18th December Deadline Plan

By Dec 3rd

Complete google mock-ups for front cover, DPS and contents page

December 9th-11th

All original photography taken
Placing them into the front cover

Dec 11th
Front cover on my blog

Google mock up ideas

Here are my mock up ideas. I wanted to try and experiment different ideas and I eventually came up with these ideas. I feel that  They came out well, but could easily be improved on my final piece.

My front cover follows the conventions of a music magazine. However, the main image doesn't go over the title of my magazine, which it could. Also, I feel that the blue banner across the bottom makes the magazine look less professional, so that could be missed out when I produce the final product. The cover lines also do not stand out as much as I feel they should, I could possibly change the background colour of the page. The main story stands out well, but it looks almost separated so I will make it closer in my final piece. I like the red banner across the bottom of the page, and I also like the title. For my title, I applied the stroke technique to it and I feel I will use this technique throughout my piece. The bar code is away from the rest of the page, however I feel it still looks good, and I think it will still look good on my final product.



 My contents page looks fairly bland in my opinion, but its structure is good, I will change the colours slightly but keep the structure. I kept the red bar at the bottom, but made it slightly shorter to accompany the 'Contents'. The subtitle after "Welcome to Tone." also blends in, so I could possibly make the names of the artists in red to attract attention to them. I will also use an original image for the photo of Matt, as I used a photo from Facebook for the current one, (with permission). The new photo will also have his whole head. I will also get a photo of him playing a guitar. Which I will also change the opacity. I like the way I kept the same style for the "Contents" the same as for my title. I will also remove the white rectangle behind the page number.






My double page spread I feel came out the best out of the three pieces. I feel I will keep a lot of the aspects of this. I like the red bar at the bottom which I have kept on all of my pieces. I will get a far better image, possibly from a side-on angle. I like how I have implemented twitter, as I have noticed that successful magazines have engaged and included their readers. I like the title, but I feel it could be more centralized to draw more attention to it, and I also need to include a quotation from my artist. I will also move the questions to follow the outline of my image.

Colour scheme ideas, Name ideas and feature story ideas

Colour Schemes

I have been researching successful colour swatches from other magazines and have found that they all have a select few colours. These are usually very bold colours as they stand out on the shelves. Colours such as red, blue and yellow are used often, these are primary colours so will be recognized by a lot of people at a far distance and will also attract them from a distance too.

My first colour scheme utilities blue and red, with red being the main colour. as they are colours used in other magazines. I like this scheme the most and I feel will look quite good as the bold red suits the blue.
I think I will use this scheme as my colour scheme for my magazine.


My second colour scheme uses a triad method, where three colours are used. I feel this is my second favorite scheme however, I'm not a huge fan of the yellow. I think I like this scheme because it uses the red and blue of the first scheme.

 My least favorite color scheme uses yellow and purple as they are opposing colours on the colour wheel. In my opinion it doesn't stand out as much as the first two.

Name ideas: 

I have chosen several names I feel are suitable for by product.

• Tone
• Tune
• Beat
• Cena
• Unplugged
• Vocal
• Sharp
• Awake
• Hyped
• Mic.
• Window
• Hustle
• Loyalty
• Respect 

I feel that they are all suitable, however, I feel that Tone, Sharp and Beat are the most appealing. As they are short and snappy, They also have very sharp sounds in them, making them sound bold. I have decided to choose "Tone" as my name as it is simple and also got the most positive comments when I asked my peers for their opinions. 

Cover Story Ideas

I have looked at several covers of successful magazines and noticed that the cover stories are usually short and brief and have a smaller piece of text underneath them to also engage and attract the reader to purchase the magazine. They follow the genre of music and often has a bit of relevance to the world at that moment in time, for example, a new album or song being released. Here are a few ideas for main cover stories:

• For my main cover, I will have one artist, so they could be possibly trying to get the number one spot on the charts
• Another idea is that they might have just released an album. 

I feel that the first ones will be the most appealing for my audience. 

Next I will have a few other, smaller cover stories. 

• An artist releasing a single, 
• Possibly a "Live Music" section. 
• A competition.
• A writers top songs?
• Interviews 
• Photos
• "Gossip"

I feel that the first four would be the best, and the last few could be implemented on the contents or in a different section on the cover. 

Costume designs

Costume Ideas:

I have chosen these outfits because I wanted primarily my artist to be relatable to the audience. 

My first outfit is one that 'normal' people would wear casually. It is also what people who listen to it would wear, and make the artist relatable

My second outfit is similar to the first and is also relatable to the audience.

However, the third is more of a formal attire and shows that the person in the main image is important, because they're in a suit.

 

 

Idea changes, and how I have adapted this:

Due to my complete overhaul of my idea, I have chosen to take photos of a different person. This means that I must re-do my costume ideas to suit a female, as the new person is female.

My reader profile

My reader profile is very mixed and my product could be purchased by many people. However, due to my research, both primary and secondary, I have some important information which can affect my final product. My readers are generally quite young, and listen to a lot of music a week. They also follow the current trends in a lot of things, such as clothing, food, technology and social media. They use many social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter, and watch lots of videos on apps such as YouTube and Vine. They enjoy watching films, both in the cinemas and on DVDs. They occasionally partake in sports and play video games. 

Demographic research
I have found that, 2/3 of my readers are male and 1/3 females. They also are generally quite young with over 3/4 being 14-20. The average household income of these are roughly £25,000-£49,000. 

Psycograhic research
I have found that the people who answered my questions have a very wide range of favored artists, from Ed Sheeran to Sia. As Pop is such a large genre and is a genre for many sub-genres the favorite artists can be a lot different.
I found that my readers listen to a lot of music a week, at least two hours and over half of my answers said they listen to over five hours of music per week. I also concluded that not many of them attend live music events with 77.78% attending 0-2 events per year, non of them attend 3-5 events a year and the remaining 22.22% attending over six events per year. 
My readers are attracted to a magazine for many different reasons. The main reason being recognizable artists, this means I must have cover lines featuring popular artists in my genre. The next major factor is content this means I must put quality content as my cover lines and on my contents page. My readers also value price as an important factor when buying a magazine, and they are prepared to pay around £2.50-£4.00 for one, depending on the quality and content in it. Next is free items and bright colours. The free items that would be liked the most would be a CD or a voucher of some sort, with make-up not being preferred with 75% of answers saying that make up was the least wanted gift. Finally, I found that the favorite way of listening to music is shared by two main ways, downloaded music (On mobile phones and tablets.) and Streaming music on apps and websites such as YouTube, Spotify and Apple music. The other ways of music accumulating to the 100% are live, which was 23% and on a CD or Vinyl which was 11% 

Reader profile research

-Explain what a reader profile is

-Show an existing reader profile and break down each area and state why it is important for a magazine to understand their audience and profile their readers. For e.g. what type of audience does it attract? Gender ratio? Age or reader? Social class bracket? Where they distribute? What makes it desirable/ the audiences want to consume it?

-State what you think your reader will want

-What is the purpose of a reader profile?

-How will a reader profile help sell your product?



ABC1 Demographic Table: Band E- Casual/Lowest Grade Workers. These people are often very low skilled. People like this might be retired, a student or non-working. Low amount if disposable income.  Band D- Working class. amount if disposable income.  Band C2- Skilled working class. fairly low amount if disposable income. May occasionally buy a magazine. Band C1- Lower middle class. Average amount if disposable income. More frequent purchases of magazines. Band B- Middle class. Higher amount if disposable income. Possibly subscribed to a monthly magazine. Band A- Upper middle class. High amount if disposable income. Often purchases magazines, companies target this band specifically as they are more likely to purchase their magazine  Demographic information is the hard unquestionable data about the people buying the magazine. These are, age, gender, income, location. Psycographic information is opinion based data, questions such as: What music do you like? What bands/artists do you like? How much do you spend on music concerts per year? Whats your favorite brand? How do you consume music? (Download/ Stream/ Radio/ CD/ Vinyl) How many hours per week do you listen to music? A reader profile is something a company produces to identify their typical reader. This can specify their: Age, gender, social class, their location, hobbies, and general likes. Gathering this information is important as it allows the company to target specifically a group of people who buy their product. Q Magazine Reader analysis. A reader profile for me will help me recognize what my reader is like and what they will want to see on my magazine. It will show what their interests are, their information and their location.

Genre research

Summary of conventions

Conventions analysis double page spread

This double page spread is from Q Magazine, the same magazine as the cover and double page spread, therefore it jas the same ideology, institution and audience. However, the language and representation can change with each article.
In this case, the genre of music has changed so the language of the article has changed too. The first thing you see when looking at the double page spread is Jay-Z, he is what the article is about and there is an image of him taking up a full A4 sized page, this connotes that he is important to the article as he is taking up such a large space of it. The image isn't edited too much, it has a red shaded half to it as this is following the colour scheme of 'Q' magazine. Next, you see the very large red 'J' this is to symbolise Jay-Z, this also is in the same font as the masthead of 'Q' so it is following the same style. There is a quotation from Jay-Z in bold red text. Again this is following the colour scheme and style of the magazine. To the right hand side of this there is the logo of 'RapRadar' which is a Rap company. This is a sponsorship to Jay-Z and generates income for him, 'Q' magazine including this logo also generates further income for them. This relates to the institution as Q only really writes articles on the most popular of artists, as they are the most profitable of names.

Conventions analysis contents page

LIIAR Analysis of contents page:

The contents page is a very important section of a magazine. It gives the reader the necessary information regarding the rest of the magazine. The contents page in this case, shows several of the cover lines from the cover, however, they are in more detail and the pages they are on is clearly noted. The contents page also has two images, one being the main image, which takes up half a page, and the other beign a smaller image but one which links to another article in the magazine. This contents page is represented by being clearly set out, and very professional looking.

Conventions analysis front cover and Breif

Brief:
                    To design a front cover, contents page and double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text used must be original, a minimum of four images used.

LIIAR Analysis:

The magazine I will be analyzing is 'Q' Magazine. The cover I chose to analyse was one with Ed Sheeran being the main image. The cover follows the general conventions of a music magazine and it looks very professional. However, one thing they have done differently is that Ed isn't looking down the camera, which you would expect from a magazine front cover, and this style of photograph would be inside the magazine. It is a music magazine covering a few styles of music. The demographics of Q magazine are that is usually bought by people aged 30 to 40 who are looking for a different style of magazine to read. It was first published in 1986 by Bauer and has kept publishing since then. Bauer is an incredibly large media company, is the largest in the UK and is responsible for 107 brands, from genres such as sport, gardening, cars and even fish keeping. It also has outlets in TV and radio. They publish other famous magazines such as 'Heat', 'Closer', 'FHM' and 'Zoo' and runs 'Magic' radio station. It generated its fame for being a magazine because of its high quality printing and photography and includes only the most successful of artists. The representation of the magazine is focusing on Ed Sheeran's music rather than his personal appearance. His Guitar is one of the main focal points of the image, instead of Ed looking 'good'.

Final Front Cover

The first image is a draft of my final front cover. I feel thia is good, but I felt it could be improved. It had everything I wanted but I felt that the components were not placed correctly.
To improve, I moved the main cover line down slightly and removed the grey line surrrounding it. I also changed the yellow cover line to blue so it was readable as it clashed with the main images magazines. The main image suits the brief well and looks professional. The final front cover, the second one, looks the better one and is my final cover.


What have you learnt from completing this task?
How have you used technology?
What conventions have you used and why?
What would you to change if you were to do this again?

Contents page

Digital Draft

I feel this design is quite good. It follows the convensions of a college magazine and has a primary colour scheme, which is simple but effective. It also includes a barcode, a date and issue number. 

I think the cover lines are good, but could be improved. I think they intrude the main image a little and the font doesn't look very nice. To improve on my final price I would change the font to Arial as it suits better make sure all the cover lines are not intruding the main image. I would  make the masthead slightly bigger. I could also add a "bubble" with a competition inside to attract customers. 

Types of Shot

 Here you can see ten types of shots most commonly used in media. They are all used in a specific way and to create a different effect.

Extreme close up: This is often used to create an impressionable effect on the viewer as it it is in a lot of detail, so it increases tension. it could be an up-close image of anything, I chose my brothers eye.
Close up: This is used to possibly introduce a character and show their facial features.
Medium close up: Similar to a close up, this is used to show the characters facial expression, however this has the added benefit of showing their body language too. It shows half their body and a little background. This is the type of shot that I will use as my main image.
Long Shot:Long shots include the whole body of the person in the frame. It can show the audience the scene and background, and the thing in the frame.
High Angle: A high angle shot is taken from above the thing in frame.It could be used to make it seem small, or belittle the person in shot.
Low Angle: The low angle shot is the opposite to a high angle shot. It is taken from below the thing in shot, this makes it seem larger than usual and create a sense of superiority or power.
Two shot: A two shot includes two people. However, they do not have to be directly next to each other. For example in television, it could show a conversation.
Image framed to the right: This shot has the object in question to the right hand side of the shot.
Image framed to the left: This shot has the object in question to the left hand side of the shot.
Central image: This shot is similar to the left and right framed shots, except the object is centralized.

Feature Story Ideas

My magazine is going to be a general studies college magazine, so it can have a variation of cover lines and a feature story.

Some of these may be:

• Join a sports team
• Halloween: Create your own costume!
• What's going on?
• 20 minute revision tips
• CV tips
• Gigs in Hull
• Upcoming trips and visits 
• Over £1000 raised for charity!
• Win a tablet!

Colour scheme

 

For my first colour scheme, I chose the three primary colours, as these are the conventional colours of a college magazine. These colours also work really well together and look professional. I would use the strong red for the masthead and the rest for the cover lines.

My second colour scheme is fairly bland, however, for my brief and through research this could work really well. I would use a black background and have a white masthead. The other colours would make up cover lines and the yellow could be used to highlight my main cover line.

The third colour scheme was created by using the 'shades' tool on the website. It generates shades of a specified colour. In this case, blue because blue has been scientifically proven to be the worlds favourite colour, and over 50% of the world flags contain blue, so it is a well known colour. I would use the light blue as a background and use the rest for cover lines. However I feel it could look dull as I am only using one colour.

Finally, I have chosen purple as my last colour scheme. I have chosen purple because it is the colour of Wyke which is a college and I have to create a college magazine. Purple also has connotations of wealth and stability, however it could be seen as feminine so men could be turned away from the colour scheme. Likewise with my blue colour scheme, only using one colour could make the cover look not very exciting.

Magazine name

My Magazine is going to have a general studies theme to it, therefore I must have a name not too specific, but not too vague. Here are some ideas:

• Think Tank
• Learn
• Academician
• Student Weekly
• Branch off
• College Issue
• A stardom
• WykeMag
• StudyCourse

Mood Board

I wanted my mood board to be a selection of different images which could be used as my main image. The images which include several people are there to show how the person on the cover could look like. For example, if I was to design a sports style magazine, I could use the hockey player with a hockey stick over their shoulder or if I was to create a drama magazine, I could photograph someone in the same position as the centre girl. However, if I was to design a general college magazine, my main image would be a casually clothed person.

For my main image, I will follow the conventions of a magazine, this will include an original image, with the person in shot looking directly at the camera. 

Analysis of College Magazine Front Cover

Semiotics (Analysis of Trebor Unicorn Advertisement)

Image analysis of the Trebor strong mint advertisement.

The camera angle on the text is very important. It is looking up at the Unicorn, this makes it seem very large as it is being looked up at. Another connotation you could get from the image is that because the unicorn is higher than the camera it is better than the viewer. The camera is also directed at the Unicorn side on, this shows the Unicorns elegance and class as it is looking at the camera directly, this shows that it is not scared of it and expresses his confidence. The Unicorn is showing off his confidence by showing his horn, which is what signifies a Unicorn and its beauty. Only when you look at the Unicorns contrasting mouth, so you see the Mint, which is the product Trebor are trying to sell.
The glove are arm are the second thing you see when looking at the advertisement. The glove is a velvet sleeve sized glove, this gives the wearer anonymity but still a class above others as the glove is a sign of wealth and luxury. Another signification of wealth and luxury on  the glove is the ring and bracelets. the ring has a considerably sized diamond fixed to it and the bracelets are too jewel encrusted.
There is also an infinity screen background. This is white, so it follows the colour scheme of the rest of the advert. It emphasises the sense of purity and the fantasy theme is also emphasised.
The packet of the mints is situated at the bottom this is the only bit of bold colour in the advertisement, so the viewers eyes are attracted to it.

LIIAR Analysis

LIIAR Analysis

Language- The language used in media. What terminology is used? What are you looking at exactly?

Institution- The company which has made the text. Who controls the process of the creation of it?

Ideology- The way the institution works. What are the companies ideas? How are they portrayed?

Audience- The people who the peice is aimed at. Who are they? What do they see? What does it make them think?

Representation- What the text represents. What is it representing? Who/what is in it? How is that being portrayed? 

Breif

Breif - To design a College magazine front cover and mock up contents page. Images used on the front cover must be original.