Magazine Advert Update

I have added Facebook and Twitter logos to make the reader aware of the artist's online presence.

Magazine Advert III

I've made some slight changes to my magazine advert, this is the most up to date one.

 

I've make the quotes slightly smaller as they seemed to be taking the focus away from the band/album's name. I also added the website and changed an error with the review bit - it had four star ratings and only three names..

Magazine Advert Draft II

As well as correcting my spelling on the advert, as a part of audience feedback I asks members of my family and some people online what they though of my first draft. Though it was mainly positive feedback, the reoccuring answer was mainly regarding the lightness of my advert and how it should be darker, so I used curves to darken the picture, making the text easier to read. I also changed the order of the "reviews" as people said the BBC Music one would be the most eye catching.

Magazine Advert Draft

I've been trying some things out on Photoshop regarding my magazine advert, though I originally thought I wouldn't want a picture of my artist, I found the gaussian blur effect and noise, with the colour selection making it more blue and cyan to look kind of cool.

I tried out the font Mom's Typewriter and though it suits the genre conventions, it seemed a little overused and cliche, so instead I used the font Devil Breeze as it looks modern which sort of shows that the music isn't just industrial and also reminds me of the How To Destroy Angels font a little bit. Here is my first draft.

I think it might be a bit too basic looking at the moment, so I'm going to try a few more things this week beore the deadline. :)

edit: just realised I've spelt "fascinating" wrong, I'll change that next time D:.

My Artist's Logo

After looking into logos more, last week I went onto Dafont to look for fonts for my logo, just realised I forgot to upload it, I mainly looked in the sections Techo, Barcode and Typewriters: 

I really like most of these and think they fit into my genre, though I'm unsure on which would look best right now; I'll wait until I have a better idea of how I want the aesthetics of my advert and digipak to be. :)

Band Name

Thinking of one word "modern" names, I really wasn't sure but I looked at lots of other band names and they were made up words or slang, and I knew I didn't want that. 

Name finding

To try sound modern for some reason I thought computing terms or something might work so I googled that and came across "Subroutine" I'm not sure why but it already sounded like a name to me, so I've decided to use that. :)

Band/Song Name

For the name of the song I think I will just go with the obvious choice as a main lyric: "Strange Days".

I really really need to think of a name for the band to get on with both the advert and digipak. I wasn't certain on anything at the moment other than it being a one word name, so I asked some family members and friends to listen to the the song and look at the moodboard and tell me things it made them think of. All I have really gotten from them is that it would be modern sounding.. 

And so, I'll be looking into possible names in the next few days!

Magazine Adverts II

I found some adverts in magazines in class I could use, mainly Q, Uncut and The Guide: 

 

 

Other than the Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan advert, each has at least one bright colour making it eye catching for the reader of the magazine and use a memorable font, if not the band's actual logo i.e Muse. Some, with any marketing, might use inter textual references to interest a wider audience, for example Massive Attack's Heligoland looks reaaally related to A Clockwork Orange.

 

Again, with each of the magazine adverts, the title of the band, album art (or similar artwork) underneath, and nearby the title of the the album. Underneath each is the further information such as the reviews, record label and where to buy it, such as HMV, Amazon, etc.

Magazine Adverts

For my ancillary task, I will have to make a magazine advert for my bands album/single. So I'll need to research how it can be marketed to suit the genre; I was struggling to find some in magazines I had at home/sixthform so I've found some online that might be of use.

 

The advert for Tricky's 2001 album Blowblack uses a simple type face, and colour scheme: black grey and white, with the part saying 'back' reversed to link to the ideo of it being backwards. It gives detail on the release date so fans know when they can buy it, what looks to be different test shots of the album cover as the background and all the necessary publishing information near the bottom with the ANTI- record label logo and reviews.

In this second advert, the design looks reasonably simplistic; contact and publisher information at the bottom and reviews nearer the top. The main focus is the artwork, the same as their album so people will recognise it from the advert.

 

With both, and most magazine adverts for albums, the name of the artist or band is at the top, and the name of whatever release they are advertising. The album art, or something similar is usually included. I will bear in mind this conventions when making mine, but before I do so, I will try to look out for more magazine advertisments to help me a little more.

Marketing and Distribution

Usually, both marketing and distribution aspects are left to the record label rather than the direct members of the band. Wikipedia says "marketing" is a business term referring to the promotion of products, advertising, pricing, distribution channels, and branding. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market, as in shopping, or going to a market to sell goods or services.

With music it can essentially be seen as an extension of the artist/band's work; it can portray them as certain image/brand to make sure the right audience are finding out about them; this includes things such as their advertising,online presence, press etc.

For this they could contact companies such as Drowned in Sound, NME or Pitchfork for music news, and album and gig reviews, and of course create profiles for themselves on social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr (and maybe Myspace?) possibly linking fans to free downloads at Soundcloud.

To make sure they are getting listened to it is important that at they are distrubuted correctly; a huge portion of the music industry is solely on the internet now so it would be important for any emerging band to try get on internet radio stations, adding an album to spotify for the public, etc.  To get online sales they could go with a lot of different distribution plans with their record label.





Source: David Byrne at wired.com

I think "my" band could if first starting up would try go for a profit sharing and self-distribution model, as at first it might be easier to allow the label to help distribution  though it would be more independent if they could sell their own music, on websites such as bandcamp, letting the fans pay as much as they want, like what Radiohead did to sell In Rainbows.

http://www.unsignedbandpromotion.com/resources-marketing-music/