Planning

Consistency

I need to make my magazine consistent throughout. This could use an array of ideas, however I have decided on two things. A consistent colour scheme of blue, black and white throughout all my pages and a blue bar at the bottom of each page with the page number in the bottom right corner. Having these things throughout all my pages means that the magazine pages actually look like they fir together and all could be a part of one magazine. This is important as I am designing a cover, content and double page spread all for just one magazine.

I also have a consistent theme of rock, as that is my genre, giving my titles grungy fonts and editing the picture to look dark and, once again, grungy.  

The photo-shoots

I am doing a few photo-shoots for my magazine. This means I can get a variety of shots and angles of a variety of different people. This makes the magazine more interesting and have a larger content which is a desirable trait in any information source.

Here I did some practise shots to look at different types of shots and angles.

Firstly, angles.

In the left shot, my model, George, is being shown at a high angle. This means the camera is looking down on him. These types of shots tend to make the subject look small and vulnerable and is often used in horror to show fear and danger. In the right shot, George is being shown at a low angle. This angle makes the subject look larger and bigger and connoted power. This can also show danger but suggests the subject is the danger.

Secondly, shot types.

The top left shot is an extreme close up shot. This shot lets the reader see the whole emotion in the subjects face, but, in music magazine terms, it can be helpful as fans like the main subject of any image to be who they fan over, so making shots close up let them admire their face from close. The top right is a medium long shot. These shots are often used as main images on front covers of magazines as they show the whole person, including their clothes. This can be effective if the artist's style and clothing choices are imperative to who they are. The bottom left is a extreme long shot, it shows the subjects clothing as well as their environment. These shots are not commonly used in music magazines. The bottom right is a medium shot. This shows what the subject is wearing on their torso, and also still shows their face in detail. These are often used in film to show conversations and are not often used in music magazines, however are still used.

Thirdly, framing.

All of the above photos show incorrect framing. The top left has the subjects head being cut off, and the bottom left shows too much head room. The top right has the subject looking were the image is cut short, and the bottom right has the subject looking dead on the camera but being too much to the right.

These show correct framing. If the subject of the photo is giving direct mode of address, the subject should be centre frame, with their head not cut off but not a great deal of head room. If the subject is looking off in a direction, there should be room in the image where they are looking.

Contents page



This part about the model I will be using in some of my smaller images, advertised as posters. Here are the ideas for looks I have gotten for her from pre existing musicians. 

Icon for Hire are not a well known band and have a unique look, as my artist is not well known I will consider their look as well.  They are very punk, with a constant colour theme of red. Having a constant colour theme can make your artist more noticeable and recognisable.

Paramore has an interesting look and I will taking this into consideration when doing my photo-shoot. They are a very famous band. They mix looks a lot, swapping from punk type looks, to pop looks, as well as to skater type looks. Although they also have a generally constant theme of Hayley Williams having red or orange hear.



I will be using Taylor Momsen's look as inspiration for my photo shoot. She is well known but not famous. She has an incredibly edgy look, with short dresses, corsets and suspenders. My photo-shoot will be edgy and maybe even slightly inappropriate, however artists like these do exist and I have not chosen this look for the hell of it. I feel my target5 audience would listen to and e a fan of artists like this. Dark.

The model I am using. 

A selection of photos from my practise photo-shoot. I chose the mise-en-scene for this photo-shoot very carefully. I was trying to re-create Taylor Momsen's look so I chose a tight corset look clubbing dress, suspenders with garter belt and some red heels. The main clothing does conform to Taylor Momsen's look, but I added the red heels to bring a vibrant feel and highlight the rebellion in the artist. This will make my target readers, having the psychographics of experiencers and makers, relate to the rebellion of the magazine and this particular artist.

Editing

I used my smaller images for my contents page.

This is my first edit for my contents page. I used the cut out studio to make the main image on this page fit onto the page, the lack of control in a straight line between the picture and the rest of the page highlights the rebellion of the magazine and will make the rebellious teenagers I targeted my magazine at want to buy it more - it doesn't conform into a neat line. I have already integrated the text with my image by over lapping it over the image. I placed it on a part of the image so that it would not cover any key parts of the image and so the text would still be able to be read. My shot it framed at a low angle so that we as the readers are looking up to the artist. This is because she is an icon which my target readers will probably look up to and aspire to be (although hopefully not the clothes!). I used black as my background colour for 2 reasons, one being the the main colours of my magazine are red, blue, white and black. Secondly the black is used because my target audiences are more grungier at times, some of them enjoying gothic things. The black is used so that they will be more likely to buy the magazine as they will like the dark look.

This is my second edit of my contents page. I added the articles which would be within my magazine as this is a key element of a contents page. And the point of them. I haven't chosen any of my fonts yet, so...

I explored these fonts, looking for a grungy look, that would attract a teenage audience. 

I chose this font in the end for my sub titles, because I would be using this for multiple sub titles, I wanted to make the font quite simple, almost looking like a normal typing font found in Word, but not completely as it is still a title. So I used this font as it looking like a normal font, just shattered a little, like little pieces are coming off found the edges. This gives it a quirky rebellious look but wont take away from my title's look. 

Here are all the fonts I tested for using for my title of "contents." I was looking for a more grungy look, going off the normal fonts of Word. 

 Here is my chosen font. I chose this one as it is grungy and fits well with the image I already have. It connotes rebellion, obviously a key theme to the design of my magazine. The messy writing almost looks like graffiti which is associated with young age and rebellion (you're going to read that word too much, sorry!). I believe all these factors will attract my teenage target audience.

Once I had my fonts, I made the writing smaller and added a border for my main image. Magazines normally have smaller, rather than larger, writing. If it is too large it can look child-like and unprofessional. The border breaks the image and adds some more rebellion.

Then I adjusted the sub-title "cover stories" so it was the same length as the other sub-titles, which makes it look more consistent. I also changed the page numbers so they actually fit and would work in reality.

Double page spread

Firstly I looked at possible type icons for the model for my double page spread. I wanted to get a look that fitted the genre of my magazine. 

MCR as a possible style icon for my double page spread model. 

Green day as a possible style icon for my double page spread model. 

P!ATD are my chosen style icon for my double page spread. 

 And finally, my chosen model for my double page spread. I am mainly using him for convenience, but he also has the right hair cut and natural paleness for the look of P!atd 

 

I designed the quote and title of the article first, basing the colour scheme for that article off these. For the quote I chose a powerful and short one, also one that is ambiguous, doesn't tell the reader anything about what the artist couldn't do anymore. This makes the reader immediately drawn in a curious as to what the quote means and will make them read on to the actual article. As for the title, I wanted it to be catching so I used different fonts. I used large font for the artist's name to make it stand out, so that the artist's fans can easily identify his name. I used smaller writing for the unimportant parts of the title, and made sure "READ THE TRUTH HERE" was bold and capitalised to attract people into wanting to know what"the truth" is. 

My first edit of that page together, before I had got any image for the background. 

My chosen image, I liked the fairy lights on the Christmas tree in the background being blurred, gave the article a warm homely feeling. As you can see I framed my model so that he looks in space and not the edge of the photo, and he is wearing a blue hat, which helps tie the page in with the rest of the magazine and its colour scheme. 

 A bit grainy? 

No problem! Grain was easily removed. Neat! I used an online software.

Now I just needed to add the already formatted title and quote onto the image. I chose them to be on opposite corners to even out the article. If I put them both close that might make the article look clumsy or busy. 

Then I added the first half of the article, all using pixlr. I formatted it so that the questions were red and the answers smaller and white. The writing being white did mean I had to edit out some of the extra bright blurred lights as they made the article difficult to read in parts. But the colour differences in questions and answers meant that it was easy for the reader to find a specific question they wanted to know the answer to. 

I then added in the page numbers, and added the second half to the article on pixlr (pixlr being what I used to edit most of the double page spread) which looked like... 

This! 

My finale piece. Unless I edit the wiring so that it is smaller? 

Front cover 

My front cover was difficult, I edited and re started my editing process about 3 times due to the image's poor quality. However I did another photo-shoot and managed to get some high quality images to use. 

My original images were too bad quality, so here is my last minute model and photoshoot. 

My chosen image. 

The masthead of my magazine. 

I chose this font because is is broken, like how my target audience may feel, and rebellious like how they may wish and aim to be. It doesn't stick to normality and people of the psych dynamics of explorers often want to see new and unique things. 

Fitting the title onto the image. 

 I edited this together on Serif, however it lacked in fonts so I used pixlr to do this...

...I made a background with titles of article, using a variety of fonts. 

My editing process on both editing softwares. 

However when I pieced the two together I soon realised that the articles I had made for the background were too large and didn't look like a real magazine, so I re edited the background. 

So I re edited it with smaller cover stories. 

And created a explosion to show free posters by combining 2 stars. This is commonely used on Kerrang, and the Kerrang look is the kind of look Ii was going for with my magazine. 

I edited together a quick little image to add onto my smaller image of a small article in the magazine, I chose the flower looking down because it shows emotions and depth to the artist, A Cold Haunting is used to highlight this, and the font follows the same rebellious ideology as I have applied to the rest of the magazine, also adding to the consistency.

I wanted to use the same fonts and colours as the actual article, but changed them around a little. I had to re edit the title so it fit with the smaller images used on the front cover.

I made a collage of different images from my photo-shoot to vary the shots used in my magazine and make it more interesting. 

I also created the barcode for my magazine as this is a audiences expectation from a magazine, so they can actually buy it. 

And finally edited it all together. 

Although I did have an issue, the blue is much darker, the same as the contents and double, but I had to loose quality as I couldn't export the image without loosing essential colour. 

However after a long try I managed to screen shot it without loosing too much quality.