DIGITAL MOCK UPS (using images)

DIGITAL MOCK UPS

This is my first digital mock-up of my magazine front cover. It basically explains how I would prefrably like my final front cover to be like.

This is my first digital mock up of my contents page

Lastly, this is my basic digital mock-up double-page spread.

INTIAL IDEAS FOR THE MUSIC MAGAZINE PRODUCTS

Initial Ideas on Prezi

PRICING OF MY MUSIC MAGAZINE

PRICING OF MY MUSIC MAGAZINE.

Existing Magazine Pricing-

NME- £2.20
The Rolling Stone- £2.99
Kerrang!- £2.80
Q (Magazine)- £2.99

The average music magazine sold in the UK is around £3.00, maybe £4.00. This could also relate to packaging and how much content the magazine has (page wise and printing) to add expense. However, I am going to make my magazine a fair price of £1.25-£2.00 as that is fairly reasonable and affordable to most teenagers/younger generation-unemployed or not, and cheaper than most music magazines (or even magazines in general) sold to the public. This may also increase consumers as you may lose consumers advertising an expensive pricing, so even if they are interested in the magazine it may put them off buying it, but as I have made mine a reasonable price it may interest the consumer to buy my magazine. As the SEG Category is likely to be a D/E for my Target Audience (Younger Generation) it is better off being more cheaper than expensive, as then it can be too unaffordable, therefore resulting in less people interested in buying the magazine.

TARGET AUDIENCE

TARGET AUDIENCE

Pop music stereotypically attracts to the 'younger generation'. This means that my magazine will likely be aimed at teenagers as the majority, maybe into people into their 20's, but the audience will likely decrease as it gets to middle-age generations such as an audience in their 30's/40's age criteria. The SEG level my audience will probably be is D/E (as it attracts youth who will are more unskilled and majority are unemployed-due to their age) but also into the C standard. As there is an 'indie' genre also featured in my magazine this may also interest other readers who are into indie, soft rock and such other similar genres. This may increase consumers as it is attracting more than one music genre in the magazine. Stereotypically this may interest people who live in urban areas, as indie is a popular genre among people who live an urban, 'unique' culture, stereotypically known as 'indies', but obviously this music can be enjoyable to anyone, the example is just a high representation of 'indie' culture. Overall the music genre would likely attract both male and female sexes, and age majority would likely be teenagers as the genre seems to aim at the younger generation.

LIIAR ANALYSIS- Front Cover, Contents Page(s) & Double-Page Spread Article

LIIAR Analysis

Front Cover, Contents Page (s) &

Double-Page Spread Article

Magazine 1

The Masthead for the Cover of magazine is bold, and clear. It is placed at the top of the page and takes up space from left to the right of the cover. It is almost in a ‘gothic’ type font , and bases itself round 3 colours- Bright Red, Black, and White. The text is outlined in White, the main colour is a Bright Red, and the text is ‘shadowed’ with a ‘3-D’ look of a Black tone. It stands out really well, but is also recognizable as not only is Rolling Stone a highly popular magazine, but the Masthead is taken after famous band ‘The Rolling Stones’ band logo. Slightly over the top of the Masthead in small black font is the Issue Number, the date, website address and pricing, however this may be proven difficult to read if you struggle with sight. The House Style mainly consists of White, Black and Charcoal Grey. The main background for the magazine is White, making the model on the cover stand out. It is actress Megan Fox, we know this as the magazines main headline 'Megan Fox- America's Sexiest Bad Girl' and also Coverlines are to the right of the cover , but in a bold Black font. There are 3 other Coverlines underneath the Headline, mainly consisting of a Deck of 4. The main issue is at the top of the information but is also however in a slightly bigger font than the others, making it stand out and show the viewer which is the main article and in relevance to the main image. The subheadings also have grey but slightly smaller font, showing other articles featured in the issue but that are maybe ‘less important’ on the Front cover.

 

The model is also wearing just Black on the Front Cover, which may also go with the House Style and stands out from the White background, but is not an MCU shot as you can see most her figure down to about knee-length. There is no barcode featured on the front of this issue, this may be because it may be on the back page instead. The model also covers the Masthead slightly, this could make it a little unclear to read but as the logo is pretty famous and bold it is fairly easy to grasp what the Masthead spells out. There is also no Thumbnail Images featured on the cover, but the publishers may use them on the Contents Page(s) and Double-Page Spread articles. The teasers are used more in the article topics, to help appeal to the reader. There is also Sub-Titles above the masthead in a bold grey font (same as other grey font) which has names of celebrities (likely to be featured in the issue) which are separated by grey star-shaped bullet points. There is no competitions/free gift advertised to the reader on the cover.

The institution for the magazine is ‘Rolling Stone’. Which was joint created by someone who was a music critic, and is also in relevance to the band ‘The Rolling Stones’.

 As soon as we recognize the masthead being The Rolling Stones logo, we may think of ‘rock’ music. In relevance to rock music we may think of things such as ‘Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll’. The main image shows Megan Fox (an actress who is highly seen as a ‘sex symbol’) in little clothing, partially nude posing very seductively- in relevance to ‘sex’, revealing her tattoos in the image also gives a ‘rock’ edge to the cover.  This also gives it the distinctive edge that this isn’t just any old, mainstream ‘pop’ culture magazine and is more stylish and modern and perhaps targets a slightly older audience.

 Personally I think the audience for The Rolling Stone magazine is aimed at probably younger generation but when I define that I mean by more younger adults, people getting into their 20's. It probably also appeals to teenagers, but likely more older ones (ages 16-19). It could also occur to slightly elder people in their 30's , but probably attracts older audiences into their 50's maybe 60's when The Rolling Stones (magazine is based on this band) was popular in their era. The Rolling Stone may be portrayed as as slightly punky/rock due to their The Rolling Stones music genre but the magazine itself seems to involve many different types of artist-band/genre so can appeal to a wide vary of people. However, I think the main audience for this magazine is late teens into people in their 20's.

The representation of the Rolling Stones front cover is a little revealing for such a publicised magazine, and links into the common quote of 'Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll'. However this magazine is not for younger audience exactly so is fairly suitable for the aimed audience. The dark black clothes, dark hair,smoky eyes and tattoos also adds to the 'Rock n' Roll' image.
The colour scheme (aside the red masthead) is black and grey, which also gives a 'darker edge' to the magazine.

Magazine 2

The main image (a medium close up of singer Amy Winehouse) is in black and white, which makes the masthead of the magazine stand out, which is in white but in a brighter contrast to the picture. This is styled in a bold,block style and very clear and stands out. It is placed at the top of the page but to the left corner of the magazine, the date and the price is placed under the 'NME' Masthead but is fairly unclear as it is in tiny font size and victorian style 'fancy' font style.This is the only item that stands out on the front-cover. There is nothing else that reveals what is in the magazine, no subtitles,headlines, thumbnail images&captions etc, just a barcode at the bottom of the right-hand page. This may make the magazine consumer presume that more contents awaits inside, or also may be a special edition type of magazine. Overall the magazine cover is fairly basic and simple.

The institution for the magazine is NME, which stands for 'National Music Express'. They focus on many genres of music, and artists/bands.

 The image of the well known Amy Winehouse may give the impression that the NME magazine focuses on the type of music she produces (jazz etc.) It also could be in relevance to the death of the singer, she died due to battles with alcohol and drug abuse and the black and white tone may signify death, or even funerals as black and grey type shades and shown in relevance to death related issues. However, the image of Amy is happy, so the magazine shows her in a 'rare happy emotion', which is different due to the fact the media portray her as usually bleak and miserable, so NME may have done this to promote a different light on the singer. However, the magazine cover itself doesn't entirely give much away.

The audience is likely to be similar to the Rolling Stones magazine. It is fairly aimed at the younger generation, however not exactly younger teenagers, prehaps the youngest readers being elder teenagers. The majority would likely be younger adults, probably going into their 20's, and the majority of elder audience being in their 30's era, but I doubt that older people would likely read it as its less popular music for their generation.

Personally, I think NME have tried to promote a different light on the singer Amy Winehouse. Even though she had well publicised battles against alcohol/drugs, her personality was mainly well shadowed away and not understandable to the public, which the NME cover almost represents as there is hardly any features on the cover and makes it pretty hard to understand. On the other hand is shows her in a happy light which is mainly the opposite of how the typical media tried to portray her. However I think the black and white tone still signifys her death, but none of these gives any clues in representation to her music or what else the magazine reveals, the consumer of the magazine will only find out what is in the magazine if they decide to look at the Contents. Amy also gives relevance to the 'Rock n' Roll' image, as she visually displays her tattoos clearly, and wears signature dark eye make-up, but her full coverage of clothing, happy expression gives a sensible touch to the photo and far from the dark sides of Rock n' Roll.

Magazine 3

 The masthead on the front cover is a bold,clear white font of NME. As stated, this is clear but the main masthead 'Florence' in bright orange text with white bevelling/embossing stands out more than the actual magazine, but as NME is a successfully international 'name' known by many, so it is easily recognizable to the customer(s) and doesn't really need a 'in your face' distinctive masthead (kept to the left top corner of the front cover), which could possibly a main priority tactic on an independent label music magazine which therefore might not be as popular. The contrast of the image and MCU (Medium Close Up) shot of singer Florence Welch also stands out and instantly will attract the reader, and also gives the reader the point that Florence and The Machine are the main article and also is used as the whole background layer of the magazine. The house style of black,orange and white is consistent along with the same font used.  At the bottom of the cover, text font displays a teaser of other artists inside the magazine which also helps us identify the genre of the magazine NME. In the right hand corner at the top there is a bordered black and white image (in contrast to the main image background of Florence Welch) as a thumbnail image which shows us one of the posters (this issues 'freebie' giveaway) in this issue of NME. It also has anchorage to advertise the feature which is relevant to the magazine issue.  The barcode for NME magazine in this issue is on the bottom left. There is small print in black next to it but there is also small print which shows the British pricing and date in black underneath the NME branding font. As the masthead is in white and the small print in black underneath there is a contrast which makes it conventional. On the contents page NME have made it quite illustrative, using not as many words but making the contents up of 7 images featured (however as Florence Welch was the main cover she is not the main image on the Contents Page of NME) and also makes it look more attractive and not 'boring' and effortless. These images are used to illustrate the main features of the magazine and their articles. Another conventional aspect of NME's Contents Page is also the numbers of the pages are displayed, but without 'Page' before them. Another image is used in the right hand corner to subscribe to NME Magazine, this is a technique to entice the customer into 'bulk buying' the magazine, and also marketed at Christmas- 'The perfect Christmas Present!' which would be a peak time for customers. For 'quotes/drop-lines' and teasers of the features on the Contents Page they have used different fonts which is pretty unusual and others may have more difficultly reading other fonts (especially if you have problems with eyesight) but this also adds to the quirkyness and unique of NME Magazine layouts. The Double-Page Spread has an easily recognizable house style to the reader, as it has a similar photo to the Front Cover. The whole image once again is made the background image, however the artist (Florence Welch) is clearly on the right-handed side of the page. The magazine also promotes the 'fashion' of the artist along with the obvious musical promotion of the article. The article is on the left-handed side of the spread with a deck of 4 lines from the article. Sticking to the house style from the Front-Cover, the title of the article 'The Exorcism of Florence Welch' and also the font for the beginning of the article is black and orange, which is two of the colours mainly used in the house style on the Front Cover. The font 'Florence Welch' is very big and bright orange which makes it stand out and clearly shows the reader who the article is about. 'The Exorcism of' is in black so this contrasts to the 'Florence Welch' font making the orange therefore stand out more even though the black font is big. The music artist is also looking directly at the camera, which therefore engages the audience's response. As fashion is a main priority in the article this also helps the reader(s) identify with the genre of the music NME magazine. The institution as already told is NME magazine. NME has a clear state (and also known via its popularity) that its genre is Indie/Rock although like Rolling Stone magazine has many sub-genres as it features R'n'B artist Rihanna and also Noel Gallagher from leading band Oasis. The magazine is distributed by IPC Media. NME is popular as it reaches further than just a music magazine. It also has a website, where you can read previous articles (as they will be off the shelf on a regular basis for the newest, modern issue) and also they have NME radio station, which will also help the audience identify the genre of NME, and gather a taste for what music it provides. NME also have many sponsorships, this is 'synergized marketing'. Statistics from 2009 show that 73% of men and 27% of female are readers of NME (clearly making it more popular in the Male Catergory) and the average readers age is around 25.

MUSIC GENRE - PREZI PRESENTATION

Music Genre. on Prezi

LIIAR ANALYSIS OF THE BRIEF

LLIAR ANALYSIS OF THE BRIEF

LANGUAGE- Each of my magazine products need to contain-

Masthead- This needs to be large,dominant and clear as an icon. The title should also be fairly short and memorable. It should be bold and stand out, clear to the reader.

Main Image- The image is going to be of an MCU Shot (Medium Close-Up) , meaning the model(s) used in the image have to be of at least shoulders upwards, with a clear shot of the face with direct eye contact with the audience.

Colour Scheme- This should consist of brightly coloured shades (to help stand out) with a clear house-style of 2 to 3 colours.

Thumbnail Images-These are smaller images which I may use to help in relevance to other articles and illustrate them.

Anchorage

Price & Barcode- This gives a pricing to the magazine (which can be relevant when it comes to discussing SEG and Target Audience) and also the barcode makes the magazine have a more realistic appeal.

Teasing Contents (along the bottom) – A factor that should help it appeal to the audience of the magazine.

Competitions/Free Gifts- Another factor which adds appeal to the reader.

Main Article/Image- This is important as one of the main things to catch the audience/reader’s eye, and so should be made sure it is relevant to the article.

INSTITUTION-  The institution is a student creating a Music magazine for different audiences, this may not just be students but it may also be aimed at other types of people, but is mainly aimed at the younger generation, maybe perhaps young adults also (20’s onwards). This may also be acting as a producer for an existing publisher. It also may offer a younger type of outlook on music.

IDEOLOGY-  The ideology of my Music Magazine is to get the image across that whatever type of music I am trying to promote is popular, ‘hip’ , ‘trendy’ and to generally promote the genre,artist etc. This is also to help get the audience to listen to this specific type of music and maybe also get others to listen to it. Basically it is trying to promote the music and show everyone it is good, and get it to become more popular and for others to listen to it.

AUDIENCE- The target audience will probably be younger adults such as students, and young adults (into their 20’s+) and could likely appeal to older people, but the main aim is to focus on the younger audience, but this will probably depend on the type of music/artist, but it is an aim to use a genre/artist/band that is ‘trendy’ and aim at younger  types of audience.

REPRESENTATION-  I am aiming to present the artist/band as not exactly sensible but reasonable so it appeals to most audiences, especially if older people read it. I am going to make the magazine as stylish and quirky as possible so it stands out from other music magazines and make it more popular. I will also promote the quality of the music and the artist/band itself, and show the reader that the artist is worth promoting about, and shown in a positive light.

MUSIC MAGAZINE- THE BRIEF

Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as a group task, each member of the group to produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style).

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK - COLLEGE MAGAZINE

Feedback 1:

The creator of the magazine has put the main feature "bonfire night" in orange, this stands out against the photo and all the other text as there is no more text in bright orange. However the barcode is very small, this is no as important as you don't need to see it. The masthead could have been placed more to the top left of the page, so when on a shelf people are able to reconise it. The purple housestyle theme is good, as Wyke is assoicated with the colour purple so this will be familar to students at the college. The image is a medium close up which was asked for in the brief. Overall the magazine front cover is effective as it will attract students.

LIIAR EVALUATION OF MY FINAL DESIGN

Language- Firstly I have started off with the whole MCL (Medium-Close-Up) image as the background (no cropped images, colour background e.g)of a Wyke Student. The house style consists of Purple and White(as this is also Wyke's logo colouring) to help go with the already created colour scheme of Wyke College. The masthead is a shade of deep purple, and the text is in wave-like shape and a reasonably large sized, clear font, spelling the title of the magazine, 'Wyke Weekly'. The title already shows the reader how regular the issues are, therefore also under the magazine in a smaller, but clear purple font are the date, and issue number of the magazine itself. Underneath that in a 'outer-arch' type shape (to help stand out) is the pricing of the magazine- 85p. There is a main banner type title on the left of the cover going into the middle, it is the main headline of the magazine. I chose to make the article Bonfire Night, but changed the colour font to an orange shade (so it almost shows resemblance in 'flames/fire of a bonfire') and used slight teasing contents in a sub-heading as to where it featured in the article, in black. Using different colours for this immediatley draws attention to the reader as it stands out from the regular housestyle. As the majority of the picture is the model themselves I have had to make the majority of the layout to the left, right and bottom of the page to avoid covering the image and making it unclear.

FINAL FRONT COVER AND CONTENTS PAGE

FIRST DRAFT OF MAGAZINE COVER

As you can see this is my first draft for my College magazine, it needs a LOT of improvement but shows vague ideas of what my magazine cover style could be like.

COLLEGE PHOTOGRAPHS

College Photography on Prezi

DIGITAL MOCK UP