Smashing Sound Front Cover & Contents Page

Draft for magazine article

This is one page to my article, since it's a "double" page spread i'll need to add another page to this. i might need to change the layout of the writing too and maybe add a picture of the person being interviewed, since every other magazine would do the same and i have to follow those conventions. I gave the text a white border to make it easier to read on the background, but then i could easily of changed that by darkening the background and brightening the font colour which i should do for the final draft of my magazine.

Draft of my contents page #2

Here is my second draft for my contents page, The colouring is better now but is different from the front cover which is a problem because it's a magazine convention that the contents page and the front cover has a theme that matches. It's also in black and white, even though it looks slightly ok compared to the last and has an extra 2 pages added, it has a big black box so the text is readable so i will need to change that as well for an effective contents page. I also need to add a picture or two to frame the contents page well.

Draft for my contents page

This is the draft for my contents page, it's extremely plain and the writing is far to big, also it shows that my magazine has only 8 pages and nobody is going to purchase a magazine with 8 pages so i'll have to add more pages and give this page some sort of background to stop it from looking so plain. Also the writing is very large so i would like to scale that down to a normal size and lay it out like most contents pages in magazines are.

Draft of my Front Cover

This is the first draft for my music magazine, from afar this doesnt look like a magazine at all, so to change that i will have to change the layout completely and perhaps move the main image. Also the main image quality is very poor and no magazine has a poor image inside, so for my final front cover i'll need to have better quality for the main image and also make the text readable. Because the background is blue, black and white it is difficult for any text to be seen no matter the colour so i will also have to redesign the background to make the colours stop the text from being bright and unreadable.

Article Analysis #2

The choice for this article is about clubbing, the audience ranges to anyone who clubs this article is fully on “the environment” the dress code in this article is simply what people wear when they go clubbing. Because you have to be a certain age to go clubbing, the audience should expect some kind of mild language this article has some loud colours even though the background is black which makes it look flat, the smiley face is bright yellow, along with the pictures of the clubs will have bright lights because it is from a club. We know it’s from Mixmag because it says so on the page itself. On the left side of the page we have “RAVE THE PLANET” underneath it tells us “Welcome to Rotterdams sustainable dance club, where clubbers’ feet power the lights, rainwater flushes the loos and dance music has a crack at saving the world”
This alone should make the audience want to read on to see what this is going on about. All the information is on the right hand side which makes it easier for the audience to pick up what they need to read, however its in columns so if they’re looking for a certain thing it may take longer to find but after reading once that wouldn’t be much of a problem. The images go with theme of the article clearly because its about clubbing, and all the images are people in clubs, there’s one other picture with a toilet but that’s to show what’s in the club. This goes well with the bright loud yellow front cover of the magazine. Because the colours are flat just like the front cover, however “RAVE THE PLANET” looks like it could be the front cover on it’s own.

Article Analysis #1

The choice of band for this article is Slayer, they’ve been going for 25yrs so the target audience ranges from whoever likes them to whoever does not.
Since it’s an interview there won’t actually be a target audience, instead the audience should just be prepared for mild language if anything. In this article there is “I’ll try to come across a little scarier” other than their dress code you can tell this is most likely kerrang magazine, due to the font used you wouldn’t see the above line in an article to do with Hip Hop. The colour used makes everything seem washed out, it’s all black and white, the font is also black, and the only thing in colour is the text box that is green. The style of text is all bold but “Scarier” seems to be in a different text altogether mainly to fit the word, if it were on a red text box it may look like a stencil for blood. The entire left side of the article is an image of “Slayer” and the entire right side is the questions this is probably set out this way to help the reader go straight to the questions and pick one out easily, or if they have read the article once before and want to show their friend they can quickly go to the question without needing to browse two pages. The band is presented as two normal men in the image, it’s only when reading the main line on the page it clashes with that, and in the story before the questions one of them says “I don’t want people to think there isn’t a chance that I wouldn’t murder someone” when you tie that to the image it changes the representation completely because the audience would’ve judged a book by its cover.
The style for the front cover is the same as this article on the front cover everything is easy to pick out, just like this article, on the front cover the main image takes up as much space as the image does on this article.

Questionnaire results

This was mainly answered "No" but as all magazines i will make my magazine contents have a similar theme to my front cover, by doing this it should look interesting and may boost the amount of "No" to "Yes"

Because this was a yes and no based answer, i'm going to have to blend colours that could be bright with colours that could also be dark to give my magazine a special sort of colour scheme used on the front cover. This should overall help my magazine stand out on the shelves for stores.

I will really need to think about the sell lines i use on my magazine front cover, since according to the reply from my questionnaires it's the sell lines that attract most of the audience, followed by the front cover images and colours to make the front cover stand out most.

I asked people "How often do you buy magazines" and the answer i mostly got was "whenever i have the money" so to go with that answer i will release the magazine every two weeks which should mean the people interested should be able to have enough money to buy it.

There was more females that completed this questionnaire, so for me even though the magazine is aimed at both male & female i will have to include things that might appeal to a female more.

The favourite genre out of the 3 i gave for the audience to answer was metal, because metal was the winner i know how to get my magazine across to an audience but i will pair it up with rock to appeal to a wider range of people because if i were to pair metal up with r&b it would seem slightly awkward.

The answers i mainly got for question 1 pointed towards the ages of 15 to 16. This means that for my magazine i will aim it towards them two ages with 13/14 & 17 to 18 year olds in mind. Because of this i will not have to filter any text in my magazine.

Questionnaire

How old are you?
13-14
15-16
17-18

Out of the following, which is your favourite genre?
Rock
R&B
Metal

What gender are you?
Male
Female



How often do you buy magazines?
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Whenever I have the money
If I see one that interests me

What attracts you to a magazine?
Sell lines
Magazine titles
Front cover colours
Front cover images

Do bright colours attract you to a magazine?
Yes
No
Sometimes

Does the quality of the contents page help you decide on buying a magazine?
Yes
No
Sometimes

School Life Contents Page

I created this to find out how to design a contents page, this is extremely basic and by far not the best i could come up with, however i created this in hope of being able to make a better contents page, to start i could make "Contents" bigger i could change the background to go with the front cover, i could possibly add some pictures. I also would need to add more pages, nobody wants a magazine with 2-3 pages. I can make the main story stand out more on the contents page as well.

School Life Magazine Front Cover

Before i was able to start my Music magazine i created this School magazine front cover
i used photoshop on the majority of he picture, starting with the "Satin" tool to darken all the light that was around the main image. I then added a "Gradient" and made the opacity lower so it didnt go over the entire magazine, after adding the barcode, i sent this to Adobe Illustrator to work on the font, using the "type on a line" option i was able to create the Title.
I could have made this magazine alot better by adding more sell lines to the front cover,
prehaps taking the background out and adding something else to help he main image stand out more, i'd also have to enlarge the main image & the title so they are much larger
after that is sorted i could choose the few colours i want for my magazine.

Britney Spears Analysis: Part3

Britney is looking directly at us however she isn’t smiling and the makeup around her eyes looks smudged like she has been crying the use of black and white is to wash out the entire colour around her and bring in sympathy. The image has been cropped so we can just see her face this is so the audience can focus on her facial expression looking at her eyes brings about sadness. Britney dominates this front cover, there is hardly any text on the front cover all this leaves is the image of Britney the main sell line “Inside an American tragedy” is on the opposite side of the so called “sweet spot” of the front cover for a magazine the text is around her face but nothing is around her eyes.

Britney Spears Analysis: Part2

The image has been framed into the center of the magazine this is so she is the main focus of the magazine, not the sell lines. She is looking at the audience to further that engagement with the audience. Britney only has some underwear on in this image however she is surrounded by the colour white.
The colour white is to do with innocence but her image on the cover disagrees with that if she’s so innocent why is she topless. The sell line works perfectly with the image it says “Britney on Justin that kiss & being alone” the reader could be alone with her by having this magazine. The setting is some sort of white corridor, the lighting used is bright and it shines down on her, the reason for this is to give her an angelic look, long blonde hair, and surrounded by white.

Britney Spears Analysis: Part1

Britney’s clothes in this image shows her in her underwear with an unbuttoned shirt the shirt is related to her first music video set in a high school.
This reminds everyone she’s still a teenager, and still has a sense of innocence, most other images of women on music magazines they are usually topless. This image probably applies mostly to men because of the clothes Britney has on. There has been the use of 2 props, one is a telephone, all teenagers love to talk on the phone, and this is telling the audience that whether she is a celebrity or not she’s still a teenager. The other prop is a Telly-Tubby Teddy, this goes with the phone & the text next to it “Inside the heart, mind & bedroom of a teen dream” she is a teenager she is also a girl, every girl has some sort of teddy in their room. The setting is her bedroom, on her bed. The cover she is laying on is a romantic colour, this gives it a sexual feel to it. A lot of the image has had a boost in brightness the lighter an image usually means “good, holy, innocent”, in this magazine cover she is in fact, good & innocent. The red / purple colour in the background contradicts to her however.

Contents Page Analysis #1 & #2

This contents page is effective because of its use of images and colours, there are 4 pictures, to this contents page the large image takes up the entire page which makes it stand out, this contents page is rather simple however that could be good for the audience, it’s easy to navigate around the font is bold. The cover feature is displayed clearly to the top left of the page, so if that’s why the reader bought the magazine, they can find out what page it is on easily. The words don’t go over the main image so it’s easy to read. They are also in columns and in categories making it easier to navigate through more. It’s not a loud and bright contents page so I don’t think it appeals much to a younger generation, it also uses the maximum of 4 pictures.

This contents page for Kerrang magazine uses pictures to show its content, the bigger stories use pictures and the biggest story uses the biggest picture. The title of each of the stories are in bold text, this is to help them stand out and show the audience that they are the stories. Kerrang is a rock magazine and pictures alone can show the audience this is a rock magazine,
Although this page is plain white, the use of black boxes with yellow block text helps it to stand out, the use of putting pictures on the “drop shadow” option also helps them to stand out even if it’s just slightly the information to this magazine is all pushed to one side, it makes it easy to read and locate this helps the target audience to find what they want to in a quick and easy way. There is also a red box located to the lower right of the page, this is the subscription box, it tells the audience how to order Kerrang weekly and at a lower price this finishes up the part of the contents page that would be empty
and advertising the subscription every week
allows the reader no matter how new they are to subscribe.

Magazine Analysis #2

This magazine isn’t lively like most music magazines, it has a white background and the font colours are not exactly bright but that does make everything stand out. The title “Q” takes up the top left corner of the magazine cover the frequent buyers of this magazine will pick it up instantly, but someone else might just look at it and walk away. The front cover however it is more likely adults purchase this magazine because most teenagers buy magazines that are colourful this really is not colourful. Even though this is a basic magazine it has sell lines that would make people buy it “The 10 most perfect songs ever” and “164 albums reviewed”. People may just buy this magazine for those 2 reasons.

Magazine Analysis #1

The background colour is pretty plain for a music magazine, the reason being that the audience focuses on the main image (Janet Jackson). The font is full of bright colours stand out from the backgrounds dull colour it is also pretty broad. The artists are in black and white and smaller than the sell lines because the artist’s names are not as important. The main sell like is bigger and right next to the main image this is so it’s the first thing the audience notices. The colours used, sky blue & peach is to attract both male and female audiences it also may be bright so that a younger audience / teen audience might be more interested than if it were all in black and white.
The line above the masthead; “He’s free but is he good? The untold story of Busta Rhymes” might attract more females than males however “Janet Jackson likes to watch” with a picture of her holding a camera striking the pose that she is would make the male audience buy this magazine either way.