The document discusses the goals and process for designing an advertisement for a magazine to promote a digital album package (digipak). The designer conducted a questionnaire to understand what makes an effective album ad. Based on the responses, the ad should include the cover art, album name, artist name, release date, and record label. It should take up the full page and use bold, simple imagery and a large font. The designer took photos to use for the ad and edited them in a cartoon style. Four initial ad designs were created in Photoshop and Publisher using the questionnaire feedback. Audience feedback favored the fourth design for its clean look and readability.

1. Task 14 – draft of magazine
advert

2. My aim
The main aim of my album advert design is to be bold and stand out,
interest fans of the original band, Arctic Monkeys, and be of a similar style
of my digipak so that there is a clear link between the two. The original
album is AM by Arctic Monkeys, however, my digipak will be concentrating
mostly on the one song while still containing the others from the album. I
will use an image taken from the digipak to place on my advert so that you
know it is advertising my digipak. I will use the same black and white
colour scheme and image style which has been taken inspirationally from
the original AM album. The colours and images must be bold and artistic so
that they stand out and relate to the song, Knee Socks, while being inspired
by the album.

3. Questionnaire results
To be able to design my album advert, I conducted a
questionnaire and posted it on Survey Monkey so that
the general public were able to answer the 10 questions I
created on what makes an album advert stand out and
make you want to buy the album its promoting. I will
analyse some of the answers to the questions that are
the most relevant to designing.
1. What genre of music do you listen to?
This question helps to find out what genre of music my
target audience likes to listen to which will then allow
me to explore further into the genre and what appeals to
the fans.
3. Do you like seeing album adverts in magazines?
All the respondents answered yes along with an
explanation to why they enjoy seeing them. This
summed up that they like to see the adverts because
they are interested in the cover art, how it is being
advertised and who is advertising.
4. What colours stand out in an album advert?
White and black seems to be a mix between the answers
as black was said a lot and for the “bright colours”, white
may be the best choice as it was also said by another.
5. What font and font size stands out?
A large font that suits the style of the band and album is
the most popular answer, therefore, as my final choice is
a combination between the three answers, it will
hopefully appeal to them all.
1.
3.
4.
5.

4. 6. How much of the page should the advert
take up?
Everyone who answered the question said that
the advert should take up the whole page,
therefore, I shall create my advert based on the
size of one whole magazine page.
7. What do you prefer to see on the album
advert?
The cover art featured on the album is the most
popular answer, so I shall create my digipak and
take an image from it to use on my advert in
order to promote the album.
8. What type of imagery do you like to see for
an album advert?
An image that is bold and simple is what my
respondents prefer which links in to my digipak
which has used simple bold imagery, therefore, it
is suitable to use for my advert.
9. How much information should the advert
reveal?
The album name, artist name and cover art are
the most requested and basic necessities of an
album advert, therefore, I will include them. The
date of release and record company were also
chosen by many people, so I will also include
them, however, a list of singles, star ratings,
website address and the Twitter/Facebook link
were not as important as the other aspects of the
advert, therefore I can choose whether or not to
include them.
6.
7.
8.
9.

5. My advert templates
Due to the responses on the questionnaire,
this template features all of the aspects most
wanted on an advert, therefore, it a good
template to use.
Audience feedback:
- I like this template because it includes all
the aspects of an album advert that gives me
the information I need to find out about the
album which allows me to decide whether or
not I would buy it.
- This simple template is used for the
majority of album adverts, therefore I know
it would work in giving me the information I
need, therefore, I think this is the best.
- The layout is simple and clear and features
all the important parts of an album advert,
however, the albums' singles featured on it
don‟t interest me and I would prefer if they
weren't included.
1.

6. 2.
Due to the responses on the
questionnaire, this template also
features all of the aspects most wanted
on an advert, therefore, it is the
another good template to use.
Audience feedback:
- I think this template would be good
to use for a promo advert because it
has limited information which would
get you excited for the release.
- I like this layout because it is simple
and would stand out, however, I think
the band name and album name
should be bigger.
- I like how everything is in line and
fits together.

7. 3. Due to the responses on the
questionnaire, this template does not
comply to the aspects wanted on an
advert, therefore, it is not a good template
to use.
Audience feedback:
- Everything fits well together, but I would
prefer if the image wasn't of the actual
album but of the cover art that spreads
across the whole of the page.
-I like this template because it is different
from the rest but I‟m not sure if it will
stand out as much as the others.
- I don‟t like this advert template because
it doesn't fit in with the norm of adverts
because they usually have a big central
image of the artist or cover art and then
maybe a small image on the side of the
album.

8. Photo shoot for album advert
My initial idea was to take a photo of my actor wearing the knee socks that she would wear for
filming which I would then edit and use for my album advert. These images will be edited on
Photoshop so that I can transform them into the cartoon style design that was suggested on my
questionnaire.
I took photos of her wearing shoes and then without, so I could decide which look better. The
background of the images do not matter as such as they will be edited out. Also the lighting and
other aspects are also not as important as the angle and frame because the image will be
completely transformed.

9. Editing process
First of all, I opened a blank
document in Publisher and
changed the page colour to black
by clicking on the “page design”
tab button, then clicking on
“background” and on the drop
down menu I selected “more
backgrounds” and chose the
colour I wanted.

10. I then copy, pasted, resized and
positioned my image of the knee
socks. To get the band name, I
used WordArt, selected the style
and typed in the band‟s name.

11. To get the white bar at the
bottom of the advert, similar to
Ed Sheeran‟s advert with the
orange bar, I choose the
“shapes” button on the menu
and selected the rectangle.

12. I resized the shape and
positioned it at the bottom of the
page. To change the colour and
line colour, I selected the “shape
fill” button on the menu and
choose the colour white for both.

13. I then opened two text boxes and
typed in the release date and in the
other box, the band‟s official website
and changed the sizes to the
appropriate size. The font I used for
this was “Hobo Std” as it was a
popular font choice during the
design of my digipak and as both are
linked, therefore I used the font for
the advert. The record company logo
is also placed on the advert which
reads “Domino” for Domino Records.
The lettering on the knee socks
varies with the other three designs
as well as the use of the bar at the
bottom of the page, the image of the
record company logo and the
colours.

14. Initial designs
1. 2.

15. 3. 4.

16. These adverts were designed on a variety of software's. I used
Photoshop to edit the actual image of the knee socks to create this
stencil like image and then in Publisher, I put together each aspect of
the advert to create my final designs.
Audience feedback:
- I like design 4 the best as I think the text is the most readable and
the black socks really contrast to the rest of the image. I also like
the text at the bottom of the ad. It is simple but effective and doesn‟t
detract away too much from the design. I also like the black
background designs as they are different to normal ads but I feel the
image is lost a bit.
- Design 4 has a really „clean‟ feel to it and definitely connotes arctic
with the extensive amount of white in the image. I like the fourth
design more so than the second as there is no black line at the
bottom which seems to lessen the professionalism of the front cover.
Due to the responses, my final advert will be design 4.

17. Final design