For my photo shoot I am going to use some characters for my front cover and then the same ones for the double page spread. For my contents page I will take photos with other photos as they are for other articles.
The story behind my front cover will be a famous band splitting up. I will use this same article for my double page spread. the photo shoot for my front cover will be taken up against a brick wall so that there is nothing else in the picture distracting you from the cover models. The two band members will have their backs tilted from each other because they are splitting up. Both models will have serious expressions because these are hard times for the band. I want the models to be wearing smart casual clothing because that is their image as a band. I will have bright lighting so that the picture is clear. I will then edit my photo further on in my project to make the photo stand out more.
Sunday, 13 December 2015
Mock up magazine
Sunday, 29 November 2015
Lifestyle Survey
As part of my research to help me design my magazine, I have created a lifestyle survey to understand my target audience and learn the ways to present my magazine. The link for my survey is https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Z8224duGisq3Fmaxyg36ha5SJdB3CuyNrtkdKs7HK_o/viewform
I posted my survey on a social media website asking if people could fill it out with their own information. My results are formatted in a spreadsheet so the the answers are easy to read. The link is https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pxyF7OA1w9V5NAQVb0QLEQ1E57622JE39_vNMHfKSEU/edit?usp=sharing
From my survey I have been able to work out that my target audience is mainly males. This is because the majority who said their favourite gender was rock, were also male. Most of the people who said rock was their favourite genre also said that Kerrang! was their favourite magazine. From this I shall study the colours and techniques used on Kerrang! magazines to help theme my own magazine. My results also show that people who prefer rock music to other genres generally go to more gigs than other people. To act on this result I will add more articles about upcoming gigs to my magazine. My results also show me that my target group is definitely between fifteen and thirty year olds as all the responders that choose rock music are between that age group. Those participants who fitted into my target audience all liked similar themed colours. These colours are grey, red and black. I am aiming to use this colour scheme as much as possible in my magazine because it will attract my target audience.
From my results I have decided that a price of £2.50 will be right for my magazine due to my results on the 'price you would pay for a magazine every week' question. Overall most people were prepared to spend less than £1 on a magazine every week which you can see in the graph below. I am choosing to ignore the overall response and only concentrate on my target audiences responses which is how I have come up with the price of £2.50.
From my results I have been able to identify the most preferable articles to read. Many of the participants stated that they liked reading about gossip. I have chosen to ignore this field due to the fact that people who like gossip do not come under my target audience. Therefore when I design my magazine I will include more articles about the 'New album releases' than 'Gigs' and other topics.
Those who liked pop music generally went for Ed Sheeran. I expected this as he is a huge pop icon. Those who liked rock music, liked bands such as Artic Monkeys and Green Day. I will use this result for variation in the issues of my magazine as Artic Monkeys and Green Day both aim for a different image.
I posted my survey on a social media website asking if people could fill it out with their own information. My results are formatted in a spreadsheet so the the answers are easy to read. The link is https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pxyF7OA1w9V5NAQVb0QLEQ1E57622JE39_vNMHfKSEU/edit?usp=sharing
From my survey I have been able to work out that my target audience is mainly males. This is because the majority who said their favourite gender was rock, were also male. Most of the people who said rock was their favourite genre also said that Kerrang! was their favourite magazine. From this I shall study the colours and techniques used on Kerrang! magazines to help theme my own magazine. My results also show that people who prefer rock music to other genres generally go to more gigs than other people. To act on this result I will add more articles about upcoming gigs to my magazine. My results also show me that my target group is definitely between fifteen and thirty year olds as all the responders that choose rock music are between that age group. Those participants who fitted into my target audience all liked similar themed colours. These colours are grey, red and black. I am aiming to use this colour scheme as much as possible in my magazine because it will attract my target audience.
From my results I have decided that a price of £2.50 will be right for my magazine due to my results on the 'price you would pay for a magazine every week' question. Overall most people were prepared to spend less than £1 on a magazine every week which you can see in the graph below. I am choosing to ignore the overall response and only concentrate on my target audiences responses which is how I have come up with the price of £2.50.
From my results I have been able to identify the most preferable articles to read. Many of the participants stated that they liked reading about gossip. I have chosen to ignore this field due to the fact that people who like gossip do not come under my target audience. Therefore when I design my magazine I will include more articles about the 'New album releases' than 'Gigs' and other topics.
Those who liked pop music generally went for Ed Sheeran. I expected this as he is a huge pop icon. Those who liked rock music, liked bands such as Artic Monkeys and Green Day. I will use this result for variation in the issues of my magazine as Artic Monkeys and Green Day both aim for a different image.
Tuesday, 24 November 2015
Wednesday, 18 November 2015
Thursday, 5 November 2015
Intended Target Audience
Every magazine has its own target audience in which they direct everything they print on the magazine at. The genre of music I have chosen for my magazine is rock.
Demographic:
Gender: Both boys and girls listen to rock music so it must therefore be directed at both genders. When it comes to the style used in rock, males and females are kind of the same so my magazine should be able to appeal to both genders.
Age: My target audience will be of the ages between 15 and 30. My reasoning for this is that these are the most common ages for liking rock music according to my research.
Nationality: Many nationalities such as Finland love rock music but as my magazine is new I will only print it in English as it is the worlds second language. My magazine will be sold in the UK only to begin with as it has a good industry and if it is very successful then it will move on to places like the USA, Australia and the rest of Europe.
Socio-Economic Group: My magazine will be aimed at the groups C1, C2 and D. This is because stereotypically, people in groups A and B are too classy to listen to rock. Also, many of my target audience will not even be old enough to be able to achieve the groups B and A as they are still young.
Typical Reader:
A common reader of my magazine is Alex, Alex is 21 years old and lives on the outskirts of Manchester. Alex is intelligent and sharp, he passed all his exams at school but did not want to go to university. Instead Alex did a two year apprenticeship in vehicle mechanics as he was passionate about the career. After the apprenticeship Alex continued working as a mechanic. Alex has an energetic and open personality. Alex loves rock music and listens to bands such as Metallica and Green Day. Alex has played both the electric guitar and the drums since he was nine years old. Alex has a band called 'Magnet' which is formed of four of his friends. Alex plays the guitar in the band. Alex enjoys reading about his favourite bands in magazines and spends around £3 a week on magazines. Alex goes to rock festivals such as Camden rocks with his friends as often as possible but unlike when he was younger, these days he has other commitments such as work which get in the way of his plans. Alex is also uses Soundcloud daily, sharing his favourite bands, creating playlists and listening to his friends music or bands that he likes music.
Demographic:
Gender: Both boys and girls listen to rock music so it must therefore be directed at both genders. When it comes to the style used in rock, males and females are kind of the same so my magazine should be able to appeal to both genders.
Age: My target audience will be of the ages between 15 and 30. My reasoning for this is that these are the most common ages for liking rock music according to my research.
Nationality: Many nationalities such as Finland love rock music but as my magazine is new I will only print it in English as it is the worlds second language. My magazine will be sold in the UK only to begin with as it has a good industry and if it is very successful then it will move on to places like the USA, Australia and the rest of Europe.
Socio-Economic Group: My magazine will be aimed at the groups C1, C2 and D. This is because stereotypically, people in groups A and B are too classy to listen to rock. Also, many of my target audience will not even be old enough to be able to achieve the groups B and A as they are still young.
Typical Reader:
A common reader of my magazine is Alex, Alex is 21 years old and lives on the outskirts of Manchester. Alex is intelligent and sharp, he passed all his exams at school but did not want to go to university. Instead Alex did a two year apprenticeship in vehicle mechanics as he was passionate about the career. After the apprenticeship Alex continued working as a mechanic. Alex has an energetic and open personality. Alex loves rock music and listens to bands such as Metallica and Green Day. Alex has played both the electric guitar and the drums since he was nine years old. Alex has a band called 'Magnet' which is formed of four of his friends. Alex plays the guitar in the band. Alex enjoys reading about his favourite bands in magazines and spends around £3 a week on magazines. Alex goes to rock festivals such as Camden rocks with his friends as often as possible but unlike when he was younger, these days he has other commitments such as work which get in the way of his plans. Alex is also uses Soundcloud daily, sharing his favourite bands, creating playlists and listening to his friends music or bands that he likes music.
Monday, 2 November 2015
Semiotic Analysis
Below I have done a semiotic analysis of the conventions on three music magazines.
Saturday, 10 October 2015
Preliminary task Front cover
For my photo shoot I took a series of photos featuring a year 7 student in her school uniform. I chose the photo showing the student struggling(to the right) student struggling with their homework. This shows the stress school causes students and makes a pupil want to read it because it relates to them.When I first started planing my photo shoot, my initial thought was what to feature. I had a few ideas of taking photos of students doing work as it could lead to many articles. I made a decision to work my photos around stress because it symbolises and relates to student life. Next, I had to decide where to take my photos. I had decided that it should be either in a classroom or at home because they are the general places you do homework. I decided to do it at home because it shows that the stress doesn't stop at school; it continues at home. I asked my sister to be in my photo shoot as she is a year 7 student. A year 7 student is a good model as they are seen as innocent and shouldn't have such problems in their life. I took my photos with an Iphone camera because it was only a practice photo shoot and it didn't have to be an amazing resolution.
I edited the image on PhotoPlus so that there was a radial blur. This helped centre the image to the student and reflects a spinning, stressful emotion. This image is shown below before I added the conventions to go on top.
My magazine cover is shown below. I added my masthead The Saint because I felt it related to the catholic school theme. The font I used Looks old and traditional; much like the Catholic Church. I also put a puff on my magazine advertising a competition in the magazine which will entice the reader. I added cover lines and coloured the font so that they stand out.
As part of my preliminary task I have created a contents page that tells you the page numbers of articles in the magazine. I have put white boxes in positions where I would put a photo in a real magazine.
Friday, 9 October 2015
Planning my Photo Shoot - Preliminary task
For my preliminary task I need to design a school magazine. My magazines issue will be focusing on year 7 stress and how to overcome it. It is a good time for this article as new students to secondary schools have now been in school for five weeks and would now be facing problems from homework and intense lessons. My plan for the cover photo will feature a year 7 struggling with their homework at a desk. The student will be stressed and feel upset from the workload. I will use a mid shot from a side view.
Tuesday, 6 October 2015
Heat Magazine
The Heat magazine uses conventions on their front covers to attract the target market audience so that they buy the Heat magazine over any other magazine. Heat is a weekly magazine about gossip amongst celebrities. It has a circulation of half a million and has weekly issues. The Heat magazine specialises in
maintaining the reputation in the public eye of celebrities who normally would
have ‘fallen by the wayside’ or been replaced by other celebrities.
The celebrities highlighted in gossip magazines are usually female. This is because they can be presented as the 'female victim'. In the Heat magazine woman are often sexualised so that a male audience is attracted. Woman celebrities are also often represented in a negative light by leaking there personal life so that the issue attracts the curious target audience.
The primary audience are white, urban and female working class people who tend to be main streamers and have interests in celebrity gossip. The primary audience are generally around 18-35 year olds and the secondary audience is 35-55.
The colours used on the Heat front cover are saturated primary colours and have high key lighting. This is so that the magazine codes and conventions are anchored and the target audience is highlighted. The front cover of the Heat magazine has a high ratio of photos to text. This is a key design for a gossip magazine so that the user can identify it.
The masthead on the Heat magazine is always to the left and keeps the same design. The masthead is a lower case, red, serif font which uses a bold format with a shadow to form brand identity. The style of the font would stereotypically appeal to a female target audience.
The celebrities highlighted in gossip magazines are usually female. This is because they can be presented as the 'female victim'. In the Heat magazine woman are often sexualised so that a male audience is attracted. Woman celebrities are also often represented in a negative light by leaking there personal life so that the issue attracts the curious target audience.
The primary audience are white, urban and female working class people who tend to be main streamers and have interests in celebrity gossip. The primary audience are generally around 18-35 year olds and the secondary audience is 35-55.
The colours used on the Heat front cover are saturated primary colours and have high key lighting. This is so that the magazine codes and conventions are anchored and the target audience is highlighted. The front cover of the Heat magazine has a high ratio of photos to text. This is a key design for a gossip magazine so that the user can identify it.
The masthead on the Heat magazine is always to the left and keeps the same design. The masthead is a lower case, red, serif font which uses a bold format with a shadow to form brand identity. The style of the font would stereotypically appeal to a female target audience.
On most issues of the Heat magazine, there is a sell line banner which advertises gossip articles inside the magazine. The sell line banner will use a photo and bold writing to attract the user to the article. In this example below you can see an article about the celebrity Katie Price. The mode of address is direct and upbeat as you can see from the font used and the exclamation mark. It seams like a boring article to the target audience but in brackets underneath it says “And
gets off with a man half way through!” This tells the user what the article is really about and will interest the audience because it is gossip.
Gossip magazine covers are generally cluttered with bold text, images and colours to keep the attention and interest of the reader. By making the stories and articles look exciting, the reader will think the gossip is important. This can make the reader feel like this is exclusive information and make them feel inclusive because they think know something not many others know about.
Thursday, 1 October 2015
Preliminary task: Practice Magazine
For my preliminary task we must produce our own school magazine front cover. As practice for this task I made a practice school magazine cover so I could learn how to use the software. I software we are using is Serif PagePlus X6. Pageplus is a program that allows you to create posters, leaflets and magazines using design software.
The magazine I designed as a test is called 'The Saint'. This is because it is a catholic school so the magazine relates to its audience. I did not use my own photos as it was only a practice - I got my photos from my schools website.
The magazine I designed as a test is called 'The Saint'. This is because it is a catholic school so the magazine relates to its audience. I did not use my own photos as it was only a practice - I got my photos from my schools website.
Tuesday, 22 September 2015
School Magazine analysis
For my preliminary task I am designing a school magazine. I have done some research on what a school magazine looks like. School magazines are designed different to other magazines in the way they attract their audience. Magazines advertise their front covers with pictures of students studying hard or showing students having success. This is the opposite of a beauty and fashion magazine who feature exposed woman to represent sexual stances in order to make profit. This is because schools aren't going for that image. Schools want to look professional and successful. The cover lines on a school magazine usually advertise activities going on at school or small competitions within the school. You won't often find a barcode on a school magazine as they are usually given out for free.
Friday, 18 September 2015
What I learnt about magazine covers
Today in media we are learning about the front covers of magazines. The front cover of a magazine is its main selling point of the magazine. The front cover is designed to target particular types of people. Front covers always have a Masthead. The Masthead is the name of the magazine which is often printed at the top. Magazines are recognised by their masthead and they are often styled to the target audience. Most magazines will have a tagline near the masthead which shows what the magazine is about.
Every front cover has a central image. The central image is the first thing your eye is attracted to before you read the masthead or any subtitles. The central image will be related to the magazine theme and attract the audience it is aiming for. For the centre image a cover model is commonly used. This cover model with often be a celebrity or a model connected with the magazines genre.
The anchorage is refers to the image about what it is trying to portray. The anchorage will usually be in big bold writing as it is the main feature of that issue. Secondary images are small pictures on the magazine front cover that briefly tell you about articles inside the magazine. Secondary images are anchored by coverlines, captions, headlines or by articles. There are often many coverlines on the front cover which tell readers about the contents of the magazine such as specific articles.
The mode of address is the way that the magazine communicates with the reader. This can be done through directing the text at the user using words like 'you'. The mode of address can also be directed at the user by making the cover model point at the camera.
The puff on a magazine cover is a device to attract attention to the magazine. They will advertise certain elements in the magazine such as a competition or freebie inside. Puffs are often shaped and placed on a coloured background so that they stand out.
Pugs are a part of the magazines front cover that will display a particular promotion for that specific edition of the magazine, or it may just show the price. The barcode, the price and the edition are simple factors of the front cover but are strategically placed because they must not cover any of the covers principle features.
The use of colour on a magazine front cover is important because you want the magazine to attract someone's eye. Some magazines alter their colour schemes on items such as the masthead or coverlines every edition, whereas some just coordinate colours to go with the central image.
The fonts used on a magazine cover are chosen specifically for the text they are displaying. There are usually many different fonts used on one cover because magazine designers often use different fonts for different sections of text.
Every front cover has a central image. The central image is the first thing your eye is attracted to before you read the masthead or any subtitles. The central image will be related to the magazine theme and attract the audience it is aiming for. For the centre image a cover model is commonly used. This cover model with often be a celebrity or a model connected with the magazines genre.
The anchorage is refers to the image about what it is trying to portray. The anchorage will usually be in big bold writing as it is the main feature of that issue. Secondary images are small pictures on the magazine front cover that briefly tell you about articles inside the magazine. Secondary images are anchored by coverlines, captions, headlines or by articles. There are often many coverlines on the front cover which tell readers about the contents of the magazine such as specific articles.
The mode of address is the way that the magazine communicates with the reader. This can be done through directing the text at the user using words like 'you'. The mode of address can also be directed at the user by making the cover model point at the camera.
The puff on a magazine cover is a device to attract attention to the magazine. They will advertise certain elements in the magazine such as a competition or freebie inside. Puffs are often shaped and placed on a coloured background so that they stand out.
Pugs are a part of the magazines front cover that will display a particular promotion for that specific edition of the magazine, or it may just show the price. The barcode, the price and the edition are simple factors of the front cover but are strategically placed because they must not cover any of the covers principle features.
The use of colour on a magazine front cover is important because you want the magazine to attract someone's eye. Some magazines alter their colour schemes on items such as the masthead or coverlines every edition, whereas some just coordinate colours to go with the central image.
The fonts used on a magazine cover are chosen specifically for the text they are displaying. There are usually many different fonts used on one cover because magazine designers often use different fonts for different sections of text.
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