I decided to make a third design of the magazine advertisement, this is so i can hold a focus group to help me decide which of my ideas is the better one. This gives me judgment from parties other than myself and will make the idea less biased.

I started off with my background of a brick wall. This matches the background of the CD cover and shows continuity. I made no edits to the picture of the bricks itself as i wanted a very raw look, i did not want it to look perfected because this is not what my band and album are about. Also i feel it is recognizable as its the same image as the album, and the whole point of a magazine advertisement is to sell a product. The customers need to know what they are looking for.

I then added a back square to the center of the brick wall this was to create a ‘platform’ for the picture of the album to go on. Otherwise the album front cover wouldn’t stand out from the background enough. I then decided a smaller white square would also be a very good idea jut to emphasise the picture of the album more.

I also added a drop shadow to make it seem away from the wall and so it is not part of it.

I placed the album cover in the center of the white square, i thought this looks great because of the drop shadow and because of how it stands out. I also think using the front cover of the CD is a really good idea because the readers can see the CD and know exactly what it looks like, and this makes it easier for them to know what is being advertised.

I decided to make the ‘OUT NOW’ the most stand out part on the magazine advertisement, I felt this draws in attention from the readers. I used an outer glow to make it stand out from the brick wall even more than it did already. The ‘OUT NOW’ section looks as if it is on the same level as as the picture of the CD. This sets the wall as the background and not part of the picture. Showing that the text and picture are the most important things.

I wanted to make a difference to my other magazine advertisement designs so i decided to use only one quote. I feel this is effective and powerful but may also be seen as ‘not good enough to get more than one quote’. However we shall what my focus group says.

As i only had one quote from a source i had a massive space which i needed to fill, as it looked very ‘top heavy’. So i decided to add a sentence to explain the album, i have done this on my other two magazine advertisements as i feel it is convenient for the readers to just be able to read one sentence and know exactly what is being advertised.

Unlike my other advertisements i still had a blank space, so I’ve used the smallest text on the whole advertisement to write ‘available in all good music stores now’. This allows the reader to know where they can get the CD from, adding to convenience levels.

This is the third finished product, i now need to hold a focus group in order for me to get some feedback.