Evaluation: Question 7: Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

I think that the main piece of progression as far as this project is concerned is the wide variety of programs I can now use, and use to a high standard, for example below you can see both of my front covers, the preliminary task was completed on Scribus, an open source platform and the main project - the music magazine, was executed on InDesign by Adobe, this meant I could build up my knowledge on the open source platform because at the time it was free and shared many things with InDesign in what I felt was an easier format, but then moving onto the main task in the project meant I could use those skills and improve my knowledge and skill on InDesign. I thought this was a bold move as the rest of my class wouldn't entertain the idea, but I thought it's the best way I felt to progress and get the work done, you can see from both of the covers below that the music magazine (CRDNL - right) looks a lot more professional in design terms than the preliminary college magazine task (Courtyard - left). I also think that my thought process was a little more aiming towards a visually appealing magazine than one that is practical in a college with the college magazine, it shares very few key techniques a magazine needs with the music magazine and no matter how much I look at it I always feel there is something missing from the college magazine, but I feel that as I progressed through the unit and came to design my music magazine front cover all of these problems were addressed.





















Moving onto the contents pages to the left and the right you can see that although the college magazine contents I feel looks better, it again like the front cover looks like there is something missing, there are gaps and it looks unprofessional, whereas I feel my music magazine could pass off to be a real music magazine contents page that is sold in a shop. I feel that the only problem with it is the use of colour for the background, I think it's too bright, and may have needed to be dimmed down a little in photoshop, but again I feel I have progressed a considerable amount from one contents page to the next, using more techniques, codes and conventions in my music magazine contents page than in the preliminary task.

Lastly I feel that I have also progressed in using the internet, with the ability to now use sites like Blogger, Slideshare and Prezi I feel that I can now use the internet for something slightly more useful than taking photos of my dinner on instagram and moaning about my life on twitter. I can now say I would feel completely comfortable setting up my own blog on a subject of my choice, and could use it for work related tasks as well (for example I set up another blog for my AS Law class as part of a group task). I can also see now that all of these methods, particularly Blogger would be a good way in the future to connect with customers if I was to create a business. Overall I would say this whole project was a great success, and I could now say I was a lot more comfortable with technology and may consider website and magazine design in the future as a career.

Front Cover Alterations

I decided that after altering my contents page and double page spread that although individually all of the pieces looked good, the front cover didn't match the double page spread and contents page as well. The main issue was the colours used. I tried to use orange because at the start I felt that it is quite a versatile colour that I could use almost anywhere in the magazine, but as constructing both the contents page and double page spread went on I felt that instead of orange, I felt that a maroon/red colour would suit the magazine better.

This meant that the front cover didn't match the rest of the magazine, a simple colour alteration meant that the whole magazine matched each other with the colours, fonts and the way each page was set out and presented. The one thing that I didn't change was the small 'PLUS' section beneath the masthead on the left hand side, this is because I felt changing everything to one colour would make the front cover boring, it also meant that the particular coverline stood out over other things on the page that were less important

This slight adjustment meant that my magazine was now complete and ready for evaluation, the following posts will be the evaluation posts question by question.

Contents Page Editing

(old on the left, the updated version on the right)
With my front cover I turned my attention to the contents page, I wasn't happy with the bottom left corner, I felt the social network logos and various other things to do with the contents page didn't really fit, instead I added in an image I took originally for my photography work but never got round to using it and turned it into the 'Miles Of The Month' regulars section. I also changed the advert in the bottom right corner for subscription to the magazine, I felt that it didn't fit in with the rest of the column so I reduced the font size of a lot of things and squeezed everything in.

Overall I think it is a big improvement on the previous version and I think this is the version I will use as my final contents page for the music magazine, I think the colour co-ordination of orange for regulars and red for features meant I could contrast different sections of the magazine, I also think that the contents compliments the front cover with the colours, fonts and everything else, I made sure that everything matched to keep the 'house style' the same.

Music Magazine: Coverline Analysis

In this post I will discuss the coverlines I have used. My first example would be the main coverline "TOM KANE - Hurricanes front man goes solo". This came from an idea from an old NME cover of The Last Of The Shadow Puppets, by which Alex Turner was leaving the duo band set up to go back to Arctic Monkeys, and I was watching a TV show on Hurricanes in the morning before coming to college, so there you go, inside the mind of myself!

The next coverline, which was the inspiration of band I went and saw - Little Comets - " 'Joanna Take Me Home' little comets tell all of their new album" is something I thought I could add a few little visual elements to, for example the plus sign and plus font, also the album cover, all add to the effect that I have tried to pass over to the viewer of the magazine. Overall I am quite pleased with the two coverlines I have covered, both adding to the effect of the magazine.

The last coverline that I have on the magazine is a coverline that goes with the Tom Kane feature coverline, "People can only take so many Gallagher hair cuts and drug addictions" this was an influence from NME, as they seem to be quite pro-Gallagher brother/Oasis (and now Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds etc.) which got me thinking, I didn't want my magazine to be like every single other magazine, I didn't want the same person on the front cover, and the same content that is in every single other music magazine even slightly related to this genre, so I picked something slightly out of the ordinary and chose to say something controversial  because ultimately controversy sells, people want to read controversial things, things that intrigue people and get people thinking, so what would be better than an attention grabbing, controversial coverline, because to most in the industry the Gallagher brothers are seen as like the Beatles reborn, so I thought it was time for a change, so I made something that was different to everything else.

Overall I am pleased with how everything went on the front cover, not just the coverlines, but the coverlines add something that images and names can't do, they also give something that could be seen as a selling point, as after a picture they're something that someone will instantly pick up on, and it will either attract the reader, or put them off, so it's capturing the buyers attention with the coverlines that make it an important selling point, I feel I have done this, and if it wasn't done well, I would have changed it, because after all it is the person I am.

My Personal Pages

If you are looking at my blog I would love it if you looked at both my personal website, where I have all my photos:

http://benmaccers.wix.com/photographer

and my flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ben-maccers

both of these are very important for my photography work, and media work, so it would be great if you had a look

:)

Magazine Draft Pieces

Below are the different parts of my music magazine project, at the moment they're in their draft stage and will be developed as I change things and cut things out of it, but these are the basic layouts for the magazine, because I'm only planning on changing a few minor details.

 I am quite pleased with how my front cover of my magazine has turned out. This is the final version as the tweaks to the magazine front cover were made as I went along, I am happy with this completely, and I don't feel anything needs changing. I am very pleased on finding the Masthead font - 'Theano Didot' which is very similar to the font I wanted - 'Albion Didot' which the BMX magazine Albion BMX uses. Another thing I am quite pleased with is the footer at the bottom, I had that space free towards the end of creating it and I looked at other magazines to see what completes them, so I felt this was the thing that was missing, the orange vertical highlights fit in well with the rest of the magazine and also gives it a more professional look.

Overall I am very pleased with how the Front Cover turned out and is something I will be using as my final piece.

The contents page is something I feel where bits need changing, for example there is a huge space in the bottom left of the page which I think the social networks doesn't really fit, so I think I might need to extend the Tom Kane Feature paragraph or put another feature article in there to make sure the space is effectively filled, maybe even taking the Little Comets interview, which is the one of the main coverlines on the front cover and put it into the gap. Another thing I think I could change is the date, and the gap between the Contents Heading and the rest of the text, maybe add a volume number and other things. Overall it's a good start but could do with some more things.

My double page spread, which I feel is nearly complete is something I am fairly pleased with, more so than the contents page, but a lot less so than the front cover. I think the title for the page is set out well along with the text and the 'TOM KANE' in the top left hand corner of the page, I think I need to put another page footer on the bottom right page, because after all it is a DOUBLE page spread, and not just on one single page. I think after some fiddling around with the double page spread it will work out and match the standard of the front cover.If I did the double page spread again I think I would change the colour of the background, and make it lighter, because the grey isn't really a nice colour and doesn't really compliment anything else like the text of the subject of the image, I mentioned this in the analysis of the photography I took for this project.

Music Magazine Proposal

For my magazine I am planning to base it on an indie genre, this would mean the magazine, if it went to market, would compete with other magazines such as NME and Q magazine, these magazines in particular because they will feature similar artists and have a similar sort of style about them, through the research I have done previously to starting this task I have found out that NME is a more casual magazine, something that you pick up every week and read, whereas Q magazine is a more formal affair, being a less frequent magazine, something that is special and you read as a special occasion.

I feel that there are gaps in this market, but ignoring the process of what there has already been and what hasn't been I am planning on making mine more formal and more modern than NME, but less formal and less serious than Q magazine, I feel that my own style will mean I can create something that is visually appealing but gets the message across.

I have played around with a few names for the music magazine, one of them being 'Cardinal Music Magazine' which I may shorten to 'CRDNL', that is the strongest idea as far as a name goes, and the colour scheme will be similar to something I did with my college magazine (look to a previous post on my blogger page), so I'm going to use colours like orange, teal and other in-betweeny colours, rather than the traditional, and overused reds and blues, I also think using Cardinal Red the colour is fairly cliche, as the colour isn't the only meaning for the word cardinal, and using that colour scheme would rather limit the magazine as far as my creativity would go.

The most obvious problems I can see so far would be fonts, this will be something I will have to look and search for until I find the perfect one, one I would like to use that has been previously use is the 'Albion Didot' font used in the BMX magazine, the Albion, it is used during the feature articles and some of the article titles/headlines, I feel I can use something similar for my masthead of the front cover of my magazine.

Music Magazine Research Task Four: Representation Of My Target Audience

In this research task I will discuss the representation of both musicians and the target audience for my magazine. For my magazine, focusing mainly on an 'indie' fan base and mainly indie musicians, this is because at college and in my friendship groups there isn't really any defining 'type' of person other than the people that fit the indie genre, also because indie music is some of my favorite type of music, favorite musicians being Bombay Bicycle Club, and more underground bands such as Little Comets and General Fiasco.

In the music magazine industry and in the media in general these types of people that I will be aiming my magazine at are not really represented well. There are very few music magazines and few publications out there at the moment that target this audience, so I think it will be a fairly unique magazine that I will be creating, I want to make it so anyone who I'm aiming it at, being mainly 16-30 year olds can just pick up the magazine and understand what the content is trying to explain, as with many of these specialist magazines, and more genre specific magazines, for music an example would be Kerrang, the audience will have to know the genre previously very well before they can just pick the magazine up, read it and understand it.

I want to make the magazine look aesthetically pleasing, and an alternative look on an already fairly samey music magazine industry, one of my favourite magazines as far as the style goes is 'The Albion' a free BMX magazine that makes it's money from advertising so it can pay for the printing costs, a relatively good idea, especially as they can charge more as more people pick it up and read it, because at the end of the day it is free, but I find that the design of the magazine is more formal than other BMX magazines, more wordy rather than pictures, but the pictures are still very serious and formal, I like the alternative thinking that goes into things like the front cover, logo, how articles are layed out, the thought process that went into the font which they use in the main articles (Albion Didot), so this magazine could be a sort of inspiration.

I also like the way that NME magazine is set out, after being influenced by many different genres of music and many years of different influences it has reached a sort of indie layout, with the pop influence from the 60's,70's,80's and 90's. Before they took the indie route for their magazine they used to mainly pop, covering all of the big bands from the above era's, such as The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Nirvana etc.

I never regarded Rolling Stone as a real music magazine because it is very different to what I am planning to do for my magazine in the sense that I think Rolling Stone's covers and layout aren't very good, I'm planning on spending the time to make my magazine look legitimate, make it seem like an actual magazine, because after all that is the task.

Music Magazine Research Task Three: Genres Of Music

The genre of a magazine is very important to the way it is set out, so below are lists of popular genres and what genres music magazines are, I will also look at music I listen to, after looking at all of these I will make a decision as to what genre my magazine will fit into, it is very important that I don't pick something that has been overused, or that is present in today's media.

Popular music genres, with magazines that fit these genres next to them:

• Indie - NME
• Pop - Q, Mojo
• Rock - Kerrang
• Hip-Hop - Hip Hop Connection (American Magazine)
• Grime - Flavourmag (Urban London Music and Arts Magazine)
• Hip-Hop/R&B - Vibe Magazine
• Music in General - Rolling Stone Magazine (varies from month to month as to which artist they focus on, the magazine isn't devoted to 

all of these magazines have a layout and a design that mirrors what they are trying to represent, so for example NME has quite an indie feel to it, one that would match today's culture, with the clothing people wear, the people that feature in the magazine and other things such as the features they run and the way the codes and conventions are presented.

Music that I listen to:

• Indie - Bombay Bicycle Club, Little Comets, General Fiasco
• Grime - Skepta, JME, P Money
• Hip-Hop - Kanye West
• Rock - The Rolling Stones, The Beatles

 I think that I will make my magazine more of an indie theme, this is because I feel that there is a slight gap in the market, because although the content of NME is seen to be indie, the design wasn't originally to suit indie music, because when it was created it was more to do with popular music than anything else, and has recently changed. Whereas my magazine will be completely indie orientated, with a modern design that fits the genre, rather than optimized like NME's design has been.

IPC Media

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