Magazine group - Miss Miller

To create a finalised magazine advert, my group and I had a meeting where we presented our individual magazine adverts and started to develop our personal ones by using our favourite ideas and aspects from each of our individual magazine adverts. This allowed us to produce a final magazine advert that was conventional to the indie genre and could link with our digipak as well. We created our group magazine advert using Photoshop, which allowed us to use many tools to craft an ad to our best abilities. This way it allowed us to produce a final magazine advert that we were all pleased with. 

My group member Vasil's magazine advert was extremely unique and different, however although the indie genre is all about individuality me and my other group member Lily felt as though it was a little too out of the ordinary and took away all focus from the promotion of the artist and her album. We therefore decided to not incorporate any ideas or aspects from Vasil's individual magazine advert into our finalised group magazine advert. Our group did like however, the colours that were used as they were warmer than the colours of the other choices. Another feature that our group liked was the writing techniques that I had applied as it made the writing more personal for the fan base and the font colour was a lot more readable than some of the versions. Nevertheless, we also commented that the amount that was written was too enigmatic, which would confuse or annoy the audience. 


From Lily's Group Magazine Advert we took the style of writing, layout, background, Artist clothing and the extra information that she had written. We found the advertisement effective as the audience could clearly see the artist as well as develop a personal bond as she is looking at them on an equal eye level. The cinematography used in the magazine advert was more conventional for the indie genre as it allows the artist to show himself and what he likes to wear to his audience. This is why we decided to use her cinematography. We also had a slight criticism which was the added filter to the picture as it made the otherwise bright colours very gloomy. The layout was far easier to understand as it showed to the audience the artist with all of his traits and negative habits. This was far more conventional for the indie genre than my one as it is was easier for the artist to build a relationship. Furthermore, the clothing that was senn in the advert complied with the artist representation. Another criticism that we had was that the colour of the font was too unreadable. This was due to natural black spots in the background, caused by the shadows casted from the tree or the artist and also the blend of her hair with the colour of the font being too similar. This is why we agreed to modify the text by making it white which increases the readability and clarifies it more for the audience.

For our finalised group magazine advert we decided on a completely different image of the artist resting on a tree. This way, the audience could see a full length of the artist, showing the clothing that she wears in order to promote her fashion to the fans that may want to follow new trends. By using this image we were also able to incorporate the text clearly over the blank background of tree bark without the worry of it over-lapping on the artist herself. We also followed the convention of the indie genre which is nature based surrounding the artist. This is conventional as this scenery is free of charge and also allows the audience to keep all their focus on her. The use of the tree in the image gave us space for our writing to be in white as the bark is a darker colour and the use of white would be easier to read and portray the artist as the main centre of attention. 

We kept the artist dressed in the same vintage shirt and floral head crown as it maintained the 50s style we were searching for. This causes the artist to be seen more important however, the effortless look causes her to become relateable to her audience. This therefore still conforms to the indie genre as the artist looks less mainstream and more memorable towards the audience.

Within the image the artist is seen to be holding a cigarette in order to convey her rebellious personality and characteristic and thus still conforming to a typical feminine image. By showing her negative habits this conforms to the indie genre as she appears to be earthly and poses human weaknesses such as the need to satisfy her addiction. This can be relateable to the audience as the target audience of our artist is that of teens and youthful adults of whom would be going through their rebellious years of growing up so could therefore relate to the habits shown on the artist within our magazine advert.

We also kept Lily's layout as it was un-complicted and gets straight to the point with what is being promoted making it clear to the audience that it is advertising the artist and her album making it more appealing for them to want to buy. The idea of simplicity links in with the indie genre as it it used by many indie artists such as Ed Sheeran and Ellie Goulding to portray the idea of purity. The picture used in Lily's individual magazine advert contains the element of nature aswell as the artist is again surrounded by trees and is wearing a flower crown. This is conventional of the indie genre as it contains a naturalistic scenery, which acknowledges the importance of the artist and makes her stand out towards her audience. This results in a positive promotion tool as the audience concentrates mainly on her which makes her more memorable as an artist. 

The target audience of the indie genre would appreciate the magazine advert as many of the conventions we had incorporated in the advert were following the indie genre. It not only follows the conventions of the indie genre but shows aspects of the house genre too as our artists song in combined with a house music  we wanted to add that element too it aswell. These include conventions such as the use of brighter colours which provide the audience with a more eye-catching balance- the bright colours are used on the artist herself which creates a relationship between the artist and the house genre. In comparison, the indie genre uses more simple and darker/dull colours such as the colours of the background of the trees which shows that our advert has a good contrast and balance between the two genres incorporated within our artists music. The target audience is from both music genres, so we had decided to make sure that our magazine advert contains the basic conventions from both genres that can be mixed between the two genres and the two different cultures of audience within them.

To conclude, I believe that our crafted and put together a professional magazine advert that conforms to the indie genre conventions. This is because it uses the correct mise-en-scene elements such as the use of vintage clothes/make-up and naturalistic setting to typically make them stand out from artists in other music genres. We made sure that our magazine advert appeals to my chosen target audience as every aspect and detail of it was chosen in depth and any decision had to be agreed on by all three of us before finalising it to fit the specific appeals of the target audience.