Music Magazines Inspire Genre of House/Dance

I've researched a  magazines whom link to the style music I am interested in writing and setting my magazine on. This style is mostly on the music people would generally listen in clubs, parties and festivals. House/Dance is very techno and loud genre of music.

First magazine shown below is  I-D magazine whom shows on the front cover FKA Twigs an artist whom relates to electronic music.

I think that for my magazine I would generally relate the image wise to the image beside. As it is very clear, and retro the type of style that I would want for my magazine.

Also the makeup used the dark purple lipstick make it look quite dramatic and dark looking. The jewelry use will be similar as i'll get the same props to use on my model.

Also the clothing wise I would make my model wear all black as the colour would match and suit any other colour for instance colour scheme of the text in masthead or generally any other text around the model on the front cover.

The main thing that i would have to decide on is the hair as this magazine always makes the hair of the model creative and different from the hair you'll see these days, I would use that time to decide what else i can do to make the image and the model different and creative than any other magazine.

Magazine newsstand task/ distribution of magazines

Earlier this week, I visited a number of shops that had displayed newsstand of magazines including genres such as;fashion,sport,house,gossip and music. 

My main focus was on finding the display of the music magazine in particular. 

For instance, the first shop I had went to was Sainsburys which had in my opinion few magazines of this particular genre as I thought that it had used its biggest and well viewed side of the new stands towards the fashion based genre. 

As u can see from the above, the newsstand only place to square shaped size of the music genre. I found it quite hard in finding the music magazines as there were hardly many of them to recognise other than Kerrang magazine. 

 

I noticed that the image of most of the magazines were quite dark and misty now relating as to why I could not recognise them or spot them because of the colour scheme very black and red. 

However, as I noticed that they were music magazines were because of the actual image used for the front cover. Big legendary musical artist used on the cover of the magazine but also being the magazine itself 'masterhead' called after the artist 'Elvis'. 

I also saw the same feature used on a magazine far top which also uses legendary musical artists (group) as the masthead  which I guessed attracted me when finding the newsstand for music magazines this was of course The Beatles.  

 

Another shop that I had went to to find newsstand of music magazine was a local post office. 

Here I found it very clear and helpful in finding music magazines as it names whereby all the different genre magazines are placed in bold. 

As there are more magazines on the newsstand than there were in Sainsburys they included different genres of music such as rap (XXL), dance however in Sainsburys they only included the genre of Rock on their newsstand. 

The colour scheme and imagery from the magazines in Sainsburys are quite similar as they still make red and black very important in the magazines. 

Also as Sainsburys did they've also used legendary musical artists whom have died like in Sainsburys they've used Elvis very big musician who died however used his name as the masthead of the entire magazine calling it 'Elvis'. 

However, here it shows a magazine relating to the King of Pop Michael Jackson however have kept the title name of the entire magazine the same (Kick). Even though, the masthead MJ stands out a lot as it's a very bold slim text and colour gold making it look rich and grand as it represents one of the best musicians ever in the music industry. 

Audience feedback and evaluation - premilinary task/college magazine

                Audience feedback and evaluation - preliminary task/college magazine






What went well?


The things that had went well in creating my college magazine was firstly  photography. Went out to the street in college and found a range of people to take individual images such as; students in the gym, students wearing the ID cards etc. By the end of the photography, I had to make a decision on which image I was going to use for the front cover of the magazine. Therefore I gad decided to use the image of a girl whom was in the street wearing her student ID card. I had made her stand beside the blue wall in the street as I wanted the colour blue to be in my colour scheme for the magazine. I also made her look towards the camera because I've noticed that by them looking towards the camera makes a big effect to the reader other than the model looking down or somewhere else.






Another thing that went well in creating my magazine was using Photoshop. Photoshop was quite well in using such as placing the image where I wanted it to be placed, also on editing the image to make it seem very eye catching to the audience.






Lastly, what I found well in creating my magazine was writing the features on the front cover. Such as including masthead (LSC) and making that the same style writing as the colleges in the colleges website ( white and bold). The page layout was well placed as I made all text around the image of the girl making the image stand out more. Using box (in yellow) to be placed on the skyline and to write brief phrase on top of the magazine. Also layout on InDesign went well as this was used to create my contents page of the college magazine. Here I used line to separate the different subjects from each other such as prizes, events, features etc.




I also had some good feedback from other students as well as teachers of my front cover. Firstly, student Corrine stated that " The layout of your front cover is very neat, everything has a section another thing I admired was the colour scheme matching the college logo." Another student Sumaya stated that " Your front cover is very professional. I like the colour scheme and the way you laid out your text. Your sky-line is very good as well and this looks like a proper magazine."


 As for teacher had stated of my front cover that, "Overall the front cover of the magazine is very good. The colours of the magazine link very well, which makes the magazine look appealing to the eye, as well as making the text look easier to read. The fonts chosen all go together nicely and the change in font sizes help to make important headings stand out.The image of the girl is placed on the right of the text, she is covering most of the magazine which make her look important, she is also looking at the camera which entices the audience. All text placed on the cover is reverent and with the range in colour, cover-lines become easier to read. "


What do I need to improve?


The things that I need to improve on for my college magazine are firstly the image. I noticed after finishing my magazine that the light hitting the girl in the image below her eyes were too strong as she was wearing makeup I think that I could of use the features on photo shop as well to lower the makeup she had on her face.




I also think that I should improve on the front cover is the text maybe add more things (important features) of the college such as more events that are realistically happening also more things that college students would be attracted to.




I also received feedback of the front cover of my magazine from the following students before and teacher. Firstly Corrine had said "What I would improve is the lighting in the photo in the front cover, except from that the front cover looks very professional". Teacher had said "Overall if i was to give constructive feedback on Sarah's magazine, I would say to edit the image maybe, to lower the brightness and contrast, maybe make the text under the cover lines more noticeable by making the font bigger or bolder."


Development for Main task (Music magazine):


The first thing that I would develop for the main task would be to firstly plan out what my main task will be for instance the genre of music I would want to discuss and write about. And to stick to the theme and make it obvious what the theme is (music based House/Dance).


The second thing is to make it very high standard. For instance the imagery (photography that I will take for the magazine including the front cover and, contents page and for the double page spread.


Lastly I would make it a very journalistic for instance my writing I would proof read it make sure that the grammar, language and spelling as it was included as a feedback from the teacher.

Contents Page for College Magazine

Front cover of College Magazine

Research/ case studies of real music magazines : CLASH

Research / case studies of real music magazines: Clash

Textual analysis of CLASH

Images:

 The front cover of CLASH was very creative as it shows  2 images of musicians from the same group ‘Overshadowed’ have been to create this piece of art as the front cover. The front cover is of a women and a man. The 2 images been taken have been separated almost ripped apart. For me, the wide eyes of the women are eye catching as they are right below the masthead.

 Her makeup for the eye was used on purpose as the silver metallic eyeliner is dramatic and strong even though she’s looking towards the right and not towards the camera; it still makes an effect to me as an audience. Also the mascara creates that dramatic effect making her eye lashes long makes her eyes stand out even more. I also noticed that lipstick was used, the colour used was red. Red makes her look more seductive you can also tell that her mouth was slightly open showing a bit of her teeth which makes the magazine sexy.

Props used on the women that I noticed were jewellery used on the head and above her mouth to the far end.  The jewellery were shown in the cover 3 times but the main one would have to be the one place on her head as the light is reflecting towards the jewel making it appear more. Also as it’s clear yet diamond like, it links towards her eyes being silver and metallic like. The lighting of the images in the front cover was not too dark.

In CLASH, there were 2 contents pages, in both contents pages they used 3 images from different features such as fashion, cover stories, interviews and news.  The 3 images all use a low lighting as the main cover line is ‘Overshadowed’ the contents pages keep to that theme of showing shadows in black and white images. The main cover line image uses shadows as the image of the person is from the front cover (DJ Shadowed).  I noticed that all 3 images on the contents pages are in order from smallest to biggest. This is used because the images number pages are different such as the first image is on page 58. They put the image first as it’s before any of the other images in the magazine.

 

 

In the double page spread, the first image is a drawing of a TV presenter. I firstly thought that it was unusual to use a drawing of the main person of the article as it is usually a picture/photo shoot. As the drawing is very similar to the actual presenter the article is still a success and different in using it as evidence of the presenter. The drawing is in black and white linking back to the shadow.  The surroundings of the drawing are also white which makes it look dull and plain. The article also uses yet again another drawing of a game instead of using an actual image of the object. However the use of colour in this drawing makes the article stand out as it uses primary colour such as red, blue. The last image on the double page spread is of a musician (Zac Brown). This time, the magazine has used an actual image of the person. Even though, the article on the musician is about food (barbecues), they’ve decided to use an image of the person holding a guitar. They’ve zoomed the image and blurred the people in the background to focus it o him and the flag of America is also on focus to create that powerful and dramatic effect.

Conventions of page layout:

The masthead in the front cover was CLASH. The masthead was bold and wide for the audience to be hooked towards. The colour of the masthead was soft orange suiting the image on the cover which was also a soft orange. 

 I think that all the features used in the front cover all linked to the masthead. Firstly, the cover was ripped this links to the masthead as the word clash is similar to slay, tare and destroy. This shows that the cover image was purposely designed that way to connect it to the masthead.

The masthead also linked towards the image of the girl. As, in the image I noticed that the girls eyelashes were extremely long. Her eyelashes were made to look like that because, in the masthead by removing the letter ‘C’ it would form ‘LASH’.  The main cover line was ‘Overshadowed’.  This was also a soft orange colour. The font style was different from the masthead. The font style was quite the Arial Narrow meets Bodoni MT Poster Compressed. This was purposely placed below the chin of the DJ in the front cover because; there is a shadow in the image below the chin. This links to the main cover line shadow. The teaser in the front cover of the magazine is the phrase “Not another DJ Shadow Interview”.  This is because it addresses the audience that yet again they have another interview with the amazing DJ Shadow. It’s also sarcastic saying not another interview makes the audience shocked and surprised.

Masthead in the contents page is ‘Contents’. This is used to draw readers on where the contents page. The main cover lines are Features, Fashion and Regulars. These are all used in the same font style as the main cover line in the front cover. However the colour used is black as the colour scheme in the contents page is black and white. Teasers are used throughout the entire contents page For instance they include; pull quotes from interview, images. They use 3 images in the contents page for the reader to see what things will be in the features. Such as, image of fashion model above the image writes down the page number.

In the double page spread, they’ve used a textbox above the masthead of the article (Private Passions). They’ve used this textbox to write clear summary simply to tell the reader what the article is about. The textbox makes it stand out as it is in white bold square and the text is white also.

Language:

The tone in the language was not too formal as it had inappropriate words used. On the other hand, in the interviews the tone was very formal indeed.  The structure was much organised, everything was placed in the right order for instance in the interviews it would open with the correct subject and end perfectly.

The genre of music was varied as it included artists of reggae, rock, electric, classic and rap. Also, other genres than music are also portrayed in the magazine such as; TV presenters, sportsmen (sufers), fashion mixtapes etc.

Audience and Institution:

Above shows the readings of CLASH magazines audience. It shows that the majority of men buy CLASH magazine. This is by 55% of men buy and read the magazine however 10% less whom buy and read CLASH are female. It also shows that the target audience is in the average age of 28 showing that adults in early 30s would read CLASH magazine. 

 

The statistics have been really helpful as it has shown me an understanding of the magazine. From the language and features this magazine uses links to the age group of the people whom buy CLASH.

 The  image  beside is of the statistics and fact show the percentage of age groups whom buy and read CLASH from 2011. It still shows the majority of people whom buy the magazine are over 20 and are mostly men.

CLASH magazine is published 10 times a year by Music Republic Ltd. CLASH also launched a smartphone which had went on to win ‘Best Music Magazine’ at the Digital Magazine Awards for their IOS Apple Magazine App.