Article

- This is the first take of my article. As you can see there are quite a few problems with this.
- Immediately, you can see there is a HUGE space underneath the title and the first part of the article (circled in white in case you missed it). I had planned on filling this gap in but it became to be a bigger problem as the original plan of getting a picture of a tour bus wasn't really possible as, unfortunately, I do not own my own personal tour bus.
- Another point is that the article is not written in columns, which is a often used convention of magazine articles. I did this to challenge these conventions to be a little bit different, but it didn't go so well..

- The title of the piece was another thing I decided I didn't like on this first take. It wasn't so much the actual title itself, it was predominately the font I used. I felt it didn't match the style of the magazine.
- This is a final version of my article. As you can see I decided to change quite a few things on it.
- Firstly, you'll notice that there isn't a HUGE gap right at the very start, instead I decided to change the layout slightly and edit a picture of the full band with a home made film strip, as a sort of collage of other photos of the boys, to add more decoration and variety.
- I've also changed the article itself to be written into columns, which has made the layout just look so much better than the first take. I did, however, keep the theme of the questions from the interview in blue and the answers in white to make it clearer to the audience which was which and also what format the article was in.
- The title has changed. I decided to make it a bit longer and a bit more subject specific so the audience are definitely clear on who the interview is about exactly.
- I've also decided to add a bit of a personal touch on this page as well, by making it look like the person featured in the article, Curt Rollo, has signed the bottom of the page right next to his picture. This also solved the problem of having another HUGE gap in the corner of my double page spread!

Contents Page

- On the left is the first take of my contents page. Initially I wanted to have a double page spread as the contents, but I found, as I was completing it, that there wasn't enough to fill both pages, so I switched to a single page and I feel this works better.
- My favourite part on this piece, which has been a part throughout, was the letter from the editor.
- When doing this I decided to make a piece of lined paper on photoshop and then use a font that looked like handwriting to make the letter look more personal. This would also be a feature that would last throughout all of the magazine issues.


- To the right is the final copy of my contents page. I changed it to a single page as I thought the double page spread wasn't going to look as good.
- I stayed with the letter from the editor idea and the picture of the editor with it, to add a personal touch.
- The competition part of the piece was done as a blue box to make it stand out. It was a simple box drawn with the details of the competition written inside. Simplicity at it's best. I think this was really effective.

My Front Cover

- This is the first draft of my front cover. As you can see, there is some definite work to be done here.

- The picture is of very bad quality, if I'm going to be honest, even editing wouldn't be able to fix that.

- At this point I decided that using a different cover model would be better than trying to edit this one and spending more time on this than was necessary.
- This picture was definitely the better choice. The reasons for this are that:

*-- Without a doubt this is a much better quality photo.

*-- The model is more attractive than the previous model, and has a much better look and appeal about him. Its a lot more phesable for people to want to be like this model than possibly the other one.

*-- The pose for this model is much easier to work and works much better with the rest of the layout on the front cover.

*-- The pose also gives a much better feel of the model being a big name star as he is in a more powerful stance.




- This is the first take of the actual photgraph used for the front cover.

- The reason I didn't use this one is because the lighting was wrong. Making the picture too dark to be able to use.

- Also the angle of the camera was in the wrong place for what I wanted. You couldn't see enough of the model's face and the face he was actually making wasn't good enough for the front cover.



- Take two, and the picture still wasn't quite right. The model's face is too far over so it cannot be seen properly, which wasn't what i wanted.

- Also, I decided to change the way that he was facing, so I could have him looking up towards the title of the magazine, almost as though he is acknowledging it.







-The final take. This is the actual picture I used at the front cover and I really like this photograph.

- The reason I chose this is because you can see practically all of the model's face and outfit and the stance shows attitude and power.

- By using this picture it also made it alot easier for me to edit it as the lighting was perfect so there wasn't much editing to do with it.



- Going back to the final edit. The colour scheme has been kept to very simple and contrasting colours.

- By using red, blue, black and yellow I have made the text stand out more from the background. I've also added a shadow effect to also help it stand out.

- I got the idea of using these colours from Q magazine, which is featured in my previous blog, Music Magazine Research, they also use a similar colour scheme and it works because it has remained their colour scheme throughout their many years of production.

- In the tags on the front cover I have popular bands and gigs that people would know and recognise in order to entice my target audience. I've also used recent events such as Michael Jackson's film release.

Research Continued..

-The target audience for this magazine are probably aged between 16-25 years old due to the fact that there are quite modern bands and artists on there. (E.g Lil Wayne, Duffy, My Bloody Valentine).


- Duffy (the model) is in a sexualised pose. She's wearing little clothing and is leaning towards the audience, whilst also keeping contact with them. She's drawing them in and tempting them to buy the product, even the placement of her hand is almost drawing you in as well.


- Genre of this magazine is unusual in that you don't see many magazines that are specifically aimed at the indie demographic. Music magazines are usually aimed at the rock and pop genres with indie as a background feature.

Music Magazine Research

- Target audience age range 18-35 years old. We know this because of the artists included on the front cover are seen to be as more old school type genre. E.g Beastie Boys, The Prodigy and The Killers.
- Simple colour scheme of red, black and white. Attention grabbing colours, conventional of Q magazine as its been used for many years.
- Typical magazine cover conventions:

*-- Magazine title is slightly obscured by the models, this is a well known magazine so it isn't necessary to see the whole name.

*-- Price, issue date and bar codes are all included on this piece.

*-- 3/4 Fonts used on this piece.

*-- Justified text.

*-- Banner across the top bearing the tagline "The UK's biggest music magazine."

Personal Thoughts; I really like this cover. Its eye catching attracts the attention of the target audience straight away. It also appeals to me as I listen to the type of music on this cover and like the magazine anyway, so as a consumer I would buy this. It deffinitely ticks all the boxes.

School Magazine; Contents Page

My contents page has been designed to have the Heworth Grange website as text as the background. I decided to do this because it added variation to the plain blue background I had originally decided upon. It also has the added effect of advertising the website again.

I used pictures on this page to show different stories and also to make the page more interesting. The photographs I used were basic and unedited, apart from cropping to remove excess space, because it's only a school magazine and doesn't need to be too flash and exciting, otherwise it will cost too much to print.

I used three fonts on this page. I used Baby Kruffy for the background font, Frosty for the title, and Pussycat for the Content titles.

I decided to keep the colour scheme simple and stick to the same colours as those used on the front. The pictures used on this page are to illustrate the stories inside of the magazine and also for decoration.

School Magazine; Front Cover

- Young, attractive model, in the same age range as the target audience, also a pupil at Heworth Grange. This attracts the target audience effectively because I used a familiar, younger, face.
- Model is also wearing the school P.E kit to link with the fact that this issue is majoratively about sports. This also makes him look smarter in appearance as well.
- The colour scheme of the magazine links in with the school's colours, blue and yellow, with the green and red to add variety, this is done to accentuate the idea that this is an internally produced magazine.
- To attract the attention of the readers, I included main headings that would make the them want to read inside of the magazine. So I used the recent dance show and made it obvious that tickets could be bought inside the magazine.
- I used 3 font styles on my front cover. Pussycat was used for the title of the magazine and the tags. Frosty for the tag headers. Tahoma for the price tag and issue date.

- The website is advertised in a banner along the bottom of the cover, I used bright colours to attract attention to it so that more readers would visit the site for more information.
- I also used the school logo on the cover to, again, convey that this is an internally produced magazine.