Group Magazine Advert

After each member of my group had created their magazine advert design, it was time for us as a group to decide whose design we would use as our final magazine advert. We all aimed to portray a magazine advert that promoted our artists in a positive and developed the codes and conventions of dance whilst appealing to our target audience. The final product would have to fulfil this purpose and work effectively alongside our music video and digipak. 

In order to share our designs around, each member sent their designs to one another, this then gave us time to individually analyse each other’s magazine adverts and weigh up the positives and any changes that may need to be made. We then came together as a group and had a meeting where we discussed our thoughts which lead to our final decision. 

George’s magazine advert also used a picture from the party scene within our music video. However, he used a slightly different image which had bursts of brighter colours like pink and green, rather than low colours like Amiee’s did. He then continued this colour scheme of pink and green throughout his magazine advert through the texts he used. The texts George used was very circus like, and I feel that although it was bold which relates to the loud music, it did not develop the conventions of dance as stereotypically circus’ are an event for children and not teenagers/grown adult therefor I feel his choice of texts would not appeal to our target audience. George also used the colour scheme when adding editing effects to his magazine advert. George duplicates the images of him and Jake and filled the duplicated images behind them in different shades of pinks and greens. I feel this editing effect relates to the dance genre as it portrays the repetitive beat of our song. George also incorporated the infinity sign into his magazine advert which will help the group to brand the image of the boys if we do use this as our final magazine advert. 

Although George explored and developed the conventions of dance I feel there are element in which he could improve on. Firstly I feel that his choice of text would not appeal to our target audience as it is to childish and very complicated making it harder to understand, I feel that it would be beneficial for him to choose a more plain, bold or simply text which could get the message across and be easy to understand. I also feel that he has not prioritised the text as he has put the production company’s name in a large size font whereas he has put the album name, group name and release date in smaller text. I feel the sizing of the font needs to be reversed as the group name, album name and release date are the vital pieces of information which the audiences will be looking for. One last criticism of George’s magazine advert is that the pictures of him and Jake end suddenly in the middle of the magazine advert, I feel that although George has positioned the images of him and Jake in the right place, he need to work on editing the images so they fade in, as this would look more professional. 

Finally, I will be analysing Jakes magazine advert. Jakes magazine advert highly develops the codes and conventions of dance as he has creates lines of pink and green which look similar to laser lights which you may see in a club setting. Yet again, Jake follows the colour scheme of pink and green which is seen frequently throughout our video, helping the products become part of one. I like the way Jake has made the images of him and George the central focus in his magazine advert as they are the artists and it is vital for us to portray them to the audience in order to help them build a relationship with the audience. The background image consists of an image from the party which shows people partying; however the images of Jake and George are covering a majority of the scene making it hard to see. Jakes magazine advert also follows the purpose of the advert which is to promote the album, this is because he has put the album name on the front of the magazine advert. 

Although Jake is successful in meeting some of the conventions of dance, I feel that a downfall is in his images of himself and George. Jake has edited himself and George to look like they have been in a fight with black eyes and blood over them, I feel this totally goes against the conventions of dance as it connotes violence to the audience. Although challenging conventions is fine, I feel that positivity, being one of the main focuses of the dance genre still needs to be followed as positive vibes will attract our audience whereas negative vibes will turn them away as nobody wants to be negative. However, this could be Jakes way of drawing the attention of the audience as they would wonder why Jake and George are being portrayed in this way and want to get to know them more. Jake also challenges the conventions of dance when he used a swirl like front for his text, this font highly connotes the 1960’s however we are trying to represent dance music of 2013 therefore I feel he needs to consider using bold texts which would stand out against his magazine advert. 

My final magazine advert, also follows many of the conventions my group has followed. One difference is that rather than using images of crowds from the music video which would visually relate both products, I have tried to use images which would relate the two products through their concept. The background of my magazine advert is an image of a dark tunnel with a ball of light in the middle of it, like Jakes magazine advert this light look like laser lights which are typically seen in a dance/club setting therefore this image is conventional visually. These images also aim to represent the concept of my music video, the tunnel represent Jake and George finding themselves and being lost and the ball represent the emotion they have put into their song to create a narrative and concept based music video. Beside the image of the ball of light, I have placed an image of George one side and Jake on the other. I have used the same images which my fellow group member use as I feel these images portray a mixture of emotion as George looks happy whereas Jake looks more mysterious and emotional which again follows our narrative as George is portrayed as happy and Jake is portrayed as more emotional and in an unknown position in his life. Like my group members, I have followed the colour scheme of pink and green as I feel this would help my audience relate my magazine advert and music video together, I also feel these colours will work effectively to develop the conventions of dance as bright colours connote positive vibes. 

An improvement I feel I need to make is my text. Although I think I have been successful in choosing a style which is bold and stands out from my magazine advert, I feel that I needed to include more vital information like a release date. I also feel like I need to put less important on the production company and more on the group name and title of the album. However this is not a huge problem as my magazine advert still serves it purpose and states that the album is already out. 

After discussing between my group the positives and negatives of all our magazine adverts, we chose to use my magazine advert as our final design. Although we were open to combining each other’s ideas, my group felt that my design was consistent with our music video and was very meaningful with a lot of thought put into the way in which the genre, concept and artists where portrayed through it. My group also felt that my design showed complex editing skills and that my magazine advert looked very professional and successfully developed the conventions of dance. This meant that my magazine would appeal to our target audience who are lovers of dance and therefore would understand the conventions and also attract the right age group as the magazine advert is sophisticated in how it all blends together to form one image.