Mixmag - Dance magazine

Mixmag magazine, is a big influence in creating my magazine as it is the most well known DANCE magazine.

Below are notes I took of the magazines front cover and DPS images to help develop my magazine:

The Front Cover:

• colour scheme (blue,pink and white) Bright colours matches with item clothing.
• skyline- expresses the magazine (genre) all in capitals.
• The image (model) quiet zoomed back not too close to camera. 
• item clothing bright makes him stand out.
• props- hat makes dark shadow below eyes 
• eyes directly towards the camera 
• main features- pink linking with masthead and jacket. 
• quotations are underlined and above and below masthead.

 DPS Images:

• Image is up close (personal)
• uses shadowy effect used for font cover (above and below the eyes)
• Eyes are still directly looking towards the camera (still drawing towards the reader/audience)
• use another position (holding the peak of the hat) 
• This is used to cover the left eye (making the right eye more appealing)
• Shadow over left shoulder
• Includes main cover line (the artists name - Tiga) on right hand top corner front of soft pink box. written in capitals in black. 

Video of My Magazine Proposal

My Magazine Proposal

This is my magazine proposal that I had made to show the audience (fellow students of the class), of what my music magazine will be like for instance; to what the genre (theme) it is, the colour choice/colour scheme of the magazine will be,to whom my magazine will be related towards (target audience) etc.

Creating my magazine proposal also made me see clearer of how my magazine will look like and how I will develop into making my magazine a success to my target audience.

I still think that there are some changes I would have to consider making in the process of making my magazine such as the colour scheme layout and how the model will look such as clothing wise face to suit the genre of my magazine very well.

On that I would also have to consider making a flat plan this would help me see clearly the layout of my front cover,DPS and contents page it will also help me have a clear picture of how many pages my whole magazine will contain.

From the proposal I did receive some comments and feedback of my magazine which really helped me see what can improve on or develop on for my magazine to be good.

Photoshop Workshop

How to use Photoshop:

1) Firstly go on file new in present select international paper if A4 press OK 

2) Go to view and select ruler, go to the left hand side, hold drag line to 1 then repeat the process hold drag the line to 20. 

 Then hold at the top of the ruler hold and drag line to 1 across. Repeat the process and drag the line across 5cm down. 

3) find an image eg Rihanna of face. Then save the image you've selected of the person. Go to file 

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.