Masthead Changes

As I have now decided to focus my magazine at a more specific genre of rock, indie rock, I decided that the previous masthead I had chosen would portray more of a heavy rock magazine rather than soft and indie rock. So I have changed the font of my magazine to this:

I think this font style is more appropriate for my magazine because I think it represents indie rock. Also I think it is quite unusual and wouldn't normally be seen on magazines so it will make my magazine stand out well and create a strong brand recognition. I have kept the name 'elektrik' because I think indie rock music is still often seen to be loud and electric with he use of electric guitars and amplifiers, but as there are also soft elements to indie rock as well with the use of acoustic guitars I think the font style softens the name creating the perfect balance. A grungy element is also added with this new font and I think this is a strong style that can be seen in indie rock music.

Photography

I have recently done the photography for use in my main story. I will choose some of these images to feature as the main image on the cover, in the contents page and throughout the double page spread. I chose for my model to wear nearly all black. The black skinny jeans and leather jacket are typical fashion choices of someone in the indie rock music industry. Using all black would've made the images too dark so I added colour with the deep red/purple lace crop top. The lace also adds a feminine touch which balances out the other more masculine elements. Studding is another typical style used so I included some subtle studding on the boots and jacket adding another element of rock to the outfit. I asked my model to wear a beanie in some images because it is something on trend and can be seen throughout indie rock music currently. The mak eup is bold as I have used a lot of black eye liner and dark lipstick. Again these techniques are very stereotypical of indie rock fans and artistes so I think it will enable fans to relate. Y models hair is fairly messy and natural just swept casually to the side, I think this portrays an attitude of being care free and not spending a lot of time on hair like some other 'girly' girls would. The care free attitude of the model is something I made important to get across in the images. I also used a guitar in some images to ensure the magazine showed that it is dedicated to music. Here are the pictures I took:

I took all of the above pictures in my back garden in front of a brick wall. I chose this location because I think it resembles an indie rock style as its not perfectly clean and looks more dirty and rough.

These above pictures were taken on a blank pale blue wall in my house. I chose this type of background for a few of the shots because I think it creates more focus on the model.

Lead Cover Story

I have started to plan out the main story that will feature on the cover of my magazine. I have decided to do an interview with an artiste that I will makeup. I think this type of story is something that will appeal to the target audience the most as it will give fans of the artiste an insight into their lives meaning they will want to buy the magazine to find out whatever they can bout this person. Click here to see an interview with artiste Kanye West done with NME magazine. This is the type of story that gets the readers interested in the magazines.
The type of questions that I will ask in my interview will be predominantly about music so that fans know the magazine brand cares about the actual music that artistes make giving the brand a good representation. Then I will also touch on the artistes personal life as this is something readers will look for in an interview and it is an expected convention.
Example questions:

• Where does the inspiration for your new music come from?
• Was it hard when you left the band to pursue a solo career?
• What makes your gigs unforgettable for the fans?
• What can we expect from the new album you're releasing?

Changes: Genre

As I have been working on my magazine more and more and looking at other magazines that are out there I have decided to slightly adapt my genre. I have now decided to make my genre more specific and look more at soft and alternative rock. I have chosen to do this because I am more interested in alternative rock music myself so I know more about this genre making it easier for me to see what will appeal to the target audience. Also I think making the genre more specific means that I will have a more specific target audience to aim my magazine at, I think is a good thing because it means I can do things that I know my target audience as a whole will like because they will mostly all have the same likes and dislikes when it comes to their music. Where as before if I used a certain font or colour scheme it is likely that not all of my target audience would've liked it.

Photography Ideas

I have been looking into the photography I will be using for my magazine in more detail. I have decided to feature one girl as the main image and I have looked at the different styles of makeup, hair and outfit that my model will need to wear here are some ideas.

Final Masthead Idea

From feedback of my other masthead ideas and looking at which ones represented the genre in the best way and went well with the style of magazine I will be creating I chose this as my final masthead.

Masthead Ideas

Now that I have chosen as specific font style I need to work on choosing a name for the magazine. Here are some ideas that I have.

Final Masthead Font Style

After getting more feedback from a wider range of people in my target audience I came to the decision to choose this font as the masthead font style.

I think this font portrays the genre of rock very clearly and I like that not only the lettering is distressed but the background is also. I think this font will also easily stand out in any colour scheme because of the black background to it.

Masthead Feedback

After questioning my class mates about the font styles I had been looking at I received some helpful feedback. Many of them said that the bolder and larger fonts were better as they would stand out well and create a good brand recognition for the magazine. They also said the larger bolder fonts looked more like a masthead where as some of the other fonts looked like they could be used for anchorage text or something else that doesn't need to stand out as much.
The feedback also told me that the style of the fonts was a good choice as the distressed effect represents the genre of music very clearly and people knew it was rock music instantly. Many people I asked also liked the black and white colour scheme for the masthead as it fits the conventions of already existing rock music magazines.
From my feedback I have narrowed down my font choices to a select few. These are the ones I will be choosing from.

Masthead Ideas

Font Style
The font style of the masthead is very important when creating a music magazine as it creates brand recognition for the magazine. The style of font also needs to be something that appeals to the specific target audience and represent s the genre of music that the magazine is based around. As I have chosen rock music I have decided to ensure the masthead head font will be bold and have a distressed effect. I think this is something that represents rock music well as it's not about being perfectly neat but it's about making a big and powerful impact and I think that is what these font styles portray. I am focusing my magazines towards both boys and girls and I think that these styles of font will appeal to both as many other magazines on the market use bold fonts and are targeted towards boys and girls. Appealing to boys who like rock music and girls who like rock music use most of the same conventions so it is easy to target the magazine towards both. Here are some of the font ides I have been looking at.

Colour Scheme Ideas

Here some initial colour scheme ideas for my music magazine. I have decided to stick with the basic colors of white and black for most and changed some other colours form the typical colours you would see on a rock music magazine. I haven't decided on one particular colour scheme yet and I will still come up with a few more until I decide on a final one.

Photography Ideas

Improvements on Preliminary Task

I recently got my preliminary task back including my school magazine cover and contents page with improvements. These were the improvements I was given:

• Consider the impact of the masthead
• Anchorage text needs to really stand out
• Ensure space isn't wasted
• Link page numbers to additional pictures in contents page

These are elements of my magazine that I meed to focus on and improve for when I create my music magazine. So in the creation of my music magazine I will ensure that the masthead strongly stands out well to create a clear brand identity by using bold fonts. I will also use bold fonts in my anchorage text and position it in a way to make it stand out more with the use a bolder colour. Also I will fill all clear space with conventions. Finally in the contents page I will make sure when featuring other images that it is clear what stories and page numbers they link to.

Target Audience

The target audience of a magazine is very important and it is something that I have had to think about in relation to my music magazine. I have chosen to create a rock music magazine but now I need to think about the certain target audience that I would link my magazine to appeal to. I think rock music is a very unisex genre of music so I will be targeting my magazine towards both genders as appealing to boys and girls separately would use most of the same conventions so I think it will be easy to appeal to both of them. I will be mainly appealing to the ages of 16-25 years.

Key Features of Rock Music Magaizne

From the research I have carried out already I have clearly seen several features that many rock music magazines contain. These include:

• The use of distressed bold fonts - many rock music magazines use a distressed font type to go with the edgy label given to the genre of rock music. the distressed effect represents rock music as being rough and dangerous.
• Dark colour scheme - colour scheme is clearly important in rock music magazines. It has been made clear form my research that colour schemes should be kept mostly dark to go with the dark, mysterious stereotype given to rock music. However there are also always some elements of bright colours showing through but these should mainly be primary colours to keep an element of simplicity in the colour scheme and to show the genre isn't over complicated.
• Main image - the main image is a way rock music magazines can represent their target audience. I have seen a care free attitude become a recurring them in the main images of several rock music magazine so this is clearly an element of rock music that is important and needs to be portrayed through the facial expression of people on the cover and with the use of props.

These are just a few codes and conventions that I will ensure are clearly presented in my music magazine when I come to create it.

Kerrang's Website

To do further research on the genre of rock music and how rock music magazines appeal to their target audience for when I create my own rock music magazine. I looked further into Kerrang music magazine as I known this is a very popular and well known magazine in the industry so I thought it would be a good example of how rock music magazines appeal to their target audiences and the codes and conventions that they follow. Instead of looking at the print magazine I took a different approach and researched into the on line magazine. The on line magazine showed me many elements that would make it more appealing to its target audience and also helped me in understanding that print magazines cant contain every convention that might be appealing to an audience so it is important to show a link between a print magazine and an on line magazine. This has helped me as I now know that my print music magazine needs to features a website address to show that readers can access more content from the magazine on line. Here is a link to the Kerrang website page.

Rocksound Cover Analysis

I also decided to look at another rock music magazine that is less well known to compare the features and conventions shown on that cover to other more well known rock music magazines. I annotated a cover of Rocksound music magazine to see what features the cover contained and how it appeals to their target audience.

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Kerrang Cover Analysis

I have also looked at other rock music magazines to see if they follow the same conventions and show similar features on their covers to appeal to their target audiences. Here i have analysed a Kerrang music magazine cover looking at its specific features and how they appeal to their target audience.

NME Cover Analysis

I decided to create my music magazine as a magazine based on rock music as its primary genre. As part of my research I decided to look at other magazines of a rock music genre and how they have represented their target audience and genre through elements of the cover. I have chosen to first look at NME as a magazine and here i have annotated an NME cover looking at its features and how they appeal to the magazines specific target audience..

Music Magazine Research

Since finishing my preliminary task I have now started to research into my music magazine work. I have started to brainstorm ideas about the genre of music I will focus on, the colour scheme, the model and other elements I can include in the magazine. I have chosen to focus on either the genre of rock or music, here are some of my rock music magazine ideas:

• Rock music - loud, dark, black
• Model - girl, with an instrument e.g. electric guitar, black makeup and clothing, messy hair, facial expression - serious, mysterious
• Colour scheme - black, grey, white , blue - often red is used so this would make the magazine stand out from other rock music magazines
• Articles - interview with band, review of album or gig, festival news

As I said pop music is another genre I am thinking of focusing on and I have ideas associated with that genre as well:

• Pop music - upbeat, happy, catchy tune, most popular, liked by many
• Model - young relateable girl, bright wearable clothing, pretty hair and makeup, holding a microphone, facial expression - happy, comes across friendly with some direct address
• Colour scheme - bright colours making the magazine appealing, blue, pink and white, creates a balance between stereotypical  girly and boyish colours
• Articles - interview, celebrity news and gossip, fashion and makeup stories will appeal to young girls

Preliminary Task: Finished School Magazine Contents Page

This is my school magazine contents page finished. I am very pleased with the final outcome of this page and think it represents the magazines house style well. The colour scheme I have used is the same that is shown on my cover, I didn't change any elements of the colour scheme from the contents page I previously posted. There are many other parts of my contents page similar to the page shown in my last post as I didn't feel the images needed to be changed because I think the represent the magazine very well. The only change I have done to this version of my contents page is that I added a website for the magazine at the bottom, I think this is a good feature as the target audience for my magazine is year 11 girls so they will be interested in social net working and the internet, as the magazine has its own website it may show more appeal. As well as this it means the items shown in the magazine can be accessed on the go for example on a smart phone giving the magazine more publicity. 

Preliminary Task: Starting the Contents Page

Since finishing the cover of my school magazine I have now moved on to creating the contents page of it. So far I have created the layout and the article names. I have also incorporated the pictures I am going to use. The contents page carries through the magazines house style well as I have used the same colour scheme which obviously highlights that both my cover and contents page are from the same magazine. I have also emphasised the house style by using the same font style and colour for the title f my contents page that I used for my masthead on the cover. I am still unsure of what font to use as a general font style on this page as I don't think the font I am currently using works very well with the rest of the page and I think I will also change the colouring of the font.

Preliminary Task: Finished School Magazine Cover

I have now finished the cover of my school magazine. I am very pleased with how it looks, I think the colour scheme works really well together and the splash colours adds a brighter element, as my target audience are older teenage girls I think the purple will be more appealing than a pink which it is stereotypical to associate with younger girls. The masthead fits in well with the style of other fonts and I think it clearly portrays who my target audience is, because it is in a girly and decorative style but the purple ensures it isn't overly girly. The main image is clear however I think the backpack shown in it could give the idea that the magazine is targeted at younger people but other elements counteract this as the model I have used is 16 years old. I think the different shots I have used work well and relate well to the sell lines, they add an element of interest as they aren't all using the same shot distance. The anchorage text is in a different font which I think makes it stand out well and it clearly links to the main image. The stories I have featured on the cover show a mixture of articles relating to studying and also other things like beauty and fashion so it shows the magazine is not only filled with studying advice but it also has other elements such as beauty and fashion articles.

Preliminary Task: Mock-up School Magazine

Now I have gone onto create a mock up school magazine cover. This is a very basic idea of the look I want my magazine to follow. It displays the colour scheme I have chosen, the layout of the cover and an idea for the font of the masthead. I think the colour scheme works well as it is mainly appealing to girls because purple is the main colour but the mint blue colour prevents it from being too overly targeted towards girls in such an obvious way. I think I will use a similar layout in the final magazine cover but I will probably add some more sell lines along the right hand side. I don't think the font type of the masthead is correct for my target audience so I will work on adapting this so it can become more appealing to my targeted audience as I think this masthead font is more appealing towards boys.

Preliminary Task: Starting Off

In our media classes we are now starting to look into creating our own magazine covers. We are starting our preliminary task of creating a magazine cover for a school magazine. In this task I am using all of the knowledge I have gained of the past few weeks and putting it all together to create a magazine cover that appeals to my target audience of year 11 girls. So far in this task I have come up with a name for the magazine, ‘11life’ and a colour scheme that uses purple blue and white, with an additional splash colour. I am going to add many other codes and conventions to my cover to ensure that it will appeal to the audience I am targeting it at and I am finding this task very interesting.

Here some examples of my font ideas for the masthead:

Shot Nature

We learnt how an image can be grabbed/snatched or posed. This photography is often used on magazine covers. A grabbed image shows a picture that has been taken without anything in it being set up and without the people in the image knowing the photo is being taken. This type of image will look natural and easy to relate to on the front of a magazine so will lure the audience in. Posed shots are the opposite to grabbed shots where the people or person in the shot is pulling a specific pose that the photographer had directed them to do, also the back ground and mis-en-scene will all be set up here in a way to complement the pose of the person and what they are trying to portray through the shot. This is also used on magazine covers a lot to appeal to the audience because it makes it easy to get a shot where the colour scheme, mis-en-scene and model all relate to that specific magazine and issue.

This is a grabbed shot.

This is a posed shot.