Magazine Layouts an Conventions

To aid me in making my own magazine advertisement I have begun looking into adverts and posters which I think will help me in designing my own.

Above shows David Guetta's and his promotional poster and album cover for his CD "Nothing But The Beat". I chose to analyse this style of conventions and layouts as David Guetta is a popular and well recognised figure, so by looking at how his promotional posters are laid out, may help in creating my own. 

It shows a long shot of himself, while he is leaning back at an angle away from the camera and is tilting his hips forward whilst raising on his tip-toes. His direction of gaze is away from the camera and staring out and away, this body language presents power to the viewer and emotes the feeling of control over many other artists and rightly so, due to how quickly he has risen in the music industry

. The largest text displayed is of the artists name, and is written in its own unique font that is relevant to Guetta's music and is written in the font that the whole era's media is from. The font also represents his name and keeps the same style throughout many adverts and is used in pretty much the majority of all his promotional adverts. This helps with recognition and again allows the audiences to recognise who he is instantly.

 The second largest font displays the album title but this is of another font, however, it is relevant to the artists title too, it has the similar house style with complimentary characteristics to the style of music, thanks to the "Courier" effect.

 Noticeably, the promotional poster is extremely similar to that of the album cover, this is to ensure a house style is kept, and that it is maintained at a strict level. This means that there should be no new styles of image, font or layout that is not already on the album. This promotional poster is effective because even from a distance people will be able to recognise that this is David Guetta and being a notorious artist at the moment people are easily able to recognise him. The colour scheme is also very effective and reflects David Guetta well. The theme of black, red and white with some greys enables to viewer to find it less complex and focus entirely on Guetta in the centre of the picture.

Promo poster

album cover

This second poster promotes the Kasabian's album Empire. This band is well known in the Indie Rock and Indie genre and recognised for their unique sound and chart hits with a few Top 10's under their name. I have chosen this band to analyse in their conventions and layout, as although not as highly recognised as Guetta, they are still a very well known band among many fans and Indie-type genre audiences. They are a successful band and by looking into this "lesser mainstream" band I hope to understand how they promote themselves as well as they do.

  They have used these elements to create a simple yet effective poster. The largest text shown on the poster is of "Kasabian" in the centre of the poster and  is very similar to that of the album the only difference is the colour of the displayed in the artist title. This text is shown in a big bold font and even has a white boarder around the outside of the text to highlight the text shown and to make it stand out even more, and make it evident to the viewers.

 The difference in colour could be due to recognition, as people will see the poster, recognise it, and relate it to the album. This is also a very effective technique as it makes people think, in the fact that after they recognise the poster they begin to wonder if there is a colour change on the poster or whether it is the same as that on the album; in so the viewer ends up thinking about the band and its promotion, and may even ask friends. This is spreading awareness and at the same time- effectively promoting the band in doing so.

 The release of the album is also displayed at the bottom which is styled with similar conventions to the poster. There is also a banner across this "Playing Card" effect which hold the title of the album, this is extremely effective, as audiences instantly recognise the effect used and it is easily relatable considering the majority of the population around the world have played, seen or held playing cards at some point in their life. The title does not detract from the image either. The title is clear and eye catching so people know what band is being promoted, and the image also draws peoples gaze to the poster due to unusual effect. The colours are what draw the audience in most. It is an effective poster because of all of these aspects.