Target Audience Feedback.

As my target audience age, ranges from 16-25 years, I decided to interview three students in my school who ranges from these ages.

Student 1) I love the layout, colour and font of this magazine, the images look very 'rock chic', but still contains sophistication. My favourite page is the double page spread (DPS) as to me, it looks the most professional, and I love the idea of the black and white stripes behind the main image of the band. - Female 17 years.

Student 2) I really like the vintage, 60's effect of this magazine, however, I prefer bright, vibrant colours when choosing a magazine. My favourite part of the magazine is the title, 'RUSH', and also the images of the band look very professional. - Male 19 years.

Student 3) The front cover, personally is the best. It includes everything that a magazine should have, e.g. crowded effect, large masthead, centre image and information about what is inside. The contents page is again very professional, I feel that this magazine definitely fits within the age range chosen. - Female 20 years

5) Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

From creating, and learning from my first 'School' magazine front cover, I feel that I have increased my technical ability, for example... using photoshop, as this software takes years to learn how to work properly! I did use photoshop for my preliminary task, however I was only 'blurring' and 'shadowing', whereas in my final product, I was creating background, (B&W stripes)and even learnt how to edit out objects that I did not want to be shown. I have also learnt so many new, technical words that I had not even known before, e.g. 'Drop Cap', which is used on the majority of magazines. By doing the preliminary task, before this major project gave me a head start in learning how to use the technical facilities that we had, and to gain a clearer idea of how magazine's are put together. It also helped me to always refer back to my target audience, and why my idea would attract to them.

4) In what ways does your media product, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

Throughout my development of producing a 60's style magazine, I have always referred back to the rock magazine, "ROLLING STONE": a rock style 60's magazine. The magazine cover has inspired me with positioning the models on front cover, colour schemes and fonts. The magazine is a U.S based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks published by Jann. S. Wenner, and music critique, Ralph. J. Gleason. The audience for their magazine is 20 - 40 year olds who have an interest in Rock Music. I feel that my magazine would be a sister to the rolling stone due to the vintage layout, and interest in 'Rock Music', however my magazine would not include politics information, due to it's younger audience of age range 16-25.

3) What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

Throughout my development, I have had to discover new technologies, and learn them quickly, to be able to make my final product of good quality. Learning new technologies was quite time consuming, as it was hard to get your head aroundusing new softwares in a short mount of time. This has enabled me to know how to use them, for future purposes.

Imac Computer

By having an Imac computer was a great advantage for me, as even though, it looks professional, and is practical to work on, the computer includes good quality software, for example... 'iphoto', which is a good software for editing images. The computer also includes 'pages', which is like an upgrade of word. This enabled me to be able to play around with fonts, making words closer together, to look like a real magazine sub heading.

Photo Shop

Photo shop, was very new to me at the time, when I came to editing my final images. This meant that this process was very time consuming, but definitely worth it! Using this new, modern software enabled me to be as creative as I wanted, for example, I used photo shop, when adding the black and white stripes in the background image used on my DPS.

When editing my pictures, a came across a new website, called 'Picnik'. I downloaded by photos for free, and this is where I mostly did my editing, as the site had a variety of different colours/textures/effects to chose from. The site, also had an effect that cut off photo corners, creating a curved edge effect, I used this a lot onmy images on my contents page.

Before I had started this product, I had not been familiar with 'Blogger'. I have learnt along the way, on how to add pictures, change font, etc... The only downfall that I have learnt is that it is on the internet, anyone can see your work, which at the beginning I was quite unsureabout, but now that I have developed and learnt I feel more confident with the site.

2) What kind of media institution might describe your media product and why?

Wenner Media is the publishing company of ‘Rolling Stone’, so I thought that I could possibly use there experience of distributing the sophisticated genre of magazine to my advantage. However because Wenner Media is producing the very successful ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine I don’t think it would take on board a rival to its own brand in ‘RUSH' is aimed towards the primarily same audience and would need its own freedom to grow into a global brand.

IPC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands, with their printed magazines they manage to reach to almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men (almost 26 million adults within the UK). The company publish ‘Uncut’ and ‘NME’, which are both music magazines targets at young adults. I feel that 'RUSH', would be able to fit in with it's busy/slightly rock styled layout or fonts, colours, etc.. however the unique theme of 60's/gothic, may be too unique for such a large company, needing magazines to really suit a specific audience.

1)Who would be the audience for your media product?

When I first began, thinking of magazine ideas, I spoke about my target audience, ranging ages from 16 - 25 years. I feel that since I have made the final product, the layout, and sophisticated design, of colours, fonts, and pictures, really suits the age range that I have suggested my audience would be.

Layout

The design of my front cover, Dps, and content page, have a very sophisticated/60's/gothic style, this was to match my theme. I feel that my chosen layout for my front cover and Dps, matches a lot of current music magazines, e.g. centre front image, masthead at the top, writing all around the image. However the layout for my contents page, was purely due to my creativity, however the 'scattered' effect of images on one side of the page is commonly used in magazines. When designing my pages, I always had my target audience in my head, as whatever I did had to attract to that age group. So I had to be carefully choosing a layout that would not bee too formal, and that would not be too childish.

Colours/Fonts

When choosing my fonts and colour scheme, I found very difficult as I wanted to match my theme of 60's, vintage effect, so I was planning in my head pale beige/orange colours, but I had to be very careful, as the colours needed to stand out, as it was a magazine, and has to attract buyers. I ended up using 'white' for a lot of the texts, as white goes with everything, and luckily stands out from most of the colours that I have used on my pages. After researching current magazines for a teens/young adults, I felt that fonts were hugely important for showing the theme, and attracting a specific type of audience, for example... I found a lot of 60's fonts, which I have used the front page, " 50 " To portray the gothic effect, I have used a font called, "cracked", which I have used on the name of the band, "Petals of the cellar" To contrast with these fonts, on the rest of the text, I have used traditional 'Arial' font.

Pictures

When I came to taking my photo shoot, I had a very clear idea of what I wanted and how I wanted the models to be placed. My models looked of the ages between 16-25, which is good as they can be looked up to, as role models for young girls ranging from this age group. The choice of clothing was my idea, of mixing modern day, high street fashion, which a 60's edge, this unique look, could be a new style that this age group would like to follow, as nowadays vintage clothing is coming back! I feel that it it very important to think about how you will structure the models to be in the image, to convey that they are a close, fun band, influencing young girls to want to be like them, which I have found through my research, a lot of music magazine try to pursue this effect on their audience.

Evaluation.

I will be discussing what I feel I have achieved throughout the development of this task, how much I have learnt through this process, and what I could have improved to have made my final piece even better!

Future of all online magazines: moving front covers.

Recently, Marie Claire has launched an app for the iPad, turning Watson's December covershoot for the American edition of the publication into a 'living' image.They have debuted an interactive issue for Apple’s iPad that features a moving cover, as well as video clips and outtakes exclusive to the tablet. The Marie Claire application is powered by Zinio and gives readers the option of purchasing a single issue or a yearly subscription. The application showcases fashion and beauty products, accessories and clothing.[With the living cover] we had to map it out and when you look at it, it’s like one of those really complicated scientific computer drawings,” said Joanna Coles, editor in chief of Marie Claire, New York. “It’s the first time that it’s been done and I’m so excited,we really wanted to put the magazine in 3-D."

Our society today no longer live in a world where television, video games, films, newspapers, radio, magazines, music exist separately, so the media industry are just developing and coming up with new ideas on how to merge media's together. As we are becoming an online digital environment, online magazines are becoming more popular as the months go by, media commentators predict that by 2020 only 10% of magazine reading will be from hard copies on paper. As new technologies launch, for example the 'Ipad 2', it is making the internet more assessable for the public to read, and look at online magazines.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1339398/All-magic-Emma-Watson-moving-magazine-cover-wouldnt-Hermione-pleased.html

So we now have 3D televisions, could we possibly start having 3D magazines in the upbringing future?

In the future, this would suit my magazine, as all through my development, I have spoken about different ways that the magazine can show the singers/bands personality through fonts, colours etc.. What would be even better is if there became sound, so you could actually hear what the band was playing on the front cover, making the public want to buy their album!

Is the 60's coming back?

Fashion
Spring 2011 Fashion Trends seem to be looking at combinations and contradictions with the 50’s and 60’s soft feminine flowing style and the 70’s bohemian and sophisticated glamour coming back to blend with biker chic and some elements of punk fashion.

NewTV program - Mad Men.

AMC took chance in by making Mad Men their network’s first ever – produced original dramatic television series. It’s the 1960’s and our particular group of Mad Men (a term that ad men coined for themselves during that time period in American culture), is at the fictional “Sterling-Cooper” advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York City. Mad Men also proves to be maybe the most meticulously set-dressed and carefully wardrobed television series – ever. The set design and props attention to detail is remarkable. From the style of a glass used, to the design of an office desk, there’s not a single item that doesn’t look like it’s not from an original 60’s catalog. The clothing and style of Mad Men has inspired a revisited 60’s enthusiasm in fashion. The series complete obsession to authenticity is due to Matthew Weiner surrounding himself with the best support for “his” vision." Watching Mad Men makes me wonder about and question how cool the 60’s actually were. The decade was filled with rampant smoking and hard-alcohol consumption. Sexism and adultery seemed to go hand in hand. The civil rights movements were struggling as the Vietnam War was raging. If “not being equal” or “not being heard” were ever as scarily real or as dreadful a reality than during the deeply racial and homophobic landscape of the 1960’s – then I must have missed that chapter in class?"

NEW YORK -- If the '60s are making a modern-day comeback, it's thanks in large part to Janie Bryant, the costume designerbehind Mad Men.

60's influenced Band/Singers

Current, record selling icons in the music industry, 'Duffy', and 'TheLike', have really cracked the 60's style, which I personally feel brings a uniqueness/individual aspect to both artists. They obviously feel that the 60's era should be influenced in today's society.

So the mix between 60's/gothic fashion is coming back, new modernised 60's TV programs are coming back, current music artists are bringing the 60's back, so why can't we bring back a new 60's styled magazine in today's society?

Contents Page.

When designing my contents page, I decided that I didn't need, or want any inspiration from current magazines, as I wanted this page, to be unique, and match my gothic/60's theme. I used three of my own images, and two images off the internet to portray a male band, against my female band, as the magazine can be read by female and male readers. To me, pictures look boring and plain with pointed, straight edges, so I found a website, called 'Picnic'. This website enabled me to choose from a variety of shapes, for example, 'rounded corners'. To keep the 60's style, I found a new font called 'Backstage pass NF' which I used on the numbers on my content page. To keep with the gothic feel, I used almost 'chalked' lines to separate each description of what pages where inside. To create contrast, I used a duck egg blue colour, "THE JUNE RUSH", as it stood out from the dark grey/blacks, creating a vintage effect. The layout of the page, is quite structured, which contrasts with the front cover, as the cover is very busy, and crowded. I have placed a 'shadow' effect under each picture, to create a nice 3D effect, to make them stand out.

Double Page Spread.

My inspiration when creating my main image on the double page spread, was from the band, 'The Like', as I was researching their pictures as a band, and came across an image of all four band members, singer closest to the camera, guitarist and keyboardist side by side level higher than the singer, then drummer standing at the back. As black and white stripes are quite bold and have a slight 60's feel, I decided I wanted a black and white background behind the band, to create contrast to their faded coloured 60's outfits. This was very time consuming, as I had to outline really carefully on photo shop around the models, and input the black and white striped design, to be fitted behind them. When choosing my font, I really wanted a gothic font in a 60's colour as I wanted it to match my theme, so after downloading 60's font I came across, 'spicy retro' which I used on the speech, "HAVING A GANG DEFINITELY MAKES THE HARD TIMES EASIER". Originally I had the speech slightly overlapping the black and white stripes, but after the meeting with the print professionals, they suggested that I keep the speech on the white background, so that it stands out more, so after taking their advice and changed the font colour. After looking back at researched magazines, I found that most of them had two small separate paragraphs of font at the bottom of the page, with a 'Drop cap'. My beginning word is, 'C an' I used the same colour font for the large speech on the 'C' so that it looked colour coordinated.

Front cover.

Once I had edited and decided my final front cover image, I was then able to then start and experiment with colours and different fonts to match the theme, 60's/gothic. I first played around with bright bold colours for my masthead, 'RUSH', but my disadvantage was that the colours could not be too bright, e.g RED, as it would not match my theme, so I had difficulty in finding a colour that would stand out, but still look slightly old fashioned. The colour that I thought had worked the best, was a light grey/duck egg blue, as it contrasted with my dark font colours of my subheadings, to help make it stand out, as that is the purpose of a masthead. I also had to 'kerning', to be able to have letters closer together so that they fit more neatly. To help influence me, with choosing fonts and colours, I kept looking back and the 'rolling Stone' front cover that I came across in my research. As my theme includes a 60's look, I wanted to find a 60's font that I could use, So I found some free fonts that I could download onto the mac, for example...'Bobo Black', 'bumbazoid', 'spicy retro', 'smoke', 'prisma'. I had to be really careful when picking the colours for my front cover, as my main image has an orange tint, I had to find a colour that would contrast with it. After a lot of time experimenting I found that plain 'white' worked best as it was simple, bright and contrasted with my dark background colour. After looking back at real, professional music magazines, I found that the majority of the front covers were very crowed with information, and as I really liked the 'crowded' effect, I decided to to fill in space where there were large gaps, e.g. written on the 'strap line' "FREE INSIDE WOMEN IN MUSIC 70 PAGE SPECIAL", and the 'footer', "GIG TICKETS HALF PRICE!"

Improvements.

Print Professionals: Steve Priddell and Rowland Cowley

UWE Print and Design Division

1) Change the colour of the subheading, 'PETALS OF THE CELLAR', as the 'pale orange' gets lost as it is overpowered by the dark golden background colour. Suggested colour - white.

2) Move everything inwards, as in a real magazine, the side subheadings would not be shown as they are too close to the edge.

My Grids for my magazine.

Creating Grids.

The Designer’s Side

Web designers will tell you that regardless of how beautiful your site design may look as a jpg, the translation process from comp to browser will make or break your design’s success. For years, designers have relied on grid systems to create harmony and balance in their designs, and while they are invaluable and fairly easy to work with once set up, recreating that same structure in a browser is a challenge, especially when you factor in page rendering inconsistencies among browsers. That’s why aCSS framework like 960 Grid System is a godsend.960 Grid System provides designers with a variety of templates that are pre-sized and contain guides set up to either a 12-column or 16-column grid layout. These templates not only help speed up the preliminary steps of design but also easethe hand-off to the developer, as the framework provides consistencies between the comps and the code.Not every web designer is fluent in CSS, HTML, PHP or other programming languages, so we often rely on developers or frameworks to see us through the coding phase of a project. However with the 960 Grid System, the framework is so carefully constructed and documented that it empowers a designer to tackle the front-end development of a project, only requiring minimal understanding of mark-up languages. It also gives designerspeace of mind in knowing that the things we slave over, i.e. spacing and making sure everything lines up properly (imperative for a successful grid layout), are taken care of automatically via the framework.

This image, is similar to what the 960 grid system looks like....

Chosen Images.

Editing Images.

Once I had chosen all the images out of the 142 that I had taken, I used 'Photo shop' to edit the pictures to make them look more professional. Using new technology like photo shop is very hard to get used too, and is very time consuming, but ends up making the pictures even better than the original images.

Step 1

I really love this image, as the positioning of the models, really emphasises the theme of a group band, creating a unique effect, as they are almost scattered in the frame instead of all being side by side, which creates an'edgy' look to the image. The downfall to the picture is the left side of the image contains part of the school building, instead of carrying on with the brick wall, which really lets the image down, so I decided to try and use photo shop to insert part of the brick wall to cover the unwanted gap.

Step 2

I uploaded the image to photo shop, and used the 'crop' tool, and took a copy of the brick wall on the right side of the image. I then dragged it over to the area I wanted the copy to fill. Unfortunately I didn't get further than that as I wanted the brick wall to sit behind the model instead of overlapping the model.

Step 3

I decided to try and create a 'Vignette' effect around the image to blur out the unwanted image of the school building in the gap. After trying this effect i began to really like it, as it makes you focus more to the image of the four silhouettes of the models. This effect also brings out the vintage 60's effect, but also modernising it as the shape is almost like the shape of an eye, to create focus.

Photo Shoot.

I had arranged to do my photo shoot of Friday 18th March. Like I had imagined I asked for of my friends, one blond, one red head, and the other two brunettes to model as four female band members with a 60's and slight gothic twist. I based my photo shoot in the drama studio, which was a perfect place to do a photo shoot, and the room is black and there were black blinds to cover the windows. I borrowed music equipment from the music department, which was a drum kit, keyboard, and stand, acoustic guitar, and a microphone and singing stand, just how I had pictured the set to be like. As my theme was based around a modern/gothic/60's style, Marlwood drama department is known for its costumes, so I picked out all the 60's style clothing that I could find, but bought in my own clothing to portray the modern feel. I bought in four pairs of fake eyelashes, as eyelashes are a strong feminine feature, also they were very popular in the 60's. To create the lighting effect, I set up two stage lights in the studio, and directed them to face towards the centre of the set as there were was two so I had to make use of them, so that the light slightly covered all four models.

Setting up

Flat Plan Idea(1)

From researching current magazine, the majority of them had images of the bands in concert, so I decided to design my first flat plan, with this idea of band in concert, with lead singer at the front, the keyboard player, and the guitarist behind the singer opposite each other, and the drummer in the back ground, like I have spoken about before. Except on this design, I have made the title, 'RUSH', which is one of my ideas for the magazine masthead, overlap the drummer, so you can just only see the three drums, and name of the band. From my research I have always really liked the effect of a tilted caption across the main image, to back up the image for additional information about the band. I really liked the idea of having page numbers on the front cover, as its quicker access for the reader to find the page they want, but also the use of numbers have a meaning of 'Chart singles', the font of the numbers would be almost like bubble writing, to portray a 60's effect, which is shown below on my improved coloured version. I have tried out a montage of pictures at the bottom, to convey what else is included inside the magazine, but I am uncertain whether I will include this at the bottom of the page. Like all magazines i have included a Bar code, but looking back at my research most bar codes are on the bottom left side of the front covers.

Flat Plat (1) Improved.

I decided to create a more detailed, coloured, copy on my flat plan, to really get a clearer understanding of what my idea might end up looking like. As I have spoken about before, my inspiration came from the band, 'The Like' so I used one of their band concert pictures to convey what I might end up going for, when I come to my photo shoot. Lucky enough from the picture I have chosen the yellow and dark lighting, almost 'dusty' fits really well into my '60's' theme. My colour scheme for my masthead, 'RUSH', and the 3D circle, '60' are similar to the colour scheme of one of my researched magazines, 'ROLLING STONES', again to portray the 60's effect. I decided to add a reflection to the masthead, to make it look more modernised and to help it to stand out, I also did this for the 3D circle that overlaps the masthead for the same reason. Like I have mentioned in my sketched flat plan, i have included the 'numbers' at the top left of the page. As above, I have included a tilted caption, to make the cover have more of a 'Rock chic' feel, as I would like to include elements of that style, "PRESENTING NEW BAND: 'THE LIKE' OCT3RD: ALBUM RELEASES. To help gain element of 'Rock' the font that I have chose for this caption portrays the style well, again co-ordinating colours with the masthead. As I have said above that I had made a mistake with the bar code, well on this improved version I have moved the bar code to the bottom left of the page, which looks much more professional. To improve this practise cover, I would include more images and information of what else would be included inside the magazine, this would also make the cover more crowded, which is a techniques that I have noticed whilst researching.

As my theme for my magazine is 'retro', to find inspiration on more types of front covers. I found that the majority of bands were positioned almost in a 'diamond shape',with the singer at the front, sat on a chair guitarist and key board player side by side, and the drummer at the back, on a higher level, all facing towards the camera. As I was caught between the two masthead titles for my cover, I tried out 'Remedy' on this plan, to try and see which title works best. I have decided that I want an small image of an album cover somewhere in the corner of the page, with an image of the band, and the title of the album cover in a small font. Under the main centre image of the 'diamond shape', I like the effect of the name of the band in a cool, funky font to match the personality of the band, e.g. Gothic 60's girl band'. Again from researching current music magazines, most covers are crowded with small writing and subheadings of additional information of what else will be included inside the magazine, as shown writing is filling up spare space on the cover. I like the idea of including a small montage of famous bands/singer almost scattered on the page. Again like most magazine I have placed the bar code in the bottom right of the page.

Improved Flat Plan(2)

As my main inspiration for a female band come from the orignal band, 'The like', I decided to find an image of the band in a diamond shape, to get closer to what my magazine may look like. After seeing this image, I really liked the black and white stripes in the background of the image, which had inspired me to use stripes in the background of one of my images, as it matches in with the '60's theme. To contrast with the black and white, I used a 'sandy' colour for the masthead, 'Remedy', which again was a common colour used in the 60's. To help portray the gothic edge, I used a font called 'Cracked'. Again, from researching current magazines, I found that a lot of the covers had circular boxes to help make whatever they were saying stand out. So I decided to try one one out, I used red as it stood out from the other colours. Like I have mentioned above, I have included a famous singer, Jay Z, and as small subheading to back up the image. I love the effect of including addition symbols '+' as it's a nice easy shape to fit in small corners. I have included an album cover at the bottom, with a little shadowing to create a 3d effect. I have co-ordinated colours to match the masthead, but I purposely did not make it too similar as the masthead has to stand out from everything else!

Magazine and Band name title...

Magazine Title Ideas...

• Rumour
• Unified
• Pistol
• Look Out!
• Tweaked
• Ridge
• Rush
• Remedy

I decided to create a 'Public Vote', like I used for my 'Foundation Project', as I feel that I needed other opinions, as the title for my Music Magazine cover, is one of the most important features of the front cover, as it has to be catchy, rememberable, and associated with music. The vote was taken by friends of my age, as my final magazine will be targeted to a young, teenage audience. The most popular names were....

Rumour, Rush, and Remedy. I decided not to use 'Rumour', as the word can be seen as a 'Lie', and that's not really what the audience want to read, so it came down too Rush and Remedy, and I am still undecided.

Female Band Names...

As I have decided that my magazine cover will include an image of four members of a female band, with a slight 60's edge, to help me think of an original, new, slightly different band name, I needed some inspiration. From my research the band 'Florence and the Machine" popped up in my mind as quite an indie, new, popular band, which is sort of the route I was heading for, so I decided a long worded band name like 'Florence and the Machine, would be quite unique, and could catch on to a younger audience. Instead of another 'Public Vote', I decided to chose a name myself. I really liked 'Petals of the cellar', as I related the name to the image of four attractive, young female musicians (petals), with a slight dark, gothic, 60's edge (cellar), I though this oxymoron really suited the image that I had come up with.

• Mystic
• Rain of Hope
• The project
• On Route
• Only4
• Petals of the Cellar

Double Page Spread Practise.

After researching the three Double Page magazine spread pages, I decided to try one myself to gain practise for when I come to making my final one. As I have spoken that I got my inspiration for my theme, from a new modernised 60's band called 'The Like', I decided to look on google at some of the pictures of the band, and turn them into a double page spread. First of all, I outlined the pages with a funky, gothic thick line, to help convey that it was double page. I chose a close up picture of the band, with the singer at the front, the keyboard player and guitarist side by side, and the drummer at the back, just like I have written about during my research on real magazines. Overlapping the large image, I have made a large title' LIKE', as the band are called 'The Like'. I picked a colour that would contrast with the black and white, but also kept with the vintage colour scheme of a deep wine red, also with some slight shadowing to create a slight 3D effect to stand out and catch the readers eye. The next page could have had some more text, but as it was a practise, I was more focused on the layout. I really like the structured image of the four members in each corner of the page, with a large prop, '&' with the text in the middle, that is a layout I will consider maybe using. I also liked how the first page looked quite busy with the four member of the band taking up most of the room, with a B&W striped background, contrasting nicely with the plain white back ground, and black colour scheme to again co -ordinated with the stripes on the page before. To improve this 'Practise Double Page Spread' I realised from looking at real magazines that the pages are the wrong way round, as the text should be on the left side of the page, with the large images on the rights side. Also the title should be higher than the image instead of being below, so that it attracts the audience more clearly.

Research Double Spread Pages.

This double page spread, really conveys a cool, slightly gothic edge to the page, which is sort of the look I am heading for. The gothic feature is created due to the newspaper cuttings of words, which is a feature that I would love to involve on my double spread page. The black usage of colouring used on the font and the colour of 'Lilly Allen's' hair is to create contrast from the white background. I love how the style of writing and the colouring reflects the singer and her personality which I really feel is a nice touch to the page. I really like that the two pages strike you with speech and a large image, as at the end of the day most people buy magazines just for the images. The pages still contain context but written in a tiny font, to back up the image and speech. The double page spread is cleverly made to look like its just one large page, as the speech is overlapping onto the other page, and the large image of Lilly Allen is overlapping slightly onto the page before, I really like this effect, and I hope to use this when I come to making my final Double Page Spread. Like most magazine pages, the first capital letter is always a much larger font than the rest of the context, 'Drop cap', "I'm the only girl.."I will definitely be using this effect.

This double page spread really caught my eye, as I was flicking through some magazines for research, due to the 'Simplicity' on the layout, and the monochromatic shade, which I really like as my theme is 60's gothic, this black and white colouring would really work. Again, the casual, relaxed look to the pages, reflects the singer and her personality. Again the double page spread is made to look like one large page, which is shown by the large image of the 'Bed&Pillows', which is cleverly done, as the singer is led on the other side of the bed taking up the whole side of the page, which is commonly used in magazines the context will normally be on the left side of the page, with an image of the singer/band on the right side. Again, the pages contain a large image and large masthead, but contains small font. To improve this double spread page, I would use a 'Drop cap', to help attract the readers eye into reading the small context.

"Amy Winhouse...."

This double page spread contrasts nicely to the other two, as both pages contain a large amount of context, but still remains in a tiny font. Again, like most magazines the title/speech, and font is written on the left side, and the image of the singer is taking up most of the room on the right side of the page, but still contains writing on the side. I really like how the pages 'play with colour', as the main image is bright and vibrant, with a purpose to attract the readers eye. I really like the black&white pictures in the back ground, as they have a purpose not to stand out to give the 'lime light' to the main image, but they are their just as extra images to show the singers personality, and by the looks of it the singer seems 'Fun', just from the images portrayed of her, which is a feature I will definitely include, when I come to taking pictures of my models. I like how the black&white images are almost like a 'Film roll', it looks like it could carry on off the page. I also spotted 6 bold lines under the B&W images, which I thought was used as a clever way to separate the text and the image, but then I came up with the image of a music 'Stave', which I thought was very clever, especially as it is a 'Music Magazine'.

Idea's...

Gathering Ideas, for what type of magazine I wanted to produce, and what type of artist, e.g band, singer.. would be on my front cover. As I was watching one of my favourite programs called '90210', I saw a female band in the background, and noticed that they looked quite unique and cool, so I looked up the band on the Internet and discovered that they were a new modernised 60's styled band called 'The Like'. Their look really inspired me to base my models and style to theirs, but also adding my own creative ideas along the way.

Target Audience

After coming up with these unique magazine ideas, I have decided that my target audience would be for male and female readers, however more situated for female's due to vintage layout, and female band idea. The ages would range from 16-25 years, due to the rock and roll/60's theme.

Research Music Magazines

I really love the sophisticated feel the this magazine, due to the simplicity and the pale colourings of white font and grey background. Again the main image of 'Lady Gaga', a music icon overlaps the masthead, which is definitely becoming a synchronised effect on all magazines. I love the main information is overlapping the main image but it overlaps nicely die to the pale white font, which blends a little to much into the blond hair of the singer, slightly getting lost. Again like most magazines, the additional subheadings are to the corner bottom right of the page, containing information of what is inside. I really like the simplicity of the layout, almost creating a 'vintage' feel.

I love the red and cream colour scheme to this magazine cover, as both colours are known to contrast. Again like the previous magazines the positioning of the band members are positioned on how they would be on stage. I like how the name of the band is centred overlapping the band members to really stand out, as names are important. Again the main image is overlapping the the title of the magazine, 'NME'. The bar code is surprisingly on the right hand bottom side of the page, which will give me more selection on choosing where i should place my bar code on my magazine cover. The subheadings are tightly squeezed to the corners of the page, which I feel could stand out more with the use of shadowing or overlapping the image. Again the subheading are additional information of what the magazines includes inside. Again the cover has cleverly used a '+' symbol which is related to numbers as it means addition, so again it's including the numeracy effect, which is a feature i will definitely suggest using.

My favourite aspect of this magazine, is the dark, sensual, almost sandy grain look to the cover of this magazine. The dark green colouring creates a sophisticated look to the cover. The main image, of a celebrity beauty icon, 'Beyonce' directing her fist at the camera, conveys a fierce powerful image, which reflects the singers voice, i really like how the photographer has cleverly positioned the singer in a way that reflects the power of her voice. I also have noticed the clever subheading centred in the middle of the page, 'BEYONCEVOLVED"-using the letter E cleverly in two words. The use of the green font co-ordinated nicely with the carchi green background. The vibrant red and white masthead, 'EBON' contrasts exceptionally well with the dark colour scheme to make it really stand out to show its hierarchy.

Like the previous magazines the main image is slightly overlapping the masthead, which I am most likely to use. I really like how the subheadings are numbered to help make easy access for the reader to find exactly what they are looking for, but also I love the addition of numbers as the music industry uses number for example, music channels and No.1's in the chart. Again the bar code is used in the bottom left side of the cover.

I generally just love the vibrant, fun, crazy feel to this magazine cover. I especially like the sense of movement, which helps to create the sense of madness in the main image. Similarly to the 'Rolling Stone' magazine, the positioning of the four male member of the band are positioned on how they would perform on stage, front-lead, middle-guitarists, back-drummer, so this has inspired me to definitely think of the positioning of the models when I come to my photo shoot. I really fell that the vibrant, striking bright colours reflect the personalities of the band members, which i feel is very important. My favourite feature of the cover, is the clever curved effect, used on the skate ramp, it contrasts nicely to the sharp cornered magazine. Again like the previously magazines the image is slightly overlapping the masthead.

I like the circled, stamp like effect to add additional information, '25' Again looking back at the previous magazines I have noticed that the phrase, 'FREE' has popped up a few times, I will definitely consider using this phrase.

The striking image of a famous 'rock chic' icon contrasts nicely with the pastel coloured font of the masthead, 'Vibe' and the subheadings. I really like the use of shadowing, 'JANET JACKSON' to help make the name stand out, creating a 3D effect to convey important information, which is something i am hoping to use on my magazine. Similar to the 'rolling stone' cover, I like the structured additional text in the bottom left side of the cover, to convey what information is inside the magazine. The use of black font is to contrast with the pale fonts, but is used to also match the 'rock chic' look, and helps to make important facts stand out, '15 crucial video games', which suggests that this type of magazine could be targeted towards male and female audiences, again relating to the pale and black mix of fonts - gender.

Also the 'mise en scene' of what she is wearing portrays a 'Tomboy' look. I like how the main image is slightly sunken so that the font can slightly overlap, also I like how the main image is slightly overlapping over the masthead, I would like to use this effect on my magazine. I have noticed the bar code in the bottom left of the page, which i feel really completes a magazine, so it is very likely that I will use this feature.

I really like the colouring of this music magazine, as it really brings out a 60's feel, which is the route I am heading for. I like the striking contrast between the mustard yellow masthead and the maroon coloured background. Overall the magazine has a 'Vintage' effect, as the colour of the magazine is almost bordering into a sepia tone. I love the positioning of the four male band members, as it is really clear to the audience who is who in the band. The lead singer is noticeably nearer to the front of the magazine, following the two guitarists, opposite each other, then at the back the drummer, i think this is definitely an effective layout as the band members are positioned on how they would be positioned on stage, which is something that I would like to include on my cover. I like how neatly displayed everything is, almost portraying a sophisticated look to music. The 'Decade' image in front of the main image, is slightly tilted creating a nice contrast from the sharp centred image of the band. I like how the sub-headings are to the left of the page slightly overlapping the main image,

also the font is written in white to stand out from the muted colours.