Magazine Analysis

Textual Analysis - Magazine advert for Indie/Pop artist

Artist & album - Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

I am doing this research so that when I produce my own magazine advert for my artist I will know the codes and conventions that makes a successful Indie/Pop magazine advert.

Why this text?
I have chosen this text as the artist is the same genre as mine and the simplicity of the advert is something I would like to incorporate into mine when I make it. 

This is the magazine advert for Lana Del Rey's album Born To Die taken from Q magazine which first of all is important as that is an Indie magazine therefore this emphasizes that the genre is Indie. The advert as a whole is very simple with not much to it but is straight to the point. The dominant image is of the artist looking directly at the camera and the shot is a low angle shot making the artist look important. We can tell it is a low angle shot as the artists eyes are looking down to the camera. The costume, make up and hair for the artist is very plain, she wears a simple white shirt, minimal make up but with song mascara and a strong red lip that stands out, this could be because everything else is so minimal and her hair is neatly curled. The background shows she is outside and a re-occurring nature theme seems to be emerging from what I have already analysed. The font is all in capitals to stand out and is a simple Arial font, the colours chosen are neutral and fit in with the conventions, they are light blue and white, however they stand out as they are on opposite coloured backgrounds (blue is on white, white is on blue). The rest of the text is in a more curvy and smaller size font telling us the release date, songs from the album and the artists website, all key things that need to be on the advert.

COMPARISON... 

I am going to compare Lana Del Rey's advert with a magazine advert for a mainstream pop artist. I am doing this so I can see what features are universally and what features are specific for an Indie artist's magazine advert.

I am going to use Lady Gaga's magazine advert for The Fame Monster/The Fame album

Straight away we can see that this advert is a lot more polished than Lana Del Rey's. The first thing you notice is that there are 3 sections to this advert with 2 dominant pictures of Lady Gaga instead of the 1 big picture of the artist, also the pictures of Lady Gaga are clearly shot professionally in a studio whereas Lana is shown to be outside.  Another notable feature is that Lana Del Rey's advert was in colour and surprisingly this is in black and white which is usually a convention of an Indie artist. Another feature that is on this advert there is a quote from Rolling Stone magazine selling the artist again this doesn't happen on Lana's advert. Another difference is that on this one Lady Gaga's album cover or both versions are shown on this advert. The font for this advert is very bold and stands out they have also used the exact font and 'cross t' used on the front of the album cover.
Some similarities between the adverts are that they both obviously include a dominant picture of the artist, the fonts are white, big and bold.
Overall this advert is a lot more polished than Lana Del Rey's advert to show Lady Gaga at her best whereas Lana Del Rey's advert is more to show her style and is less polished to stick to the codes and conventions of an Indie artists magazine advert

What I have learned from analysing these texts...

• The best font to use is simple and straightforward and to use white on a darker colour to make it really stick out and to have the rest of the information in a more curvy smaller font.
• To have a dominant image of the artist, but unlike Lady Gaga's advert just have 1 image instead of trying to cram 3 into a small space as 1 adds to the simplistic feel that should be shown in the Indie genre.
• Have the shot of the artist outside, as nature and the outdoors seem to be coming up a lot.