Final Piece: Music magazine

I have now finished my music magazine and in the process have learnt how to use creative computer programs like Photoshop and InDesign. I tried to follow the conventions of magazines and then of the music genre, to create an authentic and appealing music magazine. 

Front Cover

Here is my music magazine front cover. It follows the conventions of a music magazine, there is a masthead, a strap line, there are coverlines and the main image has a direct mode of address. These things all add to the magazine's look and authenticity. There are then the basic attributes on there like an issue number, date, price and barcode; again these all add to the authenticity of the magazine.

The whole point of the front cover is to capture the publics eye and make them want to read the magazine. I think I have achieved this intention with the use of bright colours, from the paint splatters and the font colours, even the main image has a bright t-shirt on. All of  those will help to catch the viewers eye. The stories I've displayed on the cover are interesting and I've given just enough information for them to be an enticement to read on. 

The font styles and tone of the language help to appeal to the target audience of younger aged rock and indie music followers. The language is formal and will appeal to them because it is conversational and welcoming. The fonts are in tone with the rock and indie music and creates a tone for the magazine.

Contents Page

Here is my contents page it is very busy, it shows as many stories as possible to let the viewer know what is in the magazine before reading the magazine. I have used the same fonts as i did on the cover to create a theme throughout the magazine. I have lots of images to accompany the stories to make the page look interesting and busy. The page has the same paint splashes as the front cover to again have a theme. I have used captions in some pictures and drop quotes to add to the page, it would be a little bit boring to just have the titles to the stories. Overall i think that the contents page looks busy and quite good because it has all of the things a contents page should have.

Double Page Spread

Here is my double page spread it contains the main story of the magazine as shown on the front cover. I think the page has a balance between pictures and writing. This helps to keep the interest of the reader, if the page is a complete block of writing it will be off putting to the reader, but if there are images to break up the text then the reader will be more inclined to read it. Obviously the images are related to the story. The background has made me have to change the colour of some of the text, I think this looks good though, it gives the page a style.

There is a clear colour scheme of black, white and yellow; I have a black and white background, the text is the same and the images are highlighted with drop shadows and yellow outer glows. This frames them and makes them stand out, it also gives the page a bit of colour and brightens it up.

Right, since the last time i updated my blog i have had done alot of work. I have finished my school magazine prelim task and have moved onto the main task of the music magazine.

Preliminary task: School Magazine

Here is my school magazine front cover, I used photoshop to compose it and i think it doesnt look too bad. It has the main features of a magazine front cover, like:

• A masthead; this is located at the top of the page and is in an eye cactching colour and an appealing font. The font is Zaphino and is quite sophisticated and sets a tone for the cover.
• The strap line; again this is in the same font as the masthead (this creates a tone for the magazine, the tone created is sophisticated and quite posh) this is situated just underneath the masthead as a sort of slogan. Something which will stick with the reader to make them remember the magazine.
  
• There are the coverlines which show the stories in the magazine. They are in a nice font (Lucida Calligraphy) and colour which matches the style of the cover.
• The main image is of a student, he is looking directly out of the cover, this is the image having a direct mode of address.
• The background is a single simple colour and has the the college names behind the main image. This makes the cover look more interesting, i think, it also fills the page and makes it look busy.

Contents Page

This is a very basic design for the contents page of my school mag. It shows quite simply where the images and text would be. The blue boxes being the images and the white being text, its a very simple representation. The colour scheme would probably have been like the front cover, blue with lighter colour text, with the same style font.

School Magazine Front cover

I have now started to create a front cover to my school magazine, i have managed to put the main structure together with the medium close up of the student in the centre of the page. I have learnt how to use Photoshop and this meant i was able to assemble tha magazine in the first place and to change the things i didnt think looked right. I edited the images of the four college names to make them ghost like, i did this by playing with the opacity, i then made them look as if they were fanned out and overlapping, i did this by using the transform tools.
I have got a masthead and a sell line, there are also coverlines and will be other images to accompany everything. Overall i think that i have made a god start to my magazine front cover.

In media studies so far i have created an analysis of music magazines front covers. I had to look at the layout, font , picture use, colour scheme and comment on how it looks and enitces the viewer to buy it.