Magazine Advertisement Editing Log

Album Digipak Editing Log

Magazine Advertisement - First Draft

Album Digipak - First Draft

Front

Side

Inside 

Inside

Back

Digipak:

Changing Ancillary Idea

As our initial ancillary ideas were drawn, we did not plan the vanilla flower ones well. As these flowers are not accessible to us, we would have to photograph a different flower that may look similar, however this would derive from the connotations it represents. Therefore, we decided it would probably be best to change this idea altogether.



Linking to my RMA research, I found that alternative pop album covers commonly feature the face of the artist to gain them public recognition. My new idea would conform to this, as it will feature her face on the front cover to present how she is a new artist. It will feature a photo of her with her guitar which would then link to the magazine advertisement which also features a photograph of her sat with her guitar.





For the inside cover, I had an idea that would feature a close up photo of the girl's hip and guitar as I thought this would seem quite indie.
Linking to my RMA Research, Green Day's 'American Idiot' album cover features a hand holding a grenade shaped as a heart- connoting love and hate.
The close up photo would connote how the journal of our main protagonist's music career is very up close and personal to her, which she made on her own. This would be emphasised by her face not being in the photograph, almost anonymous, and how this album was made solely by her music talent, not her as a person, and how the listeners should judge her music, not her.

All photos in the album digipak would link to key elements in the music video - the main protagonist, her guitar and lyrics. The back cover will be a photo of her guitar, as not only is this a simple back cover photo which are conventionally used, but links to her guitar being important.


Drawn Idea

5/ 3/ 18

Today we took some photos that we could possibly include in our new digipak design. These included a close up photo of the girls hip and part of the guitar, an angled photo of the guitar, and close ups of her holding the guitar.

Possible photos we may use:

15/ 3/ 18

Whilst editing the album digipak, I realised that the guitar photo would not flow well with the other darker coloured photos. I tried to edit the background around the guitar to be plain black, however this looked obviously fake, as part of the image was out of focus, so stood out. Therefore, I decided it would be better to take more photos, but this time prop the guitar against a black backdrop so that it would be easier to crop out on Photoshop.

Some images I took:

Magazine Advertisement

As we had to change our album digipak idea from the vanilla flower, we therefore had to change the magazine advertisement.

Fonts
Our initial idea was to have the album name of 'Vanilla' in capital letters and 'Fickle Friends' in a flowy handwriting-type font. However, after looking at my example RMAs, I found that they all feature the artist's name in a capitalised font and the album name in a different one.

Therefore, to create a successful magazine advertisement, I thought it would be better to switch round the fonts to match my RMAs. 

Album Digipak - Initial Draft

Following our initial ideas, I scanned the drawings of the flowers from each panel and cropped them onto Photoshop to edit them similarly to my drawing. This is a rough sketch and a possible outcome if we do use actual photos rather than a drawing. However, the artists, Fickle Friends, use a cartoon-type cover, so the retro indie design may suit our album digipak.


Front 

 Inside Panel

Inside Panel 

Side

Back

However, despite this being a rough draft, I do not think we will be using this design for our final ancillary as it subverts common indie designs. Typically, indie genre albums include dark colours, so at an initial glance this would not be known to be of that genre. 

Magazine Advertisement Initial Ideas

Linking back to my RMAs, I looked at the typical conventions used in magazine advertisements in this genre to make them effective. Having bold titles for both the album name and artist is significant, so that the viewers know who it is.

I particularly looked at the ad for Troye Sivan, as some conventions would be effective for our specific production. The title of his album is 'Blue Neighbourhood' and the colour of blue is consistently used in his album digipak, but also, the background colour of this advertisement is blue, signifying synergy. This is effective as the colours and words link.
Therefore, for our song name of 'Vanilla', I thought that having the colours of yellow or cream would link in with it.
However, as it is a narrative storyline, as is Troye Sivan's music promo, it makes more sense to have a photo of the artist on the cover, similar to Sivan's. So, as we would have a photo of our main protagonist, I did not want the background to be too plain, so the idea of having vanilla flowers rather than just the colour in the background would also fit together.


As our music video is narrative, it focuses on the main protagonist of the struggling female singer who wrote a song, and tries to get it produced. Therefore, to have the ancillary focusing on her as well would link. The initial idea I had was for her to be sat with her guitar, which is seen throughout the video. She would be looking at the camera with a dark background around her to emphasise how she is the focal point. I drew some initial ideas, but for the final product they will be photos.

Idea 1

Linking to the narrative base, the focal point would be of the lead singer. The cover would consist of a photograph of her looking directly at the camera holding her guitar. The background will be black with a bright white spotlight on her to emphasise her significance.



Idea 2

Similar to the last idea, the main protagonist will be featured as the sole focus, as this song reflects on her journey as an individual, and the growth she made on her own. Linking to the title of 'Vanilla', this magazine cover would be a similar picture of her with her guitar, but instead of a plain dark background, it would feature lots of vanilla flowers behind her. This, therefore, is still effective, but adds more colour and meaning to the photo.

Album Digipak Initial Ideas

Initially, as the magazine advertisement will feature the main protagonist, we thought that the album digipak should too, to make them obviously linked. We would use the same frame of her sat with a guitar and a dark background for emphasis.

To have an idea of what the band, Fickle Friends, is like, I researched into their album covers to see if they had reoccurring themes, colours and fonts.
It is clear to see their covers have a similar theme. Most of their covers featured a girl, where the photo is distorted and edited, such as her face being removed or blurred. They have a range of colours on them, with the text including the band name and a single on that album, both using the same fonts.

As well as featuring the girl, they also use quite abstract covers, having a bright background contradicting with the dark coloured leaves. As the image takes up the whole frame, the font is larger and more prominent. 

Initial Ideas

Therefore, I came up with some initial ideas by taking into consideration the bands' themes and the story of our music video. 

Idea 1

This idea is heavily based on the song name of 'Vanilla' as it features a vanilla flower. As well as this, I was inspired by the bands' album covers of the leaves as I thought the minimalistic image along with the font was effective, without giving away too much about the album, but suggests the alternative genre. 

Idea 2

This idea reflects on the music video of how the main protagonist writes a song and tries to get it produced, and how many trials and errors it takes to get the song write. Therefore, this is shown through the scraps of paper.

Idea 3

As our video is of the narrative basis, so one of our ideas is to have a photo of her looking straight at the camera with a straight face. The background would be plain black with a single spotlight on her, emphasising that she is the main focus. The inside cover features her guitar and a lyric of the song, portraying how music is a big part of her life. 

Ancillary Designs Research

For both our magazine advertisement and album digipak, we wanted the background design to be vanilla flowers. Initially, it was for aesthetic purposes, as we thought a plain background would be too dark and uninteresting. Also, it would be a literal representation of the songs name of 'Vanilla'.

For synergy purposes, I then researched into vanilla flowers to see the meaning behind them, and if this would have a link to our music video, as we do not feature a vanilla flower in our promo.

Vanilla flowers are a species of orchid, and as there was not much meaning behind the vanilla flower, I decided to research into orchids.


Orchid Flower Colour Meanings

While all orchids symbolise love and beauty, the colour of the orchid can change the intended meaning of the flower/

• Blue - Represent rarity
• Red - Symbolise passion and desire, but also strength and courage
• Pink - Symbolise grace, joy and happiness, and also innocence and femininity
• White - Represent reverence and humility, innocence and purity, and elegance and beauty
• Purple - Symbolise admiration, respect, dignity, and royalty
• Yellow - Represent friendship, joy and new beginnings
• Orange - Symbolise enthusiasm, boldness and pride
• Green - Thought to bring good fortune and blessings, and represent good health, nature and longevity

The vanilla flower is between the colours of white and yellow, so I focused on them. 

White

• 'Humility' could relate to how the main protagonist in our video had so many rejections for producing her song, but her determination persisted. 
• 'Innocence' links to how she achieved her dream purely by herself, and faced the rejection but overcame them.

Yellow

• Specifically, 'New Beginnings' relates to the beginning of her music career after her first song was produced.