First Draft of Ancillary TaskBY RACHELE HILLEARD

AdvertWhen we first started to create our advert we summarised the conventions that are typically found in Dance-pop music adverts. We had to establish a clear representation of the genre, whilst at the same time create an artist image and concept. The brick wall represents our first concept; a juxtaposition between urban and nature- the urban symbolises the battle of stress and a busy life, whereas the nature field shows calm and peace. We have also used Hue and saturation to change the colour to a more blue ad yellow; my colour scheme. We then used these colours as a ‘trade mark’ we felt was a characteristic of the artist and would carry on to the CD cover; the colours are eye catching and inviting. We added important information such as the release date, name of the artist, album name, production company logo, the record company logo, the website and even an image of the album cover so the viewers knew what it looked like for when they purchase it. We decided to use a close-up of the artist because we found this was a generic convention of similar artists such as Rihanna and Katy Perry; it immediately identifies the artist.

CD cover We chose to digitally manipulate the eye in Photoshop and place it in the CD placement because it is circular and matched the CD. We wanted this image to represent the saying ‘the eyes are the entrance into the soul’, in which we wanted to the person to seem calm and peaceful- we created two layers, the landscape layer 2 was placed below the other image (the eye) and we them used the magic wand to remove certain areas of the iris. Afterwards we used the eraser with a low density in order to produce a soft outline, instead of the harsh edge from the magic wand.

We didn’t notice until afterwards that the images are not meant to be upside down because we are not printing these images. However, this is what it would look like if we would print it out.

We wanted our album to be meaningful and influential and therefore placed an image of a tattoo with a quote ‘Never a failure, always a lesson’; we felt this linked well with the songs name ‘Not giving in’. By using a tattoo, it makes the CD cover seem personal to the artist. Also we wanted to establish and represent the artist fully in this cover, we did this by using multiple photos, close-ups and mid shots.