Magazine Advert and Evaluation

Lesson: 08-10-2015

In this lesson, we were designing and creating our final piece for our magazine advert that was based off of the short film advert we created in Marissa's lesson.

We were introduced to some guidance for creating our magazine advert, and were advised that instead of creating it straight into Photoshop, it would benefit us to create some rough sketches first. These sketches were so that when we came to designing our advert in Photoshop, we would already have a rough idea of what we wanted to put where. 

In the guidance we were shown, we were also told the kind of things that were had to consider putting onto our magazine advert; these included, a slogan, headline and the product itself. We were also told that if we wanted to, we could include a sub-headline, extra info the buyer may need and even a logo.

When we were aware of what needed to put onto our magazine advert, we had to do 3-5 (or more) rough sketches about what we might want our advert to look like once we created it in Photoshop. Once we had these designs, we had to go about creating our magazine advert in Photoshop.

This is the magazine advert I created.

In order to get to this stage, I had to research sizes of magazine adverts so that I could have something that resembled the actual size of a magazine advert. The size that I used was 210mm in height and 148mm in width. Once that was done, I went out to finding a background that I could use on my advert. We were told that for this assignment, we could use one from the internet that we could find. 

While the background I decided to use didn’t match the product I chose to sell, I found out during my research on different types of magazine adverts that they don’t always directly include the product they are trying to sell in their magazine. I went with an image of an abandoned roller coaster as I felt that it still felt a bit off-putting to look at, and I also felt that clowns are often associated with theme parks, hence my choice.

Copying that image into Photoshop, I used the ‘free transform’ tool in order to stretch my image until it fit the size of my advert. Following that, I used the ‘blending options’ and then ‘colour overlay’; then, I selected the shade of red that I wanted and used the ‘soft light’ blend mode at 70% opacity which gave me the background how I wanted it to be.

Next, I opened up the product label that I had created and dragged the title of the product into the file I was working on. This was so that I could use the same font for my magazine advert. Then, after positioning the product name where I wanted it to be, I pressed CTRL + T to enter the free transform mode and pressed the button at the top which allowed me to ‘switch between free transform and warp mode’. Doing this allowed me to stretch the image into an arch, which was the effect that I wanted to have. Then, going back to my product label, I dragged over the ‘shampoo’ text that I had, again as I needed to use the same font for it.

After dragging that over, I positioned that where I wanted it and then I used the ‘ellipse’ tool in order to use that as a background for the ‘shampoo’ text.

Then, using the ‘rounded rectangle’ shape tool, I created one and positioned it in the top right corner, so that it looked like a banner. Then, changing the opacity to 70%, I created a text box and used the Agency FB font at 14pt, as well as changing the ‘horizontal scale’ to 160% for the writing in the text box. Once that was positioned on top of the rounded rectangle that I used, I was finished.

Throughout this task, I learnt many different skills. Though a lot of it was through clicking on things and seeing what they did, I feel as though I learned a lot. I learned that having a rough sketch of a plan before beginning with the Photoshop process was very helpful. I found that, even though I didn’t stick to any of the sketches that I had designed before we began, I still found that it was easier to get started with something as a rough guide.

While I am quite pleased with my final piece and how it looks, I feel as though it could have been a lot better, had I prepared better. The final product is quite simple and doesn’t look too crowded. I wanted to try many different tools out; however, I felt as though the final piece would have looked very crowded and a bit too busy if I had. So, while I am pleased with how it turned out in the end, I felt that I didn’t give myself enough time to be able to try out all of the things I wanted to try out before the deadline.

If I were to do this task again, I would do a few things differently. Firstly, I would plan out my time better so that I could have the time to try out different techniques and tools. I would also try out different designs to see if something else would have fit it better. I think I would also try to make the advert about the product that had been done in my group; I feel that this may have worked better in the end.