HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS? (DVD DIGIPAK &MAGAZINE ADVERT)BY ABI RAJI

The Digipak and Magazine Advert

While creating my magazine advert and digipak there were many things that had to be taken into consideration for example the fonts, the images we would use, where and how we are going to take the images and how we were going to make both look professional. 

I came to decision that I wanted a link between the both covers. I wanted the image and message of the band to be the same to the audience, hence why black and white was used for the magazine advert and the digipak.

Real Life

Before we began to create our digipak or magazine advert we made sure we looked at plenty of digipak's from celebrities and this allowed me to have a wider understanding of what the digipak and magazine advert should include. I wanted them to look as close to the celebrities if not better, so I spent my time researching previous digipaks from former students as well as celebrities. I have a lot of digipaks at home which allowed me to become more creative as I could see them in real life, magazine adverts were not hard to find online. 

In doing so, I really liked digipaks from Rihanna, The Kooks and Coldplay. A lot of artists use ancillary texts to help promote themselves as well as to carry a constant image of themselves and to boost their promotional and publicity figures. Below I will include the inspirations that inspired us to make our finished magazine advert and digipak.

The process of the digipak

Image/ClarityThe first element I thought about was the image and what image I wanted to use. In doing this we took a variety of photographs using a DSLR camera, this came to our advantage as it allowed us to take the images in different locations and also made the pictures very clear. While taking the pictures we needed to think about the positioning of each member as well as our target audience, so we used a guitar and sunglasses as our props. The guitar represents the band in a formal manner and the sunglasses almost hides their identify to some extent which created mystery which we want our audience to figure out the mood of the band. We also had to take into consideration their facial expressions and made sure that they all looked mysterious, however have a peaceful stance which is what we were trying to promote, so we made our background nature and captured them near trees and leafs. We also decided to put individual images of each band member in the digipak. We then edited all the images we wanted on Photoshop to improve the clarity more and to make sure that they were perfect. 

Theme/ColourAs the colour we used throughout our digipak is black and white we also decided to make this the theme of our digipak, We believe that black and white is neutral and could have many meanings we did not want to display a depressing mood, but rather wanted to show the heartbreak that the band has faced. In addition we believe that black and white is very professional which is the image that we portrayed throughout. An example of digipaks that have used black and white is Rihanna's Talk That Talk.

The process of the Digipak

In deciding of what font to use, we decided to make sure that the font was professional as it would be appealing to our target audience who were late teens to mid 20 year olds. In keeping with the theme of being professional we decided to make this constant throughout. We decided to use a italic font on Photoshop and the end result looked like this.. We also decided that it would be a nice effect if the font was positioned in the middle of the Photograph as it looks more fancy rather than it being placed in a corner. 

Font/Layout

The process of the magazine advert

Image/ClarityIn choosing what image we wanted to use for our magazine advert, we already had taken images using the DSLR camera in constructing the digipak which helped us as we did not need to take new ones. We then had to decide which image we wanted to choose to be on our magazine cover. We decided we wanted a full image of the whole band, we had to choose carefully as this image was going to represent the band highly. Once we decided what image we was going to use, we edited it on Photoshop to improve clarity further just like the digipak.  

Theme/ColourJust as we did with the digipak we decided to keep the theme constant with the black and white filter which we added from Photoshop. We believe this added the mature and professional approach that we wanted to maintain of the band. We were also inspired by the band 1975 who's main theme is black and white.

Font/LayoutChoosing the font was very important as we had to aim it mainly towards our audience which were teens, so we had to decide what they would like see, however we also wanted to keep it professional at the same time as this is what will be conveyed to anyone who comes across our magazine advert, even if they aren't our target audience. 

Audience FeedbackDuring the audience feedback we used  social media to ask people of their opinions on our digipak and magazine advert. We used WhatsApp, survey monkey and asked in real face to face. A lot of people said they were instantly reminded of The Kooks, 1975 and The Artic Monkeys. This was good feedback as these was our inspirations and our target audience was the same people. 

When asked what people most liked about our magazine advert and digipak they answered that they like the theme of black and white and how it is different compared to others they have seen. It was also mentioned that the digipak looked professional and some where shocked we had made it ourselves. One thing that was mentioned was that the song is going to be about relationships or a girl that they want. which in turn was spot on and we was pleased to hear as we achieved what we wanted to convey. Additionally, we was pleased to hear that all we definitely want to listen to the song after seeing the magazine advert and digipak.