FINAL MUSIC MAGAZINE

Front cover:

Contents:

Double Page Spread:

Music Magazine (incomplete)

Here is a complete version of my music magazine BLACKSTARS contents page and an incomplete version of my front cover, I still have some things I am thinking  to include in my front cover and I am deciding whether I will add them or leave it as it is. I haven't yet started my double page spread.

Cover Page:

Contents Page:

Todays Lesson

• In todays lesson I began trying to create my front cover for my music magazine and this what I came up with. I spent most of the lesson trying to pick a decent font and colour for my masthead. Next lesson I will work a bit more on my masthead as I don't think that ir stands out enough and I will begin to put in cover lines, a skyline and other parts that a cover page would have.

Magazine Flat Plan

•  This is a flat plan that I created during the lesson, although it only goes up to page 17 but there will be more. I also got the pictures from my photoshoot and put them on my phone so I can work on them at home. I just wanted to give an idea of what my magazine would include. In the next lesson or at home I will begin to start making my front cover of the magazine. 

Music Magazine Presentation

 This is my music magazine presentation that I presented to the class.

Contact Sheet

• This is a contact sheet that I made on Adobe Bridge. 

Photo shoot call sheet

CALL SHEET

Music Magazine Proposal

 

I will also have my own logo on my magazine because from making the college magazine cover and contents page I discovered that having a logo was a good way of helping the reader to remember the magazine.Here is my logo that I created on a site called LogoGarden:

 

Also the price of my magazine will be £4.00, a new issue of my music magazine will be out every month. Not only will the magazine be available in shops but also will be published on the website (www.blackstarsptba.net). People will be able to subscribe and get their issue of BLACKSTARS posted to their house before they are available in stores

My magazine will be published by Bauer Media because I don't think that have an afrobeats magazine published by them yet.

Magazine news stand task - Distribution of magazines

 Magazine newsstand task - Distribution of magazines

During the course of the week I went around to a variety of different shops and took pictures of their music magazine stands. The main focus of this task was discuss and gain an understanding of the distribution of music magazine stands and how they are laid out.


This is the first music magazine stand I found which was in Sainsburys. As you can see the magazines have been laid in an unusual way from how you are most likely to see them in other shops. They have placed the magazines covering the right side of the magazines with another. I think this may have done this because most magazines mastheads are kept the same in every issue of the magazine so the mast head is most definitely something you should recognise even if you can only see the first half of it. A downside to the layout of these music magazines is that the magazines do kind of look disorganised and they would easily get mixed up making it harder for the buyer to find the magazine they are looking to purchase.





This photo was taken in WHSmiths and it shows the usual layout of how you would see magazines in a shop which is having the whole masthead of each magazine showing enabling the buyer to easily and quickly find the magazine they are there to purchase. The bold and big masthead is what is displayed in most shops as it is the most eye catching aspect or feature of a magazine.

Ways of Distribution

Online distribution:  Online distribution usually is paper-free, this means the magazine is cheap for both publishers and consumers. Online distribution is good for young people as they are now more frequently using the internet. So the magazine can be downloaded by phone, Ipads, laptops, kindles. Online distribution saves money as it doesn’t needed to be printed or transported to the consumer. Also people can give feedback to the publisher which is instantly sent to their emails which saves more money for the consumer and the publisher.

Postal distribution:  Postal distribution is very efficient as it is pre-paid by the consumer which means the publisher makes money. Postal distribution has its advantages as its better for the consumer, because they don’t have to worry about purchasing the magazine and missing out on an issue because the magazine is delivered to their house. Also some consumers may receive their magazine before it appears in the shop. Postal distribution offers gifts to the consumer.

Direct distribution:  Direct distribution is when a free magazine is given to the consumer in the market or sometimes given out on the street. Direct distribution does not involve marketing the magazine. Example of direct distribution magazine is shortlist. Direct distribution gets a lot of costumers as its free. Some magazine have 500,000 readers.

Evaluation of college magazine cover and contents page

Preliminary Task- Evaluation of college magazine cover and contents page.

For our preliminary task we were instructed to create a college magazine cover page and contents page. We had to do this using Photoshop for the cover page and InDesign for the contents page and also using our knowledge of magazines we have seen ourselves and magazines we have analysed in the lesson. The aim was to make it look like a real magazine and to do this we had to include things that your would see in real magazines such as skylines, pull quotes, cover lines, logo's, and more. For my evaluation I will be discussing the things  that I believe went well and what I could have improved and also the comments that were left by my fellow pupils.

This was the cover page I made for  my college magazine using Photoshop. I think there are many things that went well in my cover page, to begin with, the photo I used. This photo was taken outside in a green area, I thought it was a good idea to use a photo with a a bright background instead of a plain background as it would be more eye catching. When creating the cover page I thought to maybe blur the background of the photo to draw more attention to my cover star but I decided this was not necessary because although the background is just as bright as my cover star the bottom half of the picture in dark which keeps the colours balance keeping the attention on the cover star. Also I think the image itself is quite a reasonable image to use for a college magazine as it clearly shows a happy student studying outside. The fact that she is studying outside helps the reader to assume that weather was nice  that day and the sun was out and sunny weather relates to being happy and optimistic which adds a great tone to the magazine. 

Moving onto something else I believe went well in my cover page, the colour scheme. As you can see the colour scheme of my college magazine cover consists of a light blue, white and a bright, the reason for me using these colours was not only because I thought they went quite well with the image in the background but also because the colours in the background are bright and i wanted to keep this trend going. Due to the fact that part of the background image is green and wanted to use green text I knew there would be a chance that my writing would not be very clear to read as it would just blend in with the background so i decided to outline the text using black so it would stand out without me having to change my colour scheme. I think the areas of writing where attention is mostly drawn to is where there  is white text and because of this I use the white text as the subheading and names and other important details on the magazine cover such as the price, date, website and issue number.

Another aspect of my college magazine that I think was a success was the layout of the different features. First of all I kept the amount of cover lines I used to a minimum as with all the colours going on in the background having many cover lines would make it a bit to overwhelming. In total I have incorporated 3 cover lines on my magazine cover and an additional skyline and pull quote. I kept each cover line not too far from each  other and not too close to each other but still covering enough pf the background image. I think have the pull quote at the bottom of the cover page and having it bigger than the cover lines was an effective way to draw the readers attention to it. I also did this as it something about the cover star and in other magazines when the pull quote has something to do with the cover star tends to be big and bold and eye catching which is what I was trying to achieve with mine. I kept the skyline basic by simple just making it the name of the college because of the fact that the skyline doesn't have anything to do with anything specific article of feature withing the magazine it would most definitely be something that would be kept as a regular thing in other issues  as it is a simple way of reminding the reader of what where the magazine is from

In addition to this, I think that the the font of the mast head and other texts on my magazine cover was one of the best features about it and the font that I use was simple and easy to read but has an edge to it. The reason for me using a font that is minimalistic is to insure that the reader had no trouble at all trying to read it. Although my  target audience for this was young adults and parents and these groups of people would be expected to be able to read any fonts I still decided to go with this one. I thought that using a more fun and detailed font would make it seem childish and informal and using a font that is incredibly basic like for example Arial, would make the magazine look boring. So my decision was to go with a simple but edgy font. The reason behind me making all the main bits of text on my cover page in upper case is because with the three different colours of text already there I didn't want to make it look overwhelming by using lower and uppercase letters so I just kept it all at one level.

When it comes to journalism, my target audience was young adults and parents as mention earlier on in the evaluation and to show this I kept all the language I used formal.

Tom improve my college magazine cover page I could have  insured that the colour of text and the background didn't clash at all as it did slightly even though I had outlined the text. Also I would have dimmed the background image a bit too as it is very bright to look at.




Comments left by fellow pupils about my cover page:
"The colour scheme you have used (green and white) looks good but the addition of the colour blue doesn't go well with the colour scheme. You have used a good image which shows the student is happy and is studying. You have enough cover lines which have filled the space on your magazine. I feel £2 is not the ideal price for a college magazine because I doubt a student would spend £2 on a college magazine." - Omaimaa Rehman

"I really like the way your magazine is layered out, its quite professional. The use of the masthead and skyline are quite effective as they help your cover page stand out. You've used a variety of skills such as the logo which I think is quite sophisticated as it advertises the college. However the colour of the background perhaps is quite bright and pull quotes would've been a good way to help show a clear insight of what the magazine is going to be about." - Aamna Ali

When it came to creating our magazine contents pages we used InDesign. Just like with my cover page I would say that there were many things that went well within my contents page. Firstly, I will begin with the background image. The photo used in the background clearly shows two students of LSC, a boy and a girl, stood up studying with expressions on their faces showing that they are happy. When I first placed the picture I didn't think it would work very well with what I was going to put on my contents page so with some help from my media teacher I was able to make the image look transparent which I thought was a very good an original effect to use. The reason for me using two people in my background image and making it a long shot was because I wanted to keep my contents very simple without crowding it with too much text and having this as my background image draws attention away from the fact that there is not a lot of text on my contents page which is a good thing. 

Moving onto the text on my college magazine contents page, I decided to have three main areas in my magazine and they were main features, competitions and quizzes. I put these subheadings in capitals letters and highlighted them to insure that they would be catch by the readers attention. My title for this page is quite basic as it just blue and big. The rest of the text on my page is just page numbers and article headings as you can see the text is pretty basic so there is not much to say about it. I keep the font the same as what it was on the front cover page to save the reader from being confused as they go on through the magazine.

The colour scheme that consisted of blue, white and green was followed through into the contents page, the green was used for highlighting and picture borders, the white was used for the subheadings and the website and finally the blue was used for the page numbers and article titles and the title of my contents page. All this makes the contents look very neat and organised but simple which was the look that as was going for because from the research I had done and other magazine I had looked at I noticed  that some contents pages were quite crowed and disorganised making it hard to find things  and there were others that were simple and those were the ones that I had preferred.

In addition to this I kept the logo from my front cover and put it in the contents page which is not seen in many magazines I did this because I think that logo of any magazine should be remembered by the reader and should  be recognised by the reader somewhere else so seeing it on each page of the magazine would help it to stay in the readers mind as something that they know of. This is the same reason I have for including the website as well. Just to change things up a bit I decided to use a picture in the bottom right hand corner of my magazine contents page and referring tit to a certain page in my magazine. I thought it was a clever thing to do.

To improve my contents page I should have use more of  the space I had although i was trying to keep it simple there still was a lot more I could have included to make it look better. For example more text, more relevant pictures referring to certain articles and more colour.

Comments left by fellow pupils about my contents page:
"The colour scheme is consistent from the front cover which is good. You have used a transparent image in the background which looks good but you have only used one image otherwise, you could have added more images. I don't think the colour scheme works well together but overall looking at the front cover and contents page it's a good magazine :)." - Omaimaa Rehman

"Your background is quite unusual as its faded away but I like the way the bottom picture has a border around it to show that it stands out. However the colours don't really go with the background but its a really good contents page overall so well done!" - Aamna Ali

Three points for development for my music magazine

• Use colours that do not clash with background even a little bit and use colours that go well together and no just any random colours.
• Think more about the layout and positioning on certain things especially on my contents page and insure there is enough to fill up the space I have efficiently.
• Keep using the logo and website in each page as it is a good way of making the reader remember them.

College Magazine Contents Page

My college magazine contents page.

• Leave a comment telling me what you think!

College Magazine cover!

My college magazine cover!

• Leave me comments telling me what you think!

Task 2 - Research and Planning - Extra case study

The genre I have chosen to do for my own music magazine is Afrobeats but there are not many afrobeat magazines out there so finding one to do my case studies on was hard but I used Q magazine and NME magazine instead because these magazine are where I got most of my inspiration and ideas from.
    Having said that here is a front cover of an Afrobeats magazine that I found online although I had never heard of it before. I was unable to find a contents or double page spread for it hence why it wasn't used as one of my case studies but here it is.

• This magazine front cover is quite basic as it doesn't have a lot on it, I think this has been done to insure that all the readers attention is kept on the image of the cover star. There is not much to the main cover line as it is just her name, "Lira" having said that it still does stand out a lot as it is the biggest bit of text on the front cover other than the masthead and also because it is in a totally different front than any other bit of text on the front cover. and lastly because it is white and it stands out really well against the colour that she is wearing. The masthead is quite simply just "African Muzik Magazine", although the title of the magazine is quiet basic and long they have put their own little twist on how they have spelt the word music which makes it more original and unique
• One thing that I did take as inspiration for my own music magazine was the look of the cover star, in this image of  Lira she look fierce and independent and I wanted to give this effect with my cover star. 

Task 2 - Reasearch and Planning (Case Study 2) -Q Magazine

Front Cover:

• The masthead of this music magazine is placed in the top left corner of the front cover and just like in other magazines it the most eye catching text on the page and this should always be the case because the masthead is the part of the magazine that the reader is suppose to remember.
• The cover star in this issue of Q magazine is Lady Gaga and the image used is a media long shot of her. What she is wearing goes well with the colour scheme which consists of red, white and black. She is not wearing much which is typical and expected from Lady Gaga but she is wearing is black and although this is part of the colour scheme she still does stand out really well and this is due to the fact that there is not as much black text on the front cover as there is white or red text so most of the black seen on the front cover page is on Lady Gaga. 
• The main cover line on the front cover page has been made really big across the middle of the page in capital letters and it is white, all these features contribute to how much it stands out which is a lot. The white against the grey background allows the colour to pop more. The cover star, Lady Gaga has covered parts of the main cover line, just enough for the reader to still be able to see what has been written there. The cover star also covers part of the masthead but when covering the masthead it doesn't matter how much of it is being covered because this is on every issue of the magazine and readers will remember what it is without seeing the whole thing on every magazine. How ever the main cover line on the magazine will be different on each issue of the magazine meaning it needs to be clear and obvious to the reader and also easy to read.
• Underneath the main cover line there are four other cover lines that quite simple just give the reader an idea of what other features there will be in this issue of the magazine. These cover lines are made really small in comparison to the main cover line and the text in the top left corner of the magazine but do still stand out because of the white highlight that has been put around each little cover line. In the top left corner of the cover page are some more cover line. One cover line begins using the name of the person  that will be featured in that article and the next cover line begins with a pull quote, this is effective as it uses a variety of techniques to persuade the reader to want to reader a specific article other that the main one.
• In the bottom left corner just like in other magazine there is a bar code and a price. The price has been made quite small on the front cover, I think this is effective because is makes it not very noticeable to the reader enabling them to look through the magazine to see if they like what they see and are interested in buying before looking to see how much the magazine costs rather than straight away seeing the price and being put off by it and not even taking a look through the magazine at all.

Contents Page:

• Due to the fact that the magazine contents page is spread over two page it makes it unconventional, having said that this could be very appealing to the reader as they will get the impression that the magazine is jam packed with so much that the reader would be interested in. Although there is a lot going on in this contents page, it is still quite neat and organised which is effective as it makes the reader actually want to read it as things that are well organised are more appealing to the eye.
• On the second page of the contents, the issue number is shown clearly at the top indicating to the reader that the magazine is consistent and successful with how many magazine they have already had published. and this also means that the content in the magazine is good and appealing to a specific audience..
• At the bottom on both pages is the website for the magazine which in a way tells the reader that there is a lot more to been seen on the website and or that instead of reading a paperback version of the magazine it can be read online. also at the bottom of each page is the name of the magazine next to each page number, this is effective as it is a good way of helping the reader to remember the name of the magazine without having to going back to the cover page.
• The colour scheme that consists of red, white and black has been kept consistent from the cover page which is good because on both the cover and contents page there seems to be a lot going on so keeping the colours the same keeps it from become too overwhelming for the reader which would quite simply out them off from reading the magazine.
• The first page of the contents page is more than likely the first side that the reader will look at so it is perfect that the features of this issue are listed on this side because people that read each issue of Q magazine already know the regulars and probably most look forward to seeing the new features in each issue.
• On the second page of the contents the regulars are listed and I couldn't help but notice that words are highlighted in different colours in the subheading under the regulars. Such as the word "special" which has been highlighted red unlike the rest of the subheading. This does a really good job at attracting the reader to this section of the contents page as although it is listed under the regulars section meaning that this will be in every issue of the magazine it give it a bit more of importance.
• A lot of the magazines articles have  been shown on the contents page in pictures instead of text which gives  the illusion that there is less on the contents page than there really is. In addition to this, having some of the articles presented as images could be a way of engaging the reader more as it allows them to see who is featured in the article without having to flip through the magazine to fine a specific article.

Double Page Spread:

• Once again the colour scheme which consists of red, white and black has been kept the same for the double page spread, which helps the reader to relate it to the front cover and remind them of what the front cover looks like without having to go back to it. This also helps the reader to remember the name of the magazine for future reference.
• The whole double page spread looks quite formal from the whole layout and simple colours and fonts. It had the typical layout of a double page spread which consists of a picture taking up one page of the double page spread and the other page being full of text. and the neatness of the columns on the second page adds onto the formal look of the double page spread.
• The image of Lady Gaga represents her in a sexual way due to the fact that she has no clothing on and is using a necklace and her hands to cover up her chest area. Her music is mostly enjoyed by females so this could ibe her way of gaining a hgher number of male fans because the sexual aspect of this picture is more appealing to males than it would be to females.
• There doesn't seem to be a specific title to this double page spread all that is at the top is her name and it is not big. I think is was kept small to keep all the attention on the picture of her. Her hair in the image used it a more messy but stylish kind of style which suits the genre of music that she makes. Her facial expression in the image also adds onto the sexual feel of the image because she looks quite fierce which would be attractive to males.

Task 2: Research and Planning: Case study 1 – NME Magazine

Front cover:

• The main cover image is of Florence and it is a close up, I think this picture was use as a way to connect with the audience as a way of persuading the reader to buy it. Also the cover star is wearing white in this image and this matches the white text which is use quite a lot all over the cover page. 
• The masthead of this issue of NME has been made white because it stands out against the red background of  Florence’s hair. Although it stands out against the red it also matches with the white top that Florence is wearing. The colour of the masthead also contrasts with the main cover line helping it to stand out even more which it is supposed to because the masthead of a magazine is meant to stand and be remembered.
•  On the right  side of the magazine cover there are a few other cover lines, which gives the reader an idea of the kind of different articles that will be feature in this issue of the magazine without them having to open the magazine. The colour is white just like the masthead but of course these cover lines do not stand out as much as any other important features of a magazine front cover such as the masthead or the main cover line
•  The main cover line is also a feature of a magazine that should stand out to the reader and in this magazine it does. The cover line was made black and is this only black text on the front cover, also its colour stands out against the white and red background.  In addition to this the cover line is very big in comparison to any of the other texts on the cover which makes it catch the reader’s attention easily which helps to persuade them to buy the magazine.
• At the top of this issue of NME magazine there is another cover line telling the reader that this is a special edition. Not only is this informative but it also as advertisement because seeing that there is something new about the magazine or in the magazine will attract more buyers. Here a pull quote that refers to the main cover line and the cover star is used which is effective as it is a basic way to give the reader of the magazine more of an idea as to what the article of the cover star will be about.
• Underneath the masthead of the magazine there is a slogan that quite simply just tells the reader what NME stand for.
• Like on most magazines there is a barcode which allows the reader to buy the magazine.

Contents Page:

• Just like in every magazine, the contents page tends to have some kind of title, in NME the contents page title is NME THIS WEEK and just like on the front cover, the title does not take up the whole of the top of the page. Also for a new reader they would be able to know from the title of the contents page that NME publishes a new issue of their magazine every week. In addition to this, the title is the biggest and most obvious piece of text on the contents page so the reader’s attention will instantly be drawn to it as soon as they open the magazine to this page
• NME Magazine lists the names of bands on the left side of most of their contents pages. Next to these band names are page numbers so that the reader can easily find where the band they would like to read about is, this is effective because it saves the reader a lot of time as they won’t have to go through the whole magazine to find who they would like to read about.
• NME uses subtitles going down the right side of the contents page such as, News, Features, Live and others. This is effective because readers are easily able to locate part of the magazine that they are or would be most interested in.
• An extract has been taken from an article and used in the contents page, this is effective as it is a way of drawing the readers attention to this particular article making them find it as they would want to continue on reading it.
• At the bottom of this NME contents page is a big, bold red arrow. Immediately when looking at this page your attention gets drawn to this arrow. This how been done to show a very important part pof the magazine or to show something that most people would be interested in.
• This magazine issues date has been places underneath the contents page title which gives the reader knowledge of its publication date and when the next publication will be,

Double Page Spread:

• From the way Florence is looking straight at the camera gives the audience the impression that she is in control and confident.
• This is a very uncluttered double page spread as it doesn't have a lot of text or a lot going on in the background which keeps all the attention on the main image of Florence.
• The main image is long shot of Florence in which she is dressed in all black enabling the reader to see her more aggressive side, In addition to this the way that she positioned in this photo shows her femininity and this links with the type of font that have been used for the title of this article and the drop cap as well. The font would be recognized by most as a "girly" font. Having said this, they do contradict each other in a way which that the femininity that is shown through the picture of Florence is a more fierce type of femininity whereas the type of femininity shown though the font of the title and drop cap is more of a gently and soft type of femininity.  the bright red colour that is her hair to pop out really well against the background. Speaking of the colours, the colour scheme has been kept consistent from the front cover, red, white and black. 
• In the background in big letters is written "USA" and this could mean to the reader that Florence has become big in the USA as she is British.  The fact that the letters are so big could be just to emphasize how big she has become in the USA and her achievements there as well. In the image Florence is sitting on some cloth that has the British flag on it showing that she originally Great Britain.
• The small amount of text that is in the double page spread is well organised into three clear columns making it more appealing to the reader and also encouraging them to read it.

Production Schedule