We put this price at £9.99 as that is the typical price for an album on iTunes. 

After finishing this draft we changed our minds about the advert being A3 and landscape, due to the fact we had a lot of empty space. Therefore we thought we could create an A4 portrait version, to see which one we preferred. We used exactly the same information as before, just changed the layout and added a link to the artists official website at the bottom. When changing the layout, we put the photograph so that Jess was in the middle again, but having it like that would of made it impossible to have information around the outside of her without it covering her. As a result we cropped the photo and moved it to the right, so Jess is on the right hand side and the information could go on the left.  On this version we put the titles at the top of the advert because with the photo being to the right now, the titles looked better on the left, with them overlapping slightly. We also added a shadow to the photo of the album cover so that it stood out more, and didn't look flat to the background. In the end we decided we preferred this version as there is a lot less empty space.

Task 11: Process Of Our Final Album Cover 2 - Print Products

After creating the front and back of our album, we started on our inside panels. We wanted to include pictures of Jess that are not from the Heaven music video as we had used these for our front and back cover. We found a photo of Jess at a photo shoot and thought this would be a good photo to use because it looks professional and as if it was took for the purpose of this album. We made it slightly transparent and placed it over the top of a white background. However we didn't like this because it looked simple and basic, with not much going on. Therefore we thought of the idea of including a signature of the Jess's name to be layered over the top of the photo. We also made this transparent, which made the photo and the signature fade into each other, which we really liked. 

After creating this, we moved onto the right side of the inside panel. Here we struggled for ideas as a after looking at real life products, most albums included either just photos or lyrics to all the songs in the album which we didn't want to do as there isn't much room to do this on the one side of the panel. We then thought of the idea of having a dedication of the album to the artists friend who passed away as although it isn't the ordinary convention of an album, it has been done before and is done in other media products. We chose the font we did because it reminded us on handwriting so it is as if the artist has hand wrote this dedication herself. In the background we included an old photo of Jess and Kate because it relates to the fact she has wrote the dedication to her. Finally, we made the sizing of the panels correct.

Task 11: Process Of Our Final Album Cover - Print Products

From our previous audience feedback we realised that our audience preferred the colourful CD cover. In order to improve our product we decided to dismiss the black and white effect and make it more colourful. We kept the previous colour design exactly the same and then created a new version.

We started by removing the grey scale effect, followed by going on Photoshop and removing the green background which left us with the single image of Jess. Although we wanted her to be more colourful we didn't want to use that background as we felt it didn't look like the typical background of a real product. After looking at Taylor Swifts album covers for inspiration we decided to use an orange toned scene for the background as this was a more realistic background for a real product. We then overlaid the photo of Jess on top to make it look like she is in the scene.

We also liked the idea of having a lens flare on the photo as it would be like she was standing outside when the sun was setting. This would not have worked on the previous background because it was not as bright and would of been a lot more harsher. At first we were unclear on how to add a lens flare to our photo however we used our initiative and went onto Premier Pro to import the photo and add a lense flare. We then screen-shotted this and imported it back onto the front of the CD cover. We then repeated this for the back cover so the front and the back covers would coincide together. 

After this process, we wanted to find out if our audience still preferred our original colour cover they picked in our previous audience feedback (the bottom one) or our new one (the top one.) We asked the same people as last time which one they preferred and counted the votes again. We received 12 for our new cover and 8 for the original cover.

We were pleased that the majority of people liked our new cover because this is the one we also preferred, however there was slight issue that was mentioned by a few people. This was that they didn't like the lens flare ring that surrounded Jess's torso as it was a bit full-on and unrealistic. We took this criticism on board and decided that we needed to make it more natural as the lense flare was too bright for the photo therefore we went back onto Premier Pro and softened the flare. 

Once we did that we imported the photo once again to complete our final cover. 

Then to complete it, all we had to do was make the sizings correct, so they are the size of a real media product.

Task 12: Audience Feedback of 5 Album Covers - Print Products

After creating our previous drafts, we decided to get some audience feedback. Due to the fact we are biased to our CD cover, we decided to create some different panels, such as in colour, in a sepia effect and changing the back cover to white instead of grey. This is because we wanted to ask a wider universal audience and see which one they believed looked more effective in terms of advertising, branding the artist and which they believed looked best in general. Also if they didn't like any of the black and white versions, we have other ideas we can use and can develop. We decided to do a tally chart, by printing the photos off and show a range of people the covers and do a tally on which one they liked the most.

The feedback showed that the most popular cover was the colour version, and the least popular was the first cover we produced, followed by the second cover. This was surprising to us, as we spent more time on the first 2 covers than the others and believed that the black and white was most effective. However when speaking to people, they thought the black and white was boring and didn't stand out as much as the colour or the sepia (which was second most popular) and if they were buying the CD in a shop the black and white wouldn't attract their attention to buy where as the colour would. Therefore, we decided that we would keep the colour version and then develop another colour design that we could also get feedback on. 

Task 11: First Draft of Album Cover - Print Products

After we finished editing, we started on our print products. We started by looking through photos/videos we had of Jess from when we filmed and found a photo of her walking down a path with the back to the camera. We liked this shot and thought it would be good on the album as it is helps brand her as an artist, as she is wearing the hat, coat and heels which is her signature style. We started by going on Photoshop and cropping out the background of the shot because we don't want the cover to reflect the music video only, as it is in album cover and not a single cover. 

After this we created the panel templates for the cover, we started by just doing the front and back as we wanted to focus on this first. We inserted the picture onto what would be the front cover panel and added titles. We chose a font that was quite simple yet stands out and has more depth due to the shadows, instead of it just being flat to the image. We chose to have the background grey because the songs on the album are more slower and emotional songs rather than up-beat songs, so we thought darker/neutral tones would look most effective. The photo of Jess on its own in colour did not suit the style of the rest of the cover as it didn't go with the grey tone and it didn't look right in the middle with the rest of the cover just blank. Therefore we played around with it, by inserting the same picture twice again then adding a transparency effect on 2 of the photos, one more than the other, then putting them side by side, making it look like she's gradually fading away, like an ombre effect. We then tried to put the photos in black and white, but it looked too plain and clashed with the background, so instead we brought the cover forward and the photos back, which created a different tone which we really liked as it isn't too bright or too dark.

We then started on the back cover. We found a medium close up shot of Jess we took while filming which we really liked because it also helped brand the artist. This shot is similar to the one we hand-drawn for our draft, however this is in black and white to blend in to the front cover. We used the same text font as we did for the front cover, although this does not stand out as much as the writing is a lot smaller, although we did put a thin shadow around it. Furthermore it was hard to choose a colour that could be seen easily due to the different tones of the photo. The songs we have used for the album are the typical song that this artist would sing as they are more emotional, slow songs, which is her style. We used a bar-code and our production company name as that is what is included on a real album back cover, along with small print at the bottom about copyright issues etc.

We then decided we were going to create more drafts of the covers and then get audience feedback on them. We started by creating another cover that swapped around the front and back from our previous design. When this was finished we actually preferred this deigned, as in the previous design the front cover looked quite bare/plain where as with the picture of Jess on the front it stands out more. Also on the back cover due to the song list, there isn't much of a background needed so the 3 outlines fitted well here and on the previous cover the words got lost into the picture of Jess due to the variety of tones on her outfit and the trees where as in the new one they stand out. Therefore we decided the cover below was our favourite out of the two.