My music magazine relates to existing music magazines as the structure and aspects within the magazine are similar. The imagery in my magazine is bright and eye-catching, like images within other music magazines such as ‘Q’ or ‘Kerrang’ are, also the font I used within the magazine is large and effective, meaning that the reader immediately notices it and gains an interest on what’s inside the magazine. By using aspects that relate to music, for example imagery of guitars or musicians it makes my music magazine look as sophisticated as professional music magazines. I used anchorage that is relative to the topic of music, so that the main focus of the magazine is identified by the reader.
The design of my front cover is similar to other front covers in the aspect of imagery and fonts. I used ‘Rocky’ fonts to give the reader the knowledge that the magazine is based around Guitars or Rock music. The design I followed was mainly of the musical instruments being presented to the viewer, therefore I used an image of a guitar as the main focus in the background. By using imagery like this, it highlights to the reader the main aim of the magazine, to analyze music. The design of my contents page is different from other contents as I combined different aspects that I liked about previous magazine contents pages to create a difficult but effective layout and structure. The design of my double page spread is structured so that the image of the female musician is large covering most of the page, on top of different colours to contrast the pages. The text is then alongside the image in different areas, meaning that the reader does not look at the page and see too much text, as this would decrease the chances of them reading the article (in this case the interview with “Julia Liewald” the female musician), this led me to spread out the text into text boxes spaced out to make it look interesting. The mode of address used in my cover for my music magazine is informative, but casual language is used as the majority or consumers that would have interest in this magazine would be younger, possibly late teens to adults, and if the language was too specialized or complicated then the readers would lose interest reading it. I used text that would inform the viewer of the articles inside, whilst trying to gain their interest. As adults may read this magazine if they have an interest in music, I used language that was appropriate to the audience.
The mode of address in my contents page is simplistic as there is not much text, it jus states that the page is the contents page and a small colourful list of the aspects or articles within the magazine. An example of the mode of address within my contents page is “Strings that are HOT and strings that are NOT”, this Is a method used in order to interest the reader, as the language is not too technical and seems interesting. The imagery used in my front cover is mainly images of the instrument of main focus within the magazine; in this case I used an image of an electric guitar. This highlights to the reader what the magazine is about. The image of the electric guitar seems to be much more effective than an image of an ordinary acoustic guitar, as it gives off more of a lively vibe within the imagery. I also used an image of a female music artist (this relating to the interview on my double page spread) to highlight to the reader what articles are inside. By using an image of an attractive female artist, readers are more likely to be influenced to read the music magazine. There are not many images used in my contents page as I think that too many images will make the page look over-crowded, However I used an image of the top half of the guitar after being edited. This made the contents page look interesting as simple images can sometimes be better than images that are too extreme or “In-your-face”.
I approached this task by using several editing programmes to make the imagery and fonts used look professional. I used programmes such as Xara and Photoshop in order to edit the images to make them look more attractive and eye-catching for the reader. I think that I have improved on my editing skills after creating the college magazine, therefore editing the images and fonts for my music magazine seemed to be less time-consuming, although I had difficulty using the ‘Lasso’ tool to cut around the image of the female music artist used on my double page spread.
I think overall the production of my music magazine was a lot simpler than the production of my college magazine.
When editing the images for my front cover, I came across several problems. One of these were that the image I took of an electric guitar was affected by the lighting from the flash on my camera, therefore I struggled to edit the picture to remove the shine of the flash on the guitar. By editing the photo in Photoshop, I used a variety of filters and tools to hide this. When editing the image for my double page spread, I used the lasso tool to cut out the image of the musician. When i cut the image and copied it as a layer onto my double page spread the outline of the musician was too obvious, however I later edited this with the sponge tool to blend it in and added a thick purple lining around the outline of the musician, This made the cut less obvious and made the impact of the image greater.
I organized my human resources by taking photographs of my friend holding an electric guitar, I could then use these photos as the imagery for my music artist, as I hoped to create a double page spread with an interview taken place with an artist. Only one person was required in order for me to successfully complete all three projects (the front cover, contents page and double page spread), therefore I chose an attractive female as the musician.
The locations for my photographs were all indoors, and the costumes and props were simply guitars owned by one of my friends. Costumes were "Rock-like" music artists every day clothes, using a stereotypical rock artist as an example of what clothes are likely to be worn.
When I created of the particular pages, the outcome that was relatively similiar to the drafts I created on paper. I used images similiar to those that I had plannned in my draft, for example the electric guitar image was used in my draft, and was also used in my final peice. The drafting enabled me to feel more confident in creating the design, as I was not expected to create the front cover, contents page and double page spread with no basic design. I found drafting very helpful.
My time was managed effectively as when it came to creating my design onto the computer, it took alot less than expected, meaning i had longer to finalise my contents page and my double page spread. I found that as i created the front cover, it made it simpler to secondly create the contents and double page spread, as i could design the pages in a particular theme or sequence, for example the front page anchorage stated "Women in music", this was relative to my double page spread which was later created.
By using programmes such as Xara, Photoshop and Pixelmator i was able to experiment with a large variety of image effects and text tools. This allowed me to create different Mastheads for the magazine and try different effects to see what would make the images more attractive or pleasing to the eye.
I was limited of the time i could use on Photoshop on my personal computer as i was using a trial programme to enable me to complete my tasks in time. Luckily the trial period lasted until the deadline of my final peices, this was beneficial to me as it enabled me to finish in time.
I created a questionnaire which was answered by several individuals. This questionnaire allowed me to gather information in a variety of areas, helping me with design ideas and information that would be interesting from a readers perspective. The results from my questionnaire influenced my magazine highly as I was then aware of the appropriate imagery expected to be seen within a music magazine, along with the events/information that would be interesting to read.
The audiences feedback was not too much of a suprise to me as i have previously read magazines, even though not commonly music magazines, i already had a decent understanding on the look of magazines and what interests the reader, as I, myself am one of them. I was suprised to discover that readers are highly interested in event information rather than actual interviews with music artists, although i thought that an interview with a music artist would be much more effective than event information.
My ideas were highly relative and representative towards music and music magazines as the font and imagery used were aimed to connote the world of music, this could be from electric guitars to piano's, Although my music magazine was mainly focused on the art of the guitar. An example of how my magazine represents music would be the Masthead, The title of the magazine is called "Strings", this being very relative to the topic of guitars.
I have created a sense of reality towards a target audience of possibly teenagers - adults or individuals with an interest in Guitars or music. although the magazine does not highlight who it is intended for, the colour scheme and imagery used in the magazine was to connote what type of audience is expected to have an interest in the magazine. For example, the imagery used of the music artist is a late teen, therefore connoting to the audience that the magazine is more intended for the use of younger people. The colour scheme also has an effect on the audience of the magazine as the use of purple is extreme, this is because it is a vibrant colour and can be enjoyed by audiences of both genders, whilst having a good impact on the reader.
