Research

I used google image search to search for existing magazine covers, contents pages and double page spreads for ideas and inspiration for my own music magazine.

Double Page Spread LIIAR

Double Page Spread

Language -

Contents Page LIIAR

Contents Page

Language -

Cover Page LIIAR

Cover Page

Language - The photograph is a medium/ long shot so that the whole band is able to fit into the picture. The dark colours of the clothes and dark colours used on the page represent the music genre also. There is a lot of text placed over the page, like the masthead and the sub-stories and what different bands are in the magazine. The use of all this text could draw in the reader by letting them know that there is a lot in the magazine, making them more likely to buy it as they feel they will be getting a lot of information for their money's worth. The text is white, black and orange. All of these colours are quite intense, yet simple colours that relate to the metal genre.

Institution - Metal Hammer magazine is a monthly heavy metal music magazine published in the UK by Future publishing. Metal Hammer is published largely, being sold in many different countries, and is the top selling magazine in Germany.

Ideology  - The colours used on the front cover are simple yet bold and are quite in your face, especially the shade of orange used. These in your face colous relate to the in your face style of music that is discussed in the magazine; metal music. This tells you that the target audience of this metal genre could be in your face, but the image of the band used makes them look like they aren''t in your face, just that they're there, and that the metal audience is just the same, and friendly as well as having an in your face music taste.

Audience - The target audience for Metal Hammer magazine are people who enjoy the metal genre of music and want to know about their favourite bands and news related to them, and about upcoming gigs and bands. It is aimed at a middle class person as it is a monthly magazine and costs under five pounds, which people will be able to easily afford monthly.

Representation - The band on the front are represented as being bold as all of them make eye contact with the camera. The camera is at a low angle to make the band look more dominant and in your face, which is represented in the music that the band makes and that is included in the magazine. The band and other artists that have articles included in the magazine are going to be represented positively, unless the article is a review in which the band or artist could be represented negatively by the critic/ critics, but generally the bands and artists included in the magazine will be represented positively which is done so to appeal to the reader so that the particular band could gain fans and have a wider fan base, which could pay off to the magazine in later issues if they decide to do a magazine based upon that band when they become bigger.

Music Magazine Genre

The genre that I have chosen to do for my magazine is metal. The key features of this genre are dark colours, big, in-your-face text and usually one huge front page cover of a band or artist. Metal Hammer, Terrorizer and Revolver are three examples of magazines that are currently in the business of publishing metal genre based magazines. Some of the bands I will feature in my Music magazine are Parkway Drive, Suicide Silence and Slayer.

Here are examples of some of these band's music, which reflect my chosen genre.

Parkway Drive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HafGJQXGFuY

Suicide Silence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=312Sb-2PovA&ob=av3n

Slayer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvuO2EvCTAE

Music Magazine Brief

We need to produce a front cover, contents page and two page spread for a music magazine. We need to decide on the genre and the target audience that it will address.

Conventions Of A Music Magazine

Masthead - The magazine's title which is usually in the top left hand corner.

Images - Size: CU to med CU. Ranges from one main image to X amount featuring one main image and smaller images. Helps make the page look more interesting. It can add understanding of a story and/ or entice someone to read the magazine.

Left third - Graphics that take up the left third of the screen.

Cover lines - A caption on a magazine cover.

Sell lines - To exchange or deliver for money or its equivalent.

Barcode - A series of vertical bars of varying widths, in which each of the digits zero through nine are represented by a different pattern of bars.

Dateline - The latest time or date by which something should be completed.

Splash - The whole front cover.

Credit - A line acknowledging the source or origin of a news dispatch, published article or other piece of work and the author of an article.

Kicker - Something that kicks you into the magazine.

Teller - The subheading that informs the reader what the article is about.

Skyline - The line above the masthead.

Flash - Advertising something free to draw in buyers.

Graphology - The study of handwriting, especially when employed as a means of analyzing character.

Anchorage - The fixing of the meaning.

Colour Scheme - The colours used within the magazine.

Vocabulary - Language used to attract buyers.

Screamers - Catchy headlines.

Evaluation

My front cover of the magazine looks like one  you may just find in a magazine, as I took ideas from existing magazine covers that I found on the internet. The masthead has been placed traditionally at the top, larger in size than the rest of the text with the sub-headings of different stories scattered in convenient positions around the main image of the student. The conventions used on my cover are all of that used in a traditional magazine that would be sold in a shop.

Because of this project I have expanded my knowledge of how to use Photoshop, dicovered blogger, Prezi and GoAnimate and how to use all of these.

The college website may use my media product if it were going to be made to inform college students of everything going on at the college. This knowledge would allow them to utilize their free time and study periods in advance so that they were better organised, which is the advantage of the internet using my product.

The audience for my media product are students within the selected college. (16 - 19 year olds) I attracted my audience by using shots within the chosen college so that people would be able to relate and know where the shot was. The character used in the shot has a friendly look on his face and is holding the college handbook, which lets people know that it is definately taken at their college and that this student is enjoying it.

My media product doesn't necessarily stereotype or represent any social group. The scenery and student used don't pinpoint any sort of social group. The student looking calm and happy could represent that the college is good and helpful and that he feels very welcome there.

Online Magazine Promotion

If I were to market the magazine online, I'd have a link from the college site and the college moodle site that led to a page where you could read whatever issue of the magazine you wanted. This link would be made clearly visible on the homepage. The online version of my magazine would only contain the information of the articles, none of the free items that you'd get if you actually bought the magazine from college. This could persuade the audience to buy the magazine from the college to get he free items, which could be very beneficial for them, like the revision posters advertised in my own magazine cover, which if you only read the magazine online, you wouldn't get. The screamer on the front cover about the revision posters says "revision posters to bump up your essay grades" which would be attractive to the college students as everyone would want to do as best as they could, and these revision posters advertised are promising to help do this, which you can only do from buying the magazine.

The advantages of having the online page however are for students that don't have time within their college day to pick up a paper can just as easily go home log onto the college site and read it up then. It is also a good way to keep up to date with things going on at the college at home, so that you can see everything going on, the times at which they're on and organise yourself around them whilst making your other plans at home.

Final Products

Drafts

Planning/ development

I chose to use this as the contents page as it is already in landscape and is a good medium close-up of the student, which also shows a picturesque view of the college foyer.

This picture was one of the best taken that I chose because it has a good view of the student at medium close-up and shows him in front of the college using his college handbook, which shows that he is prepared and utilizes his time. I didn't use this picture in my final edit due to the fact he wasn't looking at the camera at the time.

This is the image I chose to use as the final edit. It's good because it shows the student at medium close-up so you can see his expression of calm happiness, to show that the college is a friendly place and that he enjoys b eing here. The college handbook shows that he is prepared and he is stood in front of the college, which is another picturesque camera shot.

Prezi Presentation

College Advert Annotations on Prezi

Three existing college magazine covers

1.       Colour scheme is bright and allows the text to be easily seen on the background. The red, bold text of the masthead stands out so you notice the magazine title first.

2.       Masthead is placed at the top and is big, bold and red, bringing your attention to the name of the magazine before anything else.

3.        Medium close-up allows you to see the facial expression of the character, which is obviously happy.

4.       The flash “tattoos” would appeal to the college audience because most teenagers find tattoos stereotypically attractive, so this might catch the audience’s eye and persuade them to buy the magazine to get the free tattoos, even if they are temporary.

5.       Cover line are captions under sub-headings that  tell the reader briefly what a sub-heading is about, like on this for example under the sub-heading “Tattoos” it explains what type of tattoos are included with the magazine.

6.       Anchorage reels audiences in, explaining about a story or sub-heading in an attractive manner.

7.       Teller is a sub-heading which informs the audience what the article is about.

8.       Splash is everything on the magazine; the image of the woman is centralised so that you focus on her first, then read the text around the edge, telling you what the articles are about. The text is simple yet attractive and stands out well on the bright background and the masthead stands out the most and is one of the first things you see because of how it has been made big, bold and red.

9.       Barcode is required to scan so that it can be sold at the correct price.

10.   The left third is the bottom left third of magazine cover.

11.   Screamers are catchy headlines, and the headline “Gay and in a fraternity” instantly sparks an interest.

Target Audience

My target audience will be college students that my magazine is aimed at, therefore Wyke college students. It will be aimed at students at demographic E level. The magazine will be priced at £1.50 so that all students will be easily able to afford it to see what's going on around the college. The magazine will be published two-weekly so there isn't much of a gap inbetween the news of what's going on at college but without having too much in each magazine to the extent where students wouldn't buy it because of the vast amount of information in it. This is why a more frequent issue would be more effective at the target audience of college students. (16 - 19 year olds)

College Magazine Cover Brief

Using DTP and an image manipulation programme, produce the front page of a new school/ college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally I must produce mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.

My product needs to contain a large dominant masthead which is easily noticed. The main image of the character must be in medium close-up, the face must be clearly seen and have them making eye contact with the camera. There must be a bright colour scheme and have three main colours.
-Thumbnail images that illustrate other articles
-Anchorage
- Price and barcode
- Teasing contents along the bottom
- Competitions and free gifts
- Main article / feature advertised must relate to the the main image

We could pretend that we are creating a front cover for an existing publisher. My target audience will be college students, so people aged between 16 and 19. My target audience will be presented positively, so that it will draw in the audience so that they think the magazine will benefit them and their college experience. I'll do this by having sub-headings which could benefit them, such as how to utilize study periods and free time.

The college to feature on my magazine cover will be Wyke college, as it has many photogenic view points, like the entrances to the different buildings, or the areas between these buildings. For my main image however I plan to use an entrance to one of the buildings.

College Advert Annotations

1. Colour scheme is bright and allows the text to be easily seen on the background. The red, bold text of the masthead stands out so you notice the magazine title first.

2.       Masthead is placed at the top and is big, bold and red, bringing your attention to the name of the magazine before anything else.

3.        Medium close-up allows you to see the facial expression of the character, which is ibviously happy.

4.       The flash “tattoos” would appeal to the college audience because most teenagers find tattoos stereotypically attractive, so this might catch the audience’s eye and persuade them to buy the magazine to get the free tattoos, even if they are temporary.

5.       Cover line are captions under sub-headings that  tell the reader briefly what a sub-heading is about, like on this for example under the sub-heading “Tattoos” it explains what type of tattoos are included with the magazine.

6.       Anchorage reels audiences in, explaining about a story or sub-heading in an attractive manner.

7.       Teller is a sub-heading which informs the audience what the article is about.

8.       Splash is everything on the magazine; the image of the woman is centralised so that you focus on her first, then read the text around the edge, telling you what the articles are about. The text is simple yet attractive and stands out well on the bright background and the masthead stands out the most and is one of the first things you see because of how it has been made big, bold and red.

9.       Barcode is required to scan so that it can be sold at the correct price.

10.   The left third is the bottom left third of magazine cover.

11.   Screamers are catchy headlines, and the headline “Gay and in a fraternity” instantly sparks an interest.

Conventions Of A Magazine Cover

Masthead - The magazine's title which is usually in the top left hand corner.

Images - Size: CU to med CU. Ranges from one main image to X amount featuring one main image and smaller images. Helps make the page look more interesting. It can add understanding of a story and/ or entice someone to read the magazine.

Left third - Graphics that take up the left third of the screen.

Cover lines - A caption on a magazine cover.

Sell lines - To exchange or deliver for money or its equivalent.

Barcode - A series of vertical bars of varying widths, in which each of the digits zero through nine are represented by a different pattern of bars.

Dateline - The latest time or date by which something should be completed.

Splash - The whole front cover.

Credit - A line acknowledging the source or origin of a news dispatch, published article or other piece of work and the author of an article.

Kicker - Something that kicks you into the magazine.

Teller - The subheading that informs the reader what the article is about.

Skyline - The line above the masthead.

Flash - Advertising something free to draw in buyers.

Graphology - The study of handwriting, especially when employed as a means of analyzing character.

Anchorage - The fixing of the meaning.

Colour Scheme - The colours used within the magazine.

Vocabulary - Language used to attract buyers.

Screamers - Catchy headlines.

The Brief

Preliminary exercise using DTP and an image manipulation programme. I will produce the front page of a new school college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium/ close up shot.