Choosing my Fonts

These are my selection of fonts which I have chosen to possibly use as my title. Of course I can only pick one and from reviewing all six of these on the background of my front page including my chosen picture, I have decided to use the very last one. This font is called Charles S. I had found it on Dafont.com. I chose this one as I found that it suited the genre of music the magazine is based on. The genre is Dubstep and the use of sub-bass in the music gives of a shattering feeling that you can feel throughout your body. This font I believe is displaying the emotion and feeling of sub-bass. Whereas the other did not suit or look as aesthetically pleasing, however- I chose the other fonts because of the way I felt they suited the genre of music I am intending to use. Yet when placed on the front cover with the picture I want to use the remaining five did not suit or compliment the cover front.

Starting my Front page and my planned layouts.

I have now planned out my pages for my magazine, I have planned out my front cover, contents page and my double page spread including the articles that I want to put on the front cover and what is to be included in the contents page. I have also planned out some questions to include in my interview on the double page spread.

At the moment I have started my front cover page where I used a photo from my second photoshoot. My colour scheme is black and electric blue to compliment the photo used however I also plan to use white and a hot pink colours for some article titles. I have added a title as well which is the name of my magazine "Four to the Floor" also added in a gradient background behind the picture for added effect on the picture, yet I still need to add in the articles and set some fonts to match these titles. This will be done next week.

On Monday, I started the first photos of my photoshoot for the front cover and my contents page for my magazine. I was using a female as my model, she has quirky and interesting looks with amazing eyes that are very piercing. However, i plan to do another shoot which will have a male model who also has a unique style. I used a natural background and used an outdoor setting in my first shoot, yet in this next shoot when i will use both my male and female model i will use and indoor setting instead and incorporate them both, in the photos and use some props. I also want to use different lighting effects, camera angles and put in some visual effects i have taken around 80 photos so far and plan to have a maximum total of 200. In the mean time, i have been thinking about the title of my magazine, i did a questionnaire where i listed all of the possible names of my title for my magazine. My possible titles were MOVE, AIR, ELEMENT, FOUR-TO-THE-FLOOR and SUB-BASS. From my questionnaire and asking 25 people my results were:

MOVE- 1

AIR- 2

ELEMENT- 6

FOUR-TO-THE-FLOOR- 9

SUB-BASS-7

So from my questionnaire I have decided to call my magazine FOUR-TO-THE-FLOOR!

Kerrang! Magazine Analysis

General

Kerrang! is a Rock, Alternative Punk and Metal magazine which is published for those interested in such genre’s of music. Bauer Media produces the

magazine and owns over 80 influential radio, magazine, TV and online UK media brands, such as Heat, Grazia and FHM. Bauer Media reaches over nineteen million UK adults across multiple media channels. The business is built on millions of personal relationships with engaged readers and listeners. Bauer Media connects audiences with compelling content with their unique insight which allows them to work closely with the customers to develop innovative solutions that create a differen

ce to their business. Kerrang! Magazine costs £2.20 and is published on a weekly basis. This is a reasonable price in my opinion as the magazine offers many articles on different artists and engages the reader in many parts of the quirky

magazine. It also offers tour dates of Ker

rang! sponsored tours and many other tours of bands that are mentioned in the magazine, also it rates past events and tours of bands which shows readers insight to how the band performed. The magazines circulation per week is an average of 50,000 with readership of an average of 125,000

. The NRS website holds

no information on Kerrang! however there is no known reason for this. Nearly half the profits of Kerrang! now come from the magazine’s advertising and circulation revenues. The largest share comes from the broadcast interests with online and mobile also contributing. Kerrang! also have a very clever system called ‘flytext’. This is where Kerrang! send text messages to the subscribers telling them when and where their favourite bands are playing.

The Cover

The title of the magazine is called Kerrang! The maga

zine was given this t

itle because it refers to the pitch and tone of the genres of music that are displayed throughout this magazine. The strapline of the magazine is “Live Life Loud” it is such because it relates to the title, which was chosen due to the genre of the music, therefore the strapline shows that the music is loud and the title’s font

is similar to that of the s

Insidetrapline which

just shows the reader that they’re connect through the message of type of genre. The main image on the front cover of the magazine is of the band My Chemical Romance. It shows all the and members in a

medium shot of which all have blank expressions o

n their faces apart from the lead singer who is right at the front and angling himself towards the camera slightly. He has a puzzled look upon his face as if confuse

d as to why is Kerrang! doing a 48 hour surveillance on them. All gazes of the band members is directed down the barrel of the camera to give off emphasis and to grab the reader or viewers attention. The clothing worn by the band is

all matching as it is all black which could tie in with the heavy-metal genre that there band produces. Another image on the front cover are of the posters featured ins

ide the magazine of which you can pull out, also of an interview with a former band member and he speaks of how his “world was ripped apart”. It could

be that if a double page spread where to be taken from the magazine and laid with other types of magazine you could be able to tell which double spread was Kerrang!’s the magazine it would be easily recognizable due to the colour schemes used throughout the whole magazine. The text in the magazine is also kept the same. All mastheads are the same font and

size. Kerrang!’s USP is that it has a limited range of genre’s where as if you compare it to one of its rivals- NME, NME offers a wider range of genre’s which appeal to a larger amount of people. Yet, this is not a disadvantage to Kerrang! as many people do not wish to buy NME due to the vast range of genre’s and the readers of Kerrang! want something more specific like the genre’s offered only by Kerrang! this is an advantage and is proved by the readership every week.

Kerrang! holds 64 pages and of that there are 21pages of adverts which totals to 31% of the magazine being advertisements. Most of the adverts can be catagorised into the following: tickets to events, competitions and clothing. There are a total of 9 double page spreads. These spreads are mostly interviews with bands and are based on the previous year and how it was for that particular band, also tours and shows that are coming up or have happened and finally plans for the future. There are some advertorials quite in the middle of the magazine which are advertising Kerrang! produced events yet are nothing to do with the magazine. Kerrang! has their own house style this. The language used is more considered for the target audience of 16-24 year olds, as it uses explicit swear words like “Pure fucking metal”. This type of language is consistent throughout the cover lines of the magazine and also more primarily in the articles. Furthermore through the entire Kerrang! magazine the colours schemes are kept the same which show a dark, sinister contrast.

X Magazine Analysis

General
Fremantel Media is the content and production division of RTL Group. It is also Europe's largest TV, radio, and production company. X Magazine published by Haymarket Network on behalf of Fremantel Media and Syco Entertainment. Its world headquarters are located in London. It also produces the television talent show X Factor. The X Magazine is he first magazine that Fremantel Media have produced, due to the popular talent show X Factor they also produce the TV show and to boost there profits. It is the only woman’s weekly in the UK magazine market that is based on music. It is a magazine for pop music, international music stars, and viewers of X factor and an average target audience of 16+ years, with interviews, style guides and behind the scenes. X Magazine is published weekly which began on the 13th September 2010. The cost of this magazine is £1.95, which is a reasonable price for a magazine that holds a fair amount of information and the price of the magazine hints that the magazine will become popular just like the television show. Also it is 30pence cheaper than “Heat” which strongly influences viewers to read the magazine. However, publishing director Natasha Sundharawipata insists X Magazine sits in the quality women’s sector - on a par with Grazia, say, rather than Reveal - with ad rates "pegged at similar levels to the other quality women’s weeklies”. This magazines first issue had a circulation of 300,000 and readership of around 750,000. Due to the fact that this magazine is new and released only a few months the NRS website has not posted any reviews or information on the magazine as of yet.



The cover

X magazine is called X magazine due to it being based on the music industry and the music talent show X Factor. The “X” ties the TV programme and the magazine into one so people can associate with both. The large “X” is the same as that one the “X Factor” logo. Had a Silver outline that goes round the whole outside of the letter, with the primary colour being red this is how it is mostly portrayed as. Then smaller “X’s” are put inside of one another to create a Russian doll affect with the colour alternating from silver and red each time. This is repeated 8 times with some effects added on. The strapline for the magazine is – “MUSIC, STARS, STYLE” which each word is separated using a star. The background is black on the strapline and the font is large and bold with the font colour being white, the stars separating the words are pink as the main colour theme for the front page is a hot pink. The main image is of Dannii Minogue it is a medium shot. She has a smile on her face with her hand on her forehead and the other on her neck. Her gaze is directed straight towards the camera. Her expression portrays that she is confident and enjoying her life at this moment in time. Her body language suggests she is going through a lot as there is much on her mind this could mean that she’s having a rough time with the X Factor show, or the arrival of her new baby could need adjusting to. Her clothing is mostly covered by text but from what you can see she has a black and cream dress on, however this compliments her dark hair and fair skin and her striking blue eyes manage to grab the reader’s attention, as it is in contrast to everything else around the magazine. There are images of “Take That” and JLS because of there performance in the previous show the previous week. Also because of Take That reuniting with one former member Robbie Williams. Aiden Grimshaw is also on the cover because of his shock exit through elimination in the last Sunday Show. And finally there is a picture of Katy Perry as she is one of the most looked-at US stars at the moment and she is backing one other contestant on the show called Rebecca. On the cover Dannii Minogue is talking about X Factor, her new baby and Cher Lloyd’s nerves before the show each week. JLS has a 5 page spread inside. Take That Britain’s most famous pop band reforms. Aiden Grimshaw’s shock exit form the show, Katy Perry’s backing Rebecca from the show, also able to win tickets to the live show.
This enables you to identify the house style as the magazine shows the casual girl-like speech. You can identify this by the use of such words as ‘gurl’. They also use emphasis to try and make people’s opinions exaggerated- ‘Katie’s been in the final two FOUR times now’. This magazine’s design is similar to that of the magazine Heat and the features of the magazine is also similar, however this “X magazine” has the USP due to it containing all of the backstage news, gossip and coverage on the latest new business in music (heat is primarily a ‘gossip’ magazine, there is no information on albums, music, artists etc).

Inside
The magazine holds 100 pages and 23 pages of that are adverts, therefore 23% percent of the magazine is ad’s. The categories of the products advertised are: leisure, tickets to events, television, and competitions. the magazine mostly based about X factor and the contestants taking part in the competition. With the magazine holding only five articles that talks about artists that do not have any relation to the X factor show but even then the X magazine bases the interview questions about the X factor show and the events happening within. The X magazine holds ten double page spreads of which are about various artists like Dannii Minogue who is talking about the stresses of X factor and juggling it with her new baby, also Ellie Goulding talking about her new keep fit and gym regime which also contains double page spreads on fashion. These ‘articles’ that are published are almost like adverts due to the names of brands mentioned and shown to the reader and the prices being shown next to the model.

Contents page

This is my Contents Page. Will add detailed analysis later

Final Cover for Preliminary Task

This is my final finished front cover for my school magazine, as part of my Preliminary Task.

I had some struggles with designing this cover as to begin with as the pictures I had taken were not suited to my design. However I asked this young girl for her permission to photograph her as I could see that using a younger figure instead of a 6th Former could benefit me, and it did.

Once I uploaded my picture into Photoshop, I began to add in the subtitles and events around the photo. I was happy with the selection of titles however the positioning and colour of the text came as a problem to me . Yet as I added new head titles such as "PLUS!" and "EXCLUSIVE" I found that then positioning became slightly easier. With the colour of the text I selected a pale blue from my school colours and then played around with different blues in the spectrum. Following this I had to decide on fonts. This I found was not too hard. All that required doing was matching the font with the title. I used the website dafont.com to download fonts that I thought would benefit in my page. Overall I am happy with my front cover.

Preliminary Task- Original Photo

This is my original photo that I used in my preliminary task. I had a few photos that I had debated using for my front cover of the magazine, however this one I felt was the best suited for the magazine style that I wished to create.

Preliminary exercise

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP.