Monday, 19 December 2011

Codes and conventions of music magazine covers

RESEARCHING THE MARKET PLACE

Link to VIBE media kit

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16140508/Vibe-Media-Kit-2004

INITIAL IDEAS - MUSIC MAGAZINE

Photoshop tools with description

PLANNING CONTENT - IMAGES FOR CONTENTS PAGE

Other images I would like to include on my contents page are:
Picture of tutor in classroom
Picture of happy female student
Picture of canteen
Picture of boys playing rugby

LIST OF FEATURES AND COVERLINES


-Enrichment opportunities
- Editors Note
- News and events
- 10 things to know about Priestley: 2012
- Q & A with a subject tutor
- Coursework made easy
- Mr Kens college tips
- How organised are you?
- Letters

ROUGH LAYOUT OF CONTENTS PAGE

Plans for front cover

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Preliminary Priestley magazine evaluation

Preliminary Priestley magazine evaluation

Logistics:
I planned the production of the magazine by firstly making up a name. Names that I toyed around with are (…). I chose ragasine because it seemed memorable and was the most original name there (some of them like ‘fresh meat’ were other peoples ideas). With the name sorted out I drew up a rough draft of the front cover. It had the outline of a person (in medium close-up shot) with the features and incentives surrounding it.
It was very vague but it reminded me of the task. I didn’t plan very much for the features or incentives of the magazine, and kind of made them up as I was creating it.

Technology:
I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 extended and most of the tools it features. To create the masthead I used the rectangle tool and the text tool. I had to change the font of the text to better replicate the magazine. To create the puff underneath it I used the custom shape tool. The background is a medium close up of one of my classmates as asked and it was taken by me. There is another feature on the page but it’s just in a plain black box to make the puff stand out more and keep variation. At the bottom there’s a small Ariel picture of the college to advertise the fact there’s a free map inside. Its been cropped so you only see inside the boundaries of the campus. I did this by cutting around the area with the polygonal lasso tool and then selecting ‘invert’ so that when I pressed delete the area that wasn’t highlighted got removed.
The last thing I did on it was add a lighting effect at just under the magazine title, so it looks like there’s a sun is shining on everything.


Reflection
If I was to do this task again, I would’ve spent more time getting a better photo to work with. If I did that, I probably could’ve made a better job of the features because I could plan ahead. I think most of the stuff I did worked but I should have done more because the bottom of the page look a bit empty. I’m most proud of the top of the page because it really resembled the covers I was using for inspiration. After doing this I’ve learnt a lot about the basic tools you use in Photoshop and I’m ready to learn more now.

Questionaire for magazine

Questionnaire for magazine
Who are your favourite rap artist/ group?
…………………….
What are your 2 favourite colours?
…………….. And ……………
How often do you buy a music magazine?
……………………………………………………………………
What music magazines do you read at the minute?
………………………………………………………………………………………
What do you like about the magazines you currently read?
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
What do you dislike about the magazines you currently read?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Three words you would associate with rap music?
…………………             ………………..          ……………......
How formal do you like your magazines to be?
(please circle the right answer)
Not at all       not very      kind of     high formality
How much would you pay for a 100 page magazine?
………………………
What features do you want to see in a music magazine?
…………………………………………………………………………………….

Wednesday, 9 November 2011

Magazine analysis and deconstruction

Magazine analysis and deconstruction
I will analyse and identify the key features of the front cover of a magazine I own, called XBOX WORLD.

MASTHEAD
FEATURE – KILLER EXCLUSIVE ‘QUOTE’
Background
Consistent style
Barcode + publisher
Puff

Masthead – The name off the magazine, has its own font and is representative of the whole style of the magazine. It should be the most recognisable thing on the page. It’s always at the top of the page so it is easily seen, even if the magazine is stacked behind others. The font is consistent with the Style of the mag and resembles block letters and is in front of a green block background. All the straight edges make it look professional and organised. On Photoshop, the masthead would be created by typing the text on a layer on top of the block layer, which would have been created by the rectangle tool
Feature – The main feature of the magazine. Somewhere in the magazine there is likely to be a 2-page spread or more which focuses on this topic. The main feature in this magazine is an ALIENS game (inspired by the movies), so threes a big scary alien dominating most of the page, even covering some of the masthead and obscuring some letters. This is a worthwhile decision however, as it draws attention to the alien and the magazine is still recognisable by its style, which it relies on a lot.
Infront of the dark aliens body in the name of the game; ALIENS COLONIAL MARINES which is in white text so it stands out. The ALIENS feature is described as a ‘killer exclusive’ and there’s a quote “it’s like playing the movie!” which is sure to interest people.

There isn’t much writing on the cover and most of the rest of it is teasers; ‘why next gen gaming is already here’ and ‘is Xbox the new pc?’.  These are all incentives to buy the magazine and read what’s inside, and use some gamers terminology when referring to things. The way the text has been created over the background is pretty simple in Photoshop. Using the ‘horizontal type tool’ The text could be typed straight over the background and the font, size, colour and everything else can be changed after.
The background (and the alien) is likely just from the games concept art, maybe with some small tweaks to brightness and contrast. The background and the alien appear to be 2 different layers, because the masthead is behind the alien. I think the layers go like this

Background > Masthead > Alien > Everything else

Also on the page is a ‘puff’ with some more writing in it. It’s significant because it’s the only red thing on the page (apart from the publishing company’s small logo) and attracts attention to the writing inside (advertising another feature). The puff would be created by using the custom shape tool and the writing, same as before.
That’s everything on the page, apart from the names of some recognisable upcoming games on the bottom to seal the deal, plus the barcode, serial number and publishers logo which would be standard on any magazine

Karrang magasine replication