Adele's magazine advert for her album "Adele21" is very simplistic and in-keeping with the motif of her previous albums and works. This could be put down to brand identity and the desire for her work to be instantly recognisable to her current and future audience members. Having a style theme (colours, images, fonts etc) also ensures her work looks professionally constructed so people take her seriously as an artist. It indicates that experts have assembled the pieces and that she is famous enough for this to occur. Mismatching themes could cause confusion about the artist’s genre or audience and make them look unworried about how they present themselves and their music.

When analysing the imagery used, one notes that the close up image of her face ensures her music is instantly recognisable. This is because her fans will be able to identify and remember her appearance; thus building her star image. Adele is represented as gentle and elegant through the mis-en-scene as she is lightly leant against her right hand and looking downwards. Her face isn’t tensed at all and her expression is captivating for the audience as she appears emotionless. Although it’s typical for artists to have direct mode of address in their images to ensure instant audience connection, Adele’s success means that she doesn’t require the same connection. Her pose and expression could almost be linked to a state of sleep, representing her and her music as tranquil and peaceful. This is one way in which the artist’s imagery can reflect their music genre and their own personality as a person.

In terms of the colours used in the advertisement, one notes that it is predominantly black and white. Black and white colours are classic and go back to the early cameras that weren’t able to capture colour. Essentially, this suggests to the audience that her music is timeless and also indicates her experience in the music industry. This would be important to her audience-base as it represents her wealth of knowledge surrounding her music and also marks her as more superior to other artists who have the same genre. The black and white colours also allow the photograph to have areas of shadow and highlights white emphasize Adele’s feminine features. Adele would want to appear feminine to appeal to both the female aspiring audience members and the male audience members. Having said this, the fact that her features are emphasised reflects Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory because men could be attracted to her facial features and therefore purchase her music. Although not a bad thing, it could mean that people are buying her music for the wrong reason.

In addition to the black and white colours, green is also used in the “21” and “OUT NOW”. Green is “the colour of nature. It symbolises growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety” (http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html). Therefore, the use of green in the magazine advertisement and digipak represent Adele’s natural appearance and possibly the natural tone to her voice and music. The symbols of green could further persuade people to buy Adele’s album as they feel they won’t only gain musically from listening to it, but they will receive personal gains and benefits from buying and listening to it.

The font used on the magazine advertisement is san-serif which juxtaposes the classic black and white photograph by including a contemporary element. This indicates to the audience that despite her music possibly appealing to those who like more classic ballads, it also appeals to more contemporary music fans. The lettering is large and easily read on the black background which ensures that the audience can get all the information that they need quickly. Moreover, the kerning is even and ensures the overall product looks professional and neat. The actual information on the poster is kept to a minimal, demonstrating that the producers assume the audience will know how and where to buy the album regardless.

In terms of the composition of the piece, it’s fairly simple. The image of Adele takes up around three quarters of the poster and is centralised on the page. This means that it’s the first thing the audience will see and take in. The page itself is black, leaving plenty of room for writing at the bottom. What’s more, the spacing around the image creates almost a Polaroid appearance (a further continuation of the classic appearance). Finally, the ‘Z’ formation is evident in the composition of the piece as when the eye sweeps over the advertisement one immediately looks at the top left corner before sweeping over her face and the text at the bottom.

To conclude the textual analysis of Adele’s album “Adele21” one had decided to choose particularly crucial features and explore how they could be utilised in my own work. Firstly, the use of colour is effective in this advertisement as it represents Adele’s brand and is a continued theme in her work. As inspiration from this, one has decided to use the colours in my previous digipak and music video constructions to create a peaceful and fresh appearance around my advertisement. Furthermore, I want to utilise the black blank spaces to put the writing in as this example indicates how easy and quick it is to read it. Lastly, I will attempt to make Sophie appeal to her audience in the imagery by creating a star image and possibly conforming to Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory.