These two advertisements show how an artist's promotional style changes as their popularity increases. The Laura Marling advertisement evolved from a homemade style to a more mainstream photo shoot style. Less popular artists like The May Dolls do not need to appeal to a wide audience, allowing more original advertisement designs. As bands like Mumford & Sons and Noah and the Whale became more mainstream, their advertisements adopted a larger size and more prominent font styles.

1. Released in small, independent record
shops and on their iTunes page.
Reviews by mainstream
companies, connoting their now
high status in the indie-folk scene.
‘Noah and the Whale’ written in
capitals connoting importance. ‘The
May Dolls’ in a less formal, simple
font.
Information about local gigs,
contrasting with no
information of tours on the
Noah and the Whale advert.
These two photographs taken as album release adverts pose both similar and different features.
The Noah and the Whale magazine advert is a full page advert, whereas The May Dolls advert is a
quarter page advert from the local ‘Slap’ magazine. The images have been edited so they have a
desaturated, almost bleached effect, possibly created by a filter. Noah and the Whale are a large,
mainstream band, which explains their use of close ups. The May Dolls do not need to use close
ups as they are not signed by a major label, meaning that they can use whichever shot type they
wish as they do not need to appeal to a wide audience to earn a large amount of money back.

2. Interesting, abstract print work
includes no images of herself implying
that at this time she was more about
the music than her personal image.
Plain, large and formal font with a slight
splash of colour.
Available on CD and DVD from Amazon
and download from iTunes.
Available on vinyl, includes free tabs and
lyric book.
These two magazine adverts are from the same artist but with a few years between them. I
thought it was excellent example of how the success of a small, unheard of indie-folk artist has an
effect on their advertising. The more mainstream the magazine, the more mainstream the adverts
will appear. As Laura Marling has increased in popularity, her style has completely changed from a
homemade, hand drawn style featuring interesting print work to mainstream photo shoots and
fonts. This reinforces my ideas that mainstream indie-folk artists typically use capitals with bold,
simple fonts while less mainstream indie-folk artists take a more original approach by making their
fonts look as thought they are hand written and handmade alike their music.

3. In this advert we see Mumford and Sons using the same font to
display their band name as they do in all mediums. This font and ‘&’
sign have become a logo for the band which is recognisable to anyone
who has glanced at it before.
This magazine advert is fairly unconventional within the indie-folk
genre as the images used do not feature anywhere in the Sigh No
More digipacks. Usually the images from the digipack will be the
same, if not similar, to the ones used for advertising .
The photographs taken for the CD advertisement for the
Mumford and Sons display mid-shots of each of the band
members with their instruments which is to imply that
making music is what they are passionate about. Yet the
review underneath by NME, a mainstream magazine, could
connote that their music has also become more mainstream
due to increasing popularity.
In contrast with this, Ben Howard’s quarter page advert
for his debut album includes no reviews or information
about record labels but instead an iTunes symbol,
implying that if people want to listen to his music then
they should listen to and make up their own opinions of
it themselves.