Analysis of Final Double Page Spread

Using the same concept of the draft of the second contents page, I decided to increase the capacity of the background to 86%, making a little dark and so that the abstract forest green were visible, bringing about a sense of ‘funky’ style. The original background consisted of shades of dark and bright green abstract patches, and did not permit the black writing to stand out, as it was contradicting and unclear.

I still used the rule of thirds, as I thought it would be best for the reader’s eye. And also, the close up image of the artist was still incorporated. The large image was originally small, and so I was afraid it might get distorted. I then found out that I could increase its pixels in order for it to look proportionate, without getting distorted.

Moving on, the writing was initially all black. In order for the double page spread to stand out, I thought of using two other colors; ‘pink’ for the pull quote and for the name ‘Flexic’ at the start of the interview, and ‘orange’ for the magazine’s name ‘BLAST’. ‘BLAST’ is written in orange color in the front cover, and the person that interviewed Flexic was from ‘BLAST’ and so I thought there should be some sort of and representation, even if its just a matter of the color. The same for using the color pink. In the front cover, there is a hint of pink used and so I used pink in the double page spread too, in form of the pull quotes, the name ‘Flexic’ and the website on the close up image and the photographer’s name too.

Why I selected this particular graphical image which the title is in, is because it has a hint of green, and brown too. When the background was still at its original color, it looked like brown symbolized ‘wood’ in the ‘forest’. Then, when I reduced the capacity of the background, I thought that it still looked great, as it has some sense of ‘funky’ in it.

Furthermore, the font of the text is ‘funky wizzard’. As my magazine is based on funky-pop, I deliberated that the writing should also add to the sense of funky too. The website and the photographer’s name on the large image are in a different font in order to bring about variety and to stand out.

Final Double Page Spread

Analysis of first draft of the Double Page Spread

Whilst going through the graphics book, I picked some innovative ideas up. But that meant diverting from my initial double page spread. I went on, defying my initial double page spread plan and I made this mock up of my second contents page in order to see whether the colors would match and look appropriate. The background was initially shades of green, and the writing was black. I liked it!

The writing wasn’t clearly visible and thus, I decided to totally eliminate the background and leave it plain white . Within an instance, I realized that it looked awkward. It looked bland and more of an old school magazine’s double page spread. The text in the third column was also too high up compared to the other columns and ‘Flexic’ at the start of the first column, couldn’t not even be read as it was in white, against a white background. This definitely couldn’t be my double page spread!

First draft of Double Page Spread

Analysis of Double Page Spread Plan

I may not be the best artist, but I’ve got a plan! This plan for my double page spread is based on the rule of thirds theory. This would allow the page to be captivating and that the close up image of the artist could be the center of attention. I decided to make each column interesting by having an image in the first and second column and a pull quote in the third column.

Double Page Spread Plan

Analysis of final contents page

As I wasn’t really satisfied with my first contents page that I had made, I decided to exploit the graphical world. Its very vast and wasn’t easy to decide on which concept I wanted to go with. I was contemplating on whether to use a totally different background color, or to use one of the colors on the front cover. I decided to play safe and go with the ‘pink’ shade, like a little of the writing on the front cover.

I then chose this abstract strip of color, as it looks really funky and thought that the pictures of the artists would look good in form of circles, forming the strip.

The writing is written in navy blue and white, still using colors from the front cover, I thought it would look more attractive rather than introducing a totally new color as ‘pink’, ‘navy blue’ ‘orange’ and ‘white’ are already in the front cover. In order to maintain the ‘funky-pop’ vibe, I decided to have font a little funky and sharp. The title is ‘old English’, bringing about a sense of variety and making it contrasting and vibrant.

Here again, I tried to play about with the conventions of a typical music magazine. As my genre is ‘funky pop’ one would expect it to be wild on, and crazy. I’ve provided to a totally different side of ‘funky pop’, my images are well placed in an organized manner and my writing is right aligned.

Final Contents page

Analysis on first draft of contents page

This contents page was initially going to be the final contents page. As I observed the page, each day during our Media lesson I found that it’s rather distracting and looks more like a student’s magazine. I also got a few school mates to give me their frank opinions on the contents page. They all though that the colors are loud, especially the sunny yellow box with red and navy blue writing in it- they thought it was rather blinding. Some also said that it looks immature for a Media student, although they like the font of the ‘Inside BLAST BLAST BLAST’.

Having thought over the feed back that I got, I decided to completely amend my contents page as It looked no where near the genre ‘funky-pop’.

I agree, I am at fault and I should have thought about this a while ago and worked it out in my plan. Well, I guess the more we are exposed to different types of software like PSD, the more we are able to explore it and therefore we are able to think out of the box rather than incorporate the standard ideas into our work.

It was late, but I did do some extra research on different types of backgrounds. I went through books of graphic designing and magazines too, and got fascinated.

First draft of contents page

Final Front Cover Analysis

My final front cover is practically similar to the first draft. The only difference is that I added more text to it. It makes it look a little more busy and appealing. I would say that my magazine has a good balance of text and image

Final Front Cover

Analysis of the first draft of my front cover

On my main cover, I thought of using bright and attractive colors in order for it to stand out. I really liked the picture of the girl that I took, as the background colors were contrasting with the red hair on model/artist. I thought about playing with the conventions of a magazine, and thus I decided not to incorporate too many text boxes on the front cover, I wanted the picture to stand out. also, not all magazines have the barcodes on the front cover, and so I decided to eliminate that.

To make it a little more eye catching and ‘funky-pop’ sort, I decided to use colors that would go well with the outer navy blue part of the background. The fluorescent pink writing with a hint of white adds to a sense of ‘funky-pop’ and also works well with the font. Whereas the orange outlined title ‘BLAST’ is also appealing. As the title is orange, I thought of using more orange and thus I colored the strap line orange with navy blue writing in it, in order to stick to the conventions of colors.

First draft of my front cover

Questionnaire Results

What gender are you?

60% of the students I asked were male and the rest 40% were female. By viewing this trend, I decided that my magazine will be aimed at the female sector.

How much would you be willing to pay for a magazine?

47% said 2-3 pounds, 43% said 3-5 pounds and only 10% said 5+ pounds.

I guess, as I asked mainly students, they would of course look for the cheaper option as many of them are on budgets. Being realistic, I aimed at setting my magazine price at four pounds. The colored ink, the graphics, the paper and the labor would also be costly and thus, taking that into consideration, I decided to price my magazine at four pounds.

Would you rather prefer an image dominant cover with little text, or more text a fewer pictures?

53% prefer an image dominant magazine and 43% prefer and a text dominant magazine.

Students, being students would definitely go for a visual effect and the statistics clearly suggests that the students I interviewed preferred a more visual effect, thus majority of them selected the ‘image dominant’ option.

What type of music genres do you like to listen to more?

23% said ‘rock’ 3% said country, 30% said funky-pop and 60% said RnB.

Observing this trend, I decided to make a ‘funky pop’ magazine as it had a good number of students listening to that genre.

How often do you purchase a magazine?

Only 20% buy a magazine at a weekly basis, 90% on a monthly basis and 25% never buy a magazine. And thus, I selected the weekly option.

Questionnaire

In order for myself to make an appropriate music magazine, I wanted to understand the trends, the desires and the theories of teenagers towards why they select that particular magazine, and to do so, I carried out some research. I designed a simple questionnaire and distributed it amongst 10 students in my college. The questionnaire was as such:



MUSIC MAGAZINE QUESTIONNAIRE



Kindly circle the answer that you select.
1)What gender are you?
Male female


2) how much would you be willing to pay for a magazine?
£2-3 £3-5 £5+


3) would you rather prefer an image dominant cover with little text, or more text a fewer pictures?
Image dominant magazine text dominant magazine


4) what type of music genres do you like to listen to more?
Rock country funky-pop RnB others (please state)


5) how often do you purchase a magazine?
Weekly monthly never


Thank you for taking time out to complete this questionnaire 

Evaluation of Media Coursework

For my media coursework, I designed a music magazine; cover, contents page and a double page spread, for women age 13 to 19. The genre that I selected for my magazine was funky-pop.

I named my magazine ‘BLAST’ as funky pop is usually blaring loud and also because its also very catchy.

Conventions are elements are you would expect to see in a magazine. Despite having used conventions such as: masthead‘Blast’, attractive and appealing colours ‘flourescent pink, orange and navy blue’ and the ‘ginger-red’ hair on the model/artist, strap lines ‘free poster inside’ and most importantly a large picture, I have slightly challenged the conventions too. My magazine is aimed at the pop-punk minority. A typical cover page of a pop-punk magazine would consist of a rather wacky image of a bad of a single artist, whereas my magazine cover consists of a rather subtle image of a pop-punk girl, listening to the radio in full ‘BLAST’.

My media Product represents a particular social group that is; girls aged thirteen to nineteen. How I did this by using a very eye catching image of a girl dressed in pop-punk clothing, and is calmly listening to loud music, and thus the name ‘BLAST’. The presence of a girl allows me to imply that she is representing the all the young women that enjoy pop-punk music, and the fact that she is calm and attentive implies that this magazine is also aimed older teenagers, that is; eighteen and nineteen years old, as she looks mature and able to listen to blaring music. The artist/model is wearing a simple navy blue top, black tights with a funky gold chain and a grey-blue beanie hat. Her dressing also suggests that she is young and thus aiming at the teenagers. There is great use of the colour ‘pink’ through the whole magazine, suggesting that its aimed at young females.

I would like IPC Media publish and distribute my media product, as they have of thirty years of experience and because they have great experience as they produce over 85 iconic media brands. They also do not publish any ‘funky- pop’ magazines at the moment and this could enable branch open. IPC Media also publish the ‘NME’ which is has a similar aimed market to ‘BLAST’. IPC media is well recognized in Britain and they also use diverse print and digital portfolios. Their core audiences are: men, mass market women and the up-market women. As my magazine is aimed at teenage girls, and IPC media is recognized for publishing for the ‘mass market women’ and the ‘up-market women’, they would definitely know how to get around young ladies.

The audience for my media product would be pop-punk lovers and females aged thirteen to nineteen year old. Why I decided to select this type of audience is because I thought it would be challenging as not many magazines are out for the pop-punk minority and for females especially.

In my front cover, I managed to attract my audience by having an image of a young pop-punk artist, who is a female. I also used very eye catching colors such as the background was of black and the shades of blue. Beginning form black around the frame of the images, navy blue then royal blue and then sky blue. They merge in well, and produce a great contrast with the ginger-red hair of the model/artist. Another small, yet attractive element is the red label on the plug-in of the stereo system. It produces contrast as the red label is on a black background and makes it eye catching. The stereo itself, being enormous makes it attractive to the audience. The ginger-red tint on the model/artist’s hair brings in some sort of diversity of colors and makes it appealing to the young ladies who enjoy pop-punk.

In my contents page, I used loud and contrasting colors such as shocking pink, orange, white and navy blue. This automatically attracts the audience. The colorful strip going vertically is vibrant and young and looks energetic, suggesting that this magazine is mainly for teenager.

My double page spread is wild and ‘funky’. The background is of a toned down forest-like abstract. It also has a large image of a famous artist, allowing the magazine to attract young women. I also used a variety of colors for the text, in order to emphasize certain text.

Through this media coursework, I have got to understand and experience the use of technology immensely. To produce our media product we have to use a desktop publisher such as Adobe Indesign and Adobe Photoshop. Using these two desktop publishing software, itenabled me to develop and produce quality creative content, it also allows me to easily reuse assets for online and mobile publishing, it integrates seamlessly with my other publishing and content management tools that I have used, it can be customized, scaled, and extended to meet my

evolving needs, offers faster, more reliable performance day in and day out, continues to innovate so you can stay state-of-the-art. I have definitely learnt a lot more about ICT though this media task.

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt to use Indesign and Photoshop flawlessly. The process was challenging, although exploring it was interesting. I’m not saying that I am perfect at it, but that I can use it without any hesitation.

Analysis of a magazine cover

The NME is a British weekly music magazine otherwise known as the ‘New Musical Express’. Featuring agenda-setting news, the UK's most comprehensive gig guide, definitive reviews of the week's hottest gigs, tracks and albums, and fiery comment from the nation's most opinionated writers, it's the essential guide to the week in music. The NME magazine is published by IPC media which is one of Britain’s biggest publishing companies.
The NME comes out every Wednesday, is priced £2.30 and is available in all good newsagents and its main target audience is of Caucasian males between the ages of 15-30,

My initial impression of this magazine was that it was mainly intended to aim at the older male generation. Having analysed the magazine in detail, I have slightly altered my opinion. I noticed that the sell line in the circle has recent generation band names inside allowing them to target the younger generations. ‘Manic Street Preacher’ is a band that was born around the late 80's, and is still producing music. This suggests that their target audience is not only the middle aged people, but the much recent and younger generation too.
In this issue of the NME, a variety of fonts have been used in order to stand out and make it attractive. The writing is written in either: white, red or black. ‘Red’ suggests peril and threat and it has been used very wisely in order to make the magazine sensible. The colour ‘red’ also allows it to abide by its genre, which is of course rock. The positioning of the three members on the cover is very confrontational; the red haired artist has an emotional facial expression, facing towards the audience with a direct mode of address. The main singer in the centre has the Welsh flag on his cheek as Wales is where he was born. This implies representation of battleship as in medieval times when men on horsebacks would imprint their flag on their cheek. The other two members are wearing a type of military jacket in order to represent and support the ‘medieval’ times, and possibly to show ‘teamwork’ too.
The masthead The ‘NME’ is bold, direct and is in filled with sharp red colour in order for it to stand out. It is outlined in the two colours; white and black, against the icy white-blue background, making it even more outstanding and suggesting some sort of importance.

The NME does defy some of the conventions of a music magazine cover; the strap line on top of the page saying ‘BIG GIG SPECIAL ISSUE’ covers only three quarters of the page, whereas normally the strap line would cover the whole page. It also has an image of a rollercoaster saying ‘Shock Waves, NME Awards 2008, Big Gig.’ This graphical image is advertising the event and also implying that the NME will be consist of more information on the event.

In addition, the NME does follows a few the conventions of a music magazine such as, they have a photograph of a well known band, it also consists of a large masthead, it contains sell lines and slug advertising the famous artists featured in the magazine, they have a strap line saying; ‘Big Gig Special Issue’, a barcode, website details, and the price is also indicated too and of course, a close up image of a famous band group. The picture suggests their target audience is of middle aged white men. The band members have a ‘macho’ sense as they are not smiling and have a rather emotionless look. The band member on the right has also got his eyebrows raised. This signifies the genre and maleness of the magazine. The main band member has apparent make up on, red hair and a few rock-like badges on his blazer. This suggests his genderless sense of fashion. Whereas the other two members of the band are a lot more simple looking. If you notice carefully, the main band member has his hands folded together, providing to a more manly effect.

After analysing the NME cover I have come to the conclusion that NME features to cater for a fairly wide rock/indie audience and also report on new trends. They do this by including experienced bands and more recent bands. In my opinion they have succeeded very well by establishing a clear target market.

Original pictures of those that I used in the magazine