It is quite hard to find album release adverts from folk music genre as lots of folk musicians are actually off the mainstream and didn't have adverts that often, and also as person who don't purchase music magazine that often it did provided me a hard time to find enough adverts to gain inspirations and analysis.
The following adverts mood board consists of various artists's releasing and concert adverts including: Kings Of Convenience, Laura Marling, Iron & Wine, Cat Power. And alongside with the digipaks I will discuss the details of the adverts, and also search the conventional designs of the folk music adverts and hopefully gain inspirations from that.
As a result of the research, I realised that conventionally the album releasing advert are actually extends the digipaks itself which means it applies the same style, colours, themes and layouts from the albums, and always use the same image from the front cover of the album, only increase the size of it. The main difference between the adverts and the digipaks is the size of the image and the capacity, the audience would be able to review more details of the image from the adverts and also creates the visual memories for them, but the album arts is still remains the most impressive part of it.
Throughout the research I have summarised some conventional design rules of the folk music adverts, first of all, the conventional colour choice of folk music adverts is often black & white, or only consists of two or three colours which provides it a really simple and stylish outer appearance, for instance these two adverts I have listed in the mood board from Laura Marling is a great example, they have only consists two or three colours and have a really simple and elegant design which follows the genre characteristics of the folk music, and it also extends the original album artwork. And secondly, the font choice of folk music adverts are always quite chic and nostalgic, the style of the fonts they used in the adverts are always remains very stylish and thoughtful, and obviously the audience will be able to sense the personal style and characteristics of the artists themselves. Therefore in my own production of adverts I will carefully choose the font that I will be using in the adverts make sure it has a stylish outer appearance and fits the characteristics of my artist.
Also throughout the creation of the advert mood board I have summarised the two main category of folk music adverts visual style and design. First of all, the majority of folk music adverts are actually consists of drawings or sketches whether it's relevant or irrelevant, the drawings or sketches within it are often expresses the content of the album or the characteristics of the artist, the drawing or sketches could be abstract art pieces that appears irrelevant with album but actually carries the connotations within the artwork, the image of musical instruments or animals are the conventional types of them, or simply creates the portraits of the artists themselves been presented in a more creative and artistic way. But also there are a small percentage adverts that consists of a portrait photograph of the artist, conventionally folk singer extremely prefer to use a simple portrait of themselves under the contrast lighting in order to create an elegant and artistic atmosphere, for instance this mood borad that I created has contained a concert advertisement of Cat Power which consists of a portrait photograph of Cat Power herself, this portrait's visual style appears very similar to the front cover of the legendary album <Blue>by Joni Mitchell, in my opinion most of the self-portrait photograph type album artwork has been more or less influenced by the front cover of the album <Blue>, in this advert the face of Cat Power and one of her arms are under the highlights and the rest of her body remains in the darkness which creates an extraordinary artistic image of her and creates a strong impression to the audience.
I have also summarised the informations that commonly appears on the album releasing adverts which includes:
Album Reviews:Which usually includes the ranking or rating of the album from famous music critic website or magazine, also could be the critiques from the famous musicians.
Release Date: For instance a specific date in the future or just simple written "coming now" or "coming soon".
Available Formats: Nowadays a new album could be releasing in various ways such as CD, Vinyl LP, Releasing on Itunes or even digitally releasing(In a small memory stick).
Hit Single: The hit single of the album would usually be contained in the album advert.
Record Label: A logo of record label company will definitely be contained in the album advert in order to show the approval of the ability of the artists.
QR Code: A growing trend in the modern age, QR Code will enable the audience search and download the album very easily by simply scan it.
Overall, the I have gained the depth understanding of the folk music adverts and also gained inspirations from various adverts from various artists. My initial thoughts for my own advert production would be a portrait photograph of the artist(Main character in the music video), and use digital techniques to give the picture a drawing lookalike outer appearance in order to following the genre conventions.