Band Poster

I feel like this is the design choice that I am going to use for my band poster, I believe that it sufficiently connects the three print products together and is easily visually connected.

The Band Poster

I believe that this can immediately be recognisable in connection to the Advert and the CD because of a number of things. Firstly, the band logo is present with minimal change, the signature red rose is also present just as it is on the other two products which is helpful here as well giving its aesthetically pleasing look and powerful contrast which I also used to my advantage in my advertisement as it draws the eye with its bright tones.

The theme of glass has once again been preserved, as you can see the sharp broken edges at the top give the poster a shattered and sharp look which is spread through out the entire piece, forcing the audiences vision onto the only clear section, which is where the important content of the piece lies.

As for the review placed at the bottom, my research had found that among the most prominent Rock and Alternative Rock based magazines, some of the most popular of all were 'MOJO' and 'Kerrang!'. 'Kerrang!' however actually still maintains its stature as having the most sales of any other rock magazine currently available and as such it warrants a great deal of respect from them by fans of the genre. I felt it fitting to use a review from them as it would give the album a sense of professionalism as it would indicate that the songs on the album were of an incredibly high quality. On a side note, I also used the magazines logo title in place of text, simply to give audience members who were aware of the magazine, yet who couldn't fully remember the name. the inside information required.

The two vectors in the bottom corners are for the audience to be made aware of where this album can be purchased in case the poster peaks their interests and gives them the interest in buying the album. The bands website is also present to give the audience a constant reminder of where to find out about tour dates and CD information they cant find elsewhere.

Band Poster Ideas

As I mentioned in my pitch I was going to include a poster which would be available for purchase in my piece, the production of this piece will need to keep a few things in mind. Firstly, in keeping connected to the other two print products the poster will need to keep a similar theme, the bands name logo must be  the same and I would expect there to be a similar illustration as the one found on the CD.

However, the poster must of course be treated differently to the advertisement in the magazine. The poster should instead aim to be more aesthetically pleasing and should focus on making the album seem appealing, as for the information it should provide it should make mention of its availability through the means of the modern 'Google Play' or 'Itunes' vectors in addition to the bands website.

Magazine Advertisement From Plan

I have been working on my magazine advertisement and I believe that I have gotten it to a standard that I am happy with, I used the plan to construct it and I will explain my feelings towards it below:

This is essentially going to be the Magazine Advertisement for my piece. I generally feel like the bordering on this piece is one of the more interesting features, they provide both a connection to the CD and the theme, but they also serve in centering the contents of the piece, In a sense they are surprising imposing but they create a strong uniformity in their presence. 

The band logo is of course present as it should be in addition to the style of the band name. These two together promote the synergy i was looking for between the CD and the Advert.

The similarities are quite visible in my opinion.

The use of custom fonts is also something that I enjoy about this piece, the lettering all comes together to promote the themes of the album and their brightness on the page makes them incredibly legible.

These are essentially the concepts that I feel proud of in this piece and I believe its a positive step to promoting the band.

Magazine Plan Based on Research

From what I have seen I can construct a basic plan to follow for my magazine, I will explain it in detail from the illustration below:

Essentially this will be the basis for my design, it will help me keep it the way it should be in connection to the genre and conventions of professional pieces.

MAIN BAND TITLE

The Main band title has been placed at the most visible point, given that we read top to bottom it is likely that this is one of the first things to be seen. because the band is only just starting up it is crucial that its name be advertised highly and in addition to this is is more likely that people will be able to recognise a band name before a album name. 

The title will be the band logo that is present on my CD, the purpose of this is to keep the two items in connection so that when an individual actually goes to buy the album he/she will be able to immediately recognise it from the advert creating a synergy between the two.

SEPARATOR

I have added a separator between the sections of my piece, simply put, its designed to stop information overload and make the whole piece easier to read, the separator gives breathing room the piece and will most likely be of a broken glass styling in connection to the album to promote synergy.

NAME OF THE ALBUM

The name of the album will be placed here in what is relatively near the centre of the piece and will be easy to read and see, I will probably once again apply a fractured glass effect here but i will make sure that it is still clear and legible as it is one of the more important things to remember when purchasing the CD.

LARGE ILLUSTRATION

The large illustration mentioned on the plan will serve a purpose of creating a bright red contrast. This is something I picked up from 30 Seconds to Mars' advertisement for 'This Is War' which I researched earlier, it featured a contrast between white, black and red which was artistic, bold and very effective. By having this bright colour sit among the darker shades it makes it stand out, when a person is reading through the magazine they will undoubtedly have their attention caught by it and will be more likely to read the page fully as a result.

EXPLANATION OF THE DEBUT ALBUM

As this will be the bands debut album, they will probably not be as well known essentially. the explanation tends to stop confusion as to if individuals are familiar with the band, it also peaks the interest of people looking for new interesting music in the industry.

MENTIONING OF TRACKS

The purpose of this being here is for two main reasons, Firstly by having the track titles listed it gives the audience more of an indication of the themes that will be present in the songs, from this they will be likely to determine whether or not it suits their interests. in another sense it is also relevant for existing fans of the band prior to the first album who want to know if the songs that they enjoy are present, keeping the audience informed and minimizing distaste with the purchase.

CD AVAILABILITY

This is simply here to explain whether or not the CD is currently available, Saving people having to look it up.

WEBSITE AND RECORD LOGO INFO

This is here to give people easy access to the bands website to fully inform the audience on the bands tours, available merchandise and albums. The record logo is also present for legal purposes.

SHATTERED EFFECT

The shattered effect i have mentioned at the top will be there to provide and aesthetic connection to the theme of the album, I.e. Glass. It will also help to make the page more interesting and professional in appearance keeping the interest of the reader.

Change in the beginning of my piece

I have had to make a small change to the beginning of my piece, as I stated in my shot breakdown, the main character would be atop a tall building while a moving shot slowly moved towards him, it turns out that the area I wanted to shoot in actually doesn't live up to the effect that I want, the character needs to lean over a tall structure and the actual feasibility of being able to do that with the original location is limited. I believe I have found a better solution however, Instead of a car park I have simply changed it to a bridge, the effect is similar and the moving shot are much more interesting to behold as a result.

Shooting In Low Light Conditions

I have had some great difficulty in shooting a certain section of my piece which takes place at night. In earlier posts I mentioned that my piece includes a particular scene wherin the main character takes a photograph and throws it onto the fire in a mix of POV and mid range side shots. The effect I was going for would be to have the fire illuminate him in an orange glow.

Many different cameras have this issue and the visual grain and noise is visible

The difficulty this has actually posed to me is that the camera I am using, like many cameras of its kind, suffer in low light conditions and produce a fair amount of visual noise which is not the effect I would like, By researching this issue I have looked into how to better shoot in low light conditions and these are some options for fixing this suggested to me :

- "Shooting brighter and bringing down in post should reduce noise and is a viable option" - Michael Markham

- "What you can try, is lighting the actor from the side with a strong light and from the other side with another light to even out the face"- Samuel Zerbato


"- Lighting darkness on DSLRs is very hard. Many of them don't perform very well in low-light scenarios. One thing to do is to try to use colder lights and dim them down slightly" - Shaia Erlbaum

Magazine Advertisement for Piece

For the Magazine advertisement portion of my piece, I am going to need to find and recreate codes and conventions of existing Alt-Rock/Rock pieces to try to make the piece easily identifiable as the genre and to also ensure that a level of professional quality is achieved, here are some prime examples that I have picked out from a couple of different bands in this genre.

 

Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns

 



For this advertisement I am particularly fond of the digital fractured look of the piece, it gives it a very sinister and powerful appearance which is something that is made more powerful by the dark tones (simple black and white). The information given is questionable, there is limited information available about the actual album apart from a website address at the bottom of the piece, I feel more comfortable placing a mention that my piece is an album to clarify what its for but I still enjoy the design of this piece. The use of the band members in the actual advertisement is something I don't intend on pursuing, because my band is a new up and running contender in the music world, the relevance of having a band whose members are scarcely recognizable placed in an advertisement would be a waste of space I could fill with powerful imagery such as symbols and a continuation of the fractured glass look with either and object like a rose. What I think I will take from this design is the spacing in each section for a start, it makes each part easily readable, I'm quite fond of a fractured design style and It works well given my album design.

Kasabian - The Debut Album

The album style for Kasabian is incredibly striking, the minimalist design works well here with a simple two tone coloring which makes all the information clear and easily readable, the relevant information is all present including the website and the album editions available. The only concern I have with this piece is that its difficult to determine exactly what type of genre this band falls into if I were looking at it from a standpoint of someone unfamiliar with the band, the bandana and almost threatening tone of the character on the front, in my honest opinion, connotes something more akin to Harsh Rap. I do think that all this information is a step in the right direction and the clarity on the writing is of course key for the public.

30 Seconds to Mars - This is War

Immediately I notice that this piece is the most striking of the three, the bright reds compliment the Black and the white sections of the piece in an incredibly powerful way. The effect of which both makes it clear to read but it also stands out on the page, when turning through the magazine the powerful contrast between the colors would warrant a brief pause in which to view the piece. The sharp lettering and square background give the whole piece a professional and uniform look that gives it a strong and smart outlook, I am incredibly fond of the concept of utilizing these contrasted color effects in my piece as they are key to catching the readers eye in my opinion.

 

Overall between these three pieces I can see some strong ideas emerging, the inclusion of all the relevant information is key and this is closely followed by the contrasted coloring, the effect of these two being combined is that it should catch the readers attention and then inform them clearly on what they are looking at. I feel that I should also include some fractured effect for the wording as it would make the connection between my album and this advertisement so that once the album took its place on the store shelf, it would be recognizable to the advert and easily obtainable. 

Front and Back of Album

I have finished the design work on the front and back of the album for my piece, I am quite pleased with the results as I believe they look quite professional and convey the mood of the songs on the album:

As previously stated, I am incredibly fond of the design and how it has turned out. The Fractured lettering on 'A Familiar Picture' is a strong and heavily visible part of this album, the lettering is designed to compliment the title and theme of the main song, 'Castle of Glass'. The actual placement of the album title below the band was used as an impromptu underline, the purpose of this is to both fill out the cover and it also makes the piece appear more uniform. The addition of the rose is also highly prominent and it gives the album a strong memorable feature outside of the simple grey and white theme, the strong red of the rose makes the whole design 'pop out' in addition to providing an indication of themes of love and tragedy found in the albums songs.

The back of the album cover was designed to compliment the front hence the same background being used. The relevant legal information is of course present and the custom record label logo gives the album its air of legitimacy. For the track listings I placed each song vertically as usual however I left out the numbers on the track listing, the effect of which is that the songs each have their own importance, they are not simply listed as they are each given their own breathing room. The underline is the strong design aspect of this piece as it is similar to the front and holds the piece together quite well