Music magazine - planning and creating of the front cover

Initial ideas

Proposal for the music magazine



 Flat plans

-Masthead: I chose to stick to the traditional placing of the masthead to make my magazine look more conventional. I will make it large and bold.

-Dateline: I have chosen to put my date line underneath the masthead. It'll be a small font in comparison to the masthead and will include the date of the issue and which issue it is.

-The main image: the main image will cover the whole of the front cover but the most important part will be in the middle third so it won't be covered up.

-puff/plugs: a few will be scattered on the front cover to show competitions ( things that can be won)

-barcode: the barcode will be placed right at the bottom to show how realistic my magazine will be.


Photography
I created a photography shooting script so I could plan many different photo designs, then could review each of them after taking them or if I knew they wouldn't work I could review them before I took the shot. On my photography shooting script I only spoke about four different designs, even though I took and reviewed more.














These are some of the photos I took when shooting for my front cover. 



In this photo, I chose the floral dress to represent the summer month that It will be issued in. The guitar represents the music magazine that I am creating and I feel that this as well as the woodland background shows a more 'country-pop' genre that I have chosen to create my magazine around.

My critics of this photo is that it is on the left third of the photo, this is where all the information (well a bigger percentage) will go, so because of this the model needs to be on the other side. I also feel the pose is to posed and make the magazine feel unnatural. The model is to pale to represent this summer magazine so if used I would need to photo shop a tan on her to make it more realistic.

This photo was taken at the same time as the previous photo, as it was taken in the same shoot. A different pose was executed here, this works because it doesn't reveal everything, so when it comes to the double page spread I'm able to show more of the:

- Model
- Environment
- Outfit
- Props.

Although, this photo doesn't portray the smiley young pop star that I wanted to be shown through, so I don't feel it would be appropriate to use.

This was my favourite of this particular shoot, and the one which in fact I did begin to create my magazine front cover with. I liked this photo, and it fitted well with various text arrangements.

unfortunately when I inserted this into Photoshop and in design I found that the image was very pixelated and blurry making it unsuitable to use, this was a great shame and meant I needed to take more photos ready to insert into my front cover design.

I have collected screenshots of my front cover as I have gone along to enable people to be able to see the stages I have completed.

Here I have used just an example  photo from offline just so I could work around it with the different mastheads and plugs, then later I would insert my photograph instead of this one. I used this example photo as it has the same feel/theme I would like to include in my own.

Masthead: This masthead I created to look feminine, and a country/pop theme. I think the white colour stands it out along with the blackening outline.


Barcode: I used this barcode to make the front cover more professional and less amateur. The barcode is a conventional feature making it more realistic.

Masthead: the masthead I have enlarged here, this makes it more visible on the front cover, this is important so it stands out more. I also added a drop shadow to the font so again it lifts it a little from the page.

I started to alter the fonts so they weren't all the same. From different magazine examples i can see that all the puffs and cover-lines and different fonts, colours and styles.

I also ensured all the writing on the left all started as far over to the left as possible and in line to make it look more professional.

On this screenshot I have added another colour to the scheme, a bright pink. This enhances the summer colour scheme, it also breaks the text up more. I choose to include black text and a bright colour from various inspirations:

Here  i have continued to make it look more and more professional and conventional, taking inspiration from varying pop magazine covers.

I have furthered the editing in order to create better text, for example putting words in bold, or enlarging it. I've also used underlining in some case.

I have ensured the colouring is alternate in order to imitate the various examples above.

The next changes i need to make are:

- The background photo to my own photo

- Another plug on the righthand side

- A link to the Alexa Denzal interview.










New photography

Photography shooting script

This new photo was taking at the local forest - this gives it the country pop feel. The young girl (happy and smiley fits in with the target audience.)

The dancing costume allows a  background story to be created as well as an interest to another target audience. This theme will be continued through out the magazine in order to keep consistency and allow the artist to be created.

This photo has been on Photoshop and I enhanced the colour and adjusted the different settings such as:
- contrast
- lighting
- shadowing
- saturation










I like these photo's because they are natural, not looking to over posed. When looking at different inspirations I noticed how the pop music magazine artists were posed more naturally so I wanted to capture this in my photography.


Due to the lack of eye contact here ( an important feature of the front cover photo ) I have chosen to use this photo on the contents page and the one above on my front cover. This will make my magazine more conventional and professional looking.


This photo has the same setting and model as it was taken in the same shoot. I feel she fits well into the description sample, and the setting enhances the country pop feel.

Next stages of creating my front cover:

Here I have inserted my own photo into the back ground of my front cover and ensured it filled the frame proportionally so that the photo wasn't at all distorted.


I then needed to readjust my text to fit well around the new photo, again remaining the professionalism.


I have also added more text on the right hand side as from my inspiration I found it unusual for their to be any empty parts on the front cover.

First Final Draft

On reflection

When looking at my front cover i can see many changes i need to make.
These include of:
- Enlarging my masthead ( increasing width and height)
- Changing font of my masthead ( More San serif )
- The photograph ( rule of thirds, use of lines, change of outfit)
- The coverlines


New photography 

Techniques I have used

- Rule of thirds
- high key lighting
- The use of lines
- props
- Zoom

Location

The location I have chosen is in the woodland / forest area. I have chosen this because I feel it

has great relevance to the music genre I have chosen. (Country - pop). It also allows the model to seem more realistic and involved in everyday life making her more relatable and likeable to the audience.












Front Cover stages 

1) In this stage I have used Photoshop to cut out the picture of the model and inserted back on top of the original photo placing the mast head in the middle.




I have made sure the cover line was large so that it stands out significantly when the rest of the text Is added.

 

2) Here I have added more cover lines puffs/plugs to build up the front cover making it more professional.






I have added more conventions also such as the barcode.

 

 

 

 My final front cover

 

Music magazine - audience research

Target Audience Definition:

A  group of people of whom the type of media is aimed at and consume a product. It is based on age, gender, interests. The media will adapt and change their techniques to base and appeal to their audience. An example of a target audience would be women aged 25-40 for a women's weekly magazine.

Stereotypical audiences

Chart music

The general characteristics of a chart music listener is a mixed gender audience, percentage wise their is a larger number of females, though this is unnoticeable from the wider image. A stereotyped chart music listener are teenagers to middle aged adults, so it has a wide audience margin. The traditional chart music listener is difficult to group due to fashion choices, as it is what society would see as a norm, rather casual. The jobs of these music listeners are also unidentifiable, although part-time work would be seen as the usual position for these candidates. Fashion shops like   for females and top man for males, as well as river island and Miss selfridge. Also food shops would include of Tesco's, stereotypically. 

An example of these audiences are:

Pop music 

The general characteristics of a pop music listener are young female teenagers, between the ages of 7-16 year old, on estimation. This shows that this genre has a younger fan base than the other genres such as rock and country, and it's rare for a genre to be female dominated.  Fashion shops for this particular audience are places like new look. They, stereotypically would wear 'girly' outfits, inclusive of dresses, shorts and crop tops. Most photos that represent pop fans show the extent that these fans go to for their idols, crying like the photo below.

An example of pop fans would be:

Rock music

Rock music is a popular genre of music which was first came across as 'rock and roll' in the 1950s. Rock and Roll can be put into sub-categories, these include of Folk Rock and Indie Rock. The stereotypical target audience for rock would be someone aged between 16-28 years old, on estimation. predominately male. However today there is a wider target audience for rock music as it is so popular and consists of different styles. The stereotypical clothing and outfits a rock listener would wear would be black or dark clothes and/or make up with leather and chains. Other things that rock fans could wear is Skinny Jeans, Ripped clothing and Piercings.

An example of a rock fan would be:

Country music

 

Country music is a popular genre of music in America. Originated in southern America in the 1930s. Country music often consists of Ballard's and dance tunes. The target audience of country music would be both male and females aged between 25-60 on estimate. I think that country music is mainly enjoyed by those older aged however in the southern countries is also seen like being chart  music so many ages would probably enjoy it. They are likely to wear cowboys hats and chequered shirts.

 

Choosing a genre

Once stereotyping various different genres, I realised i wanted to combine two different genres together. I knew 'pop' music has a mass market and was a genre I was personally interested in but I felt combining it with another genre would minimise my target audience and not make it so general. I looked into the genre of country and felt famous artists such a Taylor swift and Mumford and Sons demonstrate this genre well and their is music is in the charts.

Case study: Taylor Swift

Taylor Alison Swift was born in December 13, 1989. She is an American singer - songwriter who was raised in Wymissing, Pennsylvania. Taylor Swift moved to Nashville, tennessee at the age of 14 in order to pursue a career in country music. She got singed with the independent label 'Big Machine Records' and then became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. Taylor's Album was released in 2006 ( self titled debut album) and established her as a country music star. 'Our song', which was her third single, made her the youngest person to single - handedly write and perform her number one song on the Hot Country songs chart.

She also received a Best New Artist nomination at the 2008 Grammy's. Which has led to many winnings of Grammy's more recently, for example her second album 'fearless' has won 4 Grammy awards.   To date, she has sold over 26 million albums and 75 million digital single downloads, making her one of the best selling artists of all time.


To ensure their would be a market for this genre I created a questionnaire so that I could identify the space in the market and see where my music magazine would fit specially with such a niche genre.  

Here is an example of the questionnaire:

Questionnaire results: 

 Question 1) Male/female 

The majority of people who answered my questionnaire were female, as they were more interested. ( 5 - male 10 - female ) 












Question 3) What is your favourite genre of music?

The highest percentage of favourite genre's was pop music. This was then followed by other which included house mainly and also country music. 











Question 6) What country - pop artists do you know? 

These were the country - pop artists named with a large percentage of people saying Taylor Swift ( 14 out of 15) closely followed by Mumford and Sons and Elvis. 











Question 7) Would you buy a Country - pop magazine? 

Over 3/4 of people said 'yes' to that they would buy a country pop magazine. (12 out of 15 people) 











Question 8) How much would you pay? 

The only two options selected were under £1 and between £1 and £2. With 14 out of 15 people saying between one and two pounds. 

 

Videos representing my music genre and stereotypically the audience:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Music Magazine - research

To begin the preparation for my music magazine i completed some research into different music genres.  Firstly i wrote the various different music genres, I found a wide variety so they weren't all to similar. Following this i looked at sub genres in each of the main genres. For example metal as a main genre and heavy metal as a sub genre.
                   

After this i looked into different examples for each genre: 

Analysing a real media product

Front Cover

Contents Page

Double Page Spread analysis