I increased the sharpness and contrast of the image as much as I could to make the image stand out more and appear clearer but due to the camera not being in complete focus, the image appeared a bit blurry. As the model was quite pale, I decided to add more colour to her skin and made her look as if she had a tan. Whilst making the model look more tanned, I didn’t realise that the actual cover when printed may look different to when it appeared on the computer screen and therefore the model turned out to be a bit too tanned and a bit yellow. I didn’t want to make the model look too false so I kept the make-up minimal as the cover model is someone that UNIVERSAL readers would look to for inspiring ideas and the more realistic and achievable the goal looks the more motivating it is to attempt to recreate it. The model is wearing a revealing strap top which shows off her sexy tanned skin which may want the reader to read on in envy to have a similar tan with it being a summer issue of UNIVERSAL. The readers’ will want to achieve the best tan possible in the sunshine season and by looking at the model already achieving that tan, they’ll want to endorse the products she uses meaning that they’d have to read further. If the model was wearing something like a T shirt or a hooded top, it wouldn’t have the same effect as it will portray a casual and laid back image oppose to the sexy and stylish image that I want to portray of UNIVERSAL.
Front cover no.2 embraces a green background signifying peace that UNIVERSAL represents through the unity of the multi cultures that are endorsed by this unique magazine. The model for this front cover is a professional model and is Asian but is very fair and appears more European than Asian and the lighting in the photo initially, was really bright making the model appear fairer. I overcame this problem slightly by increasing the contrast of the image and reducing the brightness but didn’t fully manage to reach the results that I’d wanted. It was essential to make my model appear from any other background other than English/White as this is the USP of the product and will undermine the whole objective of the magazine and make it seem hypocritical if the model looked white and the magazine claimed to cater for multi cultures and different backgrounds. The typeface and title colour were the same as front cover no.1 to show a relationship between the magazines. I decided to highlight some of the text using red because it is the opposite/contrasting colour to green (background) and this worked well because it made the text more eye catching and also because the model was wearing red clothes and lipstick which made her stand out even more against the contrasting green background. The model is looking away from the reader, which may show lack of interest in the reader, as she isn’t directly looking at the reader. This type of facial expression is probably used more in fashion shoots rather than front cover shots and maybe I should have used another shot of the model where she was addressing the audience so the audience felt more of a connection with the magazine. The image of the model looks a bit too large and maybe would’ve looked better if reduced a little to expose more of the model’s traditional clothes and more of her shoulders. She’s also wearing a lot of make-up which makes her appear more artificial, this is the sort of look and image that I didn’t want as I mentioned for front cover no.1 as the reader will be more reluctant to try as she looks a bit false. On the other hand, an optimistic UNIVERSAL reader may see this as a new trend and may try this look for a change.
The aim of the BaByliss Half Time adverts was to attract an audience that enjoys and values looking after their appearance and enjoys a lifestyle that consists of time efficiency, minimalism and glamour which the adverts will represent and convey through organised and carefully thought out presentation. I decide to call this product Half Time in order to promote its speed as it takes half the time normal styling products take. This is also the USP as the target audience will be working females with a busy lifestyle who would benefit from this product as it will save them time to do other important things.
Advert no.1 uses the back of a model with straight long hair to advertise the new BaByliss Half Time hair straightener. Initially, I air brushed un even skin tone on the model’s back but whilst doing so I accidentally used a dark colour and so carried on air brushing the whole of the models back. I ended up with a flawless even colour that made the model look like a character out of a video game. I decided to leave the image with that look as a video game female character is often very feminine and pretty in appearance and may promote the image of femininity through the model’s appearance. It also made the model look more ethnic which tied in well with where the advert was going to be placed, as UNIVERSAL is one of the magazines that this advert will appear in and this magazine promotes multi cultures. The hair wasn’t air brushed as I wanted the realness of the hair to shine against the false and cartoon like appearance of the model’s back, this also conveys the message that the if you use this straightener, it will leave your hair looking real what most straighteners don’t do. The pale blue background was used to make the image stand out more. A darker panel on the side was used to contain brief details of the straightener and the actual image of the product. I tried to adopt the minimalist approach to the layout as this is BaByliss’ conventions and it reflects the idea of time saving. By using the phrase- “only takes half of the time of a ‘normal’ straightener”, I’m telling the reader that this isn’t a ‘normal’ straightener it is different and better because it’s faster. The words were kept limited to show minimalism and values of BaByliss.
Advert no.2 is advertising the new BaByliss Half Time curling tongs. It uses ‘half’ of the models’ face to represent ‘half’ of the time that this product takes to curl hair. The model is of an Asian appearance, this deviates the conventions of BaByliss adverts but maybe good because it represents other cultures as well and because I used the word revolutionary in both the adverts it can show that this change in representation is revolutionary. On the other hand this change can be interpreted negatively and can be seen as the advert only being directed at ethnic cultures and some may be hostile to the sudden change of representation of BaByliss. I worked on this advert at home and because of this, I didn’t have the facilities and time to put this image on a CD so I developed the photo and scanned it, Because of this, the quality wasn’t the best it could have been and the pixels were visible as I had to enlarge the photo as well. The image also appeared lighter on the computer screen than it did when it was printed out and therefore the end product was darker than I expected. A pale blue panel was used on one side to highlight the curling tongs and contain a description of the product. The model’s hair was naturally straight so I had to curl them and by the time I got round to taking the photo, her curls had started to come out and look more like waves than curls. To overcome this, I decide to include in the description of the product, that these curling tongs could also be used to create waves and not just tight curls. Once again, I used similar format to that of the advert no.1 to show a relationship between the adverts and so the audience can make an instant distinction between BaByliss Half Time adverts and other adverts.
The two adverts are quite different from each other as one contains more of a cartoon like figure making it appear more false than the curling tong advert. They both have similar colour schemes and layout and there isn’t anything that drastically makes them appear too different from each other so a distinction can be made that these adverts are related in some way. The BaByliss sign is in bold in both the adverts to show the audience who the manufacturer is, this is important as most people want to know who the new product is by and if it’s trustable.
The contents page for UNIVERSAL front cover number two had a white background. I chose this colour as it made the writing and pictures stand out more. I chose to use green as the front cover also contained green and this showed a relationship between the front cover and the contents page. Most of the writing was black in contrast with the white background. I used Times new roman typeface for small text as this typeface is easy to read. For the magazine title and sub headings, I used Impact typeface as this is the typeface used on the front cover and will show the reader that this page is part of UNIVERSAL despite using two other typefaces. To differentiate this page from other pages of the magazine, I decided to use a distinctive typeface (Allego BT) to highlight the word ‘contents’. The whole idea of this contents page was to invite the audience and make them want to read the whole magazine therefore I included interesting topics such as arranged marriages and made it one of the main focus of the contents page. This also showed that UNIVERSAL has a serious side as well as the sexy and stylish one. More pictures were used on this page to keep the reader interested as too much writing might bore them. I used a layout consisting of three columns and a panel and this made the appearance neater. I chose to place a green and white panel containing UNIVERSAL offers. By putting these offers in a panel I’m highlighting the offers and making them more eye-catching so the reader doesn’t overlook them.
I think my layout organisation could have been better as some of the columns appear smaller than other. I think by using three different typefaces, the contents page appeared less professional. I didn’t organise the topics into groups i.e. Health, beauty, fashion etc. This mixed all the topics up and made it harder for someone looking for certain topics to find them. The end product looked more plain and boring than I wanted and expected and there wasn’t anything that said “READ ME!!” This is probably because I left it too late to do a lot more research on making my contents page have its own distinct appearance at the same time making it interesting.