Although, I have some stock photographs which I may possibly use for this magazine. Here are some of them:
I intend to take more photographs which would relate more to my magazine's genre.
Edit: Some more photographs which I took:
Friday, 21 January 2011
Photograph Taking
A couple of days ago I was intending to take photographs with my collegues. It didn't turn out so well because they didn't seem quite focused. What I now intend to do is to take photographs in the weekend, which is a non-school-day, with my friends, to be a lot more sure that photos will be taken. To achieve this, I am planning to use facebook or any other social websites as an event organizer to organize the time and date of a photoshoot.
Although, I have some stock photographs which I may possibly use for this magazine. Here are some of them:
I intend to take more photographs which would relate more to my magazine's genre.
Edit: Some more photographs which I took:
Although, I have some stock photographs which I may possibly use for this magazine. Here are some of them:
I intend to take more photographs which would relate more to my magazine's genre.
Edit: Some more photographs which I took:
Friday, 7 January 2011
Music Magazine Production
The very first step I had in mind as soon as the production time started was to do research on different brand types of music magazines by different brands such as NME, KERRANG, etc., work out the techniques they've used and identify the codes and conventions of this variety of magazines.
The types of information which I will be looking for in my research are: print glossaries and meanings, codes and conventions for magazines, magazine front covers, contents pages, and double page spreads.
By researching for magazines, codes and conventions, genre, and target audience, I should stumble upon the world famous internet. I could search for past students' blogs to learn their ideas about magazines and take influence from their views to my own when breaking down a magazine.
From my research of front covers of music magazines, I noticed that most of them kept their title's appearance on every issue (if not all of them). Sometimes, their title only changes colour, which depends on the magazine's colour scheme. Also, the title's appearance is always kept simple and legible. Mojo's title is just "MOJO" in capitals, sans serif, with an addietional "The Music Magazine" placed on part of "MOJO"; Q magazine's title only has a white capital "Q" on a red rectangle; etc. these techniques make the magazine logo "title" adaptive to multiple themes to blend in, and to keep their corporate identity recognizable. Music magazines also usually places their title on the top of the page. This makes the magazine cover's composition balanced.
All music magazine front covers which I've researched so far contain sell lines. The effect which this creates is that it entices the reader, of the very catchy story (which is possibly added with puns, celebrity names, punch lines, etc.), to buy the magazine. Although, the sell lines are rarely just put randomly on the page - they mostly follow a colour scheme and pattern which depends on the magazine's overall design. This makes the magazine's composition more eye-catching, and, as sell lines are sell lines, they also make them as legible as possibly by choosing certain fonts.
Music magazines usually vary their main photograph: close-up shots usually lock eye contact towards the viewer to gain their attention; long shots and mid-shots alike usually show off the main character's body and'or pose to make the viewer idolize or mesmorieze at the person's body; group photographs are usually of band members photographed doing actions; although, whatever the magazine front cover's main photo is, they are mostly removed off their background and replaced with a colour which suits the magazine's colour scheme. The people which music magazines usually feature as front cover photos are of well-known celebrities - this makes the veiwer enticed to buy the magazine if they idolize the certain person in the front cover.
Some magazine front covers, I've noticed, place celebrity names on them to entice the reader to purchase the magazine if they see that the magazine contains a topic about a favourite celebrity of theirs. Also, they seem to use this technique as a "Plan B" to widen their target audience just in case the person doesn't like the person on the front cover.
From researching contents pages, I noticed that they mostly use the same techniques. Most techniques which music magazines use (which may be the codes and conventions) are: they add photographs in of the magazine's best stories, and some are numbered by their page number, sometimes, all photos are numbered; headlines are usually numbered and a different colour from the sub headline; the headlines and sub headlines are usually composed in columns but sometimes, when a photo would overlap on the text, the designer would usually go around the photo.
I intend my magazine's target audience to be: of any ethnicity; hip-hop, rock, pop, RnB, punk, and grime type of music people; middle-ages; male.
I will attempt to attract my target audience by adding photographs of people in each music genre throughout the magazine, especially the front cover. The main photograph should depend on the photographs which I will be taking when working with some friends. The effect which this should achieve is that the reader would idolize the photos to make the audience buy the magazine, enjoy the magazine, and buy the next issue.
My magazine's colour scheme will depend on my main photograph; if my main photograph is colourful, I plan to make the text colours of the sell lines colourful; if my main photograph limits in colour (somewhat like black, white, and red), I intend to compose my front cover's colour scheme to be dark.
A simple looking logo would be the best choice for my magazine to avoid getting in the magazine's composition. I intend the logo to be behind the main character to make the magazine not seem desperate of brand attention and to prioritize the main person in the photograph.
Sell lines which will attract people interested in each music genre I plan as target audience should be added. I intend these sell lines to be planned and designed in a way that the stories are explosive: I could change the colours, size, font type, etc. of different lines for different kinds of effects.
The types of information which I will be looking for in my research are: print glossaries and meanings, codes and conventions for magazines, magazine front covers, contents pages, and double page spreads.
By researching for magazines, codes and conventions, genre, and target audience, I should stumble upon the world famous internet. I could search for past students' blogs to learn their ideas about magazines and take influence from their views to my own when breaking down a magazine.
From my research of front covers of music magazines, I noticed that most of them kept their title's appearance on every issue (if not all of them). Sometimes, their title only changes colour, which depends on the magazine's colour scheme. Also, the title's appearance is always kept simple and legible. Mojo's title is just "MOJO" in capitals, sans serif, with an addietional "The Music Magazine" placed on part of "MOJO"; Q magazine's title only has a white capital "Q" on a red rectangle; etc. these techniques make the magazine logo "title" adaptive to multiple themes to blend in, and to keep their corporate identity recognizable. Music magazines also usually places their title on the top of the page. This makes the magazine cover's composition balanced.
All music magazine front covers which I've researched so far contain sell lines. The effect which this creates is that it entices the reader, of the very catchy story (which is possibly added with puns, celebrity names, punch lines, etc.), to buy the magazine. Although, the sell lines are rarely just put randomly on the page - they mostly follow a colour scheme and pattern which depends on the magazine's overall design. This makes the magazine's composition more eye-catching, and, as sell lines are sell lines, they also make them as legible as possibly by choosing certain fonts.
Music magazines usually vary their main photograph: close-up shots usually lock eye contact towards the viewer to gain their attention; long shots and mid-shots alike usually show off the main character's body and'or pose to make the viewer idolize or mesmorieze at the person's body; group photographs are usually of band members photographed doing actions; although, whatever the magazine front cover's main photo is, they are mostly removed off their background and replaced with a colour which suits the magazine's colour scheme. The people which music magazines usually feature as front cover photos are of well-known celebrities - this makes the veiwer enticed to buy the magazine if they idolize the certain person in the front cover.
Some magazine front covers, I've noticed, place celebrity names on them to entice the reader to purchase the magazine if they see that the magazine contains a topic about a favourite celebrity of theirs. Also, they seem to use this technique as a "Plan B" to widen their target audience just in case the person doesn't like the person on the front cover.
From researching contents pages, I noticed that they mostly use the same techniques. Most techniques which music magazines use (which may be the codes and conventions) are: they add photographs in of the magazine's best stories, and some are numbered by their page number, sometimes, all photos are numbered; headlines are usually numbered and a different colour from the sub headline; the headlines and sub headlines are usually composed in columns but sometimes, when a photo would overlap on the text, the designer would usually go around the photo.
I intend my magazine's target audience to be: of any ethnicity; hip-hop, rock, pop, RnB, punk, and grime type of music people; middle-ages; male.
I will attempt to attract my target audience by adding photographs of people in each music genre throughout the magazine, especially the front cover. The main photograph should depend on the photographs which I will be taking when working with some friends. The effect which this should achieve is that the reader would idolize the photos to make the audience buy the magazine, enjoy the magazine, and buy the next issue.
My magazine's colour scheme will depend on my main photograph; if my main photograph is colourful, I plan to make the text colours of the sell lines colourful; if my main photograph limits in colour (somewhat like black, white, and red), I intend to compose my front cover's colour scheme to be dark.
A simple looking logo would be the best choice for my magazine to avoid getting in the magazine's composition. I intend the logo to be behind the main character to make the magazine not seem desperate of brand attention and to prioritize the main person in the photograph.
Sell lines which will attract people interested in each music genre I plan as target audience should be added. I intend these sell lines to be planned and designed in a way that the stories are explosive: I could change the colours, size, font type, etc. of different lines for different kinds of effects.
Monday, 13 December 2010
Feedback From My Presentation
After designing my magazine front cover and contents page, I had to present this to the class to gain feedback. The way we did this was as a media student presented his/her magazine, the other students sat down to write comments about the magazine. I've currently got three sheets of feedback from four students. Here they are:
Sheet #1:
STRENGTHS:
"He followed a lot of the codes and conventions of a school magazine"
WEAKNESSES:
"Text needs to pop out more"
"The colours he contrasted didn't work completely"
Sheet #2:
STRENGTHS:
"Evidence of research and how it informed the planning/design of the product"
"Evidence of planning and how it informed the design of the product and production process"
"A front page of a school magazine with a mid-shot central image"
"A contents page appropriate design and content of front page"
"Explanation and analysis of the process undertaken, learning and final product"
"Lots of detail in his presentation along with a complete front cover and contents page"
WEAKNESSES:
N/A
Sheet #3:
STRENGTHS:
"Evidence of research and how it informed the planning/design of the product"
"Evidence of planning and how it informed the design of the product and production process"
"A front page of a school magazine with a mid-shot central image"
"Graphics and text relative to product, following generic codes and conventions"
"A contents page appropriate design and content of front page"
"He showed that he looked at the MOJO magazine in detail and used it for a lot of his planning"
WEAKNESSES:
"He needs to make his font stand out more and maybe use different colours"
I'm quite flattered with the feedback which I received from my fellow collegues since they mostly contained visuals on my strengths, not weakness. Although, I should think maturely and treat feedback as an opportunity to improve, therefore, I should focus on my weaknesses and plan on how I could improve or even vanish them completely.
On the feedback which I've received, the only weakness that I noticed the the class was injecting was that my colour scheme and text wasn't very effective. Even when my media tutor agreed with my colour scheme (in which she claims that black and red are the traditional colour codings for music magazines) but not the text (the headline was good but not the other headings), what I tend to do next time to discard this weakness of mine is to change my magazine's colour scheme. If I was given another chance to change my magazine, I would, and this would be easy for me because as I said in my magazine's annotation, I designed my magazine's logo to be very simple but very flexible in colour scheme changes. If I were to swap my magazine's colour coding, I would pick colours which highly contrast to each other, focusing mainly on my text to make it stand out and legible.
So anyway, I will be editing this post some time later on whenever I get my tutor's feedback because she just copied it first before she gives the paper to me. So that's it for now until the update.
Sheet #1:
STRENGTHS:
"He followed a lot of the codes and conventions of a school magazine"
WEAKNESSES:
"Text needs to pop out more"
"The colours he contrasted didn't work completely"
Sheet #2:
STRENGTHS:
"Evidence of research and how it informed the planning/design of the product"
"Evidence of planning and how it informed the design of the product and production process"
"A front page of a school magazine with a mid-shot central image"
"A contents page appropriate design and content of front page"
"Explanation and analysis of the process undertaken, learning and final product"
"Lots of detail in his presentation along with a complete front cover and contents page"
WEAKNESSES:
N/A
Sheet #3:
STRENGTHS:
"Evidence of research and how it informed the planning/design of the product"
"Evidence of planning and how it informed the design of the product and production process"
"A front page of a school magazine with a mid-shot central image"
"Graphics and text relative to product, following generic codes and conventions"
"A contents page appropriate design and content of front page"
"He showed that he looked at the MOJO magazine in detail and used it for a lot of his planning"
WEAKNESSES:
"He needs to make his font stand out more and maybe use different colours"
I'm quite flattered with the feedback which I received from my fellow collegues since they mostly contained visuals on my strengths, not weakness. Although, I should think maturely and treat feedback as an opportunity to improve, therefore, I should focus on my weaknesses and plan on how I could improve or even vanish them completely.
On the feedback which I've received, the only weakness that I noticed the the class was injecting was that my colour scheme and text wasn't very effective. Even when my media tutor agreed with my colour scheme (in which she claims that black and red are the traditional colour codings for music magazines) but not the text (the headline was good but not the other headings), what I tend to do next time to discard this weakness of mine is to change my magazine's colour scheme. If I was given another chance to change my magazine, I would, and this would be easy for me because as I said in my magazine's annotation, I designed my magazine's logo to be very simple but very flexible in colour scheme changes. If I were to swap my magazine's colour coding, I would pick colours which highly contrast to each other, focusing mainly on my text to make it stand out and legible.
So anyway, I will be editing this post some time later on whenever I get my tutor's feedback because she just copied it first before she gives the paper to me. So that's it for now until the update.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Magazine Front Cover and Contents Page OUT NOW!
This post is to inform you that after all that waiting I've finally finished my School Music Magazine front cover and contents page! The images are below so you can just skip this if you're too excited and can't wait to look at the magazine. Although if you want to know more about the magazine, read on.
FRONT COVER
The text is made as clear as possible. The headline, "MAESTRO MEREDITH", is given alliteration, a high authority word, "Maestro", and a larger font to emphasize Mr. Meredith's power; the lines under this has two parts with texts of different style and size to inject tension onto the reader "How I survive my... Music Students". Since my target audience are Kelsey Park students, I thought of giving away the deep secrets of a person who the students highly respected, therefore, enticing them to "read this person's mind" but not throughout (yet), just partially, to make want to buy the magazine. All of the other sell lines are titled, with a different style, font, and size for the title and text below it to make the magazine cover look more entertaining to pull in viewers.
To attract my customer's attention into purchasing my magazine, I had to think of my target audience's interests and their budget. What I did to achieve this is to present not only the school's best music stories in text, but also to add pictures about them to make the stories seem believable. I'm a loyal believer of the quote "An image tells a thousand words" you see. A fact that I know every Kelsey student would share with each other (including me) is a simple one - we're cheap. What I did to get over this problem is a psychological technique - I made the price £1.99 instead of £2.00 - this makes a person think it's a lot cheaper even if it's just really a penny difference. Also, with psychology on my side, I placed the ear piece "FREE CD!" on the top left with a very wacky text, drop shadow and exclamation mark to emphasize the opportunity of a free objects which music lovers would love. I also designed my own CD album cover and placed it here to show which CD they would get.
To make the magazine an authentic school magazine, I added the Kelsey Park Sports College logo. My main target audience, the Kelsey Park students, should recognize the logo and immediately respond excitedly because they recognise the logo and are part of it. For the merchant's convenience, I also added a barcode to speed up the selling process using EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale).
The magazine's main picture is an outward gaze mid-shot of Mr. Meredith to invite individual contact with a hint of challenge to make the viewer feel competent and want to show that he will prevail. The main story "MAESTRO MEREDITH" is positioned alone on the left side of the magazine to highlight that this is the headline and that it relates to the magazine's main picture. The logo is placed behind Mr. Meredith's photo to make the viewer feel like a natural part of an establishment - it makes them feel welcomed and familiar because the magazine doesn't seem like it is showing off, instead, it shares trustful friendship with the viewer by being modest. The KPSC logo is added at the bottom of the magazine's front cover to avoid distracting the magazine' design e.g. by disrupting the colour scheme. The barcode and school logo are placed beside each other deliberately to partly advertise the school itself subcontiously, if ever the magazine was distributed outside the school.
My magazine's mode of address is made suitable for my target audience, 11 to 19 year olds, by adding slang into it e.g. "Melodi what you tellin' me?", and "ups and downs" to make the magazine seem like a friend to the reader, not just something to read.
In my front cover, I've also applied the gratification theory to base my magazine to the traditional, and successful, magazines today. The gratification theory suggests that four specific techniques could enhance the audience's interest in the media object, these are: entertainment, information/education, personal identification, and social communication. I put this theory into use by: entertaining the reader by making them seem like they are "listening" to the magazine as it communicates with the famous rapper "Melodi what you tellin me?" this dialogue is also made slang to maximize the entertainment even more; informing/educating the reader by making them aware of a band and a music club; personally identifying the reader by recreating a conversation with the reader using the most effective direct speech word, "you"; social communicating with the reader by adding a rhetorical question "are you up for it?". The theory also suggests that after an initial impression is given to the audience, they ask for more - that's why I didn't completely give away the whole story, to urge the audience into purchasing the magazine to find out more about these interesting stories.
CONTENTS PAGE
As a contents page, it should give away part of the gratification theory, the information, but not all of it to intensify the reader's lust of the promised story until they reach the page of the story itself - think of it like not having to eat for five years - this makes the reader treat the story more special, therefore, treating the magazine even more special (that's also why I didn't add the page numbers in the front cover).
The main picture on top of the page is of the story "gadget vs gadget", I added this because it seems to have the most potential of its image being graphically enhanced to "wow" the reader instead of a plain photo of guitar - this is an attempt to make the audience idolize the magazine and want to subscribe to its future editions. The bright colour of the image is also deliberate to balance the magazine's appearance to forebode that there aren't only dark pages throughout the magazine. All of the photos added int he page are of Kelsey Park Sports College students weilding musical instruments to emphasize the magazine's rich contents. These pictures also avoids the page from having white space as it is supposed to be a page of contents.
I added red dotted lines to increase the page's appeal to the audience. The effect of the dotted lines is that it seems to appeal to people aged 11-19, as people of this age usually refuse to the plain styles that less younger people want (no offense!).
Here is my PowerPoint Presentation in which I presented to the AS Media class:
Beat magazine presentation - Presentation Transcript (If ever you can't read some of them)
1.BEAT Music Magazine Front Cover
AND
BEAT Magazine Contents Page
2.RESEARCH FOR MUSIC MAGAZINES
3.The Magazine Name – I got my idea from
Here’s where I get music covers from
4.The Magazine That Caught My Eye
5.FREE CD!
Pictures in rectangles
Mid shot picture of headline
Photo in a circle
CD Cover shown
6.The Front Cover
My front cover, instead of relating to Kelsey Park Sports College's black and gold format, is a different style to the traditional school colour scheme. This, I think, is the right decision because according to the Kelsey Park students that I've interviewed (aged 11-19, three students for each age group), 20 out of 27 suggested that the school colour scheme gets too common and that they felt like a new and unique style would stand out more and they would prefer this to traditional.
The title is named as "BEAT" to refer to music, for the magazine's authenticity, since the magazine is a music magazine anyway. I chose the title "BEAT" because it is a highly recognized word and most people would relate it to music. "The Music Magazine" is also added on "BEAT" at a slant position to make the effect of a smooth, relaxing flow and as an additional signifier to signify that the media print is a music magazine.
The logo of my magazine is simple but flexible.
One advantage of my logo is that since it's so simple, whenever the magazine needs a change of colour scheme, I could change the logo's colour without disrupting the corporate identity much and the customers would still recognize it.
7.The text is made as clear as possible. The headline, "MAESTRO MEREDITH", is given alliteration, a high authority word, "Maestro", and a larger font to emphasize Mr. Meredith's power; the lines under this has two parts with texts of different style and size to inject tension onto the reader "How I survive my... Music Students". Since my target audience are Kelsey Park students, I thought of giving away the deep secrets of a person who the students highly respected, therefore, enticing them to "read this person's mind" but not throughout (yet), just partially, to make want to buy the magazine. All of the other sell lines are titled, with a different style, font, and size for the title and text below it to make the magazine cover look more entertaining to pull in viewers.
8.A fact that I know every Kelsey student would share with each other (including me) is a simple one - we're cheap. What I did to get over this problem is a psychological technique - I made the price £1.99 instead of £2.00 - this makes a person think it's a lot cheaper even if it's just really a penny difference. Also, with psychology on my side, I placed the ear piece "FREE CD!" on the top left with a very wacky text, drop shadow and exclamation mark to emphasize the opportunity of a free objects which music lovers would love. I also designed my own CD album cover and placed it here to show which CD they would get.To make the magazine an authentic school magazine, I added the Kelsey Park Sports College logo. My main target audience, the Kelsey Park students, should recognize the logo and immediately respond excitedly because they recognise the logo and are part of it. For the merchant's convenience, I also added a barcode to speed up the selling process using EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale).
To attract my customer's attention into purchasing my magazine, I had to think of my target audience's interests and their budget. What I did to achieve this is to present not only the school's best music stories in text, but also to add pictures about them to make the stories seem believable. I'm a loyal believer of the quote "An image tells a thousand words" you see.
9.The magazine's main picture is an outward gaze mid-shot of Mr. Meredith to invite individual contact with a hint of challenge to make the viewer feel competent and want to show that he will prevail. The main story "MAESTRO MEREDITH" is positioned alone on the left side of the magazine to highlight that this is the headline and that it relates to the magazine's main picture. The logo is placed behind Mr. Meredith's photo to make the viewer feel like a natural part of an establishment - it makes them feel welcomed and familiar because the magazine doesn't seem like it is showing off, instead, it shares trustful friendship with the viewer by being modest. The KPSC logo is added at the bottom of the magazine's front cover to avoid distracting the magazine's; design e.g. by disrupting the colour scheme. The barcode and school logo are placed beside each other deliberately to partly advertise the school itself subcontiously, if ever the magazine was distributed outside the school.
10.I put this theory into use by: entertaining the reader by making them seem like they are "listening" to the magazine as it communicates with the famous rapper "Melodi what you tellin’ me?" this dialogue is also made slang to maximize the entertainment even more; informing/educating the reader by making them aware of a band and a music club; personally identifying the reader by recreating a conversation with the reader using the most effective direct speech word, "you"; social communicating with the reader by adding a rhetorical question "are you up for it?". The theory also suggests that after an initial impression is given to the audience, they ask for more - that's why I didn't completely give away the whole story, to urge the audience into purchasing the magazine to find out more about these interesting stories.
My magazine's mode of address is made suitable for my target audience, 11 to 19 year olds, by adding slang into it e.g. "Melodi what you tellin' me?", and "ups and downs" to make the magazine seem like a friend to the reader, not just something to read.In my front cover, I've also applied the gratification theory to base my magazine to the traditional, and successful, magazines today. The gratification theory suggests that four specific techniques could enhance the audience's interest in the media object, these are: entertainment, information/education, personal identification, and social communication.
11.The Contents Page
As a contents page, it should give away part of the gratification theory, the information, but not all of it to intensify the reader's lust of the promised story until they reach the page of the story itself - think of it like not having to eat for five years - this makes the reader treat the story more special, therefore, treating the magazine even more special (that's also why I didn't add the page numbers in the front cover).
12.The main picture on top of the page is of the story "gadget vs gadget", I added this because it seems to have the most potential of its image being graphically enhanced to "wow" the reader instead of a plain photo of guitar - this is an attempt to make the audience idolize the magazine and want to subscribe to its future editions. The bright colour of the image is also deliberate to balance the magazine's appearance to forebode that there aren't only dark pages throughout the magazine. All of the photos added in the page are of Kelsey Park Sports College students wielding musical instruments to emphasize the magazine's rich contents. These pictures also avoids the page from having white space as it is supposed to be a page of contents.
13.I added red dotted lines to increase the page's appeal to the audience. The effect of the dotted lines is that it seems to appeal to people aged 11-19, as people of this age usually refuse to the plain styles that less younger people want (no offense!).
14.Take A Look Fully
15.CONCLUSION
AFTER MAKING THE MAGAZINE
>I’ve gained a lot of inspiration from the MOJO magazines including their style
>I’m more mature on paying attention to detail
>I’m more aware of the graphical software that designers use to make products
>My taste for media has intensified
FRONT COVER
As from my past posts about the draft summary of my magazine (what I should've included in my magazine, how my magazine should look like, etc.), my magazine seems to have achieved quite a lot of these. The reason for a slight change of appearance is the feedback I recieved from Kelsey Park students, my collegues, and my Media tutor, Ms. Norville. Since Kelsey Park students was my target audience, I made the choice to actually listen to their feedback and apply relevant changes to my magazine according to the customer's choice.
My front cover, instead of relating to Kelsey Park Sports College's black and gold format, is a different style to the traditional school colour scheme. This, I think, is the right decision because according to the Kelsey Park students that I've interviewed (aged 11-19, three students for each age group), 20 out of 27 suggested that the school colour scheme gets too common and that they felt like a new and unique style would stand out more and they would prefer this to traditional.
The logo of my magazine is simple but flexible. Prior to this, I researched on and designed sophisticated types of logos. After a while, I noticed that the more complicated the logo is, the less it becomes legible. Ugly disadvantages that this had was that the logo made the other parts of the magazine less appealing and they had limited colour scheme for future editions. Therefore, I kept mine as simple as possible. One advantage of my logo is that since it's so simple, whenever the magazine needs a change of colour scheme, I could change the logo's colour without disrupting the corporate identity much and the customers would still recognize it. The title is named as "BEAT" to refer to music, for the magazine's authenticity, sinc the magazine is a music magazine anyway. I chose the title "BEAT" because it is a highly recognized word and most people would relate it to music. "The Music Magazine" is also added on "BEAT" at a slant position to make the effect of a smooth, relaxing flow and as an additional signifier to signify that the media print is a music magazine.
The text is made as clear as possible. The headline, "MAESTRO MEREDITH", is given alliteration, a high authority word, "Maestro", and a larger font to emphasize Mr. Meredith's power; the lines under this has two parts with texts of different style and size to inject tension onto the reader "How I survive my... Music Students". Since my target audience are Kelsey Park students, I thought of giving away the deep secrets of a person who the students highly respected, therefore, enticing them to "read this person's mind" but not throughout (yet), just partially, to make want to buy the magazine. All of the other sell lines are titled, with a different style, font, and size for the title and text below it to make the magazine cover look more entertaining to pull in viewers.
To attract my customer's attention into purchasing my magazine, I had to think of my target audience's interests and their budget. What I did to achieve this is to present not only the school's best music stories in text, but also to add pictures about them to make the stories seem believable. I'm a loyal believer of the quote "An image tells a thousand words" you see. A fact that I know every Kelsey student would share with each other (including me) is a simple one - we're cheap. What I did to get over this problem is a psychological technique - I made the price £1.99 instead of £2.00 - this makes a person think it's a lot cheaper even if it's just really a penny difference. Also, with psychology on my side, I placed the ear piece "FREE CD!" on the top left with a very wacky text, drop shadow and exclamation mark to emphasize the opportunity of a free objects which music lovers would love. I also designed my own CD album cover and placed it here to show which CD they would get.
To make the magazine an authentic school magazine, I added the Kelsey Park Sports College logo. My main target audience, the Kelsey Park students, should recognize the logo and immediately respond excitedly because they recognise the logo and are part of it. For the merchant's convenience, I also added a barcode to speed up the selling process using EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale).
The magazine's main picture is an outward gaze mid-shot of Mr. Meredith to invite individual contact with a hint of challenge to make the viewer feel competent and want to show that he will prevail. The main story "MAESTRO MEREDITH" is positioned alone on the left side of the magazine to highlight that this is the headline and that it relates to the magazine's main picture. The logo is placed behind Mr. Meredith's photo to make the viewer feel like a natural part of an establishment - it makes them feel welcomed and familiar because the magazine doesn't seem like it is showing off, instead, it shares trustful friendship with the viewer by being modest. The KPSC logo is added at the bottom of the magazine's front cover to avoid distracting the magazine' design e.g. by disrupting the colour scheme. The barcode and school logo are placed beside each other deliberately to partly advertise the school itself subcontiously, if ever the magazine was distributed outside the school.
My magazine's mode of address is made suitable for my target audience, 11 to 19 year olds, by adding slang into it e.g. "Melodi what you tellin' me?", and "ups and downs" to make the magazine seem like a friend to the reader, not just something to read.
In my front cover, I've also applied the gratification theory to base my magazine to the traditional, and successful, magazines today. The gratification theory suggests that four specific techniques could enhance the audience's interest in the media object, these are: entertainment, information/education, personal identification, and social communication. I put this theory into use by: entertaining the reader by making them seem like they are "listening" to the magazine as it communicates with the famous rapper "Melodi what you tellin me?" this dialogue is also made slang to maximize the entertainment even more; informing/educating the reader by making them aware of a band and a music club; personally identifying the reader by recreating a conversation with the reader using the most effective direct speech word, "you"; social communicating with the reader by adding a rhetorical question "are you up for it?". The theory also suggests that after an initial impression is given to the audience, they ask for more - that's why I didn't completely give away the whole story, to urge the audience into purchasing the magazine to find out more about these interesting stories.
CONTENTS PAGE
As a contents page, it should give away part of the gratification theory, the information, but not all of it to intensify the reader's lust of the promised story until they reach the page of the story itself - think of it like not having to eat for five years - this makes the reader treat the story more special, therefore, treating the magazine even more special (that's also why I didn't add the page numbers in the front cover).
The main picture on top of the page is of the story "gadget vs gadget", I added this because it seems to have the most potential of its image being graphically enhanced to "wow" the reader instead of a plain photo of guitar - this is an attempt to make the audience idolize the magazine and want to subscribe to its future editions. The bright colour of the image is also deliberate to balance the magazine's appearance to forebode that there aren't only dark pages throughout the magazine. All of the photos added int he page are of Kelsey Park Sports College students weilding musical instruments to emphasize the magazine's rich contents. These pictures also avoids the page from having white space as it is supposed to be a page of contents.
I added red dotted lines to increase the page's appeal to the audience. The effect of the dotted lines is that it seems to appeal to people aged 11-19, as people of this age usually refuse to the plain styles that less younger people want (no offense!).
 |
| Front Page |
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| Contents Page |
Here is my PowerPoint Presentation in which I presented to the AS Media class:
Beat magazine presentation
View more presentations from robertvila315
Beat magazine presentation - Presentation Transcript (If ever you can't read some of them)
1.BEAT Music Magazine Front Cover
AND
BEAT Magazine Contents Page
2.RESEARCH FOR MUSIC MAGAZINES
3.The Magazine Name – I got my idea from
Here’s where I get music covers from
4.The Magazine That Caught My Eye
5.FREE CD!
Pictures in rectangles
Mid shot picture of headline
Photo in a circle
CD Cover shown
6.The Front Cover
My front cover, instead of relating to Kelsey Park Sports College's black and gold format, is a different style to the traditional school colour scheme. This, I think, is the right decision because according to the Kelsey Park students that I've interviewed (aged 11-19, three students for each age group), 20 out of 27 suggested that the school colour scheme gets too common and that they felt like a new and unique style would stand out more and they would prefer this to traditional.
The title is named as "BEAT" to refer to music, for the magazine's authenticity, since the magazine is a music magazine anyway. I chose the title "BEAT" because it is a highly recognized word and most people would relate it to music. "The Music Magazine" is also added on "BEAT" at a slant position to make the effect of a smooth, relaxing flow and as an additional signifier to signify that the media print is a music magazine.
The logo of my magazine is simple but flexible.
One advantage of my logo is that since it's so simple, whenever the magazine needs a change of colour scheme, I could change the logo's colour without disrupting the corporate identity much and the customers would still recognize it.
7.The text is made as clear as possible. The headline, "MAESTRO MEREDITH", is given alliteration, a high authority word, "Maestro", and a larger font to emphasize Mr. Meredith's power; the lines under this has two parts with texts of different style and size to inject tension onto the reader "How I survive my... Music Students". Since my target audience are Kelsey Park students, I thought of giving away the deep secrets of a person who the students highly respected, therefore, enticing them to "read this person's mind" but not throughout (yet), just partially, to make want to buy the magazine. All of the other sell lines are titled, with a different style, font, and size for the title and text below it to make the magazine cover look more entertaining to pull in viewers.
8.A fact that I know every Kelsey student would share with each other (including me) is a simple one - we're cheap. What I did to get over this problem is a psychological technique - I made the price £1.99 instead of £2.00 - this makes a person think it's a lot cheaper even if it's just really a penny difference. Also, with psychology on my side, I placed the ear piece "FREE CD!" on the top left with a very wacky text, drop shadow and exclamation mark to emphasize the opportunity of a free objects which music lovers would love. I also designed my own CD album cover and placed it here to show which CD they would get.To make the magazine an authentic school magazine, I added the Kelsey Park Sports College logo. My main target audience, the Kelsey Park students, should recognize the logo and immediately respond excitedly because they recognise the logo and are part of it. For the merchant's convenience, I also added a barcode to speed up the selling process using EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale).
To attract my customer's attention into purchasing my magazine, I had to think of my target audience's interests and their budget. What I did to achieve this is to present not only the school's best music stories in text, but also to add pictures about them to make the stories seem believable. I'm a loyal believer of the quote "An image tells a thousand words" you see.
9.The magazine's main picture is an outward gaze mid-shot of Mr. Meredith to invite individual contact with a hint of challenge to make the viewer feel competent and want to show that he will prevail. The main story "MAESTRO MEREDITH" is positioned alone on the left side of the magazine to highlight that this is the headline and that it relates to the magazine's main picture. The logo is placed behind Mr. Meredith's photo to make the viewer feel like a natural part of an establishment - it makes them feel welcomed and familiar because the magazine doesn't seem like it is showing off, instead, it shares trustful friendship with the viewer by being modest. The KPSC logo is added at the bottom of the magazine's front cover to avoid distracting the magazine's; design e.g. by disrupting the colour scheme. The barcode and school logo are placed beside each other deliberately to partly advertise the school itself subcontiously, if ever the magazine was distributed outside the school.
10.I put this theory into use by: entertaining the reader by making them seem like they are "listening" to the magazine as it communicates with the famous rapper "Melodi what you tellin’ me?" this dialogue is also made slang to maximize the entertainment even more; informing/educating the reader by making them aware of a band and a music club; personally identifying the reader by recreating a conversation with the reader using the most effective direct speech word, "you"; social communicating with the reader by adding a rhetorical question "are you up for it?". The theory also suggests that after an initial impression is given to the audience, they ask for more - that's why I didn't completely give away the whole story, to urge the audience into purchasing the magazine to find out more about these interesting stories.
My magazine's mode of address is made suitable for my target audience, 11 to 19 year olds, by adding slang into it e.g. "Melodi what you tellin' me?", and "ups and downs" to make the magazine seem like a friend to the reader, not just something to read.In my front cover, I've also applied the gratification theory to base my magazine to the traditional, and successful, magazines today. The gratification theory suggests that four specific techniques could enhance the audience's interest in the media object, these are: entertainment, information/education, personal identification, and social communication.
11.The Contents Page
As a contents page, it should give away part of the gratification theory, the information, but not all of it to intensify the reader's lust of the promised story until they reach the page of the story itself - think of it like not having to eat for five years - this makes the reader treat the story more special, therefore, treating the magazine even more special (that's also why I didn't add the page numbers in the front cover).
12.The main picture on top of the page is of the story "gadget vs gadget", I added this because it seems to have the most potential of its image being graphically enhanced to "wow" the reader instead of a plain photo of guitar - this is an attempt to make the audience idolize the magazine and want to subscribe to its future editions. The bright colour of the image is also deliberate to balance the magazine's appearance to forebode that there aren't only dark pages throughout the magazine. All of the photos added in the page are of Kelsey Park Sports College students wielding musical instruments to emphasize the magazine's rich contents. These pictures also avoids the page from having white space as it is supposed to be a page of contents.
13.I added red dotted lines to increase the page's appeal to the audience. The effect of the dotted lines is that it seems to appeal to people aged 11-19, as people of this age usually refuse to the plain styles that less younger people want (no offense!).
14.Take A Look Fully
15.CONCLUSION
AFTER MAKING THE MAGAZINE
>I’ve gained a lot of inspiration from the MOJO magazines including their style
>I’m more mature on paying attention to detail
>I’m more aware of the graphical software that designers use to make products
>My taste for media has intensified
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Music School Magazine
As Ms. Norville informed me, this is my last week for designing my School Music Magazine front cover and index page. Referring to my last post, I've taken "some" photos of the music people, what I'm planning to do now is to take more photos of the other people who I actually intend to add in my magazine's cover. Apart from that, I've got nothing else to worry about because I've already formatted my magazine's layout.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Picture taking!
Today I've just been taking photos of people from the music department - students and staff alike (they look decent now but they were high in the room). At the moment I took these photos which has to satisfy me for now because of the inconvenience of the science exams which the other students are taking.
At least I got was I was planning to achieve today - which is to take some photos of the music people in this school with an additional bonus of Mr. Meredith's picture, a music teacher and Head of the guild Brunel wearing a poppy. Due to the poor lighting of the room, the pictures look quite low quality but sometime in the future, I should edit them.
Sunday, 7 November 2010
OMG! After that tiring (but enjoyable) holiday from Italy, I've finally got back to doing some research...
As usual, I'm in the quest to search for different kinds of music magazine covers for my evidence of research. While I was doing research, I stumbled upon a monthly magazine website. That one and only magazine is called Mojo. What I took advantage of most to this magazine is the convenience of its website, where you can look at most (if not all) of their past magazine covers. Here's the hidden link: http://cover.mojo4music.com/ <= trust me, its right here
And they don't only show the magazine, they also explain what's in the issue - this could give me ideas on actually how, what, and why I would add codes and conventions in my magazine.
If you were to aks me, this has been the most useful link I've ever had concerning my Media course, and I have Mojo to thank for that. Whew!
And they don't only show the magazine, they also explain what's in the issue - this could give me ideas on actually how, what, and why I would add codes and conventions in my magazine.
If you were to aks me, this has been the most useful link I've ever had concerning my Media course, and I have Mojo to thank for that. Whew!
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