Promotional Advert Flatplans

I am going to discuss why I have made certain design ideas within these 3 Flat plans for the promotional advert for my Artist.

For my first flat plan advert I have chosen a very feminine and Florence and The Machine themed advert. I have used pastel colours and random objects to secure this theme.

I have chosen a blue background colour to represent the sky and being outside. I have done this as in a lot of Florence's videos she is outside and at one with nature.

I have designed the title so that it dominates over half of the page. I have done this as it is the most eyecatching element of the advert, and I think it is important that the target audience will notice this first. Having looked at other adverts in my research I noticed this was a consistent theme among many.

I have also made the first letter of each work bold and coloured in. I have done this as the name Florence and The machine is often abbreviated to F&TM. This is most often done in magazines or on music channel. Therefore it may be what the target audience group are looking for.

I filled these colours with red, this is because red stands out most on the background and is a colour associated with danger and fire. This therefore would catch the eye of a passing fan or member of the public depending on where this advert was situated.

In the center of the advert I have designed a picture of Florence of the Machine sat on a bench. I have designed the person to represent Florence with her hair colour and costume. This is important so that when the advert belongs to is easily recognisable.

The relevance of her sat on a bench is linking back to her being outside like in most of her videos. The simplicity of the image also allows for the information on the advert to do the talking.

The radon objects such as flowers and coloured circles, appear both on the top of the bench and the the top of the page. They are there to emphasise the random and fun side of the artist, and also an advert which features more colour is more likely to be attractive to people.

She is also holding two love shaped balloons. This is linking back to the title of the song the advert is promoting. "You've got the love."

Towards the bottom of the page the design shows a black bold box. This immediately tells us that this box holds important information due to the fact is is closed off from the other part of the page. Using the black colour emphasised its importance, and segregated it so that it was easier to read.

The box is also filled with a yellow colour, this is for two reasons. Firstly once again, we haven't seen much use of the colour elsewhere n the page so it makes it stand out. Also the black text I have used stands out very well on a yellow background.

The first text we see, is "DEBUT SINGLE OUT..." I have chosen to use a red colour for this to emphasise the importance of the statement, also by putting this is upper case the reader will immediately read this first.

Underneath we see the date the single is released, this is once again in capital letters but not in the red colour and not quite as big. This is because the person will be reading on from the first line.

Below this the text goes back into a lower case handwriting style that we saw in the title. This maintains the theme across the advert, and tells the audience there is more important information to come. This section details what the single includes and that other artist have featured on this. The information for other artists are in upper case letters and are once again in a red colour to catch the eye of the reader. So that even if they didn't read the advert in detail, that band name would stand out to them and hopefully it may influence them to buy the single.

At the bottom of the box I have included quotes from famous music magazines and reviews. This is to show the audience that the single has Had good reviews and by including this it may influence their decision on whether or not they buy the single.

Finally I have included the symbol logo for Island records, the label Florence is signed to. This is for legal stipulation, and also may prompt readers to log onto their website to find out more.


For this, my second advert. I chose a different and more edgy approach to the design idea.

This time the central image takes the main focus. We see an image of a blue eye belonging to a fan and the way in which they view Florence through it. She appears normal with her signature red hair and feminine dress.

The reason for this is irony, as a fan would see Florence as amazing, talented and normal. And that is who this advert is aimed towards.

However an outsider may see her as crazy and slightly strange. They would find this advert not very appealing.

The title surrounding the eye is bold and upper case. This is important in order to advertise the singers name in a most eye catching way. Using the eye to support the letters, groups that element of the advert all together well.

The relevance of the red letters are the theme of love which is the title of the song we are promoting within this advert. We also one red heart on Florence's costume. This is therefore linking in this theme throughout the entire image.

To the left hand side underlined and in Bold upper case black text we see the information designed to stand out. The reason the text is situated to the left is that the ye has been drawn to the image, and perhaps studied for a few seconds. Then automatically the person would look for the the explanation for this seemingly random image. The text is therefore left aligned.

The text reads "NEW SINGLE" and on a separate line underneath "OUT NOW," by separating this information the reader can absorb the details slowly. The name of the single advertised is then listed, and finally the date it is download able from.

By including that last piece of information, this advert is directly appealing to the target audience of 16-30. This is because that is the most likely age group to be downloading music. Therefore this date will appeal to them much more than the date the single is available in the shops, as music today is so easily accessible from home.

Finally at the very bottom of the advert, centrally aligned, lowercase and in red font, maintaining the theme of love. Is the Florence and The machine official website page. This would appeal to fans wanting to find out more about gig and tour dates, next single releases and other general information about Florence and The Machine.

For my third and final design I decided to en corporate some of the themes I had used in the first two flat plans.

The yellow background is a colour used in a lot of Florence and the machine videos. By using this colour it gives the audience something to relate to.

The image in the center of the advert is a picture based once again on a video. "Dog days" where Florence is outside in the woods. I have also Incorporated the name of her new single within this by putting the hearts as leaves on the trees.

The title is in black handwriting style font, showing the natural and relaxed feel of the advert, and aligned left, next to the drawing of Florence, therefore showing who the advert belongs to clearly.

The box at the bottom is left white to make it stand out, the black line around the box adds to this. The text in the box is all uppercase, and highlighted with red where the important statements are made. The title of the song is underlined and the date the single is released is a bolder text than the rest. This is all to ensure the text is noticeable and eye catching

Advert Analysis

In order to design my flatplans for my own advert, I have picked two music genres similar to my own and I am going to analyse what makes them appeal to their target audience.

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Here is the Kings of Leon magazine advert. On first appearances we can immediately see the advert has the green night vision interpretation. This is directly linked to the title of their album "Only by the night." By making this link the advert has depth and meaning whilst maintaining a consistency of a theme throughout.

In addition to this, the four member of the bands faces are morphing into animals found at night, we see the eyes and feathers of an owl. The way we see this is through the interpretation of a night scope. I can tell this by the way the image is split into four. This works well as there are also four members of the band so the theme works well in all aspects.

The way the facial features are arranged on the cover, allows the band to still be seen. This is so that the target audience can still recognise who this advert belongs to, but due to the obscure nature of the image it will also raw them in to look longer, therefore forcing them to read the advert an register an interest. Ultimately this will lead to sales.

The Black banner at the top is used to make the white text stand out more. The font is bold and upper case. Underscores are used to separate the words as the theme of computer technology is kept throughout. The title uses a white font which we notice is only used when displaying them most important information on the advert and therefore against the black background we notice the title after the image. The image stands out most on the page and the eye is drawn to that immediately, however when obscurity of the image hits,. the eye looks up for the title of the band and finally to the text below.

Once again at the bottom of the advert we see the same font used, and the title of the album "Only by the night" appears to be the same size as the name of the band. This is because theses are the two most vital pieces of information in the advert. People read an advert quickly either when passing a billboard or flicking through a magazine. Therefore the information should be kept to a minimum to keep the attention of the audience and get the main information across.

The title of the album is in a green font, this is to make the connection between the green night time vision look of the image with its meaning in the title. Once again to maintain the theme we see the same font as the band title.

Underneath this we see smaller white font which says "The new album includes: sex on fire, crawl and use somebody." By using this as a subheading a reader will look closer to read the writing which is intentionally put in a smaller font. The information it contains is in interest to the audience as it details important information bout the contents of the album the poster is advert sing.

The advert only details the successful number 1 hits that are on the C.D. As two of the songs on the advert have been number 1 and the "crawl" is a new entry into the charts that is tipped to do well. By doing this the advert engages the audience by the two songs they will recognise, and then interests the audience and they are not likely to have heard of this new song unless they have the album, therefore encouraging them to buy it.

Below this we see "Released September 22, 2008" This is all bold block capitals as it is more eye-catching. It is also in a red colour, to emphasise the importance of this information. This information is linked the the sale date of the C.D so therefore is large in size bold and bright to ensure it stands out most on the advert and cannot be missed.

Finally, at the very bottom of the advert there are some legal components such as the record label logo the band are signed to as well as their website. This is http://www.columbia.co.uk/. As well as the bans website http://www.kingsofleon.co.uk/. This is done so that fans can find out more information, and to widen a potential fan base.

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This Ladyhawke advert poses an element of simplicity. Overall the advert is small and elongated. Typically found in a magazine.

Unlike the advert above this is just advertising her new single, however it details a lot more information and text. It is clear the advert is relying more on the text than the image that appears to the left.

The advert is made to look like it is drawn or painted by hand. I know this because of the way the letters are different sizes and the background is made to look like sugar paper with splashes if paint on it.

The image made to look drawn and very artistically done like a watercolour. Is of a cat cover in a white sheet. The image is seemingly random, and with no direct link to the artist. This reflects her random and obscure approach to her advert style.

The title of the band is once again in block capitals and exactly as it appears on her single cover. This is to maintain a running theme, and also the block capitals stand out more to the eye of the audience. The title is white filled with a black running line around the letters. The letters are not all the same size and are aligned left. This is once again to add to the random and artistic style of the advert.

Underneath the title we see the name of the song, now all in lower case letters, this appears in a simple and almost child like font which links the the messy painting and child like illustration. The tile of the song itself "dusk til dawn" also matches this descriptions as it is not grammatically correct.

We then see, "single out now" upper case, as it has importance to the sale of the single. This is therefore in black and bold font, and stands out most on the page in comparison to any of the other text.

Below this the text becomes much more dense and all in the same black font, this is suggesting that this text has importance. It details on one line the artists that feature in her single, and on the second the realease date of her album. This doesn't stand out at all mainly because the purpose of this advert to to make the release of her single known. I would have thought another advert would be made for her album nearer the release date. However by putting the date there for her album she is also making this information known, be it small.

Underneath this is a list of tour dates, this will be to widen her fan base in readiness for the release of her album.

Finally there are tow equally spaced web addresses of both Ladyhawke and her label. This once again is linked to the fans and them finding out more information, as they may have seen this advert on a passing bus or billboard and didn't catch when the artist will be touring in their area. The website will allow them to research this more.

The advert used the same main two colours throughout beige and black this is to maintain a them and to add to the consistency of the advert. However behind the main title there are splashes of different colours made to look like paint. These colours include, red yellow, purple and blue. On first look these splashes are not linked, until you look below the image and see the name of the record company Ladyhawke is signed to written in colourful letters. This shows the record label have their stamp all over the artist.

The way this advert has been designed says to me this artist is up and coming, the tour dates listed suggest she wants to widen her fan base, and the fact she is only advertising the single, shows she is getting a taste for the market. This suggests this advert isn't as powerful in selling her single due to its size and how little it stands out.

Having done this research I feel I am now able to think more about the design of my own advert and the impact it will have on the Target audience.

Digipak Photographs

For the cover and different sides of my Digipak I have used a friend to model for a photo shoot for my coursework. The style of photography I have chosen is in keeping with the research I have done into what the target market will buy, and also in keeping with the genre of music I have chosen.

I have used this image as the front cover for my digipak. The reason for this is that it is a mid shot of the singer. The front cover is the most crucial part of the sale of the digipak so the impact the image or graphic on the front cover can often trigger a sale.

The mis en scene in this pictures en corporates 3 main colours. The back round blends nicely into the signers hair colours and the black of her eyes and hair band contrast this. Finally the white of her costume adds a simplicity i maintain throughout each photograph.

I have chosen two main styles of photograph throughout. One is Sepia and the other is Black and White. The reason I like this is

is that the Black and white photographs allow the signer to stand out a lot more against this white back round. Also the individuality of her hair colour and style becomes a lot more apparent. This is one of the main reasons I chose this model as her hair allows her to stand out and on a shelf a photograph of someone with an individual quality is likely to stand out a lot more to a potential buyer or the target audience.

In this photograph which will appear on the inside back cover, the singer again has her head tilted, this adds continuity within the photos.

I took this photo in both black and white and colour, The reason I have chosen to use the black and white photo for the back cover is that it shows the singer and the title of the song as the most poignant elements of the photograph. This will therefore stand out to the target market more evidently.

The style of the photo has also meant that there are very few graphics used in addition. The writing on the mirror clearly states the name of the single and this means there is very little need to add any text on. This also is in keeping with the simple yet powerful style of photos I have chosen to use.

I have used a mirror as a prop for this photograph. It shows the topical singer, and the text, whilst incorporating a modern slant on photography.

This image has been used to feature on the C.D insert. This sepia tone, compliments the overall look of the singer and will show through the perspex plastic insert. Once again the costume and inquisitive facial expression from each photo remain the same.

I did also take many photographs in colour as shown here. I didn't feel however images in colour were the right look for my digipak, when comparing them to the other images above I felt it wasn't the right look for the the I hoped to achieve.

Depth of Field

As part of the learning process of how to use the camera and ultimately film the music video. I have undertaken several tasks in learning different aspects of the camera.

Firstly Depth of field, this is an important aspect of the camera to learn about as it can have a huge impact to the professionalism and overall look of the footage and music video.

Depth of field is all about the focal range. There are three main parts of this; Foreground, mid and back ground. The Narrow depth of field is linked to the shutter speed.

In order to get wide depth of field it is important to get the following camera settings correct. 1/50 narrow depth of field, Iris aperture, neutral density filter, video gain.

Manual Settings - Programmable, situated on the bottom left hand side of XM2 ( model of camera)
Manual Focus - Button found on the front left of the camera - when on Manual focus will appear in the viewfinder.

White Balance displays three settings: Outside light, artificial light and manual.
Exposure - In order to gain exposure the shutter speed needs to be slowed down to 1/50. Equally the aperture needs to be opened up as far as possible in order to gain or detain focus.

The Standby setting to film, and turn the lock to get the camera to sleep when not filming, this will also ensure all settings are kept.

After having learnt this theory, in groups we went out to film and put our learning into practise. We experimented with the settings on the camera and concentrated on filming an over the shoulder shot, trying to get each of the characters to be in and out of focus.

We filmed the practise shots and uploaded them onto final cut pro to edit them into a sequence. This practise we have had using the camera to film depth of field will be helpful when we come to film our music video.

The final thing I learnt was the importance of using a Clapperboard when filming. There are two reasons why this is so important. Firstly is adds definition to the transition from shot to shot, and finally it makes the editing stage much easier ans each shot and scene are clearly marked out. When working to a story board, like i will be, this is again very helpful to compare the length and structure of the shots.





This is perfect example of the use of depth of field. Using two people I was able to experiment with the focus. I first of all made sure all the correct settings were in place on the camera. As detailed above. I then adjusted the white balance, and pull focus to ensure that the person at the back was sufficiently out of focus, and the person at the front was in focus. I put the camera on lock when we weren't filming to save the settings.


These two images are examples of mistakes I made when capturing depth of field on the XM2. The first image shows the two people in focus. The reason for this is that they were not distanced sufficiently away from, the camera. This meant that the camera could not focus on either of them in order to put the other out of focus. I overcame this problem by bringing the person at the front closer to the camera.



The opposite happened with this image as both people are out of focus. This was due to the settings on the camera. I accidentally turned the camera off between shots, this put all the settings back to manual. So when I tried the depth of field shot the next time, the pull focus put both people out of focus.
I was able to capture back the footage from the depth of field shoot onto final cut pro. I then took screen shots of each scene. The clapper board helped with this as each shot and scene was segregated. I then saved them onto a disc and uploaded them onto this blog.