Magazine Advert Analysis: Arctic Monkeys

The following magazine advert is an old magazine advert used to promote Arctic Monkey's then up-and-coming album "Humbug".  The advert uses many minimalist features such as it's colour scheme: it uses simple colours such as black and white which connotes that the band are focused on making music rather than producing lavish marketing materials. The bold, white typography against the jet black background makes the band name appear striking and unmissable, it is in fact the first thing the audience see when viewing it. In addition to this it has included reviews from reputable music magazine  companies such as NME and Q which gives the band some credibility. It is also important to not the positioning of the bands text/typography: It is in incredibly large font and is centralised in relation to the confines of the frame, making it the focal point of the advert. This is different from some other adverts/digipaks I have analysed, as some have chosen to put the bands name in either the top left/top right hand corner. Interestingly, the image featured on the digipak has not been featured on this particular magazine advert which could be seen as subverting a convention in some way as normally the magazine advert is expected to feature the same image as the digipak (album cover) which is depicted below:

As you can see, the "Humbug" album itself features a very different image on the front which is quite peculiar and probably something I will avoid doing with my own magazine advert as I believe it builds an identity for that particular album and just generally prefer the digipaks and adverts to be synchronous.

Also noticeable is the stars that are featured above both the magazine companies respectively - it is clear that they are not too big but also not too small and are a good size, otherwise it would risk the advert looking ostentatious which would completely subvert the minimalist approach the band are trying to convey. Something that I also fin bemusing is the fact that the band have used two different fonts in both their digipak and magazine advert - this makes the album artwork overall less iconic in my opinion. As is common with many rock bands and their typography, the band have used serifs in some of the letters in their magazine advert which is something I should consider.

The image on the advert uses a white border to distinguish it from the rest of the advert and draw attention to it - the use of white over black helps to ensure that certain details are noticed and that they appear clear and easy to decipher. Also, at the bottom of the advert in smaller but still bold typography are the words "New Album" to catch the audiences attention and entice them to read the reviews for the album which (as previously mentioned) have been published by some very credible and respectable music magazines.