Intentions

Front Cover


Name: Boast, I chose to name my magazine Boast as it relates to younger people as it gives the impression of talking and gossiping, along with articles about music. It also links with the slogan that will be placed on the contents page that says "Alot to boast about.." relating back to the magazine name so the audience knows exactly what it's called.


Image: For my front cover I am planning on placing one female model on the front, with a simple dress in a block colour print. I want the pose to be quite a relaxed, hand on hip pose which is typical of the genre that I am recreating for my magazine. I am also considering having two female models on the front of my magazine as 'Top of the Pops' covers tend to have more than one model on the front along with other photographs around the main image of other stars inside the magazine.

Font/Colours: Font styles are really important within my genre for the audience as it needs to be quite fun and jazzy as it needs to stand out and attract the readers attention, this is typical conventions of a pop magazine as it seems quite different from other magazines as it has a much younger audience than the typical music magazine reader. I will typically use bright and eye catching colours such as pinks and purples and blues as these are typical of the target audience as they are quite girly and young colours appealing to the audience directly.


Contents Page


Images: For my contents page I am going to use my actual magazine cover as a photograph labelling the text on the front page and giving the audience the page number that they are each placed on so that they can find exactly what they want to read about straight away. I am also using an image of one of the models included within the magazine to represent what else is inside the magazine for them to read about.

Layout: The page is going to be laid out by using rectangle columns to present each article simply with it's page number, along with highlighting or underlining specific articles that are the most interesting and the most important that the reader might be interested in. I will place the slogan at the top of the page followed by the photograph of the magazine cover just underneath it, with the columns surrounding it and the model photograph in the bottom left hand corner.

Fonts: Once again it's going to be quite similar to the fonts I used within the front cover of the magazine, but I will use the website dafont.com to find a suitable font for the page that fit in within my genre and will attract my younger audience.


Double Page Spread

Images: Typically for my interview double page spread I am going to use the same model that is included within the front cover, but in different poses and with other members of her band as the front cover model is going to be a part of a girl band and then will be brought together with her band mates inside the magazine on my double page spread. Either this or I shall include the band on the whole front cover of the magazine. But the sample magazine I am using as my guide throughout the process of making my magazine shows a close up of the model which I shall stick to along with inside have close up and long shots of the model or models. The images are going to be taken inside a studio with a white background.

Layout: My layout is going to be quite simplistic inside the magazine as my sample magazine has a clear white background with the model posing infront of the white background, which is what I am going to follow with my double page spread. Also the text shall be surrounding the photographs with a quote from the interview giving the double page a title to give the reader and insight to what the interview is about.

Fonts: With my double page I am going to use much calmer colours and a simple black colour to type up the interview and some of the text with the main title being a completely other colour to attract attention to the interview. The font style may be more simplistic than the front cover and contents page even though I would like to bring in some fun and bubbly fonts to continue the theme throughout the magazine, showing signs of consistency.

Pop Genre Indetail Research.

Pop music has always been orientated towards a youthful market and can also be determined of being a popular piece of music, which is how the genre Pop was brought along. Over the years Pop music has been influence by other genres such as rock and roll and becoming usually a softer version of rock.

Pop music has been mainly dominated by America and British music industries and has made pop music into what is called as an 'internation monoculture' but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music. It can also be associated with the current download charts as the songs that make it into the charts are 'popular' music as they are most popular with their audiences as more and more people are buying and downloading their music bringing them straight into the charts.

Pop has also become known as 'Pop Rock' which mixes pop style lyrics with guitar based songs, even though rock and pop have regularly been known as opposites. Bands and singers from the 20th century that represent this genre are Michael Jackson, Olivia Newton-John, Madonna and Cher. As pop rock came into the 21st century more bands and singers started to come into the genre including McFly, Pink, The Saturdays, Kelly Clarkson and Cheryl Cole.

Conclusions

This soon brings Pop Rock into a completely new genre of it's own. This research ultimately helps me choose how I want to represent my models throughout my magazine and how they need to be dressed and posed to show that they fit into this genre of music as Pop is one of the most popular forms of genres within music followed by R'n'B and hip hop. This helps give me some ideas of how I layout my magazine and colours to use throughout along with what sort of image I am aiming for throughout my magazine and how the models should be seen by the readers.

Test shoot with a plan.

Basically for my test shoot I was considering what poses, shots and angles I would use for the front cover and double page spread and even for my contents page. I used two models for my test shoot, Georgia and Tara, I then got them to pose in fun poses as this suits my genre for my magazine and I wanted to practise with different shoots and poses and see what I came out with. I used different shots such as mid shots and long shots to show a difference is ways I can use the models on the front page of my magazine. I also used the sports mode to take photographs in quick frames to catch when the models are jumping in the air to catch them in mid air and get the best shot available.

My test shoot helped me analysis exactly how to shoot my final photo and what sort of poses and shots I would need for my photoshoot and what ones would work best within my magazine genre. I used a white background to help with getting rid of the background for a practise front cover. I have shown some of the test shoots on this blog and some of the shots and poses I would like to use throughout my final magazine cover

I used some two people shots as I felt that this would be best to use for my front cover as I am trying to create my magazine cover similar to a top of the pops magazine cover using two people on the cover. I used casual clothing for this shot as it was only originally a test shoot to try out the camera and different angles.

This contact sheet shows exactly the photographs I used for my preminlary task at the top and then followed by the test shoot photographs, showing exactly all the photographs that I took using my camera even the ones that weren't set up or posed. This shows the variety of photographs that I have taken for my test shoot and the sort of poses that I would expect inside and on the front cover of my magazine.

Preliminary Task :)

For our preliminary task I had to create a school magazine aimed at students of the school John Cabot, I used photoshop to create it and went out and went out and took my own photographs of a John Cabot student to appear on the front cover of my magazine. I also used the website dafont.com to create fonts for my cover and had them appear as my magazine name "Academy Press". I also added a barcode I found from Google images to the front of my magazine to make it seem more realistic along with the date and issue number. I went with the typical John Cabot colour theme as the cover image is wear the uniform clearly showing the school logo so I used the banner for "first edition" in a similar colour to carry on with the theme. Along with this I used the magic wand tool to get rid of the white background maintaining behind the writing I had created in dafont.com to make it look more realistic and part of the magazine.

Drafts for my magazine!

After doing all my research on magazines I finally came up with a name for the magazine called 'Boast' which later has the tagline 'Alot to Boast about' and therefore I drew up a draft of my front page, contents page and double page spread, but it's only a really tough copy as they are all basic drawings and are the outlines to where images and text will be placed within the pages. Even though I have drawn drafts for my magazine I don't expect to stick to them completely as I may change throughout the way of this course and my ideas might become better and help make the magazine more realistic like it has come straight off a shelf in the magazine section. Below and above you can see all my drafts I have drawn. These drawings show rough sketches of how I would like to layout my magazine and the poses that I want my main celebrity to being stood in, along with where pictures will be laid out on the front, contents and double page spread page. This helps me to follow a draft whilst making my music magazine so that I am not making up as I go along, so this helps me concentrate exactly what how I am going to layout my magazine and I can improve it and give some changes to it as I go along.

Questionnaire on music magazines

I wrote out a questionnaire to find out about people's views on music magazines and what ones they buy along with their favourite type of music and artists. This helped me to know exactly what my target audience for my magazine would like to see on the front cover or inside the magazine to give me a more realistic view on my magazine and make sure it would fit in with the typical genre that it is presenting. It also gave me an insight into what the audience would pay for a magazine and how much would be too much to price it and if the magazine should come with a free gift or not. All the questions helped with creating the magazine and bring new ideas to the board to help bring the final product together.

In the questionnaire we can see that the 20 people I questioned that the magazine NME was most popular following with Top of the Pops and Kerrang. This shows that the audience I questioned mostly enjoyed rock and indie genres as that is what NME is aimed at directly. I also asked what their favourite genre was and Pop came out on top followed closely by Indie music which tends to show the relationship with the first question. I used the result of Pop in the questionnaire as to make the decision to aim my magazine on the pop genre as it is most popular with the target audience I want to aim it at. Pricing was another issue that needed to be researched within my target audience and I found the best price for a magazine was between £2.00 and £2.99, so I decided £2.50 would be perfect for my magazine as it is directly inbetween the prices that were most popular in my questionnaire.

Another choice I had to make about my magazine was whether it would be produced weekly or monthly or even yearly and when I used this question in the questionnaire I found that monthly and weekly were both equally popular, so I finally chose to produce my magazine weekly as it then can keep it's audience up to date with the latest news and gossip. I then decided to have a broad answered question giving the audience a choice of bands and singers for the audience to choose from to show what bands they directly like and what type of music they enjoy. My final question involved finding out how passionate the audience are about gigs and festivals letting me know if the magazine should involve the latest information about gigs and festivals.

Double Page Analysis!

For my double page analysis I looked at Top of the Pops, NME and Q, I analysed them each in turn and commented on how each were layed out specifically for their target audiences and how they represented to draw in new audience or their typical readers. I decided to study all aspects of the double pages, seeing what images they used throughout and what sort of poses they were holding to represent the image of the magazine. The layout is highly important within the double page spread as it is representing the whole magazine and ultimately telling the audience about the star or celebrity that is being interviewed. 


I analyzed the colour scheme used throughout the double pages as this can also be really important when representing the magazine and making it seem realistic and more like a real magazine for when I come down to recreating it. I used different magazines to show contrast of genres between each of the to show how differently they are laid out and presented to their audience. As with the more mature target audience magazines we see bold and simple colours such as black and red, along with block fonts in bigger font. Then with the more younger magazines we notice that the magazine tends to be more fun and brightly coloured, and has a more laid back view so that it's audience can feel relaxed when reading it and can enjoy it. 
Double Page Analysis

Contents Page Analysis

After I had researched front cover of music magazines, I looked at Q, Top of the Pops and NME's content pages and analysised them to see exactly what makes up a contents page, so that when it comes to making my own contents page for my own music magazine it will help me create new ideas and make it look similar to other music magazines to make it look realise it and therefore it will have the basic conventions of a music magazine contents page.


Some conventions of the contents pages that I researched throughout this powerpoint is linking photographs with pages within the magazine, showing the reader exactly where to go to find the article they want to read about. Contents pages also include the name of the magazine itself at the top with a slogan or subtitle underneath it. We can also see from the contents pages that I have studied it lays out clearly in boxes the pages and details of what is within the magazine letting the audience known exactly what is within the magazine without having to look through the whole magazine for exactly what they want. 
Contents Page

Front Cover Analysis!

 Basically I have researched four different magazine covers from Blender, Spin, Top of the Pops and Q magazines, and have analysised them each separately on the presentation below. I analysised each magazine on their target audiences, layout, colours and fonts, images, direct address, sell lines and skylines. Analyzing each of these different magazine front covers gives a bigger insight into the conventions of music magazines so that I can use the specific conventions they use onto my own magazine to help make it more realistic and similar to the magazine that I am basing my own upon.


We can see on the front covers that they include a cover star, which uses direct address with the audience which is a huge convention that I should use within my magazine cover, as this immediately makes the cover star connect with the audience straight away and draw them in to buy it. The magazine I want to aim towards is similar to Top of the Pops magazine so therefore I need to include more than one image on my front cover as the target audience is much younger than the other music magazine I have studied and researched so therefore needs to attract the attention of a different audience, so therefore needs to have more detail and colours along with images to make them stop and look at it. 
Analyzing_magazines