Analysis of other magazine/s Front Covers, Contents pages and Double Page Feature Spread

This is the front cover of the music magazine Kerrang! It follows the genres of rock/emo/screamo/metal, etc.
Kerrang! have included the important details of a barcode, price, issue number, date, etc all in the bottom right and corner so that it is still easily noticeable, yet out of the way.
They have used a medium shot of the whole band You Me At Six as the main image, also dressing them all in black and white which could possibly represent Kerrang!'s colour scheme of mainly black and white like the majority of rock categorised music magazines (we almost automatically what genres will be included by this colour scheme) - judging by their logo/masthead. This colour scheme attracts their typical stereotypes as it tends to be what colours they all may wear a lot. The masthead is also at the top of the page as usual, with a skyline above it mentioning more famous bands to lure the audience in. Despite the band being dressed in black (which can be interpreted as a dangerous or mysterious but well known colour for artists to wear) they are all in eye contact with the camera, even smiling or pulling funny faces. This represents their humourous and normal side, despite being incredibly famous since being discovered. Similar to my magazine, they have the lead singer nearer the front and the rest of the band behind, clearly stating who is the 'front-man'. They have used the bands own font for their band name, like the majority of bands do so that it is recognisable, and have included a main coverline launching their career. Kerrang! have done this is large lettering and in yellow so that it is doesn't blend in too much, yet you can still see everything else that is important.
Once again, like my magazine there isn't very much on the left third and this can be considered a disadvantage due to the lack of information and amount of space used. Small images have still been included, images of different bands so that it is clear who will be featured in the magazine and intrigue their target audience more. Also, a footer bar was included on the front cover of this music magazine. It states a type of list of more bands that will be included in the magazine, this is good because it's sneak peaks of what the target audience wants, thus leading them on to buy it more.

This is the contents page of the music magazine NME. It follows the genres of rock/alternative/indie, etc.
Like every other magazine Q has included its masthead/logo, as it is easily recognisable, in it's contents page at the top where it is clearly read. The colour scheme for this magazine is black/white/red so the masthead has used these colours as well as using a clear capitalized font. It has also included a 'this week' section like the majority of music magazines to do, with the date (in the same capitalized font but slimmer and a smaller font size) positioned underneathe. Q have used a different element to what other magazines have used and that is an index in the left third of their contents page. This is a good and easy way to find and include what other bands and features are in this magazine, and that they have stuck to their colour scheme as well as making the font a reasonable size. This also helps as it isn't too crowded but there is still vital information that you want to read. Q has included a reasonable amount of images to represent what genre and what bands they are all about, and have positioned them in the centre of the page including a caption and more information in depth.
They have included a features and regulars sections, like the majority of magazines do and it is all on the same side. It is very clear and they have made their titles much larger than the rest of the font so it is clear what is included.

This is the double page feature spread of the music magazine Rock Sound. It follows the genres of rock/emo/alternative, etc.
I'm particularly fond of this double page feature spread as it's different to the majority of features magazines design with the whole page being an image as well as the editing. The editing is clever as Hayley Williams (lead singer) is the only member in bright colours whereas the other band members are in black and white. Rock Sound doesn't have a particular colour scheme like most magazines do, just the same font for their masthead each issue, so their double page spread has used Paramore's logo (in a vertical large font) and selective colours for the font so they won't blend in with the main image today. In some ways the colour scheme chosen for this double page spread are similar to Paramore's logo colours. This image gives a striking effect and enhances the popularity of Hayley Williams' career, indicating she is the front-woman. In some ways, this could be considered as a disadvantage to the rest of the band members though. The written feature itself isn't particularly long like most features but the picture seems to be the main importance and draws in the audience. The font used is quite small and can be hard to read but they've spaced it well onto the page and don't cover any of the band members' facial features as they are important to see.
Unfortunately for this mahgazine the page numbers are very hard to read, although they make space for every other important aspects and can be traced.

Fonts and Logo Design

I have made several plans and alterations throughout the development and designing of my magazine, especially with the font usage and logo design. In the end I decided my masthead would also be my logo, rather than a logo and masthead separately on every page. My aim was to use an attractive font that would suit my target audience, it's practical, simple and desirable. 

As I wanted a consistency of the same, or at least similar fonts throughout my magazine, I had a long think about what I wanted and chose 'Stone Sans ITC TT' in italic whereas the majority of my Music magazine is in some sort of Stone Sans ITC TT font, just not necessarily italic. For example, Stone Sans ITC TT bold is used for my written feature in my double page feature spread, and everything else in my contents and front cover (apart from the band's name as that is their own logo). I found this an appropriate font throughout as it is very clear to read, still looked appealing to my audience and isn't too pretentious. It also all fit very nicely on each page and I had no troubles with size, blurriness and whatever else can occur. Also, I stayed within my colour scheme of red/black/white/magenta and chose to have it filled in red with a white outline. My original plan was for it to be filled in magenta with a white outline but after seeing the finishing touches to my front cover, it started to blend in too much so I altered it. Now it stands out a lot more, still the same font criteria and still within the colour scheme. Despite doing this, it doesn't overrule the rest of the elements in my front cover, contents page and double page spread feature. The worst possible scenario was that it would have blended in too much with everything or it stuck out like a sore thumb, fortunately it didn't do either with my alterations.

What kind of Media Institution might distribute my magazine and why?

I believe that three Media Institutions would most likely publish and distribute my magazine, they are:

• Bauer Media
• IPC Media
• Future Publishing
  

Bauer Media - It started in 1875, and reaches over nineteen million UK adults across multiple media channels. Bauer Media owns over eighty influential media brands that spans a wide range of interests; some of their biggest selling publications include Q, Heat, Closer, FHM and Kerrang! They produce medias such as charity events, Radio programmes, digital businesses and their own TV channels. This company would be perfect to distribute my magazine as they already publish one of the best selling rock magazines in the country, already having plenty of experience in this department, therefore they would advertise it well so it would have a greater chance of selling, and they know exactly what would be needed in my magazine.Their Radio stations and TV channels would also be perfect to promote my Music magazine, due to it being a new launch.

IPC Media - This company started in 1968, produced over 85 iconic media brands such as magazines like, Nuts, Marie Claire, NME, Horse and Hound, What's on TV, TV Times, Chat, Look, In Style, Now, and Country Life. Also, they use a new phone technology which would help with the publicity aspect of distribution. Once again they produce another best selling music magazine, are extremely experienced, they tend to know the best tricks/ways to race ahead of other magazines and would know exactly what would be needed in my magazine. Their advertising offers access to the wide range of print and online brands, therefore having the advantage to spread the word of a new magazine launch and a greater chance of selling.

Future Publishing - They started out in 1985 with one published magazine and have gradually built up their reputation and are now one of the leading publishers in the UK, as well as being well known throughout the world. It now publishes more than 150 magazines in fields such as video games, music, cycling, technology, photography, film and automotive. Once again, they are another talented and experienced company in the music magazine business, having published Classic Rock and Guitar World. They would know exactly what I would need in my magazine and what to do to make it a success. In terms of advertising, they own all these other magazines as well as holding events every year, so they would also be able to publicly promote. 

Overall I feel that Bauer Media would benefit and be the best choice for my magazine to be published and distributed by. Despite IPC being more appealing, NME would be too much of a similarity to my magazine so there would be no competition for my product. Not only this, the audience would most probably buy one and not the other due to being published by same company, and would generally suit and fit in among those of Bauer Media with it's music magazine experience (as well as my magazine being a new launch and different music genres) and wide range of advertising.

What have I learnt about technologies through the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the process of constructing this product I have learned a great deal about technologies and they have vastly helped and improved my Music magazine, especially how to use Photoshop and InDesign correctly. I also regularly blogged about what I've done during the process of creating my product to help for future reference.

Technologies used to create my product:

• Digital Camera
• Internet Explorer/Adobe Firefox
• Adobe Photoshop
• InDesign
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Powerpoint
  

My main technologies used were Photoshop and InDesign to create my product; Photoshop for editing my images and InDesign to start the template of my Music magazine. Having already worked with Photoshop, I had a rough idea how to work the software and establish which tools to use in order to produce my magazine the way in which I wanted and needed to. I now also understand the important of using tools in the media, how to use them more often and produce any media text in a professional way. It has helped me to add 'brushes and filter' to both my Preliminary task and my Music magazine once it was finished on InDesign. I used basic tools to position and alter my product such as the cut tool, text tool, selection tool,

Tools that I have used in Photoshop when editing photographs:

• Brightness
• Contrast
• Colour balance
• Glowing Edges
• Smoothness
• Curves
• Cut Out

It appears in today's society that an image has to look it's best, whether the whole of it be Photoshopped and almost changing the entire person's features or only using it slightly, but the majority of magazines of modern day society tend to use a lot of it. Despite how the model may look already, manipulation of the photograph must attract the audience and be valid enough for them. It also has to be altered enough to draw in their target audience. Also, I have learnt that a colour scheme is extremely important,  it can alter the entire magazine towards a different target audience or even knocking a magazine off the market. For example, a brightly coloured and child-like product for young adults+ would not appeal to this audience. On the other hand, if it were a black, white and red colour scheme (this tends to be a popular choice) makes the magazine look much more professional and inferior.

InDesign is a complex program at first and I found it quite challenging as I had never encountered it before. We eventually grasped the basics and it became a lot easier to use, and understood it more. It helped to produce the layout of my Music magazine by including the fonts, inserting text boxes for my coverlines and pull quotes, etc. InDesign allowed me to position, alter and rearrange pretty much everything on my magazine to make it look like those of a professional standard.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From the Preliminary task, I have learnt more and more how to use manually several professional technologies like Photoshop and InDesign to create media products. I have also learnt that the audience is who I mainly need to think about when designing my product, and how my products effect them psychologically. It all depends on the audiences view and the genre that I have chosen for my magazine. My magazine needs to appeal to my target audience the most, as well as keeping an open mind for different audiences no matter who, what or where because if it was to get published then it would mean a greater market and a much more successful magazine. I have learnt several key facts when designing/creating a magazine; they cannot be too vibrant and wild nor too simplistic. For example, if a design is too colourful and crowded, it may not appeal to the audience and they may miss important elements; whereas a design with just the masthead, important information and a main image is too dull to attract an audience. Despite this, I did not carry out as much research as I did for the main task. For my main task I researched and analysed magazines such as Kerrang!, NME and Rock Sound to scrutinize their use of conventions for their specified genre which is rock, alternative and indie music, as well as making sure my own product wasn't too different to others on the market; I figured that something too extravagant or too dull most probably wouldn't sell.

I was aiming to achieve a higher grade for my final magazine than I did in the Preliminary task. I produced drafts of layouts and titles for the front page, contents and double page feature spread so that I had a plan to look at when it came down to creating them on InDesign - I experimented with several ideas but found that my original idea was much more successful and a better choice to use. I found that experimenting and recreating from my plan useful but sticking with my original draft benefit my design a lot more. I had the knowledge of how my finals were going to look, even in my head after looking at my simple, planned out drafts.

I continued to research into magazines until I evaluated other magazines and their use of fonts, images & image sizes, colour scheme, layout, etc. This research was extremely helpful as I was able to compare my magazine as well as refer to other rock/alternative/indie magazines for ideas on images, colour scheme, layout, etc. Evaluating all these magazines helped me notice the differences between my Preliminary magazine and my Music magazine; I hadn't edited any of the images used in my Preliminary task whereas all the images for my Music magazine were i.e. editing the lightness, contrast, colour balance, cut out and other artistic options.

I feel that I have made a huge improvement from the Preliminary task particularly because I felt that I had enjoyed it more because it focused on something I love, have learnt more aspects of Photoshop and InDesign as well as in class. I also believe that I could have improved several other aspects of my Music magazine,  such as placing more in the left third, and my images being cropped, altered and made slightly bigger to attract my audience to my magazine more. However, I'm very pleased with the outcome and the product was a overall success when relating to my chosen genres and target audience.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

There are five models in my main image; 4 males and 1 female, all of which are teenagers. They're all dressed very differently because they are all very different characters, all listen to different types of music but my intention is that they all share the love of rock, alternative & indie music. The 4 males are standing in a row whereas the female (the lead singer) is standing just in front of them all. This portrays that she is 'the voice' of the group, the smallest in the band but is also inferior as she is dominantly the only female and the position increases her importance. Despite this, they are all standing quite close which also represents them having a close bond as normal friends, not just work colleagues. It's not awkward between them, maybe slightly awkward to having their photograph taken though due to being newbies. They all have a slight smile to their facial expressions, this indicates their innocence and being new to the music industry, as well as being normal teenagers who aren't used to posing for the cameras much yet. The majority of males have their hands in their pockets, this therefore holds connotations of either shadiness, mysteriousness or even that they are typical 'cool' teenage boys who follow the trends and actions of the rest of their ages.

On my contents page I have included band names of well-known artists (e.g. Florence & the Machine, White Lies, Paramore, etc) to represent the popularity of my magazine and made clear that it isn't about unsigned bands, just general bands in the media every day. This also instantly allows the audience to assume what genres of music my magazine is about without having to go into depth with it, yet still persuading them to read it after knowing what bands it will include. I have multiple small images on my contents page to show the audience that there are more photographs included of the new band, as well as a whole feature, not just a small entry.

There is an image, on my double page feature spread, of 'Jas Heartly' as a young female which represents her as being confident, inferior and dominant by how she stands upright, hands on hips and looks up into the corner. I included a caption of her name and the band she is, despite it being obvious, to indicate that she is the lead singer and voice of the band, which people tend to associate the band as an individual person (mainly the lead singers) nowadays. I also included a pull quote that she made during the written feature and positioned it just above the image of her like other magazines tend to do so, this also makes it obvious who said it. The pull quote used also represents her character as a normal, funny teenager that enjoys embarrassing a family member, and this connotes how comfortable she is with being interviewed and can act herself in front of anyone. Despite this, she can talk to the interviewer on a serious note, expressing her feelings and emotions which also represents her femininity. This also represents that herself, her band members and 'Lyric' magazine are serious about working in/with the music industry. I also included two other images of the whole band, both with 'Jas Heartly' in the middle of each one. Despite doing so, the fact the band members are all happy and smiling indicates that they are comfortable with Jas being centre of attention, yet still come as a band and not just one individual. In one photograph they are all sitting casually, exactly how your average stereotyped teenager would do so, and the same goes for the other photograph with them all standing against a wall with the same smiles on their faces. This represents the band as the average bunch of teenagers who are new to the music industry but haven't changed their characteristics since becoming famous like other bands do.

Unlike my other drafts, this is a bit messier as I added more detail and needed to include a lot more, especially images and pull quotes. I've quickly written in the pull quotes I plan to use so that I wouldn't forget and the same reason for writing what font I have planned to use in my written features. Although it is quite messy were I have noted where my feature will be written, I made sure I remembered to have it in columns like the majority of magazines. I also noted down that I needed to include captions for each image, similar to what most magazines do too. I then made sure I have a box for where my introduction would go, otherwise I would have also filled up that space without realising.

This is my draft planning for my contents page.
Once again, I made sure I included the masthead, date & issue number, a main images, small images, etc. I also included my regulars, news and features sections like most magazines tend to have in their contents pages. I have also written down what I plan to have in my regulars so that I can plan more as I develop it. I planned to use a pull quote from my written feature, also plan to use the very same one on my double page spread feature. The band's name and band member will also be stated underneath it on my contents page. 

This is the draft I had drawn out in class as I began to plan my front cover. I had to make sure I included all the important elements as follows; barcode, date, price, issue number masthead, selling line, coverlines, main image, header bar, etc. I chose to have my main image in the centre of my page so that the audience would be drawn towards my magazine by seeing the artist/s first. I included a 'win' header footer which would also want the audience to read more, especially if there are items they can win. My masthead stayed the same as I'd planned beforehand with the date, issue number and price above so that it was obviously there, yet out of the way for everything else. I made sure I included my main cover line, small images, coverlines, etc into it too.

This is my draft planning that helped me to choose the title of my music magazine. As I began to plan it out, one of the most simple words had drawn me towards it, most probably because of it's meaning. I instantly thought of 'Lyric' for my masthead; it's simple and everybody knows what lyrics are, they are the story behind the song, well thought of, etc. I've also decided that it will be large and in an italic font, this will hopefully flow well with the rest of my front cover. My magazine will focus of alternative/rock and indie music, all of which also tend to have the most meaningful lyrics in my opinion.