Paper Adverts- Magazine

Stimulus Materials

I like the divide of the image and the text because it means the text doesn’t get lost within the photograph. The line dividing the words and image is needed so that we can easily read the information. We need to be able to read it as just looking at the image doesn’t give us enough information about what it is actually advertising. I think it is a really clever use of the scarecrow and the wording ‘No brainer’ because scarecrows obviously do not have brains as they are just made out of straw. They have also including the logo which features blue text, they have kept this blue colour theme and used it within the bullet pointed list on the left hand side of the advert. They have made only the last word blue so that it stands out amongst the rest of the black text. To make it clear for the audience looking at this magazine advert they will see the blue text and also see the bold word before it ‘No’. By having it in bold it will stand out as it is vital information within the sentence.

Unlike many of the other magazine adverts this one makes the text the main focus point for the audience instead of an image in the centre. They have placed all the images around the text and made the text very creative by wrapping tinsel around the individual letters and having Santa hats and toys sat on top making the letters more personified. It is clearly advertising very near Christmas so they want to make it as eye catching as possible so have used quite a unique colour background, turquoise which you don’t normally associate with Christmas like you do with red and green so this may catch the audiences attention. I really like this colour background and think it really helps the white to stand out especially under all the colour used in the objects around the letters. By adding white sparkles all over the background helps the page to stand out even more because they are shining like Christmas lights do on tree. At the bottom they do however have some terms and conditions so they have put this in very small writing so it is very difficult to read but they need to put it on there. The text is very simple throughout which is really important as the audience needs to be able to read it and have it catch their eye.

Although at first you would think that this magazine advert would not jump out at you because there is no colour used at all within this, but now a days the majority of magazine adverts feature a lot of colour so actually if this was in a magazine it might jump out at you because it is different. I like that this advert is just a simple photograph with only one headline text in the centre of the text around the person featured. The sun coming through the trees suggest that this is a new musician that has only just begun and that we should watch out for him. It is shining just behind his head and really helps create brilliant light on the left hand side of the page. I like that is name is placed around his head because it means we notice both his name and the picture of him at the same time. They have included the very high ratings of him on a sign behind him, this was a clever use of their surroundings and means that the only thing that they would have had to add to it would have been the text to promote his name and his website.

This is a really simple magazine design but I really like it. Although it may not catch your attention because of bright colours used on it you would recognise the name and the image of the 4 men. I love the layout of the 4 photographs in the individual sections as it makes it look more like a collage. In the bottom right hand photo they have added a transparent photo of the 4 of them together so that you can see them together showing they are a group. It includes 3 of their songs on their album in a simple box at the bottom separated by only a dot in the middle of it. It looks very sophisticated and mature. The have only used black and white for the background and text respectfully as all the colour comes from the photographs. Although they do not have a star rating they do have a quote about them underneath the pictures promoting the group in a good way. By having all the text centred your eyes are automatically drawn down the page so you do end up reading everything compared to another magazine page where your eyes end up darting all over the page to make sure you haven’t missed anything just like in the one above.

Compared to any other magazine this is the only one that has included social networking sights within it. Although they are quite small they have included the logo next to the web link. The audience is more likely to notice this than if the logo wasn’t there. Just like the ‘A.R.C’ magazine advert this one also has a divide line where the text is at the bottom and the image on the top. They have including the title in the image section because it is big enough and bright enough that it will stand out without needing a separate section. I love the glow effect on the title because it makes it really eye catching and retro. The neon colours used within the text are carried through to the background behind the silhouette of a city. They have stuck to the colour scheme used in the title, one colour merging into the other, although this goes in the opposite way blue, to pink, to green. Within the white text at the bottom it includes songs that feature on the album as well as some reviews. They have continued this glow effect on the stars where they have reviewed the album. If you look carefully on the city silhouette the words ‘Madeon. The City’ are repeated over and over again in a diagonal line covering the whole of the silhouette. Initial Design Ideas

Design Idea 1

To create this design I took inspiration from stimuli 1 and 5 because I liked the layout of these magazine adverts. So I decided I will use the idea of separating the top section from the bottom with a dividing line going across just under 1/3 of the way up. In this separate section I will have the words ‘Coming Soon’ in a quite big and bold font so that they will notice it from a reasonable distance away. The separate box will be different colour to the background so that it doesn’t get lost in the background but stands out. The text will be black so that the audience is able to clearly read it. Just above this will be the website address within quite a thin rectangular box, this will on be a little bit bigger than the text, this box will be the same colour as the separated section below it but will have a black outline around it. In the middle of the magazine page I will put all the text. This includes the name of the station (more towards the top) which will be a bright colour but a lot bigger than the rest of the text, it will be a different font as to stand out than the rest of the text below it. The other text will be a simple black readable font that hopefully will not dominate the whole page. At the top of the page I will have the radio station logo as well as 2 ratings from 2 different people. These star ratings will be bright yellow so that they stand out on the page. Just below this I will have the quote ‘Best old school station ever’ because I want to show the radio station off in a positive way.

Design Idea 2

After receiving feedback about my original design that there was too much text in one area of the page I tried to spread the text about the page a bit more so I decided that I will bring back in the boxes with the numbers ’60, 70 and 80’ written in them. These will go just underneath the big, bold title ‘WJ Sound’. Underneath these 3 boxes I will have the text ‘The new hit radio station only in Chester’ to inform people what we are actually advertising and to show that it is a local station therefore it will be more personal to them. I will keep the website address within the small box because I want it to still stand out on the page because we want people to find out more about the station. Just like in idea 1 I will keep the separated section but this time I will make it a lot smaller, instead of having the text ‘coming soon’ it will have the quote in it that was originally at the top of the page in idea 1 ‘Best old school station there’s ever been’. I will move this down here because I feel that it was just too crowded up at the top. So at the top of the page there will just be the logo and the gold star ratings, I will have a line separating them from the rest of the page just like at the bottom. It will also be the same colour so it is consistent. Design Idea 3

I will keep the basic design from design idea 2 because when I received feedback it was all very positive, they liked the layout of everything on the page and said it was very eye catching. They really liked the separated sections at the top and the bottom and said it looked a lot better as it looked more symmetrical. So after taking on board this feedback I tried to develop the design from idea 2. To do this I will keep the 2 sections with the logo and ratings at the top and the quote at the bottom. However this quote will be different as I have changed the text in the middle so it will read ‘great tunes on a great station’ as now the middle section will read ‘the hottest ‘old school’ station only in Chester’ I decided I will try different text to see which sounds the best. I also decided to move the boxes down to compare this design to the previous to see if this was a positive development or whether I should stick with the original idea.

Design Idea 4

When I re- asked about the 3rd design the feedback wasn’t as positive, they didn’t like the wording as much on this for the middle section or the quote at the bottom as they didn’t feel it was catchy enough. They also did not prefer the boxes at the bottom as they felt it was too much text in one place so I went back to idea 2 of having the boxes in the middle section just underneath the title. After looking back at design idea 3 I did decide that the quote I will be using is a lot better than the one I used for that design. Although this design looks very similar to idea 2 I will add in the ‘104.2 FM’ at the top next to ‘WJ Sound’. This is the only thing I had added to this design, everything else is the same because it works so well and the feedback I received was really good. Final Design

My feedback I received was a lot more positive this time round so I concluded that design idea 2 and 4 was the direction I was heading in for my final design. So I will have the 2 separated sections (might be possibly a white background) both at the top and the bottom, at the top there will be the logo and the 2 gold star ratings. These stars will have a glow behind it to make it seem important. All the text will be a simple black font except for the title ‘WJ Sound’ which will be different it will also be a bright colour. The quote at the bottom will only be slightly different, it will be italic instead of a regular font so it looks like someone has hand written in. So the font will be very different to the one used for the main block of text above. I will add back in the text ‘coming soon’ which I used way back in my first idea. Next to this I will have the launch date so people are aware of when it starts. I will have the website in the small rectangular box so that it will stand out amongst everything else on the page. I will have the 3 boxes just below ‘WJ Sound’, these will be very bright and stand out a lot so that background for the magazine advert will be pale blue.

I will be using Adobe Illustrator to create my designs because I feel that this is the better program to use to create a magazine advert. It will allow me to use the text tool and spread the letters across the page. I can then change the colour of this so it stands out. I will use the shapes tool to create the basic outlines for my design and then use the fill colour tool to change the colour of it so it doesn’t get lost within the background. I will change the colour of the outlines on the shapes so they stand out even more.