Digipak - Miss Miller

The purpose of a digipak is to ensure that the audience are getting the most exclusive content from their favourite artists in the music industry, they are essentially albums with additional content, more information surrounding the artist, and some even include additional photographs for the digipak which are called artwork pictures, there are two of these photos in every digipak so that the audience feel as if they're getting their money's worth. They promote the artist because they include more inforamtion about the artist, this information may enable the audience to relate or respect the artist further as they may see the artists as down to earth, to do this, the artist includes a thank you note to his fans to ensure that the audience builds a relationship with the artist and likes the artists music further. To create my digipak for my artist I used photoshop CS6 because it had such a wide range of editing options for each photo, you could add blurs, change the contrast colours or the brightness of the picture, you could add filters to photos, you could download additonal fonts to make it look as if it belonged to the indie genre and you could even edit out all of the background the you didn't need/ had to get rid of. To come up with my idea of the digipak I researched two existing ones that belonged to the same genre as our artist, that being Jack Johnson as in his digipak he had many photos, artwork and a track list for the audience, this inspired me to implement the same styles like the guitar being present with the artist, an artwork photo of the artist looking straight at the camera which were all conventions of the indie genre. I will now analyze all 6 slides of my digipak and what I used to create the pictures and how this demonstrated my understanding of the indie genre conventions.

The colour of the digipak's front cover was used so that only a slim amount of colour could be noticeable. The most obvious pf the colour present are black and white while the orange blends in with the orange brick wall. The purpose of the colour choice was to make the white and black stand out the most of all the colours, this is so the artist is clearly visible as well as the name of the album and the artist. The colour black for the artist connotes that he is dark and that his music is dark which is emphasized by the black guitar and black clothes, the writing at the bottom left also conveys this which just further emphasizes that he is a dark artist. I used two images for this first slide for a few reasons. The first image is the one with the artist, but because the background involved certain items that were not necessary i had to cut out the background and replace it with image 2 which the brick wall behind the artist. The reason why i used the effect of two images was so that the front cover/slide of the digipak seemed more realistic to the audience and they will then purchase the digipak based on the authenticity of it. The connotation of these two images put together is that the artist comes from an urban/rural area in which he had to play the guitar in order to get himself out of that lifestyle, urban/rural areas are often poorer than other areas, this ties in well with the indie convention of coming from a poor background. The layout/design of the front cover slide of the digipak was very important because every detail had to make it look realistic. One such detail was adding a shadow to the image with the artist which reflected onto the wall, the reason for this was so that it looked as if the artist was actually resting near the wall. The layout of the text was done so that it wasn't in the way of the artist so the audience knew what artist they were buying, it also created the effect that the text was like a piece of graffiti. The layout of the text and pictures that were used all tie in with the convention that the artist came from a poor area and because of this his music can come across as a bit more real or darker than other artists music which will make audiences buy his digipak so they can listen to something new. The typography was very important because I had to download a few extras to capture an indie effect. The typography that I used were all indie related fonts from a website, this was so that my digipak conformed to the indie genre. The typography in the digipak are all conventions of the indie genre but the connotation is that it's graffiti in a poor rural area, the poor rural area is a convention that's commonly used amongst a lot of graffiti artists.

The next slide of my digipak is my first artwork photo of the digipak, in every artists digipak there are at least two of these which are just additional pieces of content for the audience, nearly every one of these artwork photos are used to convey a deeper meaning that the audience are supposed to understand. Firstly lets take a look at the use of colours for the picture, when creating this specific artwork photo i deliberately increased the contrast so the colours were more colourful and each colour could therefore stand out much more, this is clear with the one of the buildings in the background being bright and blue where as the coins are clearly a dark tint of orange which makes it stand out from the rest of the colours in the picture, the brightness effected the colour of the pavement so that it wasn't too bright as it was before. The blue in the background will appeal to my target audience as blue is a conventional colour of the indie genre, the colours in this artwork slide are all dark colours, the pavement is dark the people in the background of the money box are dark apart from the sky and the building. Blue is the colour that represents sadness or depression, as most indie songs and artists have storys that are quite depressing or have a depressing tone, however these depressing songs/ stories that music artists tell come across as more real or relatable for the audience, which is why the target audience of indie fans would enjoy this digipak as they can understand it's the indie genre. The slide promotes our artist effectively because the audience will understand the connotation of our artist starting his career having little to nothing in terms of money but having to go to the city in order to make it big, they will also appreciate the songs as they can understand they're probably real events while he was starting out. There are only two images used in this slide but the images are exactly the same. The first one is the background of the original , i added a blur effect to it so it made the second image of the money box stand out from the background, i was then able to change certain details of the box so that it was either brighter or more colourful than the rest of the background behind it. The effect this has the audience is that they focus on the money box, it's central in the frame and is the most clear in frame, the audience will then think that the digipak is mostly about the artists struggles he had before becoming famous as he is now and that the digipak is a much more personal story. The layout/design were both very important for this picture to get right because if it wasn't, it would result in the picture looking unprofessional. The layout needed to be precise because the image showing the money box had to perfectly overlap the blurred background picture so the audience don't see the same thing twice. The design was incredibly important as well because the colours needed to show the difference in the two pictures so that the audience know what is supposed to stand out, the blur effect of the background makes the audience focus on the foreground which is the money box, the audiences attention is locked onto the box because it's much clearer than the rest of the slide. The layout will appeal to my target audience because they will understand the connotation of the money box being the absolute minimum of what our artist had yet the fact that my artist had no money will be central to the songs included in the digipak. This promotes my artist effectively because he comes across as a regular person who was lucky enough to make it into the music industry which will show the audience he wants to make music he know the audience will like as they are all indie fans.

This slide of the digipak is the disk slide, meaning that this will contain the disc that contains every song in the artist's album/digipak that the audience can listen to. The first element to look at is the colours of the picture, the audience from the disk can see orange, green, black and white. However the green is faded and blurred which means this isn't the important part of the disk. The colours black and white illustrate the genre conventions as they are dull colours or blank ones, however the orange of the album name pops out, this could mean while in a genre that is mostly dark with many artists' stories of how hard it was to get famous, the orange evokes that this artist is different in the genre and is unique. The audience will listen to the digipak's songs because of the orange colour which makes him stand out from other artists in the same genre. For this slide i used two images one being the picture of the artist and one which acts as a disk template, the white circle in the middle as well as the outer edge of the artists picture. The effect this created for the audience was that it made the digipak look more authentic so the audience were able to relate to it being more of an actual digipak. This appeals to my target audience as well as any audience because the images make it look realistic to an actual digipak. The way the picture of the artist looking out into the lake, represents him as looking into what the future could bring for him as he is looking forward, this relates back to the concept of the digipak about being stories of his hardships because the way he is looking could mean he's looking forward in the hopes that there are no difficult hurdles he must overcome. The layout/design of this slide was also extremely important due to the fact that there would be a CD in place so i had to make sure that everything about the CD would match to a real life one. Some choices i made are very much conventional to a standard digipak CD, the digipak name on the CD, the record producer is also featured on the disk and finally the little text on the left hand side of the disk is all about the use of copyright to the disk, this makes it look as though it is a real CD as they all include a copyright warning along the edge of the disk. The audience see that this is a real disk with an artists work  on it, they want to listen to the album because of the layout as it looks like a real digipak CD, as long as it looks realistic enough, the target audience will listen to it. I used 2 types of typography/font on the disk slide. The first is the same used for the name of the digipak on the front, just the colour is different, again the orange being used to show he's different, the other use of font is a very plain and formal one on the side with all the copyright warnings along the edge of the CD. All of these design choices are so that the audience can actually believe this is a CD for a digipak that an artist created so this is why the typography is kept normal, as this is conventional to an actual CD. The language of the CD was kept formal, this is because when copyright warnings are made they are always formal. The effect this has on the audience is that they believe that this could be an actual CD for the digipak and it shows that the artist in question takes his music very seriously which makes the audience respect him a bit more.

This slide of the digipak is all about the artist thanking the audience for their purchase and their support for his efforts, this means there is much more text and language here than any other slide on the digipak, yet is just a short message for the audience. Firstly the colours that are present here have been present throughout the digipak, the 3 central ones are orange, white and black, there is green but it's faded so the audiences eyes aren't concentrated to that part of the slide. However these 3 colours orange, black, and white are all repeating colours in this digipak, the black and white relate to the conventions of the indie genre which makes indie fans believe it is an indie digipak which encourages them to listen to it, and the orange makes him stand out from the genre or the black and white so indie audiences want to listen to it so they can understand what is so original about this artist in particular. This means that the colours effectively promote my artist as an original artist in the indie genre and the audience will want to listen to him and buy the digipak to found out why he has been represented this way. There was only one image used here but I copied one and blurred the background of all the trees and pavement, this is so the audience focus on the artists positioning and the writing, the blur makes sure that side of the slide hasn't got too much of the focus. The images show that the important part of the slide is the right, where the artists appreciation of his audience is, this makes him come across as likable as he shows he only cares about his fans and how they see him as an artist which encourages them to talk about the artist or to buy the digipak. The layout and design were very important when creating this slide, the layout of the text had to make sure it didn't overlap the artist because this would make it look unrealistic, the design was important because the right hand side of the slide needed to look unimportant, this is why the blur effect has been used, to convey that the most important part of the slide is the artists words to his audience. The artists target audience will like this because they would probably by the digipak in the efforts to listen to his music but instead are thanked and cherished by the artist for buying the digipak which comes across as likable and down to earth. The typography was very important to get right for this slide, firstly i used the font/typography on the right as it looked like graffiti which conveys the poor area as poor areas commonly have a lot of graffiti, however the white writing is supposed to look handwritten but the artist himself almost as if he is giving the digipak his personal touch. This will appeal to the audience as it shows he used true stories of his own to write the music and he feels very proud of this digipak, this makes the audience build a relationship with the artist as he uses true stories for his songs. This promotes my artist as being passionate for his own craft in that he wants to be appreciated by his audience and wants them to know he worked very hard on the creation of the digipak. The language of this slide of the digipak isn't at all formal, however this was also important to consider. As stated, the language is informal and humble, he even shares a personal thanks from himself like when he writes "from the bottom of my heart" makes the audience feel as though the writing is genuine. This would appeal to my artists target audience because they would be flattered at the fact that the artist has gone out of his time to create a piece of additional piece of content and thanked them for their support which will build a relationship from the audience as well as the artist.

This slide is the second of the artwork pictures in the digipak as well as the last one for the artwork. This has a total lack of colour, most obvious one is black, there is also dark gray for the pavement and dark orange for the brick wall behind my artist. The whole look of this artwork image is bleak or gloomy, I decided this because the indie genre about being a bit darker than other genres. This artwork would appeal to my artist's audience because they will be fans of the indie genre and will like this style to an artwork as it shows the artists true feelings, as audiences of the indie genre like these deeper meanings. This promotes my artist as coming across as dark amongst his audience and his way of expressing his true emotions. The image that I have selected is an image where my artist is sitting down looking straight at the camera with a brick wall behind him. The image is conveying that the artist while writing his music and while the audience are listening to it, it's almost as if he is sitting down and talking about these stories and actually putting his emotions into what he is writing. The audience will like this because if he writes as if it is a personal story to another person and the audience members themselves, then they are able to build up a bigger relationship with the artist and his music. It promotes my artist as a person that just wants to tell his fans his story before he got famous which makes come across as a nice person because he wants people to hear his story. The layout and design of this slide was important when creating this slide, the brick wall behind the artist was to show that he came from a poor area, because it's behind him it's almost as if the layout suggests he tried to leave it behind him, the design choice of less colour was to symbolize the dark nature of the artist also because this colour made it seem conventional to the indie genre. The audience of my artist will appreciate these layout and design choices because indie audiences like knowing the deeper meaning to an artist, and most of time these artists portray something that is of a dark nature.

The last slide of my digipak is the tracklist which is a lost of all the songs featured in the digipak. In terms of colours, I have again decided on using the 3 main colours from earlier, black, white, and orange, the black and white connotes the indie genre and again the orange connotes the artist standing out in this genre, the website name which is my artists name is the part in orange which shows a clear direct correlation between the artist and his uniqueness when it comes to his music. The audience will understand this design choice and will want to listen to the songs because it shows that the artist stands out from the genre. The artists representation seen here is that he is a new and unique addition to the indie genre and that he wants people to listen to his digipak so that they can understand him. The image i have used for this slide is of the guitar rested up against a brick wall, the connotation of this image is that there is a direct correlation between the guitar and the wall, which is that the brick wall represents the artists past in his old urban town while the guitar represents the music my artist loves to make. The audience will find this appealing because they like these connotations that have been put into the digipak for their ideas on what certain slides are supposed to mean, which sparks discussion about the artists digipak which makes more people respect the artistic vision of the artist when he created it. This promotes my artist because as discussion between audiences begin of what certain pictures mean in the digipak, more people will then want to see why they're talking about it and also get involved in the fans discussions. The layout and design of this slide was important, the layout was made so that the track list was specifically to the left of the guitar as well as making sure the text didn't go over the guitar in the first place, the barcode and record label were also placed at the bottom because this wasn't meant to attract the audiences attention as well as the website. The design was done so that the text for the track list stood out specifically and the background image i designed so that the contrast was lower, meaning that a bit of colour was taken out from it. These layout and design choices compliment each other because they both accomplish the same task, which was to make the track list stand out against the background image. The audience will appreciate this because they can clearly see the order of the digipak's songs so then they could then talk about the song with their friends and recommend certain ones to them. This promotes the artist effectively because his audience are actually doing some of the advertising for him because they're recommending their friends to listen to certain songs. The typography was important to consider for this slide, i used the handwritten font that the artist's name was written in at the start of digipak an i also used a very plain and regular font for the website at the bottom. There are 2 effects of these fonts, the handwritten painted one comes across as if the artist himself has painted it on the wall and it also ties in well with the area he grew up in being poor so graffiti would probably be common on a lot of walls around that area, the plain font for the website was so that it looked professional for the audience and makes the digipak look more realistic. The audience will find this appealing because they will want to do some more research on this artist by going to the website to find out more about what hes doing next, tours etc. This promotes the artist because the audience are trying find about more about him and what he's doing next so that the fans can support him in his efforts. Finally the language for this slide is pretty basic and conventional in terms of track lists when it comes to creating digipaks, it is written in a list format and only includes the song titles/names so the first song for example is called "Two Fingers". The reason for this language choice is because that it looks realistic and would be the sort of language one would find on a track list for the digipak. The audience will find this appealing because it's informative as well as simple, they know what song is what because of the order that is specified in the track list. This promotes my artist due to the fact that fans will know the song titles and will start talking about them to their friends which gives my artist more fans.

One weakness i had using photoshop was cropping certain photos so details that weren't important were not in the frame. However i found this was very challenging and complicated because it seemed like whatever i did wasn't working. To overcome this, i asked someone for help who had experience and showed me that you only needed to press a certain button or to use a specific tool. One strength i had using photoshop was controlling the contrast and brightness of the images so that it would look much more conventional to an indie digipak in real life. I believe that utilizing this tool for the images to the best of ability was helpful to creating the digipak because it made my pictures look darker and overall, better looking than before.

I believe my digipak conforms to the indie genre conventions because there are many different elements included like close ups of the artists face, the instrument the artist plays, specific uses of different colours i.e. blue for sadness, orange to show he is unique. I think the this digipak would appeal to my target audience because they are indie fans and like music from that specific genre, however the digipak shows that he is a new addition and is original through the use of the orange text so they will listen to it in hopes for a new talent in their favourite genre. The digipak will make the audience build a relationship with the artist as it contains additional information about my artist that fans will like and it also includes a thank you for his fans which means he comes across as down to earth. It is, for these reasons, why i think my audience will relate to my artist.

Final Product

After receiving the feedback form my target audience, i decided to go back and change/add some specific details to further advertise the artist to the audience so that the digipak is more appealing to their needs. The first slide I made a change to, in the order on the picture to the left, was the second slide or the first artwork photo, I added a lyric I thought was relevant to the video and the image, "run down some dark alleys, in my own head", the lyric is in the video and the image relates to times being hard for my artist like not having much money as emphasised by the empty money pot. The disc slide or the third slide I changed by adding a picture of a brick wall instead of the picture where my artist looked out into the lake, the reason for this was because the target audience, as well as myself, noticed there wasn't a clear connection between every picture of the digipak and that picture so it was replaced by a brick wall to connect the digipak with the CD slide. The next slide I changed for the digipak was the personal message slide, I only changed the colour of the fonts so the artist's name is orange and the message is white because when the message was orange, audiences found that it was hard to read so this is why i changed it. The last change made was to the 5th slide and I added a graffiti font in the background with some more lyrics for the song so that it doesn't look empty and pointless, I added a filter effect over the picture as well so that it looks grainy which shows my understanding of the genre and so that it shows my skills using photoshop.

Photo Shoot - Miss Miller

For our media project of making a music video, me and my group will also be creating other products as well as the music video to help further our knowledge of the music industry and how they're marketed towards audiences. To do this, me and my group will be taking pictures as well as filming our music video so that me and my group can create a magazine advert as well as a digipak to advertise our artist. It's very important that when taking the pictures for your magazine advert and digpak, you make them as varied as possible, take several pictures of the same positioning and lighting and you will have a choice of what you think looks better, it also helps when making the digipak to take several completely different pictures so that your digipak looks much more realistic as they will be 6 completely different pictures molded into one digipak so using the same picture with slight changes to body language and costume won't look good at all and looks like the same image being copied and pasted 6 times with minor tweaks.

I have taken a picture of this image as i think that there should be several images that show the artist in a direct mode of address. I plan to use this is as a piece of artwork for the digipak. It's conventional to the indie genre as the artist can be seen holding a guitar which is a very iconic instrument in that particular genre, and the environment around him is an urban environment which could mean this is where the artist grew up. What i like about the picture is the fact that the artist is looking directly at the camera while rested against the wall, the picture is zoomed out in comparison to the others which means editing this photo will be a bit more easier. The audience will build a relationship with the artist because as mentioned before, the artist may be saying he came from a poor, urban environment, as this is a digipak artwork photo, it means that fans who purchased the digipak will understand the artist and his background in further detail which enables the target audience to relate to the characters.

I have taken a picture of this image as I think it clearly demonstrates an understanding of the indie genre conventions. I plan to use the picture taken here as the magazine advert for my artist as well as the front cover of the digipak. The picture is conventional to the genre due to the artist holding a guitar in his hand which shows he is talented to his audience, and that he is looking further than the camera, he is looking in that direction but is looking beyond the camera which further connotes that he is looking into the future of his career rather than his own past. I like this picture as it demonstrates the genre conventions clearly, this was also in my plan that the artist would look like this so I had envisioned it would look a lot like this. The audience build a relationship with the artist because it shows that he is troubled with his past to the point that he doesn't even want to look back at all his memories even the happy ones, he just wants to focus on his career which makes the audience respect the artists songs because they understand he is giving it his all.

I captured this picture because it allows the audience to further build up a relationship with the artist. I plan to use this as the disc picture in the digipak for the fact the artist is in the centre of the frame. The picture is conventional to the genre as again the audience see the iconography of the guitar in the artists hands as well as the fact he wants the digipak to be intended as a personal album to all his fans and his target audiences. I like this one because it shows we tried to vary the angles of the pictures and to try and get a good number of shots as different as they could be so that me and my group had a choice of all the pictures we all took. The audience are able to build up a relationship with the artist because it looks as though the artist in this picture is sitting down with the guitar looking straight at the audience in the face, almost as if the entire album will be like this, the artist telling the audience his personal experience and his own rise to fame, the audience interpret this and understand the album is a personal message from the artist to his fans.


This image was taken due to the relationship between the digipak name. I plan to use this as another picture in the artwork for the digipak as it doesn't show much about the artist. I believe this is conventional as it has direct correlation with our artist as it shows the artists past and some of the troubles he had to go through which in this case means he hasn't got much money and struggles to earn any, this shows a deeper meaning behind the photo which is rather depressing, dark and depressing themes are characteristics of the indie genre as audiences like those controversial themes that artists try and display in their work. I think the image itself is very stylised as the blur is used effectively to show the importance and significance of the photo as well as conveying the idea that the artist himself struggled when he started his career, in short, this picture is quite unique which is the reason why i like it. The audience will build up a relationship with the artist because they will respect the deeper meaning behind the photo which the artist is trying to achieve as well as the fact he is telling the audience some of his stories of how he got out of his harder part of life which they will see as empowering as he was able to achieve so much for himself.

When taking photos for the digipak and magazine advert, i felt that one thing i did particularly well was getting the focus right on the camera so that the pictures looked clear as well as angling it so it didn't look slanted as this would give the audience a wrong impression. I felt that when taking these photos i struggled with keeping the frame just to the wall and not anything else in the background due to the angle of some of the shots, one that I'm referring to is the one photo i said i'll be using as the magazine advert as well as the digipak cover photo. These photos give the artist an indie representation because he follows most of the conventions in all of the photos he appears in, like the iconography of the guitar shows he is a talented musician in the indie genre which the target audience will like as this is his debut album in the industry. Me and my group will use these photos when making our magazine advert as well as the digipak for our artist because they all show variation within each shot, this then makes the the digipak look unique because the same exact angle used twice for 2 individual pictures may look boring, showing a variation makes the digipak look a lot more professional to a real life digipak.

Individual Magazine Advert - Miss Miller

Magazine adverts are used by many artists and their record labels so that the artists audience knows about the artists upcoming album or next single that will be coming soon. They help promote the artist because audiences of the artists genre might be reading a magazine they prefer and will see an advertisement for the artists new album, the helps the audience remember the artist as it may feel like they're being constantly reminded to buy this artists new album. Me and my group were given the task of creating our own individual magazine adverts to promote our artist, to create this, I used Photoshop to create the magazine advert. The reason why I used this software was because of the variety of different options there are available to me, and you can edit each individual element of the advert through the use of photoshop's layer system where you click the layer you want to edit and start tweaking the colour, the size and even the background of the image. To come up with my idea of the magazine advert I had to look at two examples, firstly I used the artist Jake Bugg, this was appropriate as me and my group were doing a video about one of his songs called "Two Fingers", the example was of the same genre but completely different artist called Ed Sheeren. From these two adverts I took as much inspiration as I could from both and applied these inspirations to my own magazine advert and started drawing it up on pencil and paper as a rough idea of what I wanted, this rough plan was then used as a building block of all the pictures me and my group took for filming and to try and replicate the plan of our adverts to the best of our ability.

For my individual magazine advert i tried to use colour quite effectively for the whole advert. An example of this is the black and white image of the artist and his surroundings with the use of orange, black and white being used for the text throughout the magazine advert, this includes songs, album name, artist name and reviews from specific sources. The effect of the colour for the image is to show that the artist sees things for what they are and the black and white colours are to show his music is dark but additionally shows that they are hopeful for the future as conveyed by the white in the image. The use of orange is to show that the artist stands out from this convention in the indie genre and that his music, while it applies to indie convention can be original for some audiences tastes. The connotation is tried to achieve was that though the artist has had a depressing life at the beginning, he tells his story in a new and original way as the colour orange stands our from the rest of the advert and the other font colours like the black and white.

I have attempted at including as many conventions as possible for the indie genre for my magazine advert. Some indie conventions I have used are the artist wearing dark clothing, the artist holding their preferred instrument, the location of the advert is in an urban environment and the artists hair hasn't got a particular style, the black and white colour I mentioned before is also a convention of the indie music genre. This illustrates that my artist is an indie artist as he follows most of the conventions of an indie artist, this means audiences will instantly associate him with the indie genre because he follows so many of the genre's conventions. The connotation of the advert shows that the album is very personal to him, black and white represent the past, or the past of my artists life, the instrument shows that he is talented in his specific field of expertise, the hair not being styled means he wants his audience to see his true appearance for this album.

The image I have used for the magazine I think is appropriate for the fact that the artist is trying to appeal to the indie genre. The image shows the artist in an urban area while he is resting on the wall, he is leaning on the wall with one leg and the guitar in his hands looking straight at the camera. The image shows that the album the magazine advert is advertising is personal to the artist as the urban area conveys that this is the area he is brought up in, the poster further demonstrates this idea as the artist is looking straight at the camera which means he's looking straight at the audience member who is reading the magazine, making them feel the artist is trying to communicate to them. This appeals to the indie audience because they like songs that are deep and philosophical, these hidden connotations of the poster are something they would want to understand more by listening to the songs the artist produces.

The layout and design of the poster I have tried to keep as clear as possible so that the target audience aren't filled with tons of information. At the top of the poster, the name of the artist can be seen in bright orange letters, "presenting his debut album" is in black with the album name written below it in white, "features is also in black and the songs of the album are written in white, and finally just below the songs are the reviews from the two music magazines including the rolling stone with 5 stars and Q magazine with also 5 stars. This appeals to the audience because the two reviews hold the album in high regards, this means that audiences are more likely poster doesn't look convoluted, it has the right amount and length of detail for an advertisement while also generating more buzz around the album as people want to know more about it which creates more awareness of the album.The connotation behind the layout of the poster shows that the artist doesn't pay attention to much of the titles he receives and prefers that his target audience just listen to the music instead of opinions.

The font or typography that has been used for the poster I have produced are varied to make it seem more realistic to an actual magazine cover and the indie genre. The fonts were all created for the indie genre purposes, one font that i used for the artist's name almost looks hand written with a highlighter, a font that is almost like a stencil on the wall in white and the songs looks handwritten with a pen . I have varied up the fonts on the magazine advert so that all the information doesn't blend in together which makes my poster look a lot more professional, these fonts are different for the purposes of making sure that each bit of information is different so the audience do not become confused. The target audience will appreciate the font as the typography illustrates that the artist is an original addition to the genre which would want to make the audience buy the album so that they can understand what makes the artist so original, they also understand the album is personal to him because it looks handwritten which means the audience are lead to believe that the artist wrote the album poster himself.

The language of the poster was kept very simple as was planned from my rough draft of the advert. The language of the poster is only basic information about the songs on the album, the album name, the fact it's his debut album the date of release, the songs on the album, and the name of the artist as well as the reviewers of the album. The language has been kept simple and to a minimum as to not overwhelm the audience with so much information but to make sure that they don't forget much of the important parts, for example it's the artists debut album yet he had already got 5 stars from two music magazines, making the audience think he will be impressive. However the limited amount of information keeps the audiences anticipation up because they want to know specifically what the artist does and the music he makes, the mystery behind it makes them want to buy the album so that they can see what all the hype is about for the artist.

Whilst using photoshop, there was one tool that i always seemed to struggle with which was the cropping tool for the pictures, this was a problem as most of my pictures were taken from a landscape perspective and needed to be cropped so that it would fit into a poster like the one above. To overcome this obstacle I simply practiced with the tool, however I still found it was tricky as sometimes photoshop may not even decide to crop it, and learned that making another layer then putting the photo into that layer and then cropping it works fine and that picture can then be dragged into the magazine advert layer and the original picture will look smaller. Putting in the black and white filter was easy enough as it was just a simple filter layer you could put over the layer to render it black and white, another strength was choosing the right colour as i compared pinks with blues to purples until i finally selected orange as my colour because my thinking was that it stood out from the picture in the background and was very clear to read. The heavy inspiration I took was Ed Sheeran's own magazine advert as he also favoured the colour orange so that it stood out from the rest, and Jake Bugg was a very heavy inspiration as the two artists which my artist and Bugg himself, both rest on a wall with a guitar in their hands. I feel as if I have effectively followed my plan for the advert as the artist in my plan is in a similar position, however there were many influences that made me change from following the plan exactly like the complete lack of colour in the fonts was changed as it looked dull.

In conclusion, I believe that my magazine advert mostly conforms to the indie genre conventions because my advert tries to implement a lot of the conventions you would see an indie artist use, for example, the use of the guitar associates him with the indie genre which allows our target audience to appreciate his music. I believe it does appeal to our target audiences which is the indie audience, i think this because they would recognize all the conventions of an indie artist, they well then start listening to the artist as he is part of the genre that they all listen to and prefer over other genres of music. It will promote our artist because the advert will act as part of a constant reminder to audiences to get the album so that they may understand why it has been getting so much attention.

Final Magazine Advert

Based on feedback i have received from my target audience, I have now updated the magazine advert so that it appeals to them further. I blurred out the background where the picture included trees, the trees didn't blend well with the brick wall so i blurred it out so it looks unimportant. The next change i made was adding a tint to the black and white effect so that it had a bit of colour other than the orange while it still relates back to the indie genre.

Planning Digipak - Miss Miller

Digipaks are different from jewel CD cases fro several reasons, one of these noticeable differences is that Digipak's often include more content than a jewel CD case, digipaks have 6 sides of content for the audience to look at and read so there is a lot more artwork for the album than just buying or purchasing the normal jewel CD case. Digipak's are very important to an artists image as it shows their audiences they are appreciative of all this support they have been given, it also shows that they have a lot of content to give audiences because of the digipak. Digipaks also include extra songs as well as better picture quality than CD's, this encourages loyal fans to buy this digipak for this extra content they're getting from their favourite artist. For this task i will be creating my own digipak for me and my group's artist "John Spencer" but before this digipak i will plan the pictures that i want for me my groups digipak, the reason why i am planning it is because it will give me and my group a good idea of what pictures we should take while filming.

In my digipak, i have tried to use colours effectively within my digipak whilst trying to keep them to a minimum. Within all the 6 photos the audience can see colour, green, blue, brown and red as well as some colours like white, grey or black. The colours are also quite faded, meaning the audience can just about see the colours. These colours are designed like this so that the digipak is more appealing to the audience as they add more life to the digipak and so that it grabs the audiences attention when they start looking at it, however the other colours i mentioned are quite dull and lifeless which is a direct contrast to what i just mentioned about the colours, this contrast in colours could connote that the artist is comparing his old life to his new life in terms of fame and that he made it into the industry and talks about the hard times in the digipak. The colours therefore appeal to the audience because they will understand this hidden connotation and will start to think of all the troubles our artists went through in order to become famous as the dull colours used convey a sort of realistic perspective of the digipak and the audience are able to relate to it more.

Typography in my digipak has been created to follow the conventions of the indie music genre so that indie audiences find the digipak more appealing. The tyopgraphy in the digipak is simple but hand written as well, however, there is one use of typography that contrasts to this writing, this is where the album title "Rock Bottom" is. The typography is supposed to be hand written for a purpose or connotation that the audience should understand, the reason it's hand written is because it conveys that the artist actually wrote all of this, showing that he cares for his audiences and that the digipak is very personal to himself, meaning that the album may include songs that talk about the artists past. This promotes our artist as fans will appreciate that this is personal to him and the efforts he has gone through to make sure his audience know that the digipak means a lot to him. This would differ from a jewel CD case because there wouldn't be as much writing on the case as there are on the digipak meaning that the digipak has more content from the artists themselves and the fact it looks hand written by the artist was done purposely so that the audience can build up a relationship with the artist.

Language is used quite differently throughout the digipak for several reasons, some aspects are kept simple yet some a bit more complicated. Most of the language used in the digipak is kept short giving basic details to the audience about the artists name, the digipak title as well as the songs name, however the language becomes a bit more colloquial/informal where the artist has written a message to his target audience explaining how thankful he is for their purchase and continued support of his music where it says "from the bottom of my heart, thank you" clearly showing that this is the artists opinion. This appeals to our target audience as they will feel flattered that he has actually addressed them and has appreciated their support over the years. In a jewel CD case, you wouldn't find this sort of message, meaning this little note acts as a reward for the purchase, the artist thanks the audience member for being a respected and loyal fan for the artist. This again just how personal the digipak is for the artist as he thanks the target audience for the purchase. The colloquial language is implying that the artist doesn't consider them users and consumers that buy into an artists lifestyle for the sake of it, but he is instead thanking the audience for their support which is what makes audiences feel flattered.

I would say that my digipak follows the conventions of an indie as I tried to create it this way and it does follow standard conventions of the genre very well. Firstly most of the sides of the digipak use the typical convention of showing a guitar to emphasise that it's an indie music digipak for the indie target audience that our artist is trying to appeal towards, another use of an indie convention is the artists clothes, they're supposed to be the same clothes he wears in the music video showing the artists particular style that the audience will be able to associate with later when hearing one of his songs. This appeals to our indie target audience as they will respect the artists for applying himself to these conventions and to show audiences this is the type of music our artists produces. The digipak promotes our artist as the fact that he is an indie artist will generate hype and buzz surrounding that particular fan base. The use of conventions is to build up a relationship between the artist and the audiences of the indie genre as they will normally be the first to listen to the music to see if the artist is any good.

The images i created for the digipak were also used effectively in terms of the genre conventions. As stated earlier, i used the guitar to evoke the meaning that the artist is a indie artist which gains him credibility among that particular audience, the images also include the artist in 4 different locations, a blank page and a picture of some rocks. The rocks first of all work in tandem with the digipak title "Rock Bottom" as the rocks in the picture are at the bottom of the picture, this means the songs on the album will talk about his bad times in the past as the phrase rock bottom always has a negative connotation. The 4 pictures of the artist also connote that the digipak will be personal for the artist and it has many different high quality pictures of himself inside, however the fact that the locations are all different connotes that the artist had to leave his old neighborhood in order to become successful and sometimes when he did this, it didn't always work his way. This therefore appeals to the indie target audience because it shows he follows the conventions of the genre, the audience will pick up on this and associate him with the genre. This differs from a jewel CD case because the CD case won't be able to include as many pictures that the digipak offers therefore making it less meaningful for the audience and a lot less personal.

The layout and design of the digipak was also very important to get right because if it wasn't done to a presentable standard then it would mean that our artist wouldn't be successful in the industry. The front cover of the digipak is the first image in the table and the last image is the back cover of the digipak with a list of songs, the other very important image was the 3rd one as this image is where the disk will be located in the digipak. The layout of the front and back of the digipak is important because this means that people will assume that the songs on the back are well known songs from the artist that are available to listen to on this digipak. Some audiences may see the song names and think that they haven't heard a particular song before and will purchase the digipak for this reason. The other pictures are all personal pictures of the artist as well as a personal note that he left for the audience member that purchased the digipak, the digipak illustrates that the images inside the covers are all to suggest the personal tone of the songs towards the audience. It promotes our artist effectively as the audience will respect the fact that he's talking about his past and all the troubles he faced in order to accomplish his dreams of becoming successful in the music industry, this therefore makes the audience feel as if they have been thanked for their continued support and encourages them to spread the fact that the artists music is very personal to them which builds up more of a relationship between the artist and audiences which in turn encourages them to buy into his lifestyle.

Planning magazine advert - Miss Miller

Magazine adverts are very important in terms of advertising an artists new album for several reasons, one it lets the artists' audience know that they're planning to release a new album for their audience so it gets hype and buzz as well as word of mouth started among the artists fans. The advert advertises the artist so the audiences know that this is his style of music, the advert will present the genre the artist is trying to appeal to so that audiences of that genre will be interested in a new artist for the genre that they're fans of, making our artist appeal to those audiences. One more additional reason magazine adverts are effective is because they act as constant reminders of an artists new album towards the audience, as they probably have seen posters and TV adverts about their new album for a while, the magazine advert further emphasises to the audience the artists new album being released, this makes sure that audiences won't forget about their new album and will buy it to see why there has been so many different advertisements of this new artist. Me and my group will be creating our own magazine advert for our own artist, to do this we had to take on board existing magazine adverts of the same genre so we could take inspirations when we created our own magazine advert, this genre was the indie rock genre. Me and my group had to create individual adverts but to try and make sure they kept within the boundaries of the indie genre conventions so that they would actually look as if we had a famous artist for the advert and to make it look as professional as possible.

I will now analyse my magazine advert that I have done to illustrate the different meanings and conventions i was going for. I'll start with the colour of the magazine advert and why I chose very basic black and white for the magazine ad. Black and white has often been a conventional colour combination of the indie genre for years now, this idea came from one Jake Bugg's first albums magazine advert which was also black and white, the reason behind my choice of black and white was because it would make the magazine advert look very conventional and professional for our artist. The magazine advert will attract our target audience towards our artists new album because it's conventional to other magazine adverts, as discussed before the colour makes this conventional to the indie rock genre, this means that our target audience will relate to this as it's their favourite genre of music and will be open to new additions to the genre. This will give our artist a good representation in the indie genre because indie audiences will begin to like him more so as he appeals to indie audiences, the advert also demonstrates the hidden connotation that the album might be very dark about his life before being famous.

The magazine advert I have created can clearly be associated with indie rock conventions for several reasons. Firstly the artist is playing a guitar on the magazine advert, this is conventional to the indie genre because most indie solo artists sing, write and play their own songs so that their audiences respect them more for their talent in the music industry, another convention followed in the poster is the artist wearing similar clothing that is associated with the artists particular image in most forms of media like interviews, videos, posters, magazines articles etc. as he will be wearing the same clothes that he does in the video, one last convention followed in the advert I have created is the black and white colours that were discussed before hand. The guitar the artist is holding will attract an audience because they will appreciate the lengths he'll go to in order to satisfy his audience, they will also respect the artists talent as it shows he can perform, sing and write all his own music. The artist wearing similar clothing is a convention in the music industry as builds up an artists image, wearing certain clothing allows the audience to associate some styles of clothing with the artist at hand, making them build up more of a relationship with the audience.

The next element i'll discuss for the creation of my magazine advert are the images that i have used, there is only one but it's the content i will look at. The image shows the artist resting on a wall playing the guitar, he is wearing all black and has scruffy hair, these two traits will be commonly associated with the artist that me and my group have created for the music video, the image also shows the artist playing in an urban area as he is rested on a brick wall. The images in the advert convey that the artist is dark and gloomy as portrayed through the use of his clothes, showing that the artist is a dark character with dark emotions that he evokes through his music, the urban area the artist is in shows that this is how he grew up or this is where he lived before getting famous, his darker past that not many of his fans would know until the release of his new album.

The next element i'll discuss within my magazine advert is the use of the layout and design to create different meanings. One example i'll discuss first is the design choice, there is writing all over the artist detailing who he is, the release of his new album, the artists name, the album name as well as some songs he has made that audiences may have heard of. Anyway, it's pretty clear he's covered by writing in the advert, the writing is supposed to connote the information surrounding him and what all these people say about him, however, when you look through all of this, the audience finds that artist's core, his truest form almost, this connotes that the artist doesn't necessarily care for these labels but wants the audience to learn something about his past before becoming famous so they understand the hardships he has had to overcome and for the audience to relate to him as they understand the troubles he has gone through in order to accomplish their dreams.

The next element i'll discuss is the typography of the poster and why it is used. The typography or font is quite noticeably basic and is hand written, however there is reason for this, this is because the artist doesn't want to focus on appealing to other audiences who like golden coloured as well as shiny fonts, the artist instead wants to stay true to his target audience and wants to show them that he is indie rock so that they buy the album out of support for the artist. The connotation I tried to achieve as discussed before is that the reason it's basic is because the artist doesn't necessarily want to appeal to other audiences and would much rather to true to his current audiences as they have followed his music for longer and want the best out of his music. The next element i'll look at is the language of the magazine advert. The writing of the advert is kept to a minimum therefore the audience aren't overwhelmed with a barrage of information, however it contains all the information the audience need and i kept short and formal. This is to make sure the audience relate to the language used as they don't expect to see paragraphs of information nor do they want to, this connotes that the artist just wants the artist to like the music and not just the writing that advertises, this is because the artist feels he has more of a voice in the music industry.

The final element that i'll be talking about in terms of my magazine advert is the connotations or secret meaning behind the advert. The connotation i was aiming for was conventional to the indie genre, i purposely made it black and white to show the darker tone to the artists music, to further imply this the artist is wearing mostly black clothes, the urban area suggests this is the sort of area the artist grew up and finally the name of the album also suggests the songs come from very dark places in his life as it is called "Rock Bottom" a term associated with someone being at their lowest point emotionally. The connotation of the album is essentially that it contains songs that are true to artist as he struggled his way into the music industry as well as some songs that convey a darker side to the artist that audiences weren't aware of beforehand.