[PRODUCT] Ancillary Product - Music Magazine Album Advert (FIRST EDITS)

For my music magazine album advert, I initially produced a mock-up of it and planned on simply cutting out the artist and placing her where the orange square would be:

I was particularly fond of the background image and the colour scheme of the overall product went well with the genre of my artist's music. However, as the image was found on the Internet, there were issues of copyright and plagiarism. Therefore, I had set about creating my own background using Illustrator CC which had a similar aesthetic to the original background image. But I found the process far too exhaustive and the program was difficult to navigate around.

I was browsing on Apple's App Store when I came across the app, "Prisma".

The application essentially takes photos of your own and turns them into works of art by creating a filter with the work of existing famous artists, such as Hokusai's "The Great Wave off Kanagawa". 



ORIGINAL IMAGE 

VERSION 1

For this version, I used the "Dallas" filter.  When the filter is first applied, the image looked like this:

I increased the saturation on the image to make the colours more vibrant and altered the hue towards the cyan end to enhance the red and pinks in the image. The overall appearance is suitable for the genre I am aiming for (acoustic indie).

However, an issue with this filter is the lines it creates on the artist's face. The appearance is odd and detracts from the rest of the image.

VERSION 2

For this version, the "Illegal Beauty" filter was used which is based on the work of artist Natalie Ratkovski. 

I particularly liked the way the pinks and oranges were emphasised. However, once again, the lines that were created on the artist's face as a result of the filter was distracting and not suitable for a magazine advert. 

VERSION 3

This version makes use of the "Femme" filter, which gives the effect of a "smoothly painted over portrait" (Aussie Network New's Cat Suclo).

The original image was harsher and not suitable for the genre of music I was aiming for. However, once I edited the image (by decreasing the saturation and vibrance), it looked much smoother and much more satisfactory.

FOCUS GROUP FEEDBACK:

I asked my focus group what they thought of these first edits and all of them pointed out they preferred the third version because the lines on the artist's face on the other versions were distracting and off-putting. 

One member of my focus group pointed out that the effect on the third edit looked much "smoother" and ultimately, more aesthetically pleasing.

However, another member suggested that the "Sydney Stone" blends in with the artist's jacket in the background image and therefore, I will be editing it to provide a more striking appearance.

Moreover, I have forgotten to include the institutional logos for the artist's record label and website details so I will need to include those in my final edit.