Analysis of individual digipak - Miss Georgiou

Analysis of individual digipak

Introduction

I have created an individual digipak to help promote my artist from the creation of her album. The digipak that i have created concludes of six slides, portraying different emotions and elements through pictures and text. The order is shown clearly stating the front cover to the album, a single image, the CD, message to fans, single image and the back cover showing the album track list. My previous research from digipaks from artists have helped me to produce similar and conventional images to my genre of soul. My previous research was shown through Duffy's digipak who used conventions to the soul genre which i have taken inspiration from. My research really helped me to produce my ideas into six different slides. There are many purposes of a digipak and these include to promote an album, to list the content of an album, to make the CD eye-catching, to use art and images to express a message, to tell us something about the artist and musician and the music behind it, to attract a wider audience as well-as the artists own.

Main

The colours that i have included revolve around red, white and black. The reasons for including these colours throughout my whole digipak is because they contrast and reflect the expressions and emotions being sent out by the artist Amy.The red being used as a reoccurring theme shows Amy's emotions of love, passion, power and also anger. The anger represents when Amy is not in her hometown anymore and is angry and sad that she isn't happy in the place that she is living and wants to be around family and friends and be happy like she was in her past. I have include the colour red in bold on the 18 on the front cover. This colour stands out brightly to the audience as it overlaps amy's name in white, although both still understandable. The red 18 links in contrast with the red curtain within the next slide to the digipak, showing an image of Amy standing on the stage performing. The red curtain represents her as having all here emotions behind her whilst she is performing her song on stage. The red is also included on some of the text in the message to fans. The words "you" and the "A" on Amy is written in the colour red to represent a personal effect to the audience, and the red on the letter "A" is a reoccurring theme through out as its also included on the single image of amy on the stage. The type of red that i have included in the typing is a darker red, showing a deep passion but also in contrast with anger of not being in her hometown, relating to the songs included on the album. In Addition, the fitters and colours back and white are used in every slide to the digipak. The main focus to the black and white is the filters i have included on some of the images. The front cover and back are both in a black and white filter so they connect and show relation to each other. The colour black is used within every one of my 6 slide digipak which shows to the audience its an important colour throughout the music video. The colour black in my digipak represents the connotations of sadness, hidden meanings, elegance, power and grief. This colour also helps to portray Amy's dark thoughts and meanings being sent out to her audience. The connection between the front and back cover in relation to colour shows that there is an importance in the images. My CD itself is in a block colour of black, with a small amount of writing showing white and red. The black to the background shows a darker side to my artist. All of the colours I have included within my digipak are conventional to the soul genre, and all hold there own meanings and connect to the soul genre in many ways.

The conventions of the soul genre I have included within my digipak is the images I have included, which includes a close-up of my artist on the front cover. Close-ups are conventional to the soul genre as it means the artist can connect and portray their emotions easily to the audience through facial expressions and emotions. This is why I have included a close up on my front cover of my digipak as it means my audience can create a relationship with the artist and can understand the way she is feeling and the meanings within each song that has been included on the album. The audience will also be able to see the expression being shown from the artists face, and this will represent her past emotion. Close-ups are used all the time within the soul genre, including male and female artists. Another convention of the genre that I have applied within my digipak is the colours black and red. The colour red shows my artists power and authority within her songs and how she is a strong and independent woman. The colour black in contrast with this shows the darker meanings behind her thoughts and messages being sent out through the lyrics and images she is portraying through the digipak.The personal message from the artist to the audience is also very direct and is directed specifically at each reader. Soul songs conventionally are seen to be very personal and direct to the reader to help with the relationship that is going to be created between the two. This personal message helps with the audience grasping the concept of the artists feelings, and how this message means a lot to them and helping with the aid of promotion. Including conventions from the soul genre within my digipak helps the audience to recognise reoccurring themes from the genre, this helping a relationship to be created.

The images i have included within my final creation of my digipak. The first image is the front cover, showing a close-up of Amy looking downwards away from the camera. This hides her emotions from the audience, leaving them guessing what she is feeling and meaning they have to try and work it out.  This also links to the back cover, showing my artist also looking away but this is shown through a mid-shot of Amy looking over the river in London. I have chosen an image of Amy looking downwards away from the camera as this shows an insecurity of the artist, hiding her emotions from the audience, this creating a relationship between the audience and the artist as they have to dig deeper into what the artist is feeling and the reasons why. I haven't used an image on my CD front cover as i wanted it create a simple effect with the black colour standing out to the audience. Moreover, every image i have used within my digipak shows Amy to be looking away every time. This is conventional to the soul genre as it is used by a lot of soul artists as it hides emotions and feelings from the audience easily and docent reveal them easily. The three images i have included are all taken in the location of London, these are the images from the first slide, fifth and sixth, showing that they relate and connect to each other. I feel that the images I have included within my digipak all hold a meaning that connects to the artist as well as the album, and the song Hometown Glory. All of these images when seen by the audience will help create a relationship from the audience to the artist as they can link to the song Hometown Glory.

The layout and design I have chosen to use for my digipak is including six different sides, and to lay them out in a simplistic way for the audience to understand. The layout shows the front cover, single image, CD, message to fans, single image and back cover showing the track list. The reason for choosing this image is because when laid out all together there is a clear connection between all six, and once the digipak is folded and put into the CD itself, it will be clear when opened to why they are in that order. The layouts and designs on each of the slides have been placed in certain ways due to the way i feel they work/don't work. I placed the album name "Amy 18" at the bottom of the front cover so the artists face can still be seen and the emotions still portrayed. Also carrying the running theme of Adele's albums where she used numbers after name in her last 3 running album's so I took inspiration from her. The second slide shows Amy centred in the middle of the stage, and i have placed a line of lyric in the top left hand corner so it stands out from the red background, and easily recognised by the audience as its a lyric from the song. This is also similar to where i have positioned the album name on the CD. I have placed the name at the top in the centre so its easily seen by the audience and they know what it is. This is a good thing within the album as it means the audience can see a clear design the whole way through and a reoccurring theme from the album. The layout I have chosen on my CD is simplistic, easy to recognise and easy to understand, which is good for my audience, meaning an easy target audience to catch. I feel I have chosen a simplistic layout not only for my target audience to understand but a wider audience that will enjoy the CD itself, as well as the digipak inside.

The typography i have included shows different fonts throughout to portray different emotions to the audience. The fonts I have included are stereotypical to the soul genre. The font i have used on the front cover is bold and upper case. The font is a large size and stands out to the audience as well as being positioned centrally. The bold writing on the front cover shows that this album is strong and forceful and shows a lot of meaning to the audience. Although within the soul genre its not conventionally seen to want to stand out, but I have chosen this to show a unique effect towards the audience. On my chosen image, message to fans and back cover showing the track list I have used a handwriting type font which adds a personal touch from the artist herself. This is conventional to the soul genre as it means the audience can create a relationship easily with the artist. The personal approach leads the audience into thinking it has been written just for them; helping with the method of promotion and a direct/strong target audience. The curly handwriting also represents my artists simplicity and elegance. The two colours I have used on my message to fans; red and white, work together well and contrast two different meanings to the audience. The colour red presents love to her audience, and a personal touch whereas in contrast to the colour white which shows her innocence and difficulties. This shows the audience understanding two different meanings and sides to the artist. 

The language I have included within my digipak is simplistic and easy to understand by my artists own target audience, as well as a wider outlook too. I haven't included many words, only the ones that need to be there. The front cover simply consists of the album name, the image on the second slide included one sentence of a lyric from the song hometown glory included on the album, the CD only includes the album name the same as the front cover to the album, the message to fans is a short message that only holds a few words but a lot of meanings, the next image does not include any language and the back cover only includes the track list of songs included on this album. As there is only a small amount of information on the digipak this means the audience are not overwhelmed by a lot of writing and aren't put off when looking/reading. Including simplistic language within my digipak is conventional to the soul genre, as from previous research I have found that soul artists only use small and simple uses of language to attract a wider audience.

To create my digipak I used the programme Photoshop. This is an programme on the computer which allows you to edit images. I found that this programme was very helpful and allowed me to produce and create many things which conform to the genre of soul. Some aspects to this programme were hard to use, leaving me with a few weaknesses. The first being finding it hard to use the quick selection tool. I was able to use the quick selection tool by selecting it on the side bar of the Photoshop page. This tool allowed me to select different parts of the image; meaning I could move that part of the image, cut it out, put it onto a different image or change its colour. When cutting the part of the image out I wanted the tool would often select more than I wanted, and I found it hard to put it back without starting all over again. The image which I selected was my artists face which i cut out from a different background and placed it on my background of London, which showed her looking down at London and reflecting on her life, linking to the music video itself. With research and guidance I found that by holding the control button on the keyboard whilst highlighting you could minus the selection you have done, and go back to where I wanted to be. Another weakness I found was after I had used the quick selection tool. I found that once using this, the image I had moved or cut out had a radged edge, and didn't look smooth. For this to be corrected I had to use the rubber and smoothen out the edges. What I didn't know until guidance and research was I had to zoom into the image first before using the rubber, as this way I could get a more professional finish. Although, within the programme Photoshop I also had a few strengths. My first strength was downloading fonts onto Photoshop from the internet, as I found some of the fonts on Photoshop didn't work with my images, and didn't conform to the soul genre. Downloading fonts meant I could drag and drop them into the programme, and from then I could simply type the text I wanted and once entering using the enter bar on the keyboard my font would appear on the text I had typed. I found this was a useful way of choosing a different text I wanted, and also being unique from other peers within my class.

The link between my three products shows a clear correlation. I have included the same colours in all three, showing red, white and black. The black and white filter is reoccurring showing that they are all recognisable when put together and when apart and can be seen the same by the target audience. The colour red is represented through the backgrounds of London as well as on her lips when the black and white filter is applied. The red lipstick is worn in most scenes of the music video and is also shown on both ancillaries, representing the music video. Portraying the music video through ancillaries shows the artist being promoted, leading to more sales and fame.

In my digipak I have included several different fonts on each slide. The slide showing Amy's personal message to her fans shows a handwritten font. This font is called 'French script MJ'. This shows specifically towards the audience that it has been written to them personally and can be seen as a direct message - leading fans to buy the album and look at the ancillaries more.

Conclusion

I feel that after the completion to my digipak I have conformed to many different conventions of the soul genre. Within all six slides to my digipak I have included a different convention within each, which represent the artist in a few ways. The images I have included represent my artist stereotypically to the soul genre, and this can be seen easily by her audience as they stand out. I have used only three colours throughout mu creation to my digipak, which not only means that all 6 slides to the digipak connect, but shows meaning to the audience that these three colours represent the artist and mean something too her. Each colour represents an emotion from the artist's feelings. The location of my digipak also relates to songs included in the album. The location that most of the pictures are taken in is London, which means the audience can engage with the artist as they are recognisable locations and mean something to the artist. I feel that my digipak does appeal to my target audience as its simplistic and easy to recognise within the soul genre. My digipak holds a unique touch throughout, which hopefully not only my artists target audience will like, but also a wider audience too.

Photo-shoot - Miss Georgiou

Photo-shoot

Introduction
The reason for my photo shoot is because it will mean I will be able to include my own pictures on my magazine advert and digipak. I have taken pictures in various locations which will allow me to have a wide range of photos and will mean I don't have to include the same photos repeatedly. Having a wide range of photos means I can choose what ones I like the most, and what ones I feel work best on each slide to my digipak.  Having my own photo's for my magazine advert and digipak means they would have been taken by myself and I will be the only person using them.

Main
The photo's above are a sample of the pictures i took in my photo shoot. The first 3 images are taken in the location of London, and where taken when me and my artist Amy travelled to London to record scenes for the music video. The music video includes similar images/recordings, showing a connection between the images i have used in my digipak to the actual music video itself. This is a positive thing, as it means the audience can understand the meaning easily and create a relationship with the artist as they can connect to the images they see in the album and the music video included from the song Hometown Glory. The first three images were taken specifically at Embankment in London. The first image of my artist Amy laughing leaning over the bridge is the back cover to my digipak, the second image is my front cover to my digipak. I have chosen these two as they show resemblance to each other as they were taken in the same place, although contrast two different emotions, one happy and one sad, both these images on my digipak will be in a black and white filter. The fourth image is a picture taken of Amy on the performance stage. This was taken when we was filming the performance element to our music video, and i felt this image related to me my music video a lot. This image shows my artist to be looking down singing, this shows her passion towards music and how much she enjoys it. The fifth picture shows Amy to be looking down away from the camera. This picture was taken at Amy's house, along with many other pictures that we took at the time. This is the picture i have included on my magazine advert.

I feel that all of the pictures i have taken for my photo-shoot are conventional in there own way. The pictures taken in London are conventional as they show a urban lifestyle and London represents the song Hometown Glory within the album itself. Also Amy is wearing black, which represents the depressing and sad mood. I made sure that Amy is wearing black in all of her photo shoot photo's as its a connotation of her mood, as well as showing it through her facial expressions. All of my photo's apart from one show Amy looking sad, and away from the camera not making eye contact with the audience, showing she does not want to share her emotions and feelings and wants her audience to try ad figure out how she is feeling. The picture that i have taken of Amy laughing shows her looking our over the river in London, this shows her reflecting over her past thinking about the good times she has with her family and friends.

I feel that i have taken all my photo's too a high standard and they represent my artist in different ways through the connotations of colours and emotions. I like my first picture because the background is blurred and my artist isn't. This was the way I took the photo, i focused the camera on Amy purposely so she would stand out and the background wouldn't. This is purposely showing of the artist as being happy as she is reflecting on her life looking out past London. I like the blurred background as you can see commuters walking past, representing London as a busy and hectic place. My second picture is very similar, although this time Amy is seen through a close-up, showing her facial expressions and emotions of sadness. This was taken in the same location as the previous picture. The third picture of Amy standing in front of tower bridge is also taken in a similar location. I feel one thing good about this picture is the background and the way the artist is looking. The background strongly shows London, as you can see the river and tower bridge. The background is a true representation to the album and the song Hometown Glory. I feel that the angle of this image is at a low angle, and capture's Amy looking over the river from a point below, which represents her feelings as sad and emotional as she is being captured from a shot beneath her. I think one good thing good about the fourth picture is the dark edges to the image. This image shows Amy on stage performing, the red curtains fall behind, although the edges to the picture gradually get darker due to the lighting, and i feel this works well as now this does not have to be edited in, and natural.

I feel that each of my pictures will create a relationship with my artist in different ways. For example, picture two, the close up of Amy in London. The audience will be abel to create a relationship with the artist due to the fact that she is not looking at her audience, and looking away hiding her emotions from the camera, so the audience have to look deeper into what she is feeling and the reasons why. Picture five also holds the same reason. Amy is looking down away from the camera, which means she wants her audience to try and understand what she is feeling, and why she is feeling so down, her looking down also represents her as feeling low and depressed. None of my five pictures i took within my photo-shoot show my artist Amy too be looking at the camera. I done this purposely to show to the audience my artist wants the audience to listen to her music/buy her album to know exactly how she is feeling as her emotions are sung through the lyrics of the songs, and shown through the pictures within the digipak and the magazine advert.
The first image shows Amy looking over the bridge smiling. This picture reflects on the music video and shows a great connection as the artist is doing something very similar in it. The connection between the two shows the audience will easily recognise the photo shoot and music video together. The fact that the artist is also looking away from the camera represents a convention of the soul genre, looking away to hide her emotions from the target audience. This is the same with all the images that I have used, showing the artist looking away from the audience to hide her emotions. The photo shoot photos link to the soul genre and my ancillaries as they all portray the same conventions for the target audience to see.

Conclusion
When taking pictures for my photo-shoot i found that it was easier in certain locations than others. I felt that i took each picture to a high standard, focusing on certain aspects of each image and learning how to focus on Amy herself. I found i struggled with the lighting within each picture, as some locations had darker lighting than i expected, and found it hard to see Amy in her full potential. These pictures give my artist a representation of being sad, lonely and emotional. Each picture of her looking down or away represents these feelings, and also the connotations of the colours i have included which is mainly black, represent the darker feelings of her emotions. Although they represent her as this, they also show her as strong, as the fourth picture shows her performing on stage, and this portraying determination. This is the reason i took the particularly image, as it shows Amy from a long shot, and the audience can see her full emotion to the song.

Individual magazine advert analysis - Miss Georgiou

Individual magazine advert analysis

Introduction

The reason why I have created an individual magazine advert is to promote my artist's song and album release. The magazine advert will promote the album, which the song is included on, and this song will be from the music video that we are creating. It will hold similar conventions to the music video itself so the audience can relate to both. This magazine advert will be a method of promotion and will help to reach a wider audience than her own target audience. A magazine advert helps show of the artist, and shows conventions and surprises of what is going to be held within the album itself.
Main

Within my magazine advert i have decided to use certain elements that will make my advert appeal to a wide audience, and promote my artist effectively. Firstly, the colours i have used are conventional my genre, soul. I have included the colours black, white and red, these are the main featured colours in my music video also. This running theme of the colours means the audience can relate to the audience easily, and understand the clear connection between the two. The colour red in the title, as well as the colour on her lips shows passion, love and also anger. This colour helps portray her emotions, and how she has strong emotions on missing her hometown, in connection with the title. The red reflects her love towards her family and friends, and how she misses them, and remembers her happy past. The black reflects on the darker time in her life and her depressed and sad emotions. This is shown through the black and white filter of the background, and the reviewers logo which is black with an outline or white. The black and white filter use in the background, shows her past behind her, and now she expresses sad and depressive emotions, this is portrayed through the connotations of the colours and Amy looking down. The conventions of the soul genre, include features of the artist being down because of family or a heartbreak. Dark and mysterious colours are conventionally used to portray the artist's feelings, and want the audience to create a relationship with the audience easily. Using conventions from the soul genre means the audience can quickly recognise that this is a soul album being promoted, and will be instant attracted by the conventions used, as they stand out to the audience, and means its easily attracted to people. The images i have included involve a picture of my artist, looking down away from her audience. The purpose of my artist looking down away from her audience, means she's hiding her emotions and showing a mysterious side of her personality. She wants her audience to listen to the album, so they can work out how she is feeling and why she is feeling like this. This helps the artist reach a wider audience as people will stop and read the magazine article, and think to buy the album promoted, people stop and think in the street about how this album may make them feel if they was to buy It and listen. The other image I have included is behind the artist, and shows big ben in London. The London picture, represents the song Hometown glory included on the album. Big Ben is the main attraction of London, and Amy's song hometown glory shows to the audience her now living in London, but missing her hometown where she used to live. The picture of Big Ben also being in black and white helps reflect her emotions of sadness to the audience and how her life now is dark and not a happy time/place. The picture of big ben helps reflect the song Hometown Glory and the context involving London, showing a clear connection between the two, meaning a clear understanding for the audience. The layout/design that I have chosen to use on my magazine advert shows a clear structure to it actually being a magazine advert as the typography is bold, and everything matches. The layout shows my images standing out at the top of my advert, and the writing overlapping at the bottom, showing the debut album and the name as well as added extras. The typography I have included shows the title of the album, the representation and the release date. The representation of the album states this is her debut album, and the layout shows the name of the album in larger font underneath. The colour of the debut album sentence is white, and in a simple font that stands out from the darker background. Whereas, the "Amy 18" title includes two different sentences which I have put together to create an effect from the white and red colours. The "A" and "18" are the colour red, with the background of white, and vis-versa with the other letters in the name. These two colours work well together on my magazine advert as they represent the innocence to my artist through the white and the passion through red, and in contrast they show Amy as a artist. The colour red also links in with London, which is also shown in the background. I have chosen to use a simple font for my typography as it stands out and is easy to read from a magazine point of view, if the text was to be smaller or more complicated it might put of people flicking past the page of the magazine, whereas using a simple font means anyone can understand it, and it being quick and easy to read. The logo I have chosen to include shows the iTunes logo, and 5 stars underneath to represent a rating from this company. This logo had its own font so i couldn't change it, although it does stand out from the background as I have added a white border to show contrast from the black colour that it is written in. The white stars underneath connect to the writing that is underneath them, as they are the same colour white and represent her innocence as she is looking down at them in the picture on the advert. The type of language I have used on my magazine advert is very minimal, as I have chosen to use simple language so I can aim for a wider audience. I haven't included any complicated vocabulary in my language, and kept it simple by simple stating the name of the album, the release date and that it's a debut album being released. Only using a small amount of language on a magazine advert means the audience have more reason to focus on just the artist herself, as well as not needing a lot of information in writing as they can see from the connotations used, and buy the album to see how good it is.
I used photoshop to create my magazine advert, although I had a few strengths and weaknesses on this programme. My strengths were shown through finding pictures of my own, and on the internet and adding them in by dragging and dropping from my documents. This was a simple task, as I then had to hold shift whilst dragging picture to the size I wanted, so the picture did not stretch or go fizzy once entering. Using photoshop helped me to create high standard ancillaries which allow the audience to see. One weakness I found was using the magic wand tool. The magic wand tool allows you to select certain images on the page. This tool helped me to either cut out the background or the main image, and edit either one. I used this tool a lot meaning I could change images when I wanted to, being able to reach a wider audience rather than my target audience. Using this tool meant I could delete certain aspects or put them into a new layer. I had to look for instructions on the internet and ask my peers how to use this tool properly, as I found that I would highlight more than one thing at a time and not know how to get the original copy back. After several attempts I found that I could use this tool properly, and managed to use it for both images shown on my magazine advert. I enjoyed using photoshop for my magazine advert as it allowed me to create the advert I wanted and too a high standard. Photoshop allowed me too use as many layers, images and editing effects that I wanted to create my magazine advert. The fonts I decided to use were times new roman, as they created a simple effect and also being easy to read. The double up of the times new roman font shows a clear picture of what it says, conventionally showing two different colours reflecting on the soul genre and the reoccurring colours on the magazine advert, music video and digipak meaning its easy to recognise. The time new roman font is used on most magazine adverts as it allows any audience to be able to read it.
Conclusion
I feel that my magazine advert does conform with my genre of soul. I have included conventional colours from the soul genre such as red, white and black, which are reoccurring themes throughout my whole song of Hometown Glory and the album. All of these colours work well to create the image of my artist being innocent, sad and angry. I have used a conventional layout to my advert, which shows simplicity and shows my artist fully as I have positioned my typography at the bottom of the page, although still easy to notice. My target audience is 16-30 year olds, and I feel that my magazine advert does appeal to that age, as well as a wider one too. Although I have included conventions of the soul genre which means it will be recognised for that genre easily, it will also appeal to a wider audience too as I haven't included any bright colours or images that will put off the audience, and make them turn the page of the magazine easily. I feel that using photo-shop has helped me reach my full potential to creating my magazine advert.

Digipak Analysis - Miss Georgiou

Digipak Analysis 

Introduction

There are many purposes of a digipak, these include; to promote an album, to list the content of an album, to make the CD eye-catching, to use art and images to express a message, to tell us something about the musician and the music behind it, to attract a wider audience as well-as the artists own and to finally to store additional promotional materials which includes booklets and posters. Digipak consist of a gatefold paperboard or cardboard outer binding, with one or more plastic trays for the CD, which allows fold ups to be in the plastic trays and seen easily by the audience when opened. This style of packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums, and these became popular among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s. A normal CD case is called a jewel CD case and this is the original compact disc case that has been used since the compact disc was first released in1982. Within this jewel case consists of a three-piece plastic case, which usually contains a CD along with the liner notes and a back card. These are constructed into four sides, where most of the detail is solely on the front and the back. Within a Jewel CD case there is a plastic case that means the paper inside is protected and will last longer, which is an advantage for the audience as they can keep the CD for a long time and nothing will be damaged. Most of the detail is solely on the front and the back, meaning that it is more likely to grab peoples attention and make them want to buy the album, which is a technique of promotion as what the audience see is what they are going to get. A jewel case will often contain lyrics of the sings which are included, so the people who buy it will be able to learn the songs and relate to the artist more, making it easier for the artist and the audience to create a relationship. Whereas within a Digipak, they contain high quality images and contain a meaning that the audience can understand, also usually containing a letter or note from the artist which is aimed directly at the fans, allowing them to feel like it has been done personally for them, which is an advantage for both he artist and the audience. In comparison to the Jewel case, the digipak may contain bonus tracks, whereas the jewel CD case may not and the digipak has six sides so more opportunity for visible artwork, information or promotions. This way the artist has a better chance of attracting potential buyers as they will see the digipak as more than just a disc of music, it will also be a collectable item as well which means the buyer/fan can keep the digipak for as long as they want without it becoming un dated. In addition, a jewel case is easily ripped which removed or put back into the plastic grips, making it unappealing to remove, whereas this does not happen on a digipak and all the information is easily accessible, making it more long lasting. All of these points put into comparison means that the Digipak is seen to be better than a Jewel CD case, with more benefits and advantages.

For my Digipak I have used a similar artist to my own who is Duffy, also a singer who produces music within the soul genre. The representation of the artist shows her as insecure, down with her emotions and having dark and sad feelings. This is shown through various things within the digipak. Firstly, the connotations of the digipak. The connotations of this digipak is the colour black. The colour black is used throughout the background of the digipak as well as duff's outfit. The front cover, CD and digipak and covers inside the digipak all have the main colour of black which represent depression and sadness being shown throughout, a reoccurring theme. The front cover shows black on her top, her jacket and the background, whereas in comparison to the CD black is used all over apart from the typography which is in white. The white shows her as insecure, which links to the picture of her looking down, which may represent her as feeling down and sorry for herself. The white shows innocence, which also links in with her make-up which is very minimal. There are monotone colours used within the digipak, which is only white and black. Black is the reoccurring colour on the CD and inside every side of the case. The monotone colours add to the effect and emotion that the artist is trying to portray to the audience. This shows a simplistic lifestyle, and there is no colour in her life at this point of the creation of the songs and album. The repetition of dark colours shows that she has involved a strong meaning behind her songs and lyrics and this is the picture she wants to show to her audience about her album. The black and white together reflects a dull atmosphere and negative feelings that the artist is feeling and wants her audience to understand. The design of the digipak is simple, and hasn't got any overwhelming features that stand out to the audience. The picture of Duffy and the background on the front cover of the digipak links all together. in the picture of Duffy we see a background of a train, and then her sitting on the train. The background of this is what we see on the front cover which shows a white misted background of her going past. These linking together shows that she is telling her audience a story throughout her CD and songs, and this digipak is the way of the artist doing this. The design overall is simple, and this relates to how the artist wants her for her audience to see her, in a simple way, living a simple lifestyle just like any other normal person. The choice of images on the digipak is minimal. The artists face is used repeatedly on different slides to the digipak. One picture shows Duffy looking downwards, and the other her looking away. These two images can show her personality as insecure and shy as she doesn't want to show her face to audience, and show her emotions. This is conventional to see in a soul genre digipak as we usually see the artist looking away as they don't want to show their sad emotions to the audience as soul music is conventionally about love and heart-break. From the images shown we can tell that the album is about love, as she is looking away from the camera showing that she has been hurt through heartbreak and almost embarrassed to show her face, linking in with the white features within the digipak about being insecure. Both of the images shown are mid-shots showing the artist from the waist upwards, although the second image is a little closer. The first image shows Duffy sitting down looking away from the camera, in comparison to the second image where she is looking down. These shots are un-conventional for a digipak from the soul genre as close-ups are normally used to show feelings, expressions and emotions from the artists face, although this isn't the case within this digipak. The artist has been represented in a different way so we as the audience have to guess what the message is and how she is feeling. The typography used on all the sides to the digipak are very simplistic and minimal. When Duffy's name is written on every slide to the digipak is shown in fancy curly writing. This is conventional to a woman's soul album as is represents her as fancy and creative, as well as being glamorous. This is also like a signature which could help with promotion of the album, as it is also on both Cd's within the digipak. A signpost is used on a side to the digipak which shows the name of the album. The word rockferry is used on a street name, which shows the artist as ordinary within star and dyer's theory as she is within a town, and not somewhere such as a stage where soul artists are seen to perform. The simplistic features mean that the audience can relate more to the artist, and can understand the meaning behind the album. There is minimal amounts of writing on the digipak, but when there is writing it is all typed in white, connecting with the running theme of insecurity and sadness. The tracks on the back of the cover are listed singularly with examples of songs such as; Warwick avenue, serious and stepping stone. The style of language used within this digipak is straight to the point. There is no persuasive text on the front of the album cover, and simply states the name of the artist and the name of the album. This style of language means that the audience has to turn over and read more about the artist, and this being done as a promotion technique. This also may also mean the audience find this more attractive as they are not bundled with words on the album that will put them off, meaning they can understand the meaning of the album and what it entails. The language that is used is very minimal, although the CD's themselves do include small prints of writing, which state the writers of certain songs and who the album has been produced by and how. This digipak promotes the music genre is many ways. Firstly the digipak is very conventional to the genre, meaning the soul audience can understand meanings being expressed and the way in which the artist is being portrayed. The genre is shown in a good way, and expressed widely through the used of filters, camera angles and colours. The artist is promoted as depressed, and she is expressing this through the features used within the digipak and through the names and lyrics of her songs. The black and white features is the main style used to show the promotion of the artist, although this is a clear way for the audience to understand the meanings being portrayed. The digipak attracts the audience through all the things I have spoken about above. The digipak itself and all the information that is produced means the audience can have a wider insight into the album, which includes a booklet showing lyrics meaning its easier for the audience to get to know and understand individual songs, and getting to see the lyrics means they can look at the deeper meanings. The eye-catching image on the front of the album means the audience are attracted and take a closer look at the digipak.
Conclusion
Overall, from this analysis of digipaks I feel that I have learnt how important it is in what features you include within album covers and inside. The artist I chose was Duffy which is similar to my own artist, which I feel after analysis was a good idea and helped me see what works well and what doesn't. Although I couldn't use my own artist - Adele, I feel that this has still been a positive to me as I have seen what other artists use other than focusing on Adele all the time, it has allowed me to see a bigger picture to the soul genre. I will include many features that I have seen in Duffy's digipak as I feel that they work will with promotion as well as catching a specific audience, and I feel these will hit my target audience of all ages.

Magazine advert analysis - Miss Georgiou

Magazine advert analysis 

Introduction

The purpose of a magazine advert is to promote the artist itself as well as a newly released album or single. If a artist is bringing out a new album then they will use promotion to tell there target audience the dates that the album is being released, and give them any information on pre-ordering or where is can be brought. As well as catching her own audience, it can lead to it being promoted to a wider audience, which is an advantage. Another purpose of a magazine album advert is to act as a constant reminder of the upcoming album, as well as to link in with other advertisements of the album to create more marketing.  This helps with the promotion from the marketing purpose. To get support from the other companies that could push sales further. 

Adele's '21' Album Advert
The first magazine advert i have chosen to look at is for adele's 21 album. This album was released on the 19th of january 2011. The representation of the artist shows her as depressed and having a lack of confidence. This is shown through this advert as she is looking down on her audience in both of the photos shown. In the main photo, which is the background shows her enlarged on the page looking down, which represents her as thinking or even shutting her eyes upset. This may show her also as insecure, as she doesn't want to show her face to the audience so she is looking down and hiding it. This may be for reasons such as her past experiences and restricting her emotion from being sent out to the audience and creating a relationship between the two. Depression is shown through the colour black being used frequently which is a connotation of the magazine advert, this also links in to the colour green being used, which shows jealousy linking in to Adele's songs about her past and previous boyfriends on the album. The connotations of Adele link in with the colours throughout. The colour black is also a connotation of her past, as the two colours black and white represent a cold and dark past, which is referenced within her lyrics within the songs on the album Adele 21. The colour green is used within the title on the number 21, the main feature of the word 'available everywhere now' which stands out on the black background and is shown clearly to Adele's target audience as it is in a clear font that is easy to understand and read. There is only three colours used on this magazine advert which is black, white and green, which are quite dull colours representing her feelings and how low she really is, linking into her looking down in both photos as her representation. The design and the layout of this advert is very simplistic. The layout shows Adele enlarged on the front as to be looking down at her new album being promoted at the bottom left hand corner of the magazine advert. The font is very simple, which is unconventional as the soul genre is usually original and qwerky, whereas the typography shows a bold font for the title which states 'Adele 21'. Seeing as this is a woman's magazine advert, bright colours usually catch the audiences eyes, with curly writing which women find attractive. Adele's use of simplistic features catches her audiences eye in a different way as it is noticed because it isn't bright and is unusual towards a magazine advert as they are normally promoted as bold. This says a lot about the messages Adele is sending out to her audience and the way in which she is feeling. Adele is sending out a message through the features used that she is feeling down and feeling insecure about herself. The style of language used on this magazine advert doesn't go into a lot of meaning and gets straight to the point. The language "available everywhere" shows that Adele is very popular and is very-well known to have her album released in all available CD shops in the UK, this also shows her promotion and wanting to be able to reach a wider audience as well as her own. But this doesn't express the UK, the word everywhere can mean globally, showing her originality and popularity all over the world. Furthermore, the word "featuring" expresses that there is a popular number 1 hit within the new album, helping with promotion and directing at the audience to buy the new album as it includes popular new releases and lurking the audience to look into what other songs are included. The style of language is very persuasive towards not just Adele's target audience but a wider one too. In addition, the album promotes the soul genre due to the dull and dark colours used which are conventional of soul. The soul genre traditionally incudes deep meaningful thoughts within the lyrics and meaning within each song, which  has been connected to the representation of the magazine advert. The advert is promoting the genre has being personal and easy to create a relationship between the artist and audience which is what Adele's target audience want. The advert promotes the artist as insecure and in a low mood. Adele is expressing her emotions through the colours being portrayed and the images and messages being sent out from her facial expressions, which show her to be un happy with no expression of happiness or direct contact e.g. eye contact at the audience. This shows that Adele wants the audience to understand her, and try and make out how she is feeling rather than tell them. This advert attracts an audience as the green title makes an impression on the target audience from the black background, and the black and white effect throughout shows meaning. Adele has an audience of between the ages of 16-30, and mainly women so this being represented in a magazine advert would normally appear in a women's magazine, which would be seen by frequent readers, especially if this advert was produced at a time such as Christmas were an audience would be prime.


Paloma Faith

The next magazine advert I have chosen to analyse is Paloma Faith who I have chosen as she is very similar to my chosen artist Adele and both produce music within the same genre which is soul. This magazine advert is also very similar to my previous analysis, showing that they are both conventional to the soul genre. my first instinct of analysis is the representation of the artist. Paloma is shown on the front of the magazine advert positioned in the centre of the advert, showing her authority over her target audience who is very similar to Adele with the ages of 16-30. Paloma is represented looking away from the front of the advert, and up and to the right at something else. This represents are mysterious and insecure. Her insecurities means she can not look at her audience and want to keep them guessing what type of message she is going to be sending out throughout her album and the songs that are going to be included and for what reasons. The connotations of the advert show the dark colours as her have dark feelings, which shows the representation of black, and the white in contrast of the black and represent past and future and life and death. The white colours over the top of the background shows that she wants to be bold and make a stand. The connotations of her strong makeup, shows Paloma on this magazine advert to be wearing bold red lipstick and an highlighted face. The lipstick represents her as being strong and wanting to show her personality as bold which will jump out and be noticed. The main colours used throughout are black, white and orange. The orange is used on Paloma's hair as well as her outfit and the small album cover shown in the bottom centre of the advert. The orange outfit it faded out as the background and overlapping is used for the text. The outfit shows her to be wearing a feathered dress in front of an dusky dirty room behind her. This works well as we see Paloma in a stronger light. The red lipstick may show her to be insecure and wanting to show herself differently towards her audience, and trying to catch a wider one. The white typography is used to overlap the whole background in this magazine advert. This stands out to the target audience, and isn't easy to miss. Paloma's name is typed in swirly font, which represents her as having a girly personality and trying to hit a target audience of women, as this is what women enjoy seeing within a magazine advert. The white font may represent her as insecure and ...... . The style of language which is portrayed shows words being used such as "soulful", which clearly shows what type of genre the music being played is. The word "British" after this also shows that Paloma is a British singer and is very popular within the UK with her soul music. A metaphor is used within the language on the front of the magazine advert; "will cast a spell on America". A spell is not actually going to be cast, this is used within the vocabulary as a persuasive way of telling the audience the songs included are powerful and Paloma's voice is enjoyable and recommendable. This also catches the target audiences attention when reading and gets her audience thinking about what could be so great. The style of language overall within this magazine advert is very powerful and uses strong language to seek the audiences attention, which is a positive as this is a way of promotion and good advertisement. The choice of images used within this advert shows Paloma being full screen of the advert, with the important things covering the bottom half of the page. The choice of this image doesn't show Paloma to be happy, but to be looking up thinking. This gives the audience a feeling that to create a relationship between them and the artist they need to buy the album and listen to the song being promoted through the advert to know what she is feeling and what message she is sending out to her audience. This advertisement promotes the soul genre in many different ways. The soul genre is clearly shown through the words "soulful", presenting her music as deep and meaningful. Also the colours and the use of the close-up to portray the artist are both conventions of the soul genre which can be seen by the audience easily. The advert promotes the artist as it shows Paloma as a person as well as her upcoming performance in America, showing she is globally famous. The advert also promotes her as reviews from the evening standard and glamour magazine are written on the front, meaning her audience can see a wider picture of how good her music is and this also helps with the promotion aspect. This advert attracts an audience due to the bold colours being reflected off of black and white. Paloma's hair stands out the most to the audience, and certain types of vocabulary explained above means her audience can relate to them. The magazine advert would normally be found in a women's magazine as this is what women enjoy reading about and finding out information about artists and when there upcoming singles or performances are being released. This advert mainly attracts the gender of women as certain aspects such as the fancy writing is enjoyed by women rather than men. Her make-up and hair is also perfect, which attracts the audience more as they want to read more and look at what style Paloma has used to look so good.

Conclusion

Overall my research has helped me to understand how different features used on a magazine advert can be so important and how they effect how the target audience is approached. The first magazine advert for Adele helped me to understand that sometimes bright colours are not the things that catch the audiences eye and make the advert stand out. Adele's features of black and white throughout the first advert lead me to see that this works effectively with the messages being sent out to the audience and how these things link together to create a strong relationship between the audience and the artist. Whereas In comparison to the second magazine advert I chose to analyse of Paloma showed me that the typography can make a difference with the target audience that you try to hit, and how different effects of a black and white background and colours in front can make a bold up front. Both of these pieces of analysis will help me with my planning and after comparing with the two I feel that I will use features form both as they both work well depending on what image you are trying to represent to your audience and how you want to portray yourself. This post has helped me to elaborate on my ideas for my music video analysis and what features I will include as I am producing a video from the genre of soul, just like the two magazine adverts above. This blog has been beneficial for me and has allowed me to further research my ideas which I will now be discussing with my group members and other indivuals when creating my own magazine advert.