My preliminary task

By Tim Noyce

What I set out to do?I set out to create a school magazine cover in preparation for the creation of my chosen magazine cover. From this I hoped to learn the specific codes and conventions of what a magazine cover should look like and discover the skills and methods necessary to create and manipulate certain images and text so to prepare myself for when I start making my actual magazine

Evidence of researchWhen looking at school magazine covers for specific codes and conventions I noticed that the mast head on most school magazines is positioned at the top of the page and contain either a blocky or jazzy font, which I will keep in mind for when I do my school magazine cover

Plus the barcode in the corner of the magazine is a common feature of a school magazine

Also cover lines in formal order is something that is frequent in a school magazine

Image ManipulationImage before… Image after...

Here I have manipulated an image by adding a colour line around the edge, to do this I have selected the chosen image and have selected the tool bar. Then I used the Line/border style to add in the line, from there I went to line colour in insert section and made the line a specific colour of my choice.

Evidence of draftingI decided to keep a lot of the features from my original draft, although some modifications were made during the actual designing as some thins suited better.

The position of the price and date I decided to change as it made a much neater structure

Putting in text without confined boxes I found unlike the original would give more casual look to the magazine, which would help towards my targeted audience.

Adding another image to the contents page would fill up the page a bit more, making use of empty space and giving the page a more friendly feel to it

Front cover and contents page

What have I learned?From this I have learned the necessary skills in order to create my own magazine, I found out how to alternate and manipulate images for the magazine design and how to use publisher efficiently. As well as discovering the codes and conventions when it comes to the construction and design of a magazine. So from this preliminary task I’ve learnt all that I need in order to create the actual magazine

Research of three individual music magazine brands

Here the masthead is being covered by the main image which shows that the this masthead is well known enough that buyers will immediately recognize it even when slightly covered . Plus this masthead is bulky and dominates the top of the front cover, as well as the colour matching some of the side lines on the cover. Here the main image is looking directly at the reader, as well as pointing to the reader as well giving a direct mode of address to the audience, the colour of the image is in black and white which ties into the colour scheme of the plain white background and the other bold colors of the cover lines.

The cover lines of this magazine are just titles with no paragraphs underneath. This makes the front cover not reveal too much about the magazine’s content which persuades the audience to find out the rest of the information on those title cover lines.

The barcode on this front cover is in the bottom left-hand corner, this is unlike the more common placing of the barcode on the right side. This makes the magazine more individual to most others.

The artist I this image is portrayed to show a stereotypical hip-hop look, the way he points at the crowd is a typical in your face mode of address. As well as the long necklace he’s wearing and the big chunky watch and belt, here the artist is shown to be a hip-hop artist

The masthead on Kerrang is being slightly covered by the head of the main image, which sh0ws the awareness of this title that the audience only need to see a little bit of it in order to recognise it. the font also matches the theme of rock as it fits the bands being presented.

Selling line of the magazine is also covered by the main image which shows that the audience are well aware of this as well as the masthead, making it out to be a well known brand.

The main image of this cover is giving an indirect mode of address to the audience , which suggests that the magazine addresses the content rather than the audience

The cover line poses as an incentive with words like “Greatest… ever” re-assuring the audience that I has the best.

The cover line here uses a direct mode of address saying “Your votes” rather than just saying the votes are in, this makes up for the image not giving visual contact as it reaches out to the audience who made votes

The barcode here is on the right hand side of the magazine just underneath some mid-shot images and cover lines, placed there due to the column of mid-shot images on the left hand side

The masthead is hidden slightly by the main image which suggest that this masthead is well known by its target audience, also the masthead only takes up a small portion of the page and is compact by all the cover lines and the main image which emphasises the point that it is not too important for the audience to see it.The support sentence here re-assures the audience that they are buying a good magazine, however this is like the masthead where it is slightly covered by the main image which suggests the audience are already familiar with this magazine they no longer need assurance

The main image is looking at the reader which gives a direct mode of address to the audience, also the image is taking up most of the page which draws more attention to that more than any feature of the magazine. A cover line here is bold in red which is the same colour as the masthead which highlights the importance of the cover line which connects to the main image showing that this is the highlight of the magazine

Here the use of buzz words are quite common in this magazine like “Best” and “Bumper” which create an incentive for the target audience

The use of something free in the magazine encourages and persuades more people to buy the magazine.

Questionnaire research

From the questionnaire I distributed to people I have learnt that the 3 most favoured genres from my targeted audience are Rock, Hip-Hop and Drum base. From this I know to create a cover that involves all three of these.

I also know from my research to use a mixture of big titles and text and that the price will range from 3-4 pounds. My target audience has shown me from the data that date of publishing is not too important and the votes for monthly and weekly are equal.

Lastly from the questionnaire all of the target audience said that they are more likely to buy the magazine if it has something free with it e.g free CD also if the interviews and news updates are exclusive and that has influenced me to make most of my cover lines exclusive.

For the main image of my magazine front cover I have taken inspiration from this ‘Q’ magazine where multiple main images are on the front, they have no particular background which is what I intend to do for my cover, although the middle will be closer up than the two at either side

Evidence of Drafting

Research of contents page

A consistent feature of the contents page of the masthead of the page being ‘contents’ this is a convention

The magazines’ features being listed In a straight line with page reference is a common convention in the contents page

A mid-shot image on the page and a series of smaller images is a frequent feature on a contents page

There is a consistent use of black and white when to comes to text and background along with the use of one colour from the front cover

Once again the consistent use of simple black and white for the text

Again there is a main image upon the contents page, but this time it is also black and white to keep with the theme of the contents page.

Here, the contents page has a list of features which is a consistent convention to all contents pages.

Having only the heart in colour gives the impression that there’s something arty to do with this main image.

Here the colour scheme is again simplistic while using a single colour from the front cover to keep that traditional look of the magazine brand

Once again there is a neat line of the magazine’s content on one side of the content page

Here though they’ve separated the reviews from the rest of the features on the page, which may highlight importance.

A main image upon this page is a common feature with all context pages

Here a monthly feature has been added in which is separate from the rest of the list by another title.

What has influenced me from my contents page research?

•From my research of contents pages I have found that I will be doing I straight vertical line going down either the left or right side of the page.

•I will be keeping the colour scheme simple putting the text in black and white along with a colour from my front page to keep with the colour of my front page.

•As well as adding a side image either big or small, or a big and small image on the same page either being a close-up or a mid-shot.

Research of two page spreads

On this two-page spread the main takes up half the page

The actual article of the two-page spread is actually quite compact

A quote from the article is highlighted, which gives the reader an idea of what the article is about

Article has title

Here the first letter has been enlarged

Once again the main is image is dominant over the two-page spread covering a whole page.

Here, a highlighted quote to give reader an idea of what article is about The text of the

article is not dominant on the page , boxed off into a convenient space of the page

The first letter of the article has been enlarged and bold to

stand out

Title accompanies article, more dominant than the actual article itself, title is also a quote from the article

The first letter of the article is enlarged

Article is compact on the page

Here the main image is once again dominant on the page

What has influenced me in my research of my Two-page spread

For my two-page spread research I have found that I will be:

At the start of the article I will be enlarging the first letter as in my research it is a common feature of a two-page spread.

Also the main image of my two-page spread will be dominant on the page, taking up half of the page or more.

The title will also be quite dominant on the page and it will be a quote from the article as it is a common convention of the two-page spread.

Lastly the article itself will be quite compact upon the page and will be in formal column order.