Fusion magazine front cover

Contents page

Double page spread;artist based article.

Evaluating production work

This is also a screenshot simply showing the development of my front cover and my contents page, bearing in mind these are unfinished. They have both been developed on Photoshop. This is also to show how the contents page and the front cover contrast together and compare the similarities and the differences.

Evaluating production work.

This is another screenshot i have developed to show how I changed the smoothness/Sharpness of this photo to soften the colours and allow them to brighten and blend together. This also gives his complexion a matte finish which has also brung out a bright brown colour at the same time.

Evaluation production work.

This is a photo i have taken which i have decided to transfer into black and white to create a dingy atmosphere for the article. I have achieved this by simply clicking on tools and image correctiona nd adjusting the contrast, saturation and the brightness. I now have a sucessfully changed image.

Research on contents pages

This is mixmag's contents page which is significant to my magazine as it relates to it remarkably. Its background colour, black is an idea I have taken in to account and I will apply to my contents page also. The variation of fonts and the outburst in the main photo is also inspiring.

This is NME'S contents page which hugely inspires my magazine contents page image and font type wise. overall it looks a bit mad and random which is exactly how I would like to create my contents page, the colours are extremely vibrant which isn’t really how I would approach my music magazine contents page but however certainly works in this case.

Photography analysis

This image was taken in a location which I thought about carefully before going ahead with the idea. I decided to shoot the variation of photos in Acland Burghley behind top pitch which is covered in graffiti because it suits the artist type and the target audience I am aiming for.

This photo is edited by adjusting the hue, contrast, sharpness, brightness and colour. I simply did this on apple images. This image is of Nathan posing as the artist subjecting my music magazine. This is a midshot dedicated for the front page. I decided Nathan should wear headphones around his neck and have a cigarette in his mouth to imply the type of artist he is and also dedicate to the target audience as these would be the type of people he would be aiming his music at, it also shows rebelliousness which connotes his age, an 18 year old which says that he is no different from his target audience in which automatically builds a relationship between them.

These are some of the photos I have taken to go into my magazine UNEDITED.

A close up to infer personality hense the big smile.

Another mid shot of the artist hanging of a balcony to show the normality of his life outside music

Semiotics

Semiotics is an attempt to create a scientific study of sign systems and their role in the construction and reconstruction of meaning in media texts.

The three types of semiotics:
Symbolic- A sign that represents an object or concept solely by the agreement of the people who use it.
Iconic- Signs which have a connection with what is bein signified but however is not
Indexical- Signs which have direct connection with what is being signified.

Below is a semiotics analysis of an magazine front page:

There are a several specific uses of semiotics used through this magazine front cover. The shot used in this magazine is a close-up shot taken at eye level. The subject  fills majority of this frame allowing the audience to see the detail of the subjects face. This shot allows emotion to be created from the subject. The angle of the camera allows the camera and subject to be the same level making the audience feel equal to the subject. This shottype, in semiotics would be called Iconic as it represents a shocked face, but however could easilly represent a differnet meaning, for example he could be estatic.

There are various indexical, iconic and symbolic signs used to construct and reconstruct the image. An symbolic sign on the subject is the tattoo across his arms and so on.

Research and planning in depth. Relating to music magazine

This is the magazine which is mostly suited to the magazine genre that I want to create as this will be great help to me as I will form my ideas from here to see what and how they apply their techniques to their target audience. For instance, although mixmag is about dance music and drum and bass, they have Madonna on the front cover in which she caters for pop music. This shows great controversial skills and inspires me to expand my target audience as this obviously attracts a wider target audience.
The masthead on this magazine matches the format very successfully, it is a pale pink which stands out on the wooden textured background, it also emphasised Madonna and makes her look like the subject of the magazine rather than the masthead. It is spread across the very top of the page and is bold and peculiar. The circular motion that is going on behind the M on the masthead suggests the genre of the magazine hugely; it almost resembles a large speaker which is pumping out loud music. I will bear this in mind for my magazine as this is dropping minor hints which could make a huge impact on the target audience.

Flat Planning

This is my flat format of the plan for my music magazine, my front cover, contents page and double page spread. I have planned this out surface based because it gives me a real idea what it would be like to look at the magazine in the A4 format which it would be. I have roughly sketched the front cover. The things I have established on my flat plan, are not for certain, for example the masthead 'neurotic' is not 100% settled in stone. However I have taken my photo's which would go into the magazine and this is what I would like the front page to look like, layout wise.

The contents page is simply, understandable however quirky. The splatter of relevant photographs in the centre of the page gives an insight of the contents of the magazine as it is ironically on the magazine. This page would be coloured a dark shade to emphasise the text and images. This contents page works out successfully and I think I am able to achieve this.

The double page spread article is simply a sketch of where I want the images and the text to be layed out. I have related this back to the article I have already written to so I have considered this. The headline is simply an extract of the interview which I have written where I thought it was relevant to the readers, I chose this carefully. The images are also photos I have took and chosen carefully to connotate and suggest the purpose of the double page spread.

Magazine prices.

Mixmag
The magazine I would have to relate my magazine to is mixmag. The price of miming is around £4, however if you subscribe, it is £36 plus extras. This infers that this magazine is for people with a standard disposable income rate as it is not a very cheap magazine, this could also imply their class. This also infers that the magazine is quality and contains various and lots of different pages. Relating back to my magazine, I would personally make the price a bit lower as I am implying it to a wider audience so it would be more affordable at around £2-3. This would infer that my target audience is of a lower disposable income or a higher disposable income; this promotes equality as it is aimed at a mix of genders, ethnicities, class and races.

NME
This magazine is also aimed at a similar target audience I would like to attract to my magazine. However the price of this magazine is £2.80 and unlike mixmag, this is more in the price range of what I would price my magazine at because is caters the target audience as it is not to expensive so people with a low expendable income can afford to buy this. This also supports the equality device that I would like to promote throughout my magazine.

Exploring techniques/Ideas

This masthead however is extremely effective. Straight away I can tell which genre this magazine would be, rock. Firstly, the shattered glass effect which is displayed throughout the masthead implies loud music and connotes with the whole craze of 'heavy metal' ect. The whole image of a rock star with an electric guitar, a male with long hair smashing is guitar across the stage automatically springs to mind as we look at this masthead. Use of color and font types are also crucial and carefully connotated to the genre of the magazine; Black and white are associated with rock and the font type is generally big and bold letters which stand out behind the black which also implies loudness.

Exploring techniques/Ideas

This magazine is especially crucial to my magazine genre because it is the magazine i have studied most which is most similar to my genre of magazine. this was important research because i needed to get an idea of what kind of things were put into the magazine. Personally although the masthead on Mixmag is suitable, i would apply a more advanced, exciting masthead to my magazine because a masthead can say a lot about the magazine and the content and can reach out to the target audience which is important. So i would use this as an advantage. in this case the masthead is rather bland and very rounded and fails to unnoticeably identify the genre of the magazine

Prelim Task

I was asked to design and produce the front page, and contents page, of a new school magazine for Acland Burghley. This was for the Prelim task before we started to create our real coursework magazines.

Firstly, before we did any changes on photoshop, My first task was to take a suitable photo that could go on the front page of the school magazine, I think i did this sucessfully because i selected three students from my media class to be in the shot. I chose a long shot rather than a mid shot because i thought it would work better with the layout of my front page as showing the students whole bodies to apply body language would improve the message of the convention used.

Throughout the prelim task, i used codes and conventions which i had taken from my research and knowledge of previous magazines i had studied before hand. For example, the font types are all different in which i have expolored many different text to apply individuality and uniqueness, i got this idea from the Top of the pops magazine which we studied in depth before hand.

I also used a wide range of colours to make the magazine bright and colourful to ensure that the unisex target audience is applied.

My masthead font is called onyx and is a simple however formal font type. I chose this because it looks formal and passes on a message of a sence of seriousness. To suit these conventions, i chose to colour it navy for a number of reasons, firstly, because blue is a colour that Acland Burghley is represented with and it is also a colour of seriousness and is related with a school uniform although Acland Burghley doesnt have school uniform. It generally represents Formality. Personally it think that my masthead is sucessful and sends the correct messages across.

I have used various aspects of lures and puff/earpeice and straplines. I have chosed these specific lures and straplines to relate to the target audience. For example, one of the headlines on the front cover says 'WIN! GO ON THE SKII TRIP FOR FREE' this is clearly directed at all Aleval students at La swap. This is an exreamly sucessful way to target your audience and use aspects throughout a magazine

I began the publication itself by creating the masthead. I titled the magazine 'The Burghley Boom' which is an onematopoeic  form of alliteration. In a way this is to reflect its art college status. I chose to use a font that looks irregular but attractive, and somewhat resembles formality.

At the bottom of the page, is my primary article which is written also in a formal fontype, as the article is about a serious and valuble topic which would benefit students. This also refers back to the target audience. All of the articles advertised on the front page are all aimed at a indetifiable audience.

I tried to follow a similar theme in the contents page by using similar colours and fonts to keep the publication consistent. I began by placing a plain opaqe colour of dusty blue to act as a background, but added a gradient on top of this so it doesn’t distract viewers from the main images on the page. The title ‘Burghley Boom contents’ which is simply introducing the page. This time, however, I used black so it does not get confused with the masthead. Using a found image of a film strip, I edited it so that parts can go at the top and bottom of the page. This indicates the media aspect of the arts whilst the splats of paint around the images indicate the art aspect. These images are trying to show previews of various articles featured in the list of contents to give more information.  The actual contents of the magazine are listed in a large font again with small bite size chunks of text, so it can easily be identified on a first glance. The bright colours, fonts and images I have used throughout the publication reflect the fact the school is an art college and is suitable for the target audience. In future development I may consider slight changes to improve the publication such as experimenting with the fonts a bit more and adding more aspects to reflect other areas of the arts.

When I had finished I had to go back to check for any spelling mistakes. I also printed out a copy to see what it looked like as a magazine. From this, I noticed changes that I could make to the layout and any errors that need correcting. I went back to change these and printed out a final copy to submit. Much of my time out of lessons was spent on these corrections but I managed my time effectively and am pleased with the outcome. To improve the design of my magazine further, I would enlarge the photo I have used on the front page. This photo was intended to be a mid shot; however, I now see that it is a mid-long shot. To change this I would simply enlarge the photo to change it into a mid shot.

Exploring techniques/Ideas

This is also another masthead that we examined in great depth.

NME is one of the UK's most popular music magazine however has a certain genre like every other magazine. In this case, NME is a magazine, which explores Alternative, rock and indie music. However you cannot particularly tell this just by looking at the masthead, as it is quite formal. It is very bold and defiantly has the technique to stand out on a front cover as it is double outlined in a white then black, this creates the flicks in the letters to be much more sharper which could be seen as a musical incentive. Importantly, it is colored a very vibrant red, which infers importance and formality. Also because red is considered a main color in the print based media industry, For example, The Sun masthead.

Exploring techniqes/Ideas

Top of the pops is a magazine that we looked at in depth as a class, and independently. The masthead is different to every other music magazine; it is very rounded and bubbly which can infer the target audience hugely. For example, in this case, the magazine is obviously aimed at a younger and vulnerable audience aged at about 8-13, you can tell this purely by looking at the masthead. You can also tell the majority audience of this magazine is for females; the masthead is pink and glittery which is stereotypically aimed at girls. I also noticed about TOTP magazines that there is always an artist/actor over lapping the masthead, this creates a sense of creativity.

Planning & Research

Here are some websites of music magazines which i have studied and have helped me come to the conclusion of which genre and target audience i would like to apply to a magazine click here!<<

Here are some websites of music magazines which i have studied and have helped me come to the conclusion of which genre and target audience i would like to apply to a magazine click here!<<

Here are some websites of music magazines which I have studied and have helped me come to the conclusion of which genre and target audience I would like to apply to a magazine click here!<<

Introduction task breifing

The main subject of this blog is a music magazine of my choice. This includes deciding the target audience, genre, and all of the other codes and conventions. I have to make this as successful as possible in order to receive a good coursework grade. 

My music magazine importantly will be commercial dub step and drum'n'bass. I have chosen this because commercial dub step is very new to the music market and is slowly creeping up in the charts and will imaginably by very popular as time and charts progress. It will be UK based and will be for a target audience aged people 16-23. It is equally for males and females and is completely unisex. This would be for any race and people of any class, however, majority of them would be students (college students and university students). I have chosen this target audience because the genre of music relates to them significantly as more young people are listening to dub step recently and going to party’s/clubs which are very dub step and drum'n'bass based. This will be a magazine, which is sold monthly and will contain up to date events and albums that are taking part in the month that the magazine is being produced.

Personal profile

My name is Alicia Fairbairn and I am a student at La Swap Sixth Form currently studying Media Studies alongside three other A-levels. This is my blogg for Media studies so I am able to publish all of my work  and coursework.