Preliminary Task

This cover is very artistic and has some featured articles but doesn’t really carry the conventions of a magazine. It has no flashes, strapline etc. It is more of a poster than a magazine cover. There is no central image or even and image to accompany the featured articles. However the masthead is very bright and colourful to draw in the audience. Also it is bold and stands out of the page. The graffiti symbolises that this magazine is aimed at teenage children and would be very appealing to them.

This magazine doesn’t look very professional at all although it does contain the conventions of a magazine. It has a flash which is a bright colour and is in a zigzag shape to stand out of the cover. It contains many featured articles and advertises giving away freebies. However on this magazine you cannot tell the difference between the featured articles and the main article. This could be a down fall for the audience as they will not know which is the main article or featured articles. Overall the colour scheme and layout of the magazine is very well presented.

This

This     This magazine is of a professional standard. The type set of the masthead is like cut outs of lets stuck down with a black outline around them. The central image is the only image on the page and it uses direct mode of address so that it makes the audience feel that they are looking at them. It contains a couple of flashes, the main article and it has a puff running across the bottom. The cut out style of the magazine symbolises that it is aimed at teenagers.

This is my cover for my school magazine which we had to do for our preliminary task. I made it quite simple and bold to attract the target audience of the post 16 students. It contains a graffiti style masthead and has a clear central image but doesn't contain any flashes, featured articles, straplines etc. I then did a coloured version of this which then led me to create the final product.

This is my contents pages which just contains the basic information of what is going to be in the magazine. I made this short and simple so that it is easy for the audience to understand. The copy would be bold and of a bright colour so it is easy to see. I then did a coloured version with a graffiti style to it which reflects the cover.

This is my final design for my school magazine cover. I made it bright and in a graffiti style to attract the audience as I stated in the above paragraph. I like how I have changed what I did with my mock design to my final piece as I feel it is better put together, also it is more appealing to post 16 students as it involves students on the cover. I used my knowledge to apply effects and use magazine styles. The masthead is more suitable and it contains basic things like flashes and puffs.

This is my final design for my contents page of my school magazine. It consists of a bright colour on a dull background so the copy stands out so the audience can be drawn in to it easily. I decided to change the type set of the copy because it wouldn't have been clear enough to read and I felt it suited style of the magazine.

The Industry

Johannes Gutenburg

In 1440 the German inventor Johannes Gutenburg invented a printing press. Gutenburg's method of printing from movable type using metal moulds, alloys, a special press, oil-based inks etc. allowed the first ever mass produced printed books to be sold.
The first ever magazine to be published was The Gentleman's magazine, which was first published in 1731, in London.
The oldest magazine which is still in print to this day is The Scots Magazine, which was first published in 1739.
There are many different genres of magazine comic, TV, life, film, music etc.
Overtime there has been a drastic change in the way magazines have been layed out and presented.
The main focus is music magazines. Music magazines consist of interviews from artists to the UK top 40 chart singles and the latest gossip about the stars in the music industry.

Annotated Magazine With Technical Terminology

First Printing Press

The first music magazines were around in the 1900s and have progressed by huge amounts over time. There are now such magazines as NME, Kerrang, Vibe, Q etc.
NME lead the magazines since 1952 and had a long lasting rival, Melody Maker, which had existed since 1926. The rise in Internet music sites caused Melody Maker to therefore be absorbed and stop publishing.
Music magazines are published all over the world with lots of different genres. For example, Rock, R & B, Pop, Electric etc.

MOJO Magazine From The 1960s

The Bauer Media Group is a German publishing group in Hamburg. The company operates in 15 countries worldwide and has been running since 1875. The company was formerly called Heinrich Bauer Verlag KG which abbreviates to HBV or shortened to H. Bauer. They publish around 38 million magazines per week.

The InterMedia Partners group which was founded in 2005 by  Leo Hindery. It is based in New York City and is a private equity. The firms most notable investments are Vibe magazine, Thomas Nelson, Universal Sports etc. This company look after the Vibe magazine which my inspiration came from one of their distributed magazines.

Existing Media Texts

This magazine has a bold and bright Masthead to stand out of the white background. It has a strapline and a central image using the technique, Direct mode of address. The central image is in black and white so it can bring out the colour more. I think that this effect works well. The main article has bigger and bolder copy to the featured articles to show the difference in importance to the magazine. The connotations of the red and gold could describe the wealth and prosperity of the artist in the central image.

This magazine has a very different style to it from the above one. It has a bright masthead but isn't very bold. The central image covers the magazines masthead therefore if you have never read one of there magazines before you would struggle to find out what the name was. The central image also uses direct mode of address like in the magazine above. I can see this is a popular technique to draw the audience in to read their magazines. It contains some featured articles and a main article which stands out from the featured articles as it is bigger and bolder.

This magazine is all colour were as in the others they have decided to make the central image black and white, However they all use the technique direct mode of address. The masthead is very bold and has a sharp black outline around it to make it stand out as well as the drop shadow it has. It has a strapline and  has the basic featured articles displayed on the front. The main article is in bigger and bolder writing to the rest to symbolise it being the most important. This magazine also contains a puff which runs across the bottom unlike the other magazines which are more sophisticated. Connotations of the red could be the wealth of the artist. 

This magazine has a bold masthead and has a black and white central image which uses direct mode of address. The eyes are the same colour as the background to give a better effect to the central image. It has some featured articles at the side of the central image and then the main article in bold copy on the bottom of the image. I got my inspirations for my music magazine from this magazine as i thought that it had quite a good effect to it and it stood out to me above other magazines.

Design Process

My moodboard of my chosen genre
This moodboard gave me alot of inspiration for my magazine as I could see the different conventions of the style of the magazines. I made the one that stood out to me the most the main one you can see (central image).

These are some of my general ideas of what kind of typeset I was going to use for my masthead. I felt that doing these designs helped me alot in picking a final one to do. I like how I interpreted my designs to match the name of the magazine. However, I didn't think that any of my designs were professional enough for my magazine, that's when I was told about the DA font website.

These are a couple of mock ups of what my magazine cover was going to look like. I used a central image and gave it a flash and basically used the conventions of a music magazine. I liked both of my mock ups but I did feel that I could do loads better then this so I applied myself and used my imagination.

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This was going to be my masthead . I got the type set from www.dafont.com . I then seen another type set that I wanted to use. (see below)

This is my final design for my masthead and is the one that I used in my magazine. I felt that this one best suited my magazine and fitted in well with the genre I chose.

This is part of the title to my main article advertisement on my cover. I got the type set of the above link and I used this type set for the other part to my main article advertisement.

This image is the original image of my central image on my magazine cover. I decided to edit it because of my inspiration from the vibe magazine.

This is the second version of my image which I edited to make it black and white and used the polygonal lasso tool to cut it out and then I inversed the cutout so it went onto the background then I deleted it so it was no longer there. I used to colour replacement tool on the eyes to get rid of the red eye and to make it have the same coloured eyes as my background to my magazine so it had quite a good effect to it.

This is the final version of my image which I cropped and zoomed in on to make it a medium close up shot. I though I would do this so that it would be bigger to make it more of a central image and so that it stood out.

This is my original version of one of my images for my double paged article. I decided that I needed to edit it because I felt that it needed to be suited for the magazine and the background needed to be deleted.

This is my final edited version of my image for my double paged article. I cropped and roomed in on the image and I used the polygonal lasso tool and the inverse button to remove the background. I also used the colour replacement tool to get rid of the red eye on the image.

This is my original image for the other image of my double paged article. I also decided to edit this because i felt that it need to suit the magazine and that the background needed deleting as well so it doesn't look unprofessional.

This is my final version of the other image for my double paged article. I used the polygonal lasso tool to cut out the image and used the inverse tool so I could get rid of the background just like I did in all the others. On this image it didn't need much doing to it because it was near enough perfect anyway.

I decided to make all these changes so that it could make my magazine look more professional and be of a high standard. I felt that if I didn't make these changes then my magazine would have looked very amateur.

Production Process

This is the logo for Adobe Photoshop CS3 which I used to edit my photos on so I could add effects and remove and add bits to my images where needed. There are a variety of different tools which I used on the program to help me get my images to the standard I wanted them at. For example, The patch tool. The patch tool can be used to cover us spots, blotches and make things look better than they usually do. I used this to make the peoples faces in my images look clearer and spot free. I also used the crop tool which is used to make images smaller than they are to get rid of the bits not needed. I used the dodge and burn tool as well which is used to lighten or darken bits of the image. The polygonal lasso tool was used in my work to select around images   which the I could invert the selection so I could delete the background of the images.

This is the logo for Adobe Indesign CS3. I used this program so I could put all my pieces of work together into frames and layers so they could be easily edited and moved around.

This is the Logo for Adobe Bridge CS3. I used this program to insert my edited images into into design all at once instead of doing it one at a time. I had to select which images I wanted to put in first then all I had to do was drop them into the spot I wanted them in.

In developing my skills, using my techniques,  was able to achieve a more professional look to my magazine.

This is the cover of my music magazine which is very similar to my inspiration from a vibe magazine. My masthead for my magazine was always going to be storm but as it looks now was not how it started. I tried a variety of different type sets and came up with my own designs till I eventually found the one I wanted to use. I couldn't work out whether storm was catchy enough for an audience to think that looks interesting but I went with my gut instinct and thought people would buy this. My magazine doesn't have a strapline however it does have a banner running across the top stating 'Bieber is on the scene with his UK tour' as presented on my cover. I added some featured articles on the front e.g. Nicki Minaj. This was because it gives you a taster of what is going to be in the magazine. I added a barcode with an inscription of storm in it. I thought that this gave it a unique touch to it as it wouldn't ever be the same as any other company would produce. Overall, I am pretty pleased at the outcome and think it could possibly be a professional magazine if publicised.

This is my contents page for my music magazine which I got inspiration from another magazine which had an image similar to the primary one which I took. The original one was of Kanye West. I put in my contents page the basic essentials of what is going to be in the magazine and tried to make it as attractive and interesting as possible. I do feel that if I'd have done more headings then I could have achieved a more filling contents. Even though I feel it could do with more headings I still feel like it has a positive outcome and is appealing to the audience. The copy is bold and the type set is still in conjunction the cover.

This is my double paged article for my magazine which relates well to my main article advertisement on my front cover. The copy of the masthead is bold and the subheading is not so that the masthead can stand out. The type set of these are very different to each other too so that the page has a variety of different things on it. The image of the girl which I used as Rihanna uses direct mode of address to make it seem like she is staring at the audience. The actual copy of the question and answer is of a simple type set so it is easy to read and understand for the audience.

I decided to make changes to my cover because I felt it didn't look very professional but now I feel it is more professional and has a magazine style to it. I feel all my final pieces are well put together and are up to a good standard of magazine style.

Post Production Evaluation

      After researching, I found that there were a lot of magazines that used different conventions. I wanted to challenge my audience by pushing the boundaries of the R & B genre. I did this by using my research knowledge to make my magazine unique. I made it so that my central image didn’t overlap the masthead like in most of the R & B; I thought that I would be different and place it underneath my masthead so that you can see the full potential of what the masthead has. I also used the colour blue as my background which is usually used in pop magazines where in R & B it’s usually white for the background. I feel that my cover stands out above all other magazines is because it is unique to the genre and has a lot of my own favourite things on it. It has changed from the original as I feel that now it looks more professional.  In the contents pages of all the other R & B magazines, all the subheadings are all spread out were as on my magazine they are in one column neatly aligned. I feel this makes my contents page unique because other magazines do not do this. Other magazines contents pages don’t use their masthead in the way I have by splitting it up. My double page article is very different to others as I have used a question and answer based interview and used my images to give the effect of them walking away from each other. 

      The masthead was chosen in the type set it was because I felt it suited the magazine cover well and because it sort of relates to the name of the magazine by the drop shadow which spreads from behind of the original text creating a stormy effect. I found that on most R & B magazines the type set was either in a graffiti style or just plain bold writing so I thought I would carry on to challenge the magazines conventions and add in a drop shadow. The typography of the copy on most R & B magazines is simple and easy to read so I thought that I would use this as an advantage to make it more professional. Throughout my magazine I tried to maintain the level of professionalism as best as I could.

      My magazine presents a social group from my moodboard I created. Lots if R & b magazines are scattered and presented on the board so you can easily compare the different conventions each of the magazines use. I skimmed and scanned these magazines to look for techniques in which I could then use in my magazine. I chose my colours for my target audience as it is aimed at teenagers/ young adults therefore it has to be extremely eye catching and appealing to the audience. This magazine would stand out to teenagers/ young adults because it has gossip about the big artists and contains information they may be interested in. My three texts which I produced were made to suit the target audience so they would actually read the magazine.

      The producers and distributors that might publish my magazine would be The InterMedia Partners Group which publishes the magazine ‘VIBE’ where my inspiration came from.  The reason the company would be interested in my magazine is because it is R & B and contains all the basic conventions of their magazines but has unique twists to it. I do believe that any company that is looking for a different tyoe of genre to introduce into their publishing would be interested in my magazine because they may want expand their variety of genres they publish and then it would be a big promotion for the company as well as the magazine. This would also give us a wider range of a target audience.

     To retrieve information from my chosen target audience, I produced a questionnaire for them to fill in. I did this so that I could get some feedback on what my target audience actually feel like about my magazine. My results from the questionnaires show that the majority of my target audience would buy my magazine if it was in a shop on sale.

      Throughout the course of producing my three texts, I have learnt many skills. For example, learning how to edit photos in Adobe Photoshop CS3. I used many techniques like cropping, changing the contrast of the images etc. I also learnt how to put the different images things id produced into layers on Adobe Indesign CS3 so that my magazine didn’t look unprofessional.  To make it easier for me to import my images into indesign I used Adobe Bridge CS3 so that I could import them all at once in the frames that I wanted them to be in.

      Looking back at my preliminary task, I have learnt many new skills and techniques. When I did my preliminary task I only knew the basics of how to use Adobe Photoshop CS3  but as the course progressed I got more technical with Adobe Photoshop CS3  and then I was introduced to Adobe Indesign CS3 and Adobe Bridge CS3. By my final piece I was very familiar with a lot of the different buttons on each of the packages I used and therefore gained some knowledge for future references. If I hadn’t been introduced to any of the packages then my magazine wouldn’t have looked in the slightest bit professional.

Adobe Photoshop CS3

This is a copy of my questionnaire.


     1. Are you Male or Female?

[ ] Male      [ ] Female

2.       What age group do you fall into?

[ ] 11-16   [ ] 17-21   [ ] 22-30   [ ] 31-40   [ ] 40+

3.       How often do you read magazines?

[ ] All the time   [ ] Sometimes   [ ] Never

4.       Which type of magazine do you prefer in music?

[ ] Metal   [ ] Indie   [ ] R&B   [ ] Pop   [ ] Rock   [ ] Other (please state)

…………………………………………………………………………..

5.       Do you read magazines A) Thoroughly B) Skim and Scan them OR C) Look for the parts that interest you?

[ ] A   [ ] B   [ ] C

6.       What features of a magazine attract you the most?

………………………………………………………………………………

7.       Did the cover reflect the content of the magazine? ( please state your answer and why)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

8.       If you saw this magazine in the shops, would you buy it?

[ ] Yes   [ ] No (please state why)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

9.       Was the contents page easy to understand?

[ ] Yes    [ ] No

10.   Is this a magazine for you?

[ ] Yes   [ ] No (please state why)

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