JS: Advert - Final

My print work is an advert designed for a newspaper - The Observer. It promotes the track 'Talk show Host' as a single, while it also promotes the band name 'Radiohead'. It is conventional in the sense that it advertises the band name in a large font. This helps publicise their star image and band name, making them more renowned. The font also is similar to the iconic font the Oxford band usually use. In addition to this, putting the band name at the bottom of the advert could be seen as a challenge to the conventional poster. As Radiohead are already well-know worldwide and do not have a niche audience, I deemed it more important to promote the track rather than the band name. The use of images for connotations is also common for artistic music groups. I have seen multiple examples, such as from 'Neutral Milk Hotel' and 'Radiohead' themselves, that use photographs to infer something to the audience and to promote band ideas. I used a photo of the man in a hospital mask and a shot of a tree in sunlight to act as an antithesis, to connote feelings of enigma and fear, then joy and hope in the two images to the consumer.

Our group explored a multitude of themes. Radiohead have a history of suggesting moral messages and exploring themes in their music videos, for example, consumerism in the song 'Fake Plastic Trees'. Themes looked at included social alienation and seclusion from reality. We focused on the latter, by linking nature with our three adverts. I have the inclusion of a tree, while my font colours such as brown and green connote woodlands and natural things. We used the same font for our pieces, which is similar to Radiohead's iconic font used on much of their promotional activity. In addition to this, or work is all disjunctive and open to interpretation, as they contain connotations to which each consumer would have a personal response to the adverts.

I used several tools on photoshop that included the move tool, gradient tool and eyedropper tool. These helped me create a piece that looks more professional. These tools allowed me to control the colours to help convey the themes we have used.

I first took an image of the mysterious antagonist as the basis of my artwork, as it has connotations of fear and is enigmatic to view. This would entice the consumer into buying the product, which is the purpose of an advert. I then re-sized the page to A4, for practical reasons when printing it in school, even though 'The Observer' would have different sized dimensions. I then found the iconic font and used the eyedropper tool to select relevant and striking colours from the page, that relate to our themes.

After this I included an image of trees and altered the colour grading to make it brighter and have even more positive connotations to act as a binary opposite to the image above. I decided to position the song name in a central position at this point and have an unconventional style in putting the band name at the bottom of the advert.

Finally, I used the clone stamp tool for the '20' to create a symmetrical effect which is aesthetically appealing to the consumer. I also changed the colours once again to connote the theme of nature, again with the eyedropper tool.