Mood Board

Mood Board on Prezi

Magazine Names

Magazine names 1

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Diary Entry Week 5

This week I made a power-point containing Names for my magazine that I thought up over the course of a week. I uploaded it to SlideShare to show my ability to used varied software on my blog. Also this week I have created a mood board presentation on Prezi to show what comes to my mind when I think of Metal (the Genre of my magazine) it contains pictures from gigs, various images and signs that correspond to the metal industry.

Diary Entry Week 4

This week I wrote my music magazine proposal in Microsoft Word, however I wanted to use a different form of presentation and show the skills I have developed so I also video recorded myself putting forward my proposal. On Blogger I also uploaded my transcript to show the development process I have gone through. I am still waiting to organise a final date for my photo-shoot so I can start demonstrating with effects on the pictures. 

Audience Poll Results

Magazine poll results

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I evaluated the results from my poll (published on my blog) and I turned the results into tables to better express how the various people responded to the questions and to make it more clear why I made certain decisions for my magazine.

Diary Entry Week 3

This week we were tasked with asking ourselves "What makes a music magazine last and appeal to its audience?" We realised we had to appeal to our demographic, therefore, using the gadget tool on Blogger, we created a poll, using questions that will help us gain knowledge on what our magazine should entail.
For example: What do you look for most in a magazine? In which format would you prefer to receive your magazine? and How often would you like the magazine to be published?
Also this week I started to plan my proposal. I would like to do this in a video format to change the variety of what I use on my blog.

Magazine Proposal

I propose to create a heavy metal/rock magazine focusing more on the heavy metal side as it is more intriguing for me, I am loosely basing my magazine on “Kerrang!” a popular and very well known brand name magazine. It will be very eccentric and different to encompass the ideas of the “different” fans of heavy metal. My magazine will entail; music news (such as current band affairs and new bands) as well as gig reviews, upcoming gigs and interviews.

My magazine will be loosely following the style of “Kerrang!” in the sense that it will have a ‘house theme’; a recurring theme every month  that  will help create a brand identity that readers will be able to recognize over time.
My magazine competition involves people sending in their best and most excellent photos from any heavy metal/rock gig they’ve been to and if they win they will get 2 free tickets to a pre-determined gig of a famous heavy metal band, the band will change each month.

My magazine would be aimed at a young generation who perhaps go to university although there would be many people who were interested in the magazine despite the target audience being specific to 20 year olds. They would generally be ‘metal-heads’ who constantly listen to music while travelling to work or gigs on the underground. The target audience will particularly enjoy Heavy Metal that is not over the top with screaming but with good quality metal and good quality singing.

My magazine will be relatively cheap at the affordable price of £2.50, unless they subscribe. If people subscribe via credit card their magazines will be sent to them for the low price of £2.20. It will be released once a month on the last day of the month so everyone will know what has happened that month and also what’s coming up in the next month. Therefore; people who choose to subscribe will get their magazines cheaper than if they bought it from a shop every month.  People will be able to subscribe in multiple ways; online, by phone and by post. All they need to do is sign up and enter their credit card details. My magazine would preferably be published by “Bauer Consumer Media” as they publish a few different kinds of metal magazines so they would be
supportive in my endeavours to create the next big music magazine.

I feel my magazine will succeed as I am a fan and enjoy the style of music much more. As I am such a big Metal enthusiast I foresee that I will put more effort into my work to create something to a high standard.

Diary Entry - Week 2

This week, after I first used SlideShare to upload my similar product research on various magazines, I moved onto the next task of writing about the key concepts and magazines. I want to use a different presenting form and so I will Prezi; an online presentation software, I am finding it very useful as it is simple to use and fun to interact with and watch. I am going into depth with the codes and conventions, audience, representation and institution. At the moment I am correcting and expanding points I’ve made about each sub-title and by the end of the week I will have completed the task with superior information and re-upload it onto my blog.

Key Concepts and Magazines

Copy of Key Concepts & Magazines on Prezi

Analysis of CD magazine adverts

I thought it would be beneficial to research CD magazine adverts in order to get an idea of how to design mine. I noticed in each one that the artists name are always big and bold, some ratings from music magazines and lists of the albums top songs.

kings of Leon album advert

This advert for the kings of Leon album only by the night is very well informed as well as containing a memorable image of the band that will stick with anyone who sees it in a publication. The information included is useful and relevant such as the news that it has been released "OUT NOW" where it can be bought "PLAY.COM" and what songs are included "SEX ON FIRE, CRAWL AND USE SOMEBODY". The four band members faces split up and reconnected as a single face mixedwith that of an eagle is a very memorable image which doubtless also tells fans something about the style as well as being very eye capturing.

Dethklok cd advert

This magazine advert was published in several black metal magazines to advertise the release of the first metalocalypse dethklok cd. The name of the band and album is clearly visible at the top and some of the songs are listed at the bottom. This advert is instantly recognisable as an advertisement for dethklok as it makes use of the bands logo and mascot facebones a giant skull with several large horns.

As magazine adverts go this one is lax in design as it contains very little information such as critics reviews or a release date or even information about where to obtain the album. This could of course be intentional as it causes the audience of the advert to think about and remember it due to both it’s simplicity and lack of detail and it’s shock value. This type of advert would need to be carefully aimed at the target audience of metal fans presumably a lot of thought was put into what magazines it went into and where it was published.

Diary Entry - Week 1

So far in our Media Course we have had to make multiple items to show how much we know about photoshop, magazines, cameras and Media overall.
Our preliminary task required us to create a pencil design of a school magazine front cover and contents page and then create our visions in photoshop. Using the camera to take the pictures we needed, carefully choosing the image that would suitably represent our school magazines, we were able to download the images into photoshop and layer the fundamental aspects of a magazine over the top. We attempted to stick to our pencil designs as much as possible; however, as we came to certain obstacles such as clashing images or colours we found that we had to change our designs to be more suitable as a school magazine. When it came to finishing the cover page I still wanted to tweak things such as the outline on the title text to make it better, but had to move on to the contents page. Creating the contents page, I felt was harder, as I had spent less time designing that than the front cover. I decided that the colour scheme should remain constant so it would remain aesthetically pleasing rather than clashing. We scanned our pencil designs, converted the photoshop images to JPEG’s uploaded them to our blogs and evaluated the work we had done and explained all the reasoning we made about why we used different effects.
We have now started to evaluate different magazine products, explaining why they used different techniques on their; Front Covers, Contents Pages and Double Page Spreads. This will help us to understand more about the different styles or techniques used by the professionals making magazines.

Creating key magazine pages

When designing my Front cover and contents page I decided to not focus on the colour aspects but to just get the design ready and have a basic concept of what I was going to create.

I envisioned a masthead that had 3 different fonts in order to show the irony of the “new news” but I also wanted the title to entail “School” so it stood out to kids in school and suggested it was a school newspaper.

The image I wanted for the front cover was of a teacher screaming in rage which I would Photoshop with flames in their eyes and smoke protruding from their ears. To really catch the readers attention, making them want to purchase the magazine.

The main sell line; “How to avoid the wrath of teachers” fits in with the picture of an ‘Insane’ teacher to make the reader more interested in what’s going on.

When it came to adding colour into my front cover I found that a gradient was the best way to emphasise the title and the sell lines but they can be different colours. I found that the gold/yellow writing stood out more on everything from white to green so I decided to use it for the title and sell lines, only changing the font and size to differentiate the 2.

I intended my contents page to be vibrant to ensure that people would read it and not just skim over it like most people might.

The masthead “Adele – coming to visit!!” is in a big, bold, impact font to attract the most attention, its also backed by a red background with an effect to make it more aesthetically pleasing to the reader; attracting yet more attention.

The sell lines are all in the same gold/yellow fonts to keep with the colour scheme and still stand out on everything. They are separated into groups; “Exclusives” and “Reviews” to make it easy for the intended reader to distinguish between the 2”

The main Image is of Adele. It’s an over the shoulder shot, heavily make upped and photo-shopped to make her look better and seem more appealing to everyone.

I attempted to keep the colour schemes the same in the contents page as the front cover but change the design of how they look to seem new and different. The blend of colours work well together to assure the main sell line sticks out more than the rest, however, they stick out as well. 

Product research

Product research

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Research Into 'Bullet For My Valentine' in Magazines

This is a Prezi with pictures and text that analyse 'Bullet For My Valentine', from their outfits to their body language. This, I thought, would be useful for when I come to make my own digipak and could help guide me towards the photos I want to take to get a certain effect from the viewer.