Music Magazine Evaluation.

For my music magazine's main musical theme and genre I decided to go with a sort of pop punky theme, a genre increasingly popular with teenagers today. I believed it would be easy to convey a pop punk/pop rock theme in my magazine and this therefore meant that the typical black/red/white format of rock magazines wouldn't do. So I instead settled on a blue, to really set it apart from other magazines, allowing it to catch the audiences eye.

Forms and conventions in magazines.

As mentioned, I decided to go with a colour scheme consisting of light blue back grounds and black writing to stand out, or alternatively a vice versa situation where blue writing is placed on a light black background, again to stand out on the page.I think this is in contrast to most magazines seen today that employ an almost cliché red/black/white colour scheme, like NME for example. I feel this is too easy to do, and therefore, I just wouldn't do it. Of course, it would be easy to create my magazine with a completely unconventional colour scheme, that unfortunately did not look like a music magazine, which is the very reason I incorpated a set of three music notes and a bar of muisc from a song too give it the music feeling the magazine needed, and also used pictures to convey this message, using photo's of guitars and singers. All this adds up to an unconventional style of magazine, but one that still looks like a music magazine.

House Style:

 Throught the making of my magazine I tried to maintain the same fonts for things that appear on more than one page, an example being the name of the magazine on the front cover, which is copied across to the contents page, keeping the notes and music bar, but adding "contents" onto the appropriate page, for obvious reasons. This creates a sense of symmetry in the magazine and makes it easier on the eye for the reader, who aren't faceed with reading a title in a hard to read font every other page, but instead reading the same font, with a different title. The font itself is a rather random font that could well be assosciated with the don't-care attitude of pop punk bands by being "scribbled", giving an almost messy look, which I believed was appropriate. I also thought it was important to keep the same colour scheme for every page for the same reason of not confusing the reader with an amalgamation of random colours.

I used a sort of "grid system" with my magazine, especially the contents page, although it's more of a system where the page is set into horizontal thirds, or so I see it. I have my contents as such down the left, as the typical person is known to read from left too right, so this is important.I then fill the space in the middle with an image of the front cover, and a note and picture of the "editor" of the magazine. Then the right hand side of the screen, last seen by the typical reader, is two stories that are in the magazine, leading the viewer to want to read more.

The images I used are meant to emulate photos I have seen before and drwn inspiration from, especially the front cover picture which particularly drew influence from a photo I saw that uses a similar pose. It conveys the carefree attitude of most pop punk bands today and does it quite well. Unfortunately I was not able to get any female influence in regards to photo's, and it would've been interesting to have a photo of a female band member, or even a full female band to go on my magazine,something I'd definitely change if I had chance. I do believe however that it does not make too major an impact on the magazine and believe it still has a pop pnk vibe to it as a whole.

I try to express an almost "excitable" feeling when it comes to writing on the front cover or contents page, using exclamation marks effectively to convey this. I beleive this makes the reader more excited as such too carry on reading the magazine, and this is important as the front cover is the first thing a potential buyer of the magazine will see. I also labelled it as essential, suggesting to the potential buyer that they need to read the magazine, as it is essential if they are interested in the genre it covers.

I used a specific font website for  my main fonts called dafont.com, which is an incredibly affluent user driven website of all types of different fonts, numbering over 10,000 in number. All fonts are created by users and this means there is absolutely no chance that a suitable font can't be found, as there is absolutely something there for everyone, and I found this website incredibly useful.



 Publishing my magazine:


I believe IPC would potentially publish my music magazine, although the colour scheme may well turn out to be too unconventional for such a big brand. However, IPC produce over 80 different media brands, some of which are indeed different too others, so I do beleive they woulld be more willing than others.And it would be ahuge success for a music magazine to be published by IPC, as the brands it already prints reach over two thirds of the UK's women, and almost 50% of men as well, so it would definitely be noticed. Other music brands printed by the company include the popular magazine NME, and also Uncut magazine, which also deals with music. The reason I believe IPC would be nterested

Audience:

Drawing from an early questionaire I created, I found that about 65% of my reader base would be male, with an age range between 17-19. Unfortunately, this questionaire was lost on an old computer, so I was unable to upload and have to instead remember my results. Obviously this is a problem and leads to unreliable data, and is again something I would change if I had time, and would be more careful about. My results did show however that 90% of readers would buy the music magazine purely because they enjoy the genre of pop punk, and believe that whilst unconventional, the colour scheme and house style of the magazine,a s a whole, does it a favour in setting it apart from the rest of magazines that stick to conventions, which is "boring and unimaginative".

 

 

Gathering information and use of technology:

 

Throughout the making of my magazine I have used digital cameras that connect to the pc via leads, computers themselves, programs such as editing software and a large amount of time on the internet, using such sites as search engines, or engine in my case as I only use Google. Font websites (such as Dafont.com previously mentioned) The use of the internet played a large part in forming my magazine, whether it be researching examples of music magazines or drawing influience from sites and magazines and photos and even articles, all helping me to complete my own magazine. Pictures I saw influenced the poses I "arranged" my actors into, and this helped create an authentic sense of pictures, since I am in no way a photographer, so can only learn and try to emulate professionals. Another incredibly crucial, if not essential piece of technology I used was image editing software, in particular Adoe Photoshop CS3 and CS4 (essentially the same). Without this programs multitude of features, a magazine like this would be incredibly hard to create. I did however have to learn how to use Photoshop as I was going along, so I'll be the first to saw that the cutting out of the actor pioctured on the front page is less than perfect. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do as there is no way to undo the save. Hopefully though it still works as the main image of my front cover, and I do believe Photoshop became easier to use, which I used to my advantage when it came to editing my photo's and creating effects. Clearly then the most important piece of technology I used was the computer. There isn't one point in the course where I didn't have to use a computer, be it attaching a USB lead from the camera to the USB ports to upload my photo's, blogging my progress or researching, say, house styles of popular music magazines. There was no problem in this though as I am skilled with computers and actually found it a more enjoyable experience than using the typical pen and paper approach that other lessons seem to always take. This again worked to my advantage, especially when it comes to the aforementioned difficulties with Photoshop, as it meant that I was easily able to advance on the learning curve quickly.

College magazine/Music magazine comparison.

 

Finally we come to the comparison to my first two pages I did on my AS Media course, and this was my "college magazine" which actually just consists of the front cover and contents page of what would be my college magazine. I rushed these two pages as I was at that moment eager to start my music magazine, and I believe this shows quite clearly as there is no sense of order to the pages and no real house style either. I strongly believe taht my music magazine pages far outsrip these pages in terms of technical aspects and content, and this is definitely for the better. The lack of content and any form of structuring makes it appear to not even be a magazine, and is quite embarrassing actually. Hopefully this is in stark contrast too my main coursework Music Magazine Piece.

Two Different Magazines, Same Sort of Features

This is a front cover exploring magazine conventions. I've chosen this specific front cover from the NME magazines because of it's use of the rule of thirds, and I have placed lines over the page to show this.

The kicker and the graphic feature both occupy seperate corners of the bottom half of the front cover, the headline sits on the dividing line between middle and bottom and the anchorage text sits directly below it. Everything seems to have it's own place on the page which makes it accessible for consumers to see what they want, without everything being cramped together. This makes it easier on the consumer to see something they're interested in and more likely to buy the magazine as a result.

Fonts, for use in music magazine.

Here is a selection of the fonts that I chose carefully to create a retro effect, illustrated by the scribbled letters, going back to when magazines were first printed using ink. I chose to use these other some of the newer, more elaborate fonts because of this reason. 

For my photoshoot for my music magazine, I intend to place my models in front of a blue screen that I will later edit out. I have a few specific poses and props that I want to use, including a Gibson Les Paul guitar that will be featured in my double page sprea, a specific pose that the "singer" will be doing for the feature story of my front cover. The pose is based from this photo:

I showed my model this and asked him to emulate it. Here is the photo that I took and used for my feature story on the front cover:

In the original photo, tghe model's facial features are more prominent whereas in mine, I deliberately asked my model to cover his face with his hair, as it fit the article better.

Photoshoot.

Photo shot in front of a blue screen, zoomed in and used for the front cover

shot as the main image, and the blue screen edited out.



Same photoshoot, different "model" as such, this photo just used as

the shot for another story. Blue screen also edited out.

 Same photoshoot, but I ran out of people to use, so had to reuse the

guy in the centre and tie in the photos' stories on the magazine pages. I

acieved this by not taking out the blue screen this time and pretending

it was actually a stage curtain, and the other models were meeting a band member.

If I had more time, I would use different models to make the magazine better.

Better lighting would also have been used, if I had the time, which again would've

aided the magazine pages to become slightly more professional.

 This image was for the double page spread, and it was the same

storyline as such that was the main feature on the front cover page.

I took a photo of him with a guitar because I felt it could lend to the

interview that would go with the photo on the spread, and also keep

a musical theme going throughout the pages.

I also took a picture of the guitar by itself, but chose not to use it for my pages. 



Double page spread first draft.

Music magazine contents page.

For my contents page, I kept the blue writing on a black background or vice versa house style, and also used another star in the background. I used Photoshop's capabilities to create an exact replica of the title and the surrounding fatures, so they are in the exact same precision on this page as they are on the front cover, although I did change the word "magazine" for "contents" for obvious reasons. I would like to have time to edit the top right picture, as it's in front of a blue screen, but as I ran out of time I instead made it out to be a backstage, behind curtain scenario, which I hope works. I had a little empty space underneath contents which was perfect for a picture, but I couldn't think of anything suitable, which is why I saved my front cover as a JPEG. and used that to fill the space, which is something I would change if I had the chance.

Music magazine front cover.

As you can see, this front cover is a complete change to my preliminary task in terms of a proper house style, an image taken with a lot more care and attention to detail, plus a load of information taking up "dead space", which I thought was quite important, especially after looking at other magazines such as NME and Rolling Stone which always look to make full use of any spaces they happen to have. As I mentioned in my previous post, I aimed to keep a solid house style consisting of mainly blue and blacks, and my model's shirt also helped with the house style, conveniently being blue itself. On my preliminary task I used a font that I didn't feel suited my magazine, and it took me a while to find one that I liked but also, in my eyes, worked as a font for my magazine. the problem I did face was empty space below "Tune Up" and above "Magazine", and it took me a while to figure out what I should do, since I believed adding anything else relating to what's in the magazines would start to make it look like a contents page. I then came up with the simple idea of using a selection of music notes to take up the space above "Magazine", and then also thought of using a bar of music from a song I know, and cutting it into a suitable length. Thankfully, this seems to have worked, taking up space that needed to be filled, whilst letting the front cover do it's job of just being a front cover. The outline of a slightly darker star that's behind everything was added late, as I didn't like the idea of just a plain, flat colour for the background, and adding the star gives it a slight contrast, especially with the sharp lines. Finally, I wanted to keep the blue writing instead of just using black font, so i used the slightly opaque black boxes to frame my writing, so as to make it easy to read.

House style.

For my house style, I decided I'd like to use blue as a main colour, as it's actually quite unconventional, or must be since not one magazine I read happened to use it extensively at all. I hope, coupled with a soft black and idfferent tones of blue, that it works for a magazine. For text boxes, I also used a light, slightly opaque shade of black as I thought that using another colour could ruin the effect, and also make it hard to read the text. Hopefully, my ideas worked.

Professional photography analysis.

This picture strikes me as a great shot for a front cover. I like to think that the story that accompanies this picture would be focusing just on him, and maybe a rebellious nature, emphasized by his hand gripping the microphone almost like a fist raised, and him also screaming whilst making direct eye contact.

Medium Close Up.



This photo would be best suited for a contents page, where all the different vinyl’s laid around the woman in the photo could be representing all the different contents the magazine has to offer.

For the same reasons, this photo could also be used as a front cover shot, but I personally don’t think it would be as effective.

High Angle Shot.

This picture seems to be a perfect shot for a front cover, filling whatever space it needs to with just the part of the face you can see, which is interestingly not much, with the large, blacked out glasses and the hair, possibly pointing to the subject of the photo having a sort of rock personality, just from first glance.

Close Up Shot.

 

A picture like this with all the hands reaching towards the stage could be easily stretched out across a double page spread reviewing a music festival, like Leeds festival for example. Putting the hands across the two pages along the bottom of each page would create the effect of the text being supported by all the hands, cleverly relating to “crowd surfing” which is incredibly popular at festivals and gigs.









This shot of Billy Joe was taken during one of the biggest gigs Britain's ever had for one band, and the screen behind him is used so people can see him clearly. In this shot though, it particularly like the camera man is trying to capture the huge presence the singer has, using the rule of thirds to incorporate both Billy Joe and his on screen picture, and not just one or the other.

Medium range shot.



College magazine contents page.

As with my front cover, my contents page also didn't take much effort on my part. But I did learn that even without much effort, it's actually quite easy to place fonts and pictures and wrap words around images using Photoshop, so I do believe these two pieces helped me complete my coursework pieces.

College magazine front cover.

This is the front cover I completed for a preliminary task, and as you can see it's basically a picture with a few words on it, which took little to no effort; not the best approach, I admit. The font I used has permission to be used by it's author, so that wasn't a problem, but I decided to not use the picture or title font for my coursework task (my music magazine).

List of possible contents.

I'm aiming for at least two "sections" of contents on my page, and I'm trying to get content for about 15-20 "pages" of items as I think that's long enough to make it a good magazine but not so long as it would bore the student who would be reading it.

1st section (top list);

Review of Health Week, and interviews with college students who participated.  Pages 3-4.
Interview with Student of the Month. Pages 5-6.
Prior's got Talent exclusive spread. Pages 7-10
Drama's upcoming production of Jane Eyre. Pages 11-12.

So far I'd predict that's half a page worth of contents, depending on the style and size of my font.

The next section (bottom list) could include;

Interview with a student regarding peer mentoring. Page 13.
UCAS news, final deadlines. Pages 14-15.
Results from a survey carried out to reveal if students were happy or not with the music situation in the cafeteria, and also about busses. An interview also with a student affected by the busses. Pages 16-17.
Ending on weekly announcements from any staff, and upcoming Student Union meetings, page 18.

I think this would suffice for now, and I just have to incorporate them into an actual contents page.

Ideas for college magazine.

Prior Pursglove College always has activities happening at some point in the year and even has themes for every week, with various events taking place to promote the particular theme; for instance, 2 weeks ago it was Health Week and the college organised stalls that promoted healthy eating, and hired a "Bucking Banana" for fun. Other events, such as a "Britain's Got Talent" styled talent show will shortly be held, dubbed "Prior's Got Talent". I think that this particular show would be an excellent feature as the main headline on my college magazines' front cover, and I also have the perfect idea for a photo which would go with the story as well. I can imagine that the photo will be taken and uploaded to the blog as my next post, and I'm sure whilst adding a few other lines, that would be my front cover finished. Then moving on to the contents page, I will take a picture of someone, employing the rule of thirds technique and placing them on the right hand side of the photo, so I can use the left hand side for my list of contents. The way the rule of thirds works, the reader will be immediatly drawn to the contents, and upon completing this, that will be my college magazine preliminary task completed.

Just a few snaps.

We were tasked with taking various pictures that used different camera angles and techniques, for instance low angled shots and close ups. Most people in my Media class decided to take the easy route and just pose people in different positions, but I decided to go to my partner's house and take a few pictures of things other than just people. Here are three of the shots I took, which I'll explain individually. This is just an exercise to get me used to taking different types of shots, in preparation for the photographs I will be taking for my music magazine.

This as you can see is a picture of a lit candle, a source of heat. Sitting next to the candle is an ice cube, a source of....well, cold I suppose. Basically, the shot I was going for was one showing juxtaposition, but I wanted to create it myself instead of trying to find it in my surroundings, which I believed would be too easy. The contrast in heat between these two objects just struck me as something that would be fun to capture.

This shot is a close up of fungi growing on Prior Pursglove's grounds. A lot of people were taking pictures of things they percieved to be beautiful, thinking that was all that is important. For instance, a lot of roses were posing for cameras. Now this shot of fungi isn't exactly a pretty red rose, but that's not to say it isn't a great picture that captures so much detail , with so many gouges and shadows and other elements that set it apart from the rest as a close up.

Straight away you can see that this shot uses a low camera angle, giving the effect that you are looking up at the iPod and it's dock in this case. The inspiration to use an iPod came from the idea that human beings are almost entirely dependant on technology; it's everywhere. Why, I'm even using a technological piece of equipment (albeit a rather unimpressive keyboard) to type these words. This leads me to believe that technology holds a certain power, and thus I thought it appropriate to show this by taking this photo.

My questionnaire.

This is the questionnaire that I made and passed to random members of my class to get a better idea of readership. The questions feature elements that help them relate to college students like myself, for example the use of "smiley's" to invoke humour but also to let the people filling out the survey that another student just like them made it. I thought this would help with attaining reliable data.

1. What is your gender?
Male
or
Female

2. How old are you? :3
(Enter answer)

What college year are you in?
First
or
Second

4. Could you describe your personality to me in as few words as possible? I.E outgoing, shy, loud? :)
(Enter answer)

5. Do you support yourself with a job, or do you still live off allowance, for instance EMA?
(Enter answer)

6. Do you like to be in a large group of friends, or prefer the company of a small group? Or does it depend entirely on the situation?
(Enter answer)

7. Do you have any religious beliefs or none at all?
(Enter answer)

8. Do you support any political parties, I.E The Conservatives or Labour etc? Or do you not follow politics?
(Enter answer)

9. Do you plan on going to University after college? If yes, where are you aiming to attend?
(Enter answer)

10. Where do you see yourself in ten years time?
(Enter answer)

11. What genres of music do you listen too? For instance, punk, metal, rap? :3
(Enter answer)

12. Would you be willing telling me your parents/guardian's occupations?
(Enter answer)

13. Do you consider yourself environmentally friendly?
(Enter answer)

14. When shopping do you like to buy well known brands, or are you not fussed at all? ;)
(Enter answer)

15. Do you like to adhere to fashion trends?
Yes
or
No
or
Sometimes

16. Do you like to get involved with college activites, for instance last week's activities put on by college due to it being Health Week?
Yes
or
No
or
Depends what's happening at the time.

Do you enjoy attending PPC? ;D
Yes
or
No
or
Kinda!


The various results I got from this survey I will use to determine the content and presentation of my college magazine preliminary task, and I will also keep the results for future reference when the time comes to start writing content for my music magazine. I will most likely write another survey when I'm doing my main task that's more tailored towards music, but these results will certainly help to get a good readership profile.

Examples of music magazine front covers.

Alternative Press Magazine.
http://www.altpress.com/

Big Cheese Magazine.
http://www.bigcheesemagazine.com/





Kerrang! Magazine.
http://www.kerrang.com/







Alternative Press, Kerrang! and Big Cheese Magazine all serve as magazines for the same variety of genres, including rock, pop punk and metal. A wider variety of genres are covered though, and Kerrang! and AP tend to cover the more rock and pop punk bands, although metal genres are covered, but usually more so in Big Cheese Magazine.

Pictured aboce is an example of a front cover from each of the three magazines, and show two pop punk/rock bands in the form of All Time Low and The Maine on AP and Kerrang!, whereas Big Cheese shows rock band Fall Out Boy, but also covering heavier bands such as Underoth and Dragon Force.

Types of bands my magazine would focus on.



In this picture, the 5 members of Paramore are seen posing on a road, in a black and white picture.

In my opinion black and white is used to show the band in the same light and colours, because

Paramore in particular are stereotyped as a band consisting of the lead singer Hayley Williams,

and 4 of her band mates who don't play as big a role, which is obviously untrue. So this picture has connotations of strong friendship and suggests they're proving the stereotype wrong.







 

 

We The Kings, as shown in this picture in front of a wall and drawings of crowns they appear to have jokingly drawn themselves with annotations, are your typically fun loving, pop punky band, with a lot of songs talking about successful love and fun lives. The fact that they are all smiling and all seem to have had fun drawing on the wall just strengthen the fact they are a fun loving band, and really tells people just what they are like as a band.

 



All Time Low, as seen here in an older photoshoot, are your typically funny, like to mess around type of band. Although this is an older photo, All Time Low have always had great photoshoots, always doing something different, which coincides with the fact they are always having fun with the songs they sing as well. One particular photo that started an internet phenomenon and particularly boosted ATL's popularity was a photo depicting the band in nothing but underwear, eating bananas. Although a lot of people disagreed with the photo shoot,  I personally believe that it was a brilliant way for the band to let people know that they are not afraid to express themselves, be it through voice or media.









Blog Intro.

This is the first post of my AS Media blog, and will be documenting my progress over the course of the year. During this year I will be constantly updating my blog with new posts that will hopefully culminate in my completion of the main task, which is of course to complete a front cover, contents page and a double page spread for a music magazine. But first as a preliminary task I will be creating a front cover and contents page for a college magazine.

I personally listen to an extremely wide range of bands and genres, but artists I find myself particularly listening to include Paramore, Mayday Parade, Bring Me The Horizon, All Time Low, We The Kings, and more along the same lines. Although my music magazine will be aimed to a market of fans of those types of bands, I did consider doing a classical music magazine as I find I enjoy the genre.

Over the course of the year, my focus will be on Kerrang!, Big Cheese magazine and Alternative Press, as they feature the same genres of bands, and I find it would be better to draw influence from both magazines, rather than just one. Both of these magazines focus on the pop punk/rock genre, among other. This gives enables me to look at a variety of different bands.

Kerrang! magazine still holds out well against other competing music magazines like for instance NME Magazine, enjoying annual sales of 421,000, as of july '10, whereas NME only managed 325,000.

Other webzines, magazines and music sites include, Rolling Stone, Q magazine and RockFeedBack webzine. A music sharing site I personally have used for around 3-4 years is Spotify, which is an incredibly large source of music of all genres, and is updated daily. Many bands also still use MySpace as pages for their band, and to put their music out. Myspace has always proven itself to be very reliable when it comes to music.

Links to any bands, magazines, webzines or websites referenced in my intro can be found here:

Bands:
www.alltimelow.com
www.paramore.net
www.maydayparade.com
www.myspace.com/bmth
www.wethekingsmusic.com

Magazines/Webzines:
www.kerrang.com
www.bigcheesemagazine.com
www.altpress.com
www.nme.com
www.rollingstone.com
www.qthemusic.com
www.rockfeedback.com

Websites:
www.spotify.com/uk/
www.myspace.com