Quote about representation

 "The world we inhabit is a world of representation. Media do not merely present a reality that exists 'out there'; nor do they simply reproduce or circulate knowledge. As active producers of knowledge, media construct and constitute the very reality of our existence." -- Augie Fleras and Jean Lock Kunz, Media & Minorities; Representing Diversity in a Multicultural Canada

Social Realism and The Selfish Giant

Updated magazine advertisement for digipak cover

This is the updated version of my magazine advertisement. On it, there is now more content and more quotes. I have included 3 quotes now, and they are smaller than the one I used previously, because this helps to emphasise the band name and album title, which was not done very well in my previous example.
I have added the record label and a sign saying that it is available on iTunes, as well as two social media links, to their website and to their Twitter.

This advert would hopefully be featured in a magazine like Kerrang! or Rocksound, and featured either on the back page or somewhere in the middle near the articles. I think the back page would have the most impact because if someone was to carry the magazine around with them they will be seeing the advert a lot. It also isn't too bright or distracting which may help persuade the magazine to put it on there!
Feasibly however this would be very expensive and so I think it would realistically be more towards the inner pages.
I have not included the price because I don't feel that this would be necessary on an advertisement for a product like an album; nowadays people tend to predict they will be between £7.99-10.99 and Light Up The Background would likely fall towards the lower half of that bracket.

Digipak and Magazine Advert First Draft

These are the rough drafts of my magazine advert and my digipak.
There are some changes I already know I'd like to make to my digipak, such as:

• Remove guidelines that show where the CD is supposed to go
• Ensure the components match up correctly
• Retype the band name and make it look less stretched/blurred
• Move the band name up by 1cm

Representations of Young People

The Independent published this article, under the Voices section on the 23rd February, and it had some interesting figures on the effects of media representation from the eyes of young people:

A report published last week, titled Introducing Generation Citizen, said that four-fifths of 14- to 17-year-olds feel that their age group is unfairly represented in the media. Of the 1,000 youngsters polled by the think-tank Demos, 85 per cent believe that negative portrayals are affecting their chances of getting a job.

This article, again in the Voices section, was also quite interesting. It talked about the way in which young people feel involved in politics and warns of the perils of not allowing them to do so:

•  The Generation Citizen report finds that 84 per cent of 14- to 17-year-olds plan to vote
• Kai, 15, and Jordan, 17, sitting by me, echo young voices I’ve heard across Britain when they say “politics just isn’t for us” – almost in the same breath as they give their deeply political views on Stop and Search, and inequality in education provision, and reel off all their voluntary work.
• Some are leading activism in their communities, like Camilla Yahaya, who at 16 bought 10,000 teenagers together in Lewisham to campaign for safer streets.
• Young people tell me that they want to see more authenticity and honesty from political leaders. They want to see Parliament reflect their classroom diversity and they want to be more involved in decisions. They want political parties to engage them over issues and they want to hear leaders talking about youth unemployment with the same fear, anger and urgency that they feel for their futures.

This Guardian article gave quite an interesting viewpoint; rather than portraying young people as being unruly and reckless, the opening paragraph stated:
British teenagers are an increasingly responsible and sober bunch. Teen pregnancies are at an all-time low, drug-fuelled dance culture is vanishing, careers are planned from a tender age, and preparations are made for a lifetime of tuition fee loan repayments and pension contributions. Most of the evidence shows that today's teenagers are altogether more sensible than their irresponsible, selfish parents ever were.

Final Construction

This is the completed version of my music video for Light Up The Background by The LaFontaines.

Rough Draft of Digipak Design

I created a rough draft of my digipak in Adobe InDesign. I took three of the four images myself; the one used for the disc space is not mine, but something I used to fill the space until I could make it to the location again to take more photos.

I created two mock ups; one on A3 paper and the other on A4. They were therefore two different sizes but in doing this they were easy to compare. I like the look of the front and back cover and I like the two images a lot. The inner left hand side has an image taken from the remainder of the photo I took and edited for the back. I think this works well considering the order in which we usually look through a digipak.
The image on the disc tray is not something I will be trying to emulate in my final construction. I don't think this fits in with the other images and so I will be revisiting the location this weekend to take pictures which will be more suited to the theme running through the product.
Of course my real version will also be more polished; there are overlaps on this one currently, and the folding for the smaller version was not as neat as I would like it to have been. However, for a first draft I am fairly happy with the digipak and I will be working to make what I have so far look better and more clean.
The image here shows the filled in template I used in InDesign to create the digipak. I followed guidelines to ensure the product would fold properly.