planning my double page spread

I have researched some double page spreads from various popular magazines, to widen my range of ideas for my own double page spread.

This is a double page spread from Kerrang! showing the lead singer covering the right page and small proportion of the left and also on the left page are the remaining band members. I think this layout shows readers a side to all of the band members. Although not entirely focused on the band as a whole I believe that the way it is set out shows its purpose for that particular interview. I would consider using this style of layout for my double page spread.

This double page is from NME and is on the solo artist Lily Allen. I really like this cover, as it makes it look like it is just one page that's landscape with the title and the picture overlapping each page, but enough to allow room for relevant text. This is my favourite double page spread as I like the contrast and the colour theme used. I feel it gives the page personality, similar to that of Lily Allens'.

This is my final double page spread I found that I thought could be of use to me for my layouts. It's from Kerrang! This shows all of the band members and there projects and plans for the future and how they're return is going to be "epic" and the "best MCR we can be!" The layout is complex and set out in a specific theme to the bands genre of music, which could be described as messy and shattering. Although this is not too say the music produced is not good! Personally I like this layout however, it might not be so relevant to my genre of music.

Therefore overall, I will base my double page spread on the NME cover including Lily Allen. I don't want it to look exactly like the NME one however I will apply some techniques to my double page spread. I did not choose the first Kerrang! double page, as firstly my artist is solo and the interview layout was more based on the band as a whole, however i could incorporate the positioning of the text into my double page. I did not chose the second Kerrang! layout as I felt it was too busy for my genre of music and it would overpower the point of my interview.

finished contents page

This is my finished contents page. From my previous stage it is obvious to see that I have added the articles with the page numbers and subtext under most of the articles. I used the same text as the articles of the front page, it is called "28 days later " and is again from dafont . However the article sections that are headed are a different text called "[ank]*" (also from dafont).

I put the page numbers in the hot pink from the lips of my model which is the same as the front cover, therefore I have connected both pages in this way. Finally I added a barcode at the bottom right, this is because I did not put a barcode on the front cover.

These are the Sub headings I wish to use in my contents page. I doubt they will stay in this positioning as I have to put in the articles and their page numbers. Yet I feel like my title page is coming together slowly, but surely. The text used is the same throughout and is the same as the "this month" in the title I feel this gives it originality. I plan to use a bit more variety of colour in the articles as it does not have a lot of colour on it, and is looking bland, so I will experiment with that.

Stages of Producing my Contents Page

As an outline to where I wish to put my articles I have outlined different areas on my page using lines or "boarders". I will keep these boarders as I feel they give the contents page some direction and formation. next I am placing in the article sub headings and before I write the articles and then page numbers to go with them I felt the boarders where necessary.

Stages of Producing my Contents Page

Using the grey line a a guide to the page size this is the first step in creating my contents page. Here I have added my titles and my chosen picture, I have arranged them on the page according to size and placement to suit my further steps, although I may have to move them to be appropriate for the page setting.

Final Front Cover and its adjustments.

This is my finished front cover of my magazine!

I have also adjusted many things to do with the cover. Firstly I have changed the positioning of the "posters". I moved them lower down the page to compliment the bottom half of the page and behind the titles added a black box using the square marquee tool. I felt this was needed due to the contrast of the clothing of the picture and it was slightly hard to read what it said. On the "posters" text I added in a drop shadow and outer glow to make it stand out more as it did not stand out from the other text.

From moving the posters down I was then able to add in a quote from what will be my double page spread of the "artist" on my front cover, although the quote may be a little extreme I felt it suited the front cover well and would attract readers- "The moment I heard the first beats of Dubstep I was hooked, like an addict on HEROIN"

I have re-arranged the back ground image so that it cover the sides of the page instead of having the background as a boarder. I have also removed the barcode and will put this is the contents page instead. In it's place I have placed a "competition circle" which explains about winning tickets to a Bass-loving festival, again as if to attract readers and my target market/ audience. I have added a date and issue number underneath the title also as I felt it was necessary to include one of these on the front cover, as every other magazine I have looked at also has one. I have changed the text at the top which used to read "Band Tours". I changed it as firstly I realised that many of the artists below were not actual bands instead were DJ's and solo artists, therefore the title was irrelevant and incorrect, and therefore I changed the artists to all solo artists and dual DJ's.

I adjusted the very bottom text to do with the artists' interviews. I felt in ratio to the magazine the "EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW" text was too large therefore I made it smaller and made the spacing more relevant. Then added pink bars to make the interview still look interesting and important.

Finally to top off the final stage of making my magazine complete I included an "INSIDE!" piece to further attract more of my target audience. And again used the black boxes to highlight their importance. However, I couldn't make these to big as I did not want to draw the attention away from the interview at the bottom.

Overall, I am pleased with my front cover, I enjoy putting the effort into it and with the effort I feel rewarded with what my work has accomplished!

Front Cover Stages- Tour Dates

I have now added the "Band Tours" that the year would offer to the viewers. I have selected popular dubstep artists that would make the reader want to look at the tours. Again I have used a white text colour to add emphasis to my colour scheme which was electric blue, black, white and hot pink. Again the text tool was used to create this and by using 2 different layers also. I moved the band names by creating a new line and then using the space bar to seperate the text from the picture, which i found to be a very useful technique.

Front Cover Stages- interview box

Using the empty space at the bottom where I had deliberately cropped my picture to this size so that I could place this information here. Again i used the font from www.dafont.com I also thought that the white text colour would be a nice contrast against the black and then the artist names in pink i felt would make it compelling and eye catching to the reader.

Front Cover Stages- Posters and Barcode

Here I added a Barcode with an issue number, date and price. Also I added in my first article; the posters. Which was added using four different layers and the text tool with the font "28 days later" again from http://www.dafont.com. I used the colour picker tool again to obtain the font colour this was from the models lips this time as I felt it gave out a striking contrast.

Front Cover Stages- Title and front cover

I have changed my title to a different font yet again, and added my desired photo to my front cover and put a black background behind the photo. Then, I rearranged the size of my picture by using the crop tool. With the font I decided that the forground text was not enough to display an emotion you feel from dubstep therefore I used to colour dropper tool where I extracted a colour out of my model's eye and I felt it gave off a feeling of shattering and blurriness effect which i thought suited the magazine very well.

Defining My Target Audience

Dubstep is a early 2000's underground genre. Formed in underground clubs it was later discovered and made more public after and around 2005. The unique sound of Dubstep has been described as "tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals" The earliest dubstep releases, which date back to 1998, were darker, more experimental, instrumental dub remixes of 2-step garage tracks attempting to incorporate the funky elements of breakbeat, or the dark elements of drum and bass. Drum and Bass is closely related to Dubstep however the main difference is that you could class Dubstep as being a lot "heavier" with the use of bass. Also the genre of Drum and Bass does not use a Sub-bass.

Dubstep rhythms are usually syncopated, and often shuffled or incorporating triplets. In its early stages, dubstep was more percussive. A lot of producers were also experimenting with tribal drum samples, a notable example being Loefah's early release "Truly Dread". Over time, key producers at the time started to experiment with the half-step rhythm which created more of a spacious vibe, and head-nodding rhythm, a feature which started to be used more and more and has become a signature of the genre. Similarly, the half-step rhythm also started to dominate grime, and producers started to lose the more complex and jerky rhythms influenced from 2-step, and started to work with more hip-hop influenced beats.

Popular artists include Rusko, Datsik, Excision and Nero. Which all have a different and unique styling to the music however each are different in their own way.

My target audience are those who like a mixture of Drum and Bass and Techno, or those who are looking into finding a new different genre. It would be suited to those who visit clubs regularly.

Clothing is not important when it comes to this genre of music, anything is "accepted" from jeans and t-shirts to banana costumes. "Nothing is frowned upon and long as you are dancing to the heavy bass line"-quoted by Primitive Dubstep. The dancing technique is also unique as it is probably one of the most random kinds of dance. You can not choreograph any dancing techniques to the music as the rythmns and beats change through every song, tempo and the key its made in switches very swiftly and so the dancing must be erratic. One simple type of movement is that the people put their hands up above their heads slightly bent at the elbow, and heads down or up but also jumping, this then causes others to bump into each other and this then can cause a "mosh pit". Also known as moshing is it the act where people push/ slam/ hit/ punch others in a kind of riot usually that ends up in a small crowd of people. This is common at live concerts for genres such as Heavy-metal, Hardcore Punk, and Dubstep. This act is sometimes enjoyed by people no matter what the consequences are. Although it's not as grumsome as it may sound, moshpits at concerts or clubs that play Dubstep, the moshing can be less violent, this is called "safe moshing" where the crowd just runs around in circles and give the occassional push, however no hitting is usually involved and this is a lot calmer to the moshing that can happen.