Main Task: Double page spread article

In today’s music industry it is key to get a foot in the door and get your music out into the clubs, gigs and everywhere possible. However in today’s time the internet is a powerful tool for up and coming musicians for example YouTube, Soundcloud and more allow for greater sharing and expansion of your music. One prime example of this, is the revolutionary music network based online called Monstercat, they act as a record label for electro, house, EDM, dubstep and more. They offer promotion for their artists. Their YouTube channel boasts 100s of millions of views with close to 1 million subscribers, individual artists can apply to become a partner with the network to gain access to their promotion and partner features on YouTube. One artist, Will Moyse, wishes to join the network in his dreams to become a professional, record-selling, DJ and believes MonsterCat is the way forward.

Main Task: Mock up design sketches

Main Task: Research into Institutions

Main Task: Primary Questionnaire

Questions:

1. Age?

2. Gender?

3. Interests?

4. Favourite music?

Results:

These results indicate that my target audience is between 12 and 24 and is not likely to be older than 35 at the maximum. It is also predominantly targeted at males (70%) however the fact that almost a third will be females they do need to be considered during the design. The main interests were gaming, film & TV and sports with little to no interest in cooking or theatre.  The main music genres are Dubstep, Electro and Pop with this in mind I’m going to focus my magazine on Dubstep music. In summary, my target audience is male, aged 12 – 24 and is interested in Gaming, Sports and Film & TV and listen to Dubstep.

Main Task: Discovering a Magazine Name

I started by brainstorming words associated with my chosen genre of music; electro/dubstep. So words such as decibels, music, sound, dub, drop, bass. I then went to www.thesaurus.com and entered all those words to find out synonyms. I also liked the idea of "Pulse" as it refers to a heartbeat which is a constant beat which is also similar to the constant beat in a electro song. It also reminds me of a blood flow as if music was flowing through the body if I pair that with a red colour scheme it could work quite well.

Main Task: Researching Double Page Spreads

The first thing that jumps out straight away on this double page spread is the giant red letter "L". I personally find it distracting and think it draws away from the content of the article and would make it hard to read, however it is very striking and engaging and paired with the grayscale photo of Lady Gaga. The layout is very stylish and elegant, with the fonts they've used which contain serifs, this contrasts with the semi naked/revealing/ provocative photo of Lady Gaga, this sends out mixed messages. The camerawork featured is a medium shot of the subject, just showing her top half.

The black background on the quote match with Lily Allen's very striking eye shadow and black hair. The double page feature is mainly used by the large photo of the subject. Her red shirt matches the colour of the secondary font colour. Most of the font is black as it stands out on the white background but some text is red.The large quote is made to look like a newspaper headline and its purpose is to attract the reader to read on and read the whole article. The camerawork used in this photo is a medium shot covering her top half and the subject's pose is showing an attitude.

The title of the article stands out the most and is in a Serif font, the colour of the question mark matches the colour of her sunglasses. The white box in the centre of the 3 columns highlights a specifc engaging quote extracted from the article, the 3 columns are also formatted around the white box breaks up the solid block of text and makes it easier on the eye. The colour scheme used in this double page feature is again simple, very slick and stylist with just the use of black and white with a hint of colour, in this case it's a light blue. The layout is somewhat cluttered with a lot of content featuring on the left hand side but with just the medium shot photo. The subject in the photo is looking up and to her right which is inline with the headline of the article, by her looking that way the audience is also drawn to where she is looking (the headline) which grips the audience.

Main Task: Researching Contents Pages

This contents age features a full shot of the featured band on a hilltop, there is also a caption below detailing an article about the band. The layout is neatly organised with a column of contents down the left hand side leaving a large amount of space to be used by the photo. The colour scheme is simple and they don't overuse colours, they simple have important text highlighted in red with a black masthead at the top. The fonts used are all the same with the masthead just being in a bold and enlarged. The caption at the bottom "The world's biggest and best music guide" indicates they're trying to convince the audience that this magazine should be your number one source for music information. In the bottom left corner is a template which features on every month's issue. It shows the featured articles that appear every time which is trying to pull the audience in and get them familiar with the magazine layout.

This layout is far more cluttered than the previous contents page, it has a comprehensive list of bands down the left hand column. They advertise subscribing to the magazine, which is a stream of revenue for the magazine, with an offer. They also have a short section of a article in the magazine that couples with the full shot photo. This contents page has a lot of text rather than featuring a large/many photos, down the right hand side they have a few selected featured articles with captions detailing more about what the article is about. The colour scheme is very simple with just reds, black, white and yellow being used, this means the layout isn't garish but at the same time contains enough colour for it not to be too dull and maintain trendy. The full shot photo is of a live performance from the featured band, the lead guitarist and lead singer are very engaging as they are performing the music as the photo is taken, this therefore engages the reader as they aren't just stood still and boring, they are active.

 

This layout is in contrast to the previous contents page, the previous one was predominantly text based however this magazine contents page is full of images. The photos are a mixture of close ups and medium close ups. There is one larger image and 8 minor images accompanying the larger one. Each image has a page number and a caption with the image. This colour scheme is made up of black, white and yellow. The yellow and black complement each other as the yellow background features black text and the black background features yellow text, this keeps a consistent look throughout the page.

Main Task: Researching Front Covers

The colour scheme used in this front cover is a vibrant pink with white and black. The camerawork used in this front cover is a full shot image containing all the subjects taking up the majority of the front cover as they are the featured item of the magazine. The language used is targeted at a younger, trendier audience with phrases like “Why they will own 2012” and “Bored? Skint?” .The layout of the magazine is somewhat cluttered with a lot of the main headlines featured on the cover in the bottom third of the magazine where as there is not much information near the top third where the heads of the “Maccabees” take precedence. The tone of the magazine is high energy with featured items such as “Exclusive new track” and “Win! Noel Gallagher Tickets” trying to draw the attention of the reader.

The camerawork on this magazine is an extreme close up shot of the subject. It is very eye catching and draws you in due to the nature of the subject with his gold teeth and gold rings in the forefront. The colour scheme used a simple one with only white being used on the text and then the colours in the background image with gold and red. The typography used in this magazine is in three sections. The masthead is a simple sans serif font, whereas the headline is a much narrower and is a serif font then in the bottom third is sans serif too. The layout is very spacious with not a lot of text due to the photo being the dominate feature that draws people in. The subject is wearing a vibrant red hat and the bright gold rings on his fingers and the gold teeth catch your eye as it’s a very striking image.

The camerawork used on this magazine is a full shot, the subject isn’t wearing any clothing which immediately strikes the eye, and the magazine is probably aimed at males as their eye would attract more to the photo. The bright red lipstick, red nail paint and bright hair contrasts and stands out from the white backdrop which creates this elegant and simplistic layout, the layout is ordered too with the masthead in the top left corner then the headline and coverline in the centre of the magazine, building on this there is a lot of space around the front cover with just a masthead, headline and a coverline all of which are in black. The headline is in a serif font and is very artistic in the way it resembles a signature or handwriting. The language used is simple and clear on what they’re saying.

Preliminary Task: Page Design Sketches

After doing some rough sketched designs of three contents pages and three front covers, I have decided to opt for "Cover 2" and "Contents 1" for my Preliminary piece.

Preliminary Task: Planning my magazine

Colour Schemes:

My school's uniform is green and yellow themed, with this in mind I have chosen green to be my main colour of my school magazine. I wanted to produce a magazine for the Sixth Form section of the school so that means I'm straying away from the regal and classic colours like Gold and instead going for a more trendy and casual colours. I've come to the decision of using a mixture of greens with one other main colour (for example purple or blue) for my colour scheme with a white or black font.
Here is my first colour scheme design idea:

Here is my second colour scheme design idea:

My personal preference is to go with the purple, as I believe it seems a bit less formal, it actually sits well with the green and looks like they should fit together however the blue seems like it stands out too much and takes away from the green, also the white font is far easier on the eye and easier to read than the black. My chosen colour scheme is Green for the background colour, purple for the secondary body colour and a white font.

Font Styles:

I'm looking for a Sans Serif font as I'm looking for an informal and more casual magazine look as it's targeted at Sixth Form students (Aged 16 - 18) rather than having the formal magazine targeted at the parents of the students which would most likely have Serif font.

Here are four Sans Serif fonts from top to bottom: Coolvetica, AgencyFB, Compass and Sansation. I think that Coolvetica is slightly too thick and bold to be used as a font throughout a magazine. AgencyFB is a good font in my opinion, it's rigid but still looks casual and trendy with a slight futuristic look to it. Compass looks like a font that would be on make up packaging, a bit too feminine. Sansation is also a nice font but think over personal preference I'm going to choose AgencyFB as it's thinner and looks more modern and not very mainstream, the other forms all look a bit similar.

Preliminary Task: Contents Page Research

Preliminary Task: Front Cover Research

The typography used in this front cover are all Sans Serif fonts, this gives a casual feel and it also feels like it's targeted at young adults and new families which coincides with the photo of the children as they are young and also the Masthead is "Prep School". The tablets and laptops featured in the photo are there to advertise and show off the money, technology and resources this school has to offer to the target audiences children. With all the children on the tablets and smiling it implies that it's a happy learning environment and a pleasant place to be, so obviously the purpose of the photo on the front cover. The colour scheme used is blues, which is the same as the uniform blazer and the chairs in the photo. Blue is also a very easy colour on the eye and does not appear garish.

The layout is quite cluttered in comparison to the other front cover, this cover features much more text, a criticism of that would be that some of the text overlaps the photo of the two student and I think it would look a lot more professional and it also eliminates any complications with text not being readable on the background. The camerawork used is a medium shot of one female student in a three quarter stance and a male student, taller, stood behind her. If he was stood in front his height would be significantly taller in comparison so it's good that he is behind as it balances the photo well. The fonts used are also Sans Serifs and this magazine looks like it's targeted at the students, probably sixth form, rather than the parents. However the colour scheme of deep purples and blacks makes it very elegant and stylish, however the font colour choices seem a bit random with some secondary text in purple with the title in black but then on the left hand side there is just black text with no purple title which seems lazy or a mistake.