In todays lesson the group and I learnt the key features of a magazine cover and the importance that these features make towards the reader.
Here are a few distinctive features in a magazine: The Masthead- The title of a magazine always justified at the right or spanning the entire width of the entire width of the magazine. Strapline - A subheading used by some magazines and The Main cover image - The main image used on a magazine usually looking straight at the camera. Each group had a task to look at a cover of magazine and then write and discuss the features of it. The magazine that my group had to analyse was titled 'Rock Sound', Rock sound is a rock music magazine targetted at goths, emos and all other young people interested in the heavy rock sound. We learnt the target audience by looking at the main cover image which is a man i would say in his twenties holding a guitar, giving the impression that he is about to smash it. His dark clothing, long black hair and large gothic tattoos gave me the idea that the person that reads this magazine would relate to him and those people that relate to him make our target audience. Me and my group learnt a lot by looking at the masthead as the style that it is written in not only tells us more about the music but defines more about the image used. The word Rock sound has been written in bold capital letters and each of these letters appear to have cracks formed on them. Me and my group discovered that this could signify the music, as the cracks in the letters could sybolise the fact that the music is so hard like rocks that just as rocks have cracks in them the lettering should aslo have this to justify the music. I also feel that the cracks in the lettering could imply that the man in the image has caused them, as i have said above he appears to be smashing his guitar and this could have caused the cracks.Based on the magazine cover that we had been given the group and i were then given a sheet with questions about the target audience that we had to answer. The questions included What do they drink? What gender are they? & What music do they like?. These questions enabled the group to get a deeper look at the target audience and to identify what key features they have that makes this magazine appeal to them.
We were then given our final task which was to think and plan our own magazine cover focusing on the music that we where going to use and the two images that we are planning on shooting in the following lesson. The group decided that the best music genre that would be best for our magazine to be based on would be grime. We made this decision as not only do the majority of the group listen to this type of music but we had ideas of what the image would be and the stlye it is shot in. We decided that our magazine would be titled 'streez sound',we also decided that we would shoot two images, one of Omarr on his own located in a corridor at the college we attend, we planned the second image to be of me and Ufuk located outside of the college. It was important that the two images showed to different mise-en scene as the group wanted to show variation on the two issues of the magazine which also signifies that the genre of music that we decided to use has a wide range of stlyes and people within the one type of music. It is also important that in both of the images the model is wearing headphones and listening to music as it also adds the effect of what the magazine is based on.In the next lesson we hope to complete shooting the images and be closer to completing our magazine.
Sunday, 19 October 2008
Magazine Evaluation
My group decided we would make a Grime magazine front cover. My magazine cover is of a very simple design. The main cover image is of me sitting on the floor in a corridor of my college. My back is leaning on a blue wall and there is a painting on the wall next to my left shoulder. I am wearing a blue and gray striped jumper with a hood, gray tracksuit bottoms. I am wearing a pair of big style over-ear headphones with the wire coming down from them to the pocket on my jumper. The story with this image reads: ‘Charmy returns to us after his amazing lord of the MIC’s victory’ the words them selves are done in white lettering but just to make it stand out more the same words are behind it slightly more to one side in black lettering. This is also the front covers main cover line. There is a barcode positioned on the bottom right of the front cover, with the price over it 2.99. The masthead is the magazine title ‘Streez Sound’ in bold red lettering. In the bottom left of the magazine is the CD case of a grime mix tape, next to this image is a black graphic circle advertising the giveaway with the words:’ Wretch 32’s 1st mix tape exclusively free give away!!’ in white lettering. To the right of the front cover underneath the magazine title is a photo of a performing grime artist in a black background and black t-shirt. The story that goes with this photo is: ‘Kano talks to us exclusively to us about the release of his 1st independent release: 140 Grime St’. This lettering is in black lettering and is the same size fonts as the main cover line although they are contrasting colors. All the text on the page is center aligned so it all looks similar, the only variation to this is the Masthead, which is in another font and with red lettering and larger then the rest. The most noticeable pieces of information missing from the front cover are that there is no issue number this is the 2nd edition to the magazine, and also there is no strapline, ours would have read: ‘The Wikipedia of Grime - www.grimepedia.co.uk’.
My front cover sticks with the original conventions of music magazines. The front cover uses only a few of the original conventions of a magazine like the use of the masthead, main cover line, a graphic to highlight a special offer. The only thing my front cover does is have all fonts on it the same size instead of the main cover line being in the 2nd largest to the masthead, instead the main cover line is just doubled in font containing white and black lettering. Another way my magazine challenges the usual style of music magazines is by only having three different attractions/stories on the cover instead of being stuffed full with the usual stuff of magazines which normally have on them advertising different ideas.
My magazine represents the youth social groups from ages 10-19 but then also those that listen to UK garage/grime/rap. So the age range will vary with the different social groups but it will mainly represent those of a younger generation who listen to a more up to date listening taste, also those who like to hear about the areas people live in and their experiences.
The type of institution that would distribute my music magazine cover would be mostly the larger music specialist store’s like HMV, and stores like WH Smiths, Borders and Woolworth’s. These stores would distribute my magazine front cover because Grime is not yet a well known music genre so other stores will not want to take on a magazine type that may not sell as well as more known music types.
The way in which my magazine front cover attracts the attention of the target audience is by promoting to of the most influential Grime artist Kano & Wretch 32, and their newest releases out. To followers of the grime scene this will make them want to read more. The mention of Kano on the front cover will also entice other music listeners because he is not only big over here but also in America so he varies from grime and also does us rap so the mention of him will draw in more types of music listeners.
The process of making the front cover was a long one. Getting used to the different functions Adobe Photoshop uses takes long so for the front cover to be looking its best you will need to take extra time to ensure everything is to your liking. Using these technologies makes you realize how hard it is for people who have jobs creating magazine front covers for big companies, but using these technologies they can keep on producing these high quality pieces of work.
If I were to make another front cover I would ensure that I had all of the normal conventions of a magazine on them e.g. cover lines banners and others. I would chose a different music genre-one with a larger range of stories to report on. And finally I would spend more time working on the front cover.
The End of Streez Sound Karess
Now that the group and i have completed taking our photos it was time for us to take a look back at the photos and finally see whether they would work well with the style we are trying to create. we where told to go to a computer room where we then had the ability to see our photoshoot images, luckily for the group and i the images where great and they where in a good quality that we hoped for. unlike many other groups we had no reason to add much effects to the image as they where of such great quality and we where able to focus on the many features that we would include i the issues. The group and i now had the decission to choose two different photos from our collection that would be our cover images, after long deliberation we came to the conclusion that the 1st image would be of the two boys in my group listening to music located ioutside of the college, the second image that we decided to use was one of the boys alone, again listening to music. we chose these images as they both showed the model listening to music which was the key feature that we aimed on showing on the cover image. it was highly important that these images where of a large size and that the models in the image where giving the audience eycontact to enable a real focus onto our magazine. After choosing 2 different images to use for the two issues the group split into 2 groups, one that would work on the first issue, and the other would work on the second. we planned together the type of font that we would use and what the magazine would include i.e competitions, interviews. we decided that the cover would show many stories that are included in the magazine and promote free mix tapes and t-shirts enabling the magazine to attract the readers. but before we could do this the groups where given an induction on how to use photoshot on the imac computers wich is the software that all groups would be using to complete the magazine. this induction enabled us to gain the knowledge on how we could add many effects not only to the actual image but to the writing and text that we will eventually place on the magazine cover. after having this induction the group and i began developing our magaizine and it was time to think more about the tings that we would write on the cover. i was in the first group therfore it was my role to complete the first issue. we decided that the two issues would have similar but different features and as i had control over the 1st issue i decided that i would show that we interviewed a grime artist by having an image of the grime artist name crazy titch and writing the following in White bold lettering beside it 'Life behind bars, crazy titch explains all', we made sure that this text was large in size to attract attention and to focus on this story as it was the main and biggest story that is included within the magazine. we also included a banner on our magazine that promoted the fact that the magaine where giving away free t-shirts therefore we had a banner red in colour with the wirting 'FREE T-SHIRT' in black bold capitalized lettering. the magazine also included the price and a bar code making the issue much more realistic. the most important feature that the magaizine had to include in order to make it successful was the name of the magazine wich is Streez sound we had this wirittend at the top in very large, extremely bold, red capatilized lettering on the top of a large black banner. we all made sure that the two issues contained the same title as this needed to be the feature that connects the two covers together. we made this extremely bold and big as it is higfhy important that the magazine had a focus point and this case it was the image and the title. After long hours of woking hard on photoshot our magazine covers where both completed and it was now time to look at both covers and evaluate the work and progress that we have made through completing our music magazine covers.
Paparazzi Karess
Now that me and my group had decided on the title and genre of our magazine it was now time for us to carry out a photoshoot. unfortunately the group and i had not made a conclusion to our discussions on the style of image that we hoped to create in the photoshoot therfore we had the task to take as many photos as possible in many differnet areas around and outside of the college in order to get a variety of images to choose from for our cover image. Due to our magazine being in the grime genre there was no need for the group and i to change into different outfits as the dress sense of grime artists are much alike to how the group dress on a daily basis, this enabled us to save time and focus on taking images immediately. We began by taking a few practice images just so the group and i had the knowledge of how the camera worked and how well the images looked giving us a chance to change anything that effected the quality of the image i.e lighting, distracting objects in the shot. From there we began taking photos that could potentially be the main cover image, we went to locations in the college such as empty staircases and corridors, classrooms and benches. This gave us a wide range of appearances both light, dark, busy and empty. The majority of the images that we took had the two boys in my group modelling them as we thought that this would be more appealing due to the majority of grime fans being of the male gender, luckilly they where both confident giving the photos that edge and perfection that we needed for the cover image and as my job as the photographer i felt this made my job easier as i dint niiot have to focus on the models being 'camera shy', instead i could focus on the light and shadow used in the imgage. The group and i continued taking photos for 2 hours until the time that we had was over and we felt that we had a large amount of photos that would work as our main cover image, we felt that the photoshoot was successful and that we accomplished the task that needed to be completed but we would not know for definate if the images are as great quality as we need them to be until our next lesson where we would take the next step in completing our magazine cover.
Friday, 17 October 2008
EVALUATION OF MAGAZINE COVER...
The name of the magazine that we have decided to create is titled ‘Streez Sound’, this magazine is aimed at teenagers who are interested about the hip-hop scene and the genre of our magazine is under the grime (hip-hop) music title. We came up with an idea to do the grime as our genre because I think it’s the most selling music paper and most listening music nowadays if we put categorise it the genre, so I think these statistics are an advantage for us.
We first started planning about our magazine by thinking about the images that we are going to use for the front cover for the magazines. We have had a long discussion about the style of the magazine, what type of images we are going to use. Then we decided we should use two boys to model which is I and Omar for the front cover because majority of the grime artists are males and we started doing the photo shoots of our faces for the magazine front cover.
We started our first big task about the magazine by taking pictures after being tutored for the photo shoots. We had about ninety minutes for to take photos, which will be landed in the main cover of the magazine, which is called main cover image. We have lent a camera from the college and we went to different places in the college in order to capture the most suitable picture that can be on the main cover of the magazine. We took about tens of pictures then when we looked at then we hade variety of options to choose from for the main cover image.
After looking at the details of the images we took, the group and I decided the two different photos to use for the front cover of the two issues. The photo that we chose for the first issue was Omar and I listening to music and looking directly to the camera. This photo was taken outside the college, where the benches are in Owens field, the photo we took also included the nature lighting i.e. trees in the background. For our second issue we have discussed about what image to put from the variety of photos and came up with an idea that one boy will be enough for the second issue so we used Omar sitting down in the empty corridor while listening to music. I think it was a good idea that it had an empty background because the audience will concentrate on one person rather than having a complicated background.
After doing all this hard work we have to produce the magazine cover, which we were planning to do. We have completed our magazine by using the terminology, which included; strap-line, masthead Banner etc. For us to work faster and better we have separated into two groups which one group had Karess and me, the other group had Omar by himself. Karess and I produced the first issue of the ‘Streez Sound’ after deciding the fonts, styles, banners, promotions between us. We have decided to keep the magazine simple for the audiences to understand better instead of giving them a headache and used different terms in the English language, which will attract them more. After working for hours, we have finished our magazine and used the terms like Masthead, Banner, Promotions, and Strap-line in our magazine in order to be successful.
Our music magazine represents the Hip-Hop genre that can be represented by the 16-25 year olds who listens to grime. Hip-Hop has being a big impact on people because they find it interesting to listen and the lyrics attracts people i.e. Immortal Technique who mostly raps about the politics.
We have attracted our audience by the images, which we used, that is related to the grime genre. We have used the tracksuits in the images and the dirty looks that the most grime artists give in order to attract the audience that this is a Hip-Hop magazine.
I have learnt how to produce a magazine from the program we used in the new computer, which benefited us from the new technology. If I was to make an another front cover I would choose R and B rather than grime. I would choose R and B because it is partly related to rap which involves in grime as well. R and B would have being an enjoying magazine to do differently from the grime because I got knowledge on that genre as well.
We first started planning about our magazine by thinking about the images that we are going to use for the front cover for the magazines. We have had a long discussion about the style of the magazine, what type of images we are going to use. Then we decided we should use two boys to model which is I and Omar for the front cover because majority of the grime artists are males and we started doing the photo shoots of our faces for the magazine front cover.
We started our first big task about the magazine by taking pictures after being tutored for the photo shoots. We had about ninety minutes for to take photos, which will be landed in the main cover of the magazine, which is called main cover image. We have lent a camera from the college and we went to different places in the college in order to capture the most suitable picture that can be on the main cover of the magazine. We took about tens of pictures then when we looked at then we hade variety of options to choose from for the main cover image.
After looking at the details of the images we took, the group and I decided the two different photos to use for the front cover of the two issues. The photo that we chose for the first issue was Omar and I listening to music and looking directly to the camera. This photo was taken outside the college, where the benches are in Owens field, the photo we took also included the nature lighting i.e. trees in the background. For our second issue we have discussed about what image to put from the variety of photos and came up with an idea that one boy will be enough for the second issue so we used Omar sitting down in the empty corridor while listening to music. I think it was a good idea that it had an empty background because the audience will concentrate on one person rather than having a complicated background.
After doing all this hard work we have to produce the magazine cover, which we were planning to do. We have completed our magazine by using the terminology, which included; strap-line, masthead Banner etc. For us to work faster and better we have separated into two groups which one group had Karess and me, the other group had Omar by himself. Karess and I produced the first issue of the ‘Streez Sound’ after deciding the fonts, styles, banners, promotions between us. We have decided to keep the magazine simple for the audiences to understand better instead of giving them a headache and used different terms in the English language, which will attract them more. After working for hours, we have finished our magazine and used the terms like Masthead, Banner, Promotions, and Strap-line in our magazine in order to be successful.
Our music magazine represents the Hip-Hop genre that can be represented by the 16-25 year olds who listens to grime. Hip-Hop has being a big impact on people because they find it interesting to listen and the lyrics attracts people i.e. Immortal Technique who mostly raps about the politics.
We have attracted our audience by the images, which we used, that is related to the grime genre. We have used the tracksuits in the images and the dirty looks that the most grime artists give in order to attract the audience that this is a Hip-Hop magazine.
I have learnt how to produce a magazine from the program we used in the new computer, which benefited us from the new technology. If I was to make an another front cover I would choose R and B rather than grime. I would choose R and B because it is partly related to rap which involves in grime as well. R and B would have being an enjoying magazine to do differently from the grime because I got knowledge on that genre as well.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Magazine cover Evaluation Karess
The group and i where set a task to create a music magazine cover using forms and conventions that a magazine normally has. The name of the magazine that we decided to create is titled 'Streez Sound', this magazine is aimed at young teenagers that listen to grime music as the genre of our magazine is under the grime music title. We decided that grime would be the ideal genre of music that our magazine should be based on as the majority of the group listen to this style of music and have a lot of knowledge on grime which we thought would benefit our magazine.
We began planning our magazine by thinking about the images that we could use for the front cover of the two issues, having thought about this in a long discussion on the style and type of image we would use we came to the conclusion that based on the fact that the majority of grime artists are of the male gender we would use the two boys in my group to model for the photshoot and be the face of the magazine for both issues.
The next task that we where set to do was the photoshoot where we had two hours to take photos that will ultimately be the image on the cover of our magazine technically known as the main cover image that is usually looking straight at the camera to attract and connect with the audience. With the camera that we where given the group and i went to numerous locations within the college that we thought would look best and took many pictures that could potentially be our cover image, the locations varied from college staircases and classrooms to the colleges outdoor benches. The images that we took seemed to work well with the style that we where trying to create for the magazine and when we where then able to look back at the images it showed that we had a large number of images that would work perfectly for the cover image.
Looking in great detail at the images that we had the group and i chose two different photos that would be the cover for the two issues. The first image that we chose was modelled by both of the boys in my group and it showed them together listening to music whilst looking directly at the camera, this photo was shot in the outdoor benches of the college giving the image extra visual features including the trees and also giving additional light. we decided that this image would work as our cover image for the first issue of the magazine. The second image that we picked out of the many photos was modelled by just one of the boys in my group and showed him again listening to music sitting on the floor whilst looking again directly at the camera. We shot this image in an empty corridor within the college, the emptiness surrounding the model enabled the audience to focus on him and what we assumed would be quite a dark image in outcome of the lack of natural light actually showed a lot of light and shadow adding a great effect to the image. As the first image was for the first issue this image had to be the cover image of the second issue that we create.
The final task that the group and I had to do was to produce the magazine cover and complete it using cover terminlogy which include the Masthead and also the Banner. In order to do this we had to place our selves into two groups that would have control of one issue, after splitting the group in two we began completing our music magazine. In order to successfully complete our magazine to a high standared it was important that the groups had the same banner as the two issues are linked and need to share the same style as one another. We did this by sharing with eachother the font and style of writing we thought would work best for the writing on the magazine. it was important that the font was bold and bright in order to attract the audience and make our magazine more effective. After trying many styles of writing we agreed on one style of writing that we would use for both issues, after this was decided it was now time for both groups to move on and complete the cover seperately yet still communicating with one another.
After long hours trying to finish both issues the covers where completed and they included coverlines that show what the magazine included inside which where competitions, interviews, posters and also free T-shirts and mix tapes, we decided to use these features as this would add a visual effect as with the competitions and interviews shown on the cover image resulted in our magazine being very eye catching and bold with the many effects used to display these features. We also made sure that the covers included the bar code, price and also issue date to make the magazine cover much more realistic to the audience.
Looking back on the process of making our magazine it is clear to see many things that the group and i could have done to make the theme and style of our magazine more clear and make the process much more quick and easy. one of the major issues that i feel could have been changed to improve the magazine is the planning of the photoshoot as i feel we could have communincated with one another better about the style and image that we where trying to create and the exact image that we feel would have been suitable for the front covers. With this said i feel that not having a distinctive target for the cover image enabled the group and i to explore within the college and take a wide range of photos with different styles and themes giving usa large amount of photos to choose to be the cover of our grime magazine. Another issue that i feel could have been changed in order to make our magazine a much more successful magazine was the rate of talking to one another as the group and i talked about the cover of the magazine after choosing the image and discussed a lot about where we would go from there, although this is a brilliant way of making sure we get the best from our magazine i feel the discussions where prolonged and minimized the amount of time we had to actually complete the magazine.
We began planning our magazine by thinking about the images that we could use for the front cover of the two issues, having thought about this in a long discussion on the style and type of image we would use we came to the conclusion that based on the fact that the majority of grime artists are of the male gender we would use the two boys in my group to model for the photshoot and be the face of the magazine for both issues.
The next task that we where set to do was the photoshoot where we had two hours to take photos that will ultimately be the image on the cover of our magazine technically known as the main cover image that is usually looking straight at the camera to attract and connect with the audience. With the camera that we where given the group and i went to numerous locations within the college that we thought would look best and took many pictures that could potentially be our cover image, the locations varied from college staircases and classrooms to the colleges outdoor benches. The images that we took seemed to work well with the style that we where trying to create for the magazine and when we where then able to look back at the images it showed that we had a large number of images that would work perfectly for the cover image.
Looking in great detail at the images that we had the group and i chose two different photos that would be the cover for the two issues. The first image that we chose was modelled by both of the boys in my group and it showed them together listening to music whilst looking directly at the camera, this photo was shot in the outdoor benches of the college giving the image extra visual features including the trees and also giving additional light. we decided that this image would work as our cover image for the first issue of the magazine. The second image that we picked out of the many photos was modelled by just one of the boys in my group and showed him again listening to music sitting on the floor whilst looking again directly at the camera. We shot this image in an empty corridor within the college, the emptiness surrounding the model enabled the audience to focus on him and what we assumed would be quite a dark image in outcome of the lack of natural light actually showed a lot of light and shadow adding a great effect to the image. As the first image was for the first issue this image had to be the cover image of the second issue that we create.
The final task that the group and I had to do was to produce the magazine cover and complete it using cover terminlogy which include the Masthead and also the Banner. In order to do this we had to place our selves into two groups that would have control of one issue, after splitting the group in two we began completing our music magazine. In order to successfully complete our magazine to a high standared it was important that the groups had the same banner as the two issues are linked and need to share the same style as one another. We did this by sharing with eachother the font and style of writing we thought would work best for the writing on the magazine. it was important that the font was bold and bright in order to attract the audience and make our magazine more effective. After trying many styles of writing we agreed on one style of writing that we would use for both issues, after this was decided it was now time for both groups to move on and complete the cover seperately yet still communicating with one another.
After long hours trying to finish both issues the covers where completed and they included coverlines that show what the magazine included inside which where competitions, interviews, posters and also free T-shirts and mix tapes, we decided to use these features as this would add a visual effect as with the competitions and interviews shown on the cover image resulted in our magazine being very eye catching and bold with the many effects used to display these features. We also made sure that the covers included the bar code, price and also issue date to make the magazine cover much more realistic to the audience.
Looking back on the process of making our magazine it is clear to see many things that the group and i could have done to make the theme and style of our magazine more clear and make the process much more quick and easy. one of the major issues that i feel could have been changed to improve the magazine is the planning of the photoshoot as i feel we could have communincated with one another better about the style and image that we where trying to create and the exact image that we feel would have been suitable for the front covers. With this said i feel that not having a distinctive target for the cover image enabled the group and i to explore within the college and take a wide range of photos with different styles and themes giving usa large amount of photos to choose to be the cover of our grime magazine. Another issue that i feel could have been changed in order to make our magazine a much more successful magazine was the rate of talking to one another as the group and i talked about the cover of the magazine after choosing the image and discussed a lot about where we would go from there, although this is a brilliant way of making sure we get the best from our magazine i feel the discussions where prolonged and minimized the amount of time we had to actually complete the magazine.
Friday, 26 September 2008
The Magazine Search, Streez Sound
In today's lesson we have learnt about the magazines and the audiences. As a group we have learnt how to analyse a magazine. Learnt keywords such as Masthead, Banner, Strapline etc. We have learnt that magazines are published in order to make profit, used as a business. The magazine we have analysed is named Rock Sound. we have analysed the strap-line of the magazine and the rest and pointed them out. Later on we have decided to make a magazine on the HipHop genre which we thought we can do well on. As a group we have discussed it and came up with a tittle called Streez Sound. We took couple of photoshoots for the magazine and hopefully we would start on the tutorial for how to make a magazine.
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