Mock Front Cover

Naming my music magazine

I have been thinking over the past couple of days that my magazine will need a name. I have had a look at different music magazines and realise I need a name to suit my genre (rap). After looking at these names I realised that the name is a huge factor for a magazine because it tells the audience what type of magazine they will be buying. The name I have chosen is "SHOT".

I think this name relates to the violence, streets, guns, bad language and rap. Over the next few days I will be trying out different fonts and colours for my title. I have an image in my head for what it will look like and I will try and build upon this.

SHOOT 

Getting ready to make my magazine 3

Here is some double page spread pages from rap magazines I have researched and I will relate to when I start my music magazine.

Getting ready to make my magazine 2

These are some rap contents pages that I can relate to when I start to make mine...

Getting ready to make my magazine

Mock up pictures analysis

The pictures on the previous blog post were supposed to be the pictures I was going to use for my actual music magazine. The reason they are not is because they are wearing the wrong clothing, so that makes my job on photoshop twice as hard and complicated.

I think the pictures themselves are very good. I like the angles, the lighting and the poses from the four boys. They would make the magazine look like it is related to its genre (rap). In the last picture I got Lewis to hold a microphone. I was then going to use photoshop to change it into a baseball bat. This is were I thought the job would be a lot easier for me if he was just holding a baseball bat to save me editing it.

Finally the clothing is all wrong. I tried to make them fit into the rap genre by scruffing up their clothes and giving them jackets. The last picture is ok because he is not wearing a shirt and you can hardly see his pants. I am going to have to bring some clothes in for the classmates to wear that will suit my genre more.

When you look at this image on the left, straight away you think of rap. This is the image I need to try and relate to. I need them to wear hoods, caps, vests and hoods. Also they could wear a chain and wear baggy pants.

Mock up pictures

Preparing to make my music magazine

Over the next couple of months I will be creating a music magazine of my own. The magazine will have

• A front cover
• A double page spread
• A contents page

The genre of my magazine will be rap/pop. I have chosen this because I feel that this will be a strength of mine considering I listen to this type of music. I think what I need to do while creating my magazine is using my strengths a lot. Using Photoshop is not a strength of mine but over the past few months I have become better at using it and I have learnt a lot.

Magazine picture mock analysis

After taking a lot of pictures of different ideas for my music magazine to suit the genre of rap, I narrowed it down to 3 pictures. One for the front cover, one for the double page spread and one for the contents page.
The experience of taking different photos was a great way to picture what my magazine will look like. I took about 20 pictures in total so I had a lot to choose from.
Different poses and clothes sytles were used to show the representation of the genre that I chose, which was rap. The pictures were took from different anges to suit the magazine that I will be doing.
Finally I think the pictures to suit my genre were quite difficult to take compared to others. This is because I am not used to the style of rap, so I just had to imagine what the magazine would eventually look like
After analysing these pictures, I now have a better idea of what my 4 music magazine pages will look like
In my next post I will be uploading the pictures and telling you what images I will use on the front page, the double page spread and the contents page,

Planning for music magazine

Very soon I will be starting to create my own music magazine. Before I do that, I will take some pictures to analyse the good things and bad things about them.

This picture on the left was took on my mobile phone. As you can see the  picture quality is not very good. It is very slightly blurred and I have not got his full body in the shot. 

The picture itself would not fit into my genre I am doing for my magazine. This is because the setting is in a classroom, he is wearing a jumper and tie, and he looks very happy.

The style I would want would be a rap/pop genre. This would probably conclude baggy clothes, a cap and illegal stuff. I will not be able to insert illegal stuff to my image but I can still make my picture fit the genre that I am aiming for. Finally I think that taking the picture on my phone would be a bad idea because the lack of quality makes the picture less realistic.

This second picture was also took on my phone. In this image I decided to edit it on my phone. I changed the picture style so it looked a lot more fake. I done this because I am taking this as an option for my real music magazine. I think doing this to an image would suit my genre I am going for. I think this because the image makes the person look a lot more street like.

I prefer this type of image to the first one that I took. This is because the second image looks like it could have been taken on a high definition camera, then edited of photoshop to look like the image is fake. I also think the image is better because the person looks less happy and more like he doesn't care about anything.

Analysing the contents page

After analysing the front cover of my music magazine and a double page spread, I am going to analyse the contents page.

I have taken a look at some contents page on the internet, and most of them have the same layout. I have noticed that nearly all contents pages have an image that relates to the genre of the magazine. In this case the page has three images that all relate to the genre. All the images have something in common. They all have people in that stereotypically look like they are into rock music.

The contents page is really useful and important because it introduces the entire magazine on just one page. All the information I need to know about every page in the magazine is on the contents page. The layout of this contents page looks quite messy which relates back to the rock genre. The house style that is used here also introduces us to the genre of the magazine as the colour can reflect the target audience. Usually the artists on the cover are featured in the contents as they want to show the main story inside and reference it here.

Analysing the double page spread

 

This is the double page spread. As you can see straight away, these two pictures kind of join together to make one big page. As soon as you look at it you can see that it you can see that it relates straight to the genre of the magazine (rock). I know this because there is an image of a woman rock star with a electric guitar who has a lot of tattoos and dresses up in very heavy make up.

Before I looked at this double page spread I looked at many others online and in my own music magazine. I found out that most of them are very different from one another. Like the front cover that I analysed, the colours are very dark representing the rock genre.

One of the pages are full of writing with a headline saying 'I've had babies, but ill still kill you'. On the other page there is a very large image of a woman who has returned to the stage after having babies. The two pages relate to each other to make one big page.

The page on the right is just full of writing. This writing is an interview on the woman on the left. The yellow writing is the questions that were asked, and the white text is what the woman said. This woman was on the front cover of the magazine. This is the reason that I chose this double page spread to analyse.

The other two images also relate to the genre of the magazine because they are both dark images of rock stars. In the background there are flames, this is representing danger and rock.    



 

My music magazine front cover

I have been given the task to go out and buy a real music magazine, then analyse the front cover of the magazine, the contents page, and any double page spread. The magazine I chosen was 'KERRANG'. The reason I chose this magazine was because I wanted to try something new instead of choosing one I was comfortable with like 'VIBE'. 

 

The first thing that sticks out to me is the front cover house style. The main colours are red, yellow and blue. The masthead on this front cover is a very big and bold yellow. This writing sticks out and because the background colour is blue, it is very easy to see. The five artists that are on this front cover are in front of the masthead. This could represent that these men are more important than the magazine itself.

 

The sell line of the front cover is 'The ALBUMS THAT ROCKED 2013'. This straight away is a line they have used to sell the magazine because they know the audience will see this and want to buy it. The sell line is black and red. These colours stand out a lot because we see these colours and think of danger. There is also two lightning bolts on the side that also represent danger.

 

There is two main pugs on this magazine. They are the two graphic edits at the left hand side if the page. These tell the reader what is inside the magazine for them to read. On this magazine it is telling the audience that a major rock star has returned and the other on is about a story of a tour that ended in chaos.

 

This magazine is targeted towards a rock genre. I can tell this straight away by the images of topless men, a lot of tattoos and the lightning bolts. I personally do not know the men on the front of this cover, but they are well known to the rock audience. KERRANG have also mentioned tours on the front of the magazine. To any fans or rock, will be the only reason that people will buy this magazine.

Voki