For three months i have been working on a project and have documented every step by using a blog and updating regularly this blog can be found under www.Adammiles123media.word.press.com. My project was to make a magazine cover a contents page and and double page spread based on music there were many music genres to choose from i decided i wanted to base my music magazine on urban music which covers hip hop, grime music, RnB, Dance hall, Drum and base and also dance music. I felt that i should choose this type of genre because it is a type of music that i like and i know artists and what the magazine should be designed like. I then had to choose my focus group it was not very hard to choose what audience it was both male and female because of course that means there is a much larger fan base and also it allows gives me more to right about and more articles to write about. I then had to choose what age groups my magazine was aimed at i decided that it was to be 16-21 i chose this age groups because at the age of sixteen teenagers are starting to find themselves and find out what music they really enjoy listening to and at the age of twenty one people become more interested in music and start to want to know the updates for general conversation when they go out socializing. I was given the choice to either make a Film or a Magazine. I decided that i was going to make a magazine because i have experience in using the program photo shop. I also found that making a film was a hard and long process that required alot of time and more than one person to make a good film, were as i am more of a independent person who likes to work on projects on my own that way i do not have to rely on other people to do the work and if i make mistakes i am the only one to blame for them nobody else. I also realised that i would enjoy working on the project much more if i was taking pictures rather than filming actors and always chasing them up is to much of a long process.
The first thing i did was decide my title for my magazine This was very important because i new that the name had to be catchy and clever i made a brain storm to find out some of the names i could use these are the ones bellow that i thought the magazine could be. I made a brainstorm so that i could find things that relate to the genre of the magazine
- The Drop
- MIX
- In Tune
- Tune In
- Twisted
- Update
- Bass
- Wave
- Madness
I asked some people who were in my audience range what they thought of my ideas “The Drop” was the most liked out of them all , the title of the magazine was now named “The Drop”.
I came up with the name “The Drop” in my brain storm a drop is when the beat is going to drop so that the song can start or change it. a DJ may often use this to hype up the crowd. I asked some other students what they thought of the name and they agreed it was appropriate and also that it works well for a music magazine.
After i had drawn some initial ideas i sent out a questionnaire to get some feed back and some positive criticism there is a copy of my questionnaire bellow.it was quick and straight to the point and helped me to try and develop my ideas so that my final piece could be more eyes catching to the audience therefor making it a better magazine. my questionnaire also allowed me to take a look at the contrast of the colours between my background and my text on the front cover as well as the contents page. I then took the results of the questionnaire and began to build a magazine from all of the positive comments that i was given of the initial drawings i then put them together and began to develop my final piece.
Questionnaire
1. What features from my mock sketches do you think i should keep ?
Front cover :
Contents :
Double page spread :
2. what do you like and dislike about the layout ?
Front cover :
Contents :
Double page spread :
3. Do you think i should have very bright colours on my magazine or have the colours dull to give it a urban effect?
Front cover :
Contents :
Double page spread :
4.Do you think i should have one dominating picture on the page or three smaller ones which will make up the page?
Front cover :
Contents :
Double page spread :
I did some photo research which i used to decide how my pages were going to look and how i would have people posing on the and what kind of props i was going to need for it. I went onto google images and put in a some artist names and began to see how there photos were taken and how effective they was that is how i got the idea of the headphones and the elevator the pictures of the artist can be found on my blog under photo research. The photo research helped me a lot to decide what i wanted to do the pictures that i researched were not the covers of magazines but they were very interesting in the whole scene and settings of them some were action shots and some were done on purpose to give the audience a taste of the background. It is important to give a artist background on the magazine because it gives the audience a insight into the artist and they read magazines to get information and gossip about the artists.
For my double page spread research i could not find a picture that i could take away from the page so i have left a hyperlink of a website were there is a example of a music double page spread. http://bossip.files.wordpress.com/barackvibecover.JPG The double page spread was one of the hardest parts to think of it took a lot of looking into and finally i came up with a idea how to design it .
out of all the music genres that come under the title Urban music i have decided that doing all of them will give me a much wider audience and will therefor give me a wider range of things to talk about and artist and subjects to cover. i estimated that it would take three to four weeks to complete it was not a realistic estimation because my estimate was based on my mock presentation that did not have a double page spread involved. I began my presentation by researching four magazines that cover most of the music genres that come under the title urban. When i was researching front pages of magazines i researched Urban-ology, which game me the structure and layout of my page and Mix mag which gave me ideas of things like puff’s to put onto the page, It also gave me a idea to put a female onto the front page to get more of a interest from the male audience and the jewelry to to attract a female audience. The Number plate on the Mast Head of the magazine symbolizes Great Britain and the colours of the Text on the of the headline and the strap line symbolise the English Flag which is red and white i have chose this colour scheme because it shows that the music that is in this magazine is all English based for the red part of the text i had to darken the outline so that it would stand out more. When i planned my magazine i did some initial ideas which were hand drawn the one with the picture of the headphone is the picture i planned to use for my double page spread i took four photo’s which can be found bellow. I chose the third picture for my double page spread because i thought it gave u a better angle of the headphones. For the scene of the picture it is simply a wooden table i thought that the wood grains would look good and go well with the camera effect sepia because they give it a darker line going across the picture.
When i took this picture i changed the effect on the camera to sepia. Then when i had the pictures i had to decide which one i wanted for my double page i then used the picture and put it onto the page the only way i edited it was the size and then put the text over the top of the picture. I wanted to use the sepia effect because everything will go together in terms of colour contrast. I decided that because it is a music magazine what better thing to put in the magazine other than a listening instrument which is used on a day to day basis it is simple but effective because once again it draws attention away from the page itself and makes the reader focus on the the Text.
my idea of my front page was supposed to be a artist standing in a elevator i thought that this would give the magazine a urban feel but then i decided that it would make the page look to unprofessional and dull and maybe a bit to grimey for the front page of the magazine i also didn’t have a picture of a well known artist so it would not attact a audience.
I found a picture on the Internet which i am using for my front page but i edited it by taking the picture away from its original background and putting it onto my own i decided to do this because i wanted my page to look professional and i new that my pictures would not look professional and not fit the page right. For my contents page i decided that i would not use a picture for my page and that i would just use a coloured background from my research i discovered that a lot magazines did not have a background and that they only had a colour behind them mostly white this is because the magazine is not trying to make a focus on the page itself but the text that is on it to inform the audience what is inside the magazine.
I added a picture of the artist dizzee rascal to my contents page as i took it at a concert so that is a original image i then decided from that picture on the page that i would base my double page spread on dizzee rascal i made a coll um on the right page that has text the text is a short few questions from a reader i got the idea from the magazine that comes out of the newspaper the guardian which was a piece of my research that i did not document but came in very handy and helped me to finish off my double page spread.
For my icon which can be found bellow i got a picture of a watch the step health and safety sign i then used the tool magic wand tool on the program photo shop to take the man and the stairs away from the sign itself. I think that the icon its smart and funny and also that it goes well with the name of the magazine which is most important. The good thing about the icon is that i can change the size and the colour to fit my page. I think in a sense it also gives the magazine a sense of humor and character which also attracts the audience in a way that they can find gossip in the magazine, i tried to do this because then the magazine becomes a part of reality and almost a friend.
I am happy with my final piece i believe that it came out much better than i expected and it looks more professional than i would have thought. my front page looks eye catching and i am very happy with it i feel that the page is very creative even the small things like my icon of the man falling down the stairs which symbolises the drop. When i was making my front page i looked at other magazines and saw that not all of the had straplines so i decided that there was no need to add one onto it i feel that it would make the place to cluttered. I left some empty space on the page because it would look like there was too much going on, on the page if i filled it up with needless captions and puff’s. The artists that are on the front page are on my front page are all UK based i did this so that i would not contradict myself and my magazine and add American influenced Artist onto my magazine when it is supposed to be UK Based. I think that my contents page is just right and i would not change it because i have had good feedback from other students as well as My teachers. My contents page maybe could have been better but i found it hard to decide weather there was to much going on, on the page for a contents but then i decided i wanted to leave it because each contents page is different from other magazines. I believe i could have used a little bit more creativity on my contents page such as a better background colour or just in general things like the text could have been a bit more interesting and could have stood out a little bit more. If i was to do my contents page again i think i would make it look more professional by having a blank white background with a few pictures that would not dominate the page, i would put some puffs on it and the change my text to italic black so it was a white background with a black text it is very simple yet so effective and then it concentrates the audience’s attention to the text not to the contents page itself.
For my Double page spread i think it came out very well i had previously researched double page spreaded music magazines and found that they were mostly just advertising some sort of item. If i was to do my double page spread again then i think i would do exactly the same, i think the idea for the text was good and does not take up to much of the page. And from other research that i had done i found that the double pages were mostly dominated by a picture anyway so the picture of the headphones with two pictures of the interviewer and the person being interviewed.
For my front page i put in a price and a bar code so you can see it is a magazine, for the bar code i made it on a website called Dafront.com this enables me to customize my own bar code but i did not want to put anything clever like a word in it on there coz i felt that it would ruin it. I purposely used a picture of a female model because it attracts more attention than a male and although there is not much to be seen of the females body because of the shadow its still will attract attention because of the stereotypical view of how women’s body should look. I also felt i had to put a female in because there is no female anywhere else on the magazine other than the front page.
For my contents page i added a picture of dizzee rascal performing at a concert this is a original image. I felt that because it was a action shot there was no need to to edit it in any way.
Also on my contents page i used a pictures of money which is also a original image in the bottom right corner i put this on there because it is promoting a competition and of course money is big attraction and will instantly draw a readers attention to it. although there is not much money there the fact still remains that everybody likes free money.
For my double page i added two pictures one of which is a original image which can be found bellow for the effect on the pictured were it looks like the picture has been torn i used the eraser tool and changed the brush on it the lowered the opacity of it down to 60 so it faded out.
Overall i think my Project has come out as a success my research was very helpful and helped me to design my pages and also how to lay them out. I think if i was to do it again that i would manage my time better as i thought the time went very quickly and that i was rushing towards the end even though i had a fair bit of time. The mis-ene-scene of the whole magazine came out well and i think it gave the magazine a urban feel but not to much in the sense were it didn’t look professional. My planning was not as good as it could have been i could have got the pictures for my double page spread done a lot faster than i did that would have enabled me to edit it more and maybe make it a bit better. If i had the chance i would have changed the text on the front page but before i had the chance to i flattened the page with the text on it which meant i was unable to edit the text. i Believe that i met my focus groups requirements and could not do much more to expand on that.
