Audience feedback on my magazine advert mock up for my A2 Media Coursework.

1. AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
I created a survey to ask people what they thought of the mock up I created,
and what they felt needed to be changed or added. This mock up included a
image of Lorde, as I was just planning what I wanted my magazine advert to
look like. This meant that some people commented on the photo too, so I aren’t
going to take these comments into consideration as this isn’t the image I am
going to be using on my final product. I also changed the image on the product
straight away so that I could have a feel for if the contents of the advert worked
with it or not, and could make any changes that I needed in accordance with
the image and make it work as a whole.
This is the mock up of the magazine advert I
have to create for the brief I have chosen. I
thought that this looked quite professional
because of the simplicity of it, but thought that
creating a survey would be a great way of
asking other people their thoughts on it and
would allow for my product to develop and
become a better product.

2. This is the first comment that I am going to
look at and see what I can do to help make my
product look better. I didn’t really think about
this being an issue when I created my product,
but I am really glad I was told this because now
when I look at my product, I have noticed that
this is true and they do slightly steal focus.
This isn’t something that occurred to me either
when creating this product, although it is
something that is really obvious if a product
like an album is going to be successful. I am
definitely going to add a release date to my
product as this would help to boost sales, and
is clearly an expected part of an advert.
Although this comment is about the mock up
and therefore the image of Lorde, the image I
am planning to use on my product is the album
cover which has an image of the artist looking
directly at the camera.
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Using the review was a good idea, as this
comment illustrates the reason why I included
it in my product; so I am happy that this has
been understood by someone.

3. I aren’t too sure about doing this as I don’t want the
advert to look really overcrowded because this would
portray an unprofessional product which is something
that I want to avoid if I am going to create a successful
advert. I am still going to do this though to see if it looks
effective and if it doesn’t I can simply remove the text.
This shouldn’t take too long as it is only some text, but
could be the difference between a good product and a
great one.
Using social media icons was a good idea, as this is a
comment I received on the use of them. I think that
using social media on an advert or any kind of
promotion for an artist is important because it shows
that the artist understands the importance of Web 2.0
and means that the artist will be more likely to interact
with her fans; this may be appealing to prospective fans
as I am aiming the product at the younger generation
who are known for being ‘tech savvy’.

4. Because I have found in my audience
feedback that I need to change the icons I
have on my magazine advert, I decided
that I would use Google to find some
others that would look better.
As I had searched for something in Google’s Image
Search tab, Google gave me suggestions to try and
narrow down my search, which was really helpful.
This gave me a selection of different types of social
media icons that I could choose from, and the three
to the left of this box are the three that I clicked on
and searched. After looking through the icons that
came up after choosing the categories, I decided that
I really liked the look of the round ones because they
looked really quirky and fun, but still followed the
same style of my product and didn’t steal focus off
what really matters on the advert.

5. THE DESIGNS I LIKED AND WHY
This is the icon design that I am going to
use on my advert, because I really like the
simplicity of it; how it is simply dark grey
and white. I am only going to be using
four of these icons, and think that they
will work really well together because
they are the same style and will still be
eye-catching, but wont take the full focus
from the advert as they are still quite
plain. I also think that using a
round icon will work really well
because indie artists are
known for breaking
conventions and being
different to other people.
I really like how this style looks but after
deciding why I like it, (I really like how the
background of the design is glittery as this
looks really fun and interesting) I have
figured that it wouldn’t work on my product
because the style would contrast with the
rest of the advert and therefore wouldn’t
have a professional-looking finish.

6. This is the before and after screenshot of
what the bottom half of my advert looks
like, which I think has improved immensely.
There is a really consistent colour scheme
throughout the product, and changing the
colour and style of the icons for the social
media websites adds to this and completes
the product.
I then thought that I should change the colour of the
stars from golden to a black colour as this would make
the product more consistent and would make everything
relate. After doing this, I changed the colour back to gold
because I think that this is one of the most important
parts of the product as it is a review from a trusted
source, which someone said on the survey was a good
thing to use so wanted to make it really stand out.

7. This an example of how the bottom section of my advert would look if I wrote what the
social media icons were underneath them, as this was one of the comments I received
from my survey. I don’t think this would work very well as the text would have to be in
colour because of the white background and the dark icons, so would be a bit of a
distraction. I aren’t going to use this but think that it was a good idea to try it out
because now I know that this doesn’t work for my product.

8. One thing I hadn’t used on my product was where the album could be bought
from except for the artist’s website, so added this final touch to complete the
magazine advert. To make things easier, I merged some of the layers that I wanted
to stay together because this allowed me to move them all at once rather than
individually. I used iTunes and Amazon MP3 on my advert, as iTunes is one of the
most – if not the most – used site for downloading and storing music, and Amazon
is also quite popular with people who don’t have Apple devices.

9. MOCK UP MAGAZINE ADVERT NEW AND IMPROVED ADVERT
ARTIST APPEARANCE
TITLE
LINE
ALBUM NAME
SOCIAL MEDIA
WEBSITE
REVIEW
RELEASE DATE
RECORD LABEL
WHERE ON SALE

10. MOCK UP MAGAZINE ADVERT NEW AND IMPROVED ADVERT
I think I have made a massive
improvement on my product as it
looks a lot better than the previous
one. I still kept some things the
same, like the font of the text and
the placing of some of the text. I had
to add quite a lot of things to my
mock up to make the product look
better because it seemed a little too
empty, and the social media icons
stole too much focus because they
were brightly coloured; these were
changed to a grey colour which suits
the product a lot more and fits the
style of it. I think the one I have
created for my artist will appeal to
the younger audience because of
how simple it is to read, and is really
modern-looking because of its
simplicity; reflecting the genre that
the artist is – indie pop.