Draft Front Cover!

Moodboards!

Feedback 23.03.09

Sam, please upload your mood board and sketches when complete. You should by now be working on page design and layout for your own project so get you photos asap then you can get working on this. Good to see you've used audience research to make some design decisions already.
(Mrs A)

Planning!

For my planning I will hopefully be conducting magazine front cover sketches, contents page sketches, my main article draft and a mood board.

However, I have already decided on several things such as my magazine title and my colours etc. For example, my chosen magazine title is HIPLIFE. and my colour scheme will be white and gold.  

Magazine Title and Colour Scheme Questionnaire!

At this current point, I am struggling to grasp the name of my magazine. I have created a tally chart with several names that I thought up of and I asked 20 people from my target audience 16-22 for their opinions. These are the results of my questionnaire :- 

+ Bustdown - two votes 

+ Ghetto Pass - two votes 

+ HIPLIFE. - FIVE VOTES 

+ Merk - one vote 

+ Kush - two votes 

+ Wordlife - three votes 

+ Hoodstar - four votes

+ Mainstream - one vote

Therefore due to the results of my questionnaire and as it is my personal favourite, I have decided on the title of HIPLIFE. for my music magazine.

I then conducted a further questionnaire to the same 20 individuals from my select target audience about a select colour scheme for my text/ fonts etc. The results of my colour scheme questionnaire are as follows :-

+ Red and Black - four votes 

+ Black and blue - one vote

+ GOLD AND WHITE - SIX VOTES

+ Black and White - one vote

+ Green and Yellow -  two votes

+ Blue and White - three votes 

+ Orange and Red - one vote

+ Pink and White - two votes

Due to the result of my questionnaire, I have chosen to use a colour scheme of Gold and White. However, this may change depending on the colours of my models clothing and the background of the photograph etc and i may chose to add another colour to the scheme such as blue..

Feedback 16.3.09

Sam,
Excellent prelim front cover! You also need to scan in your contents page and evaluate both. Then you ca start your planning for your project - sketches, mood boards, photos, fetaure article etc.
Mrs A

Contents Page

Evaluation

I am pleased with my contents page as it doesn't have too much going on in the page. I haven't used too many images on it and they are all relevant to the captions on the page for example- the image of St Mary's College is relevant as the preliminary magazine is about St Mary's College. There are also not too many captions and the overall balance of the page is quite good. 

However, I think the placement of the title on my contents page is not very thought out as it wouldn't be long enough to cover the space I have given it.  Also the placement of the' image of the teacher in profile' is very small and would overlap the title if i was to put it in. 

I would change those things that i have identified but I would generally keep the layout of my contents page similar to what it is now only editing the problems i have identified. I haven't learnt much from completing this task however i have learnt to think my layout through more carefully rather than just sticking images and titles in 'randoms' places etc. 

Preliminary Task

Evaluation

I am happy with my preliminary task, however i do feel there are some things i could improve on for example i could have used a different background for my photo as the brick wall is not really attractive. But by using this bland background it focuses centrally on the image bringing it to the readers attention . I like my use of colour as there aren't too many and they are the same colours as the St Mary's College badge, also by using a plain colour scheme it doesn't show 'too' much going on which doesn't distract the reader but focuses centrally on the text and image. I would change the boxes on the cover as some of them have a black underlining which makes them look misplaced from the cover. I would also have used not as many sub-stories as it does create the effect that too much is going on in the cover. I think the image i used was successful and was related to my main headline of 'AS Results Day' as the girl is holding her results and is pleased with them, and again like my colour scheme there isn't too much going on to distract the reader as it is a picture with just one person in it etc. 

However, if i was to do it again i would change the faults i have identified such as the underlining of the boxes and the background of my photograph. I would also make the page look less 'busy by reducing the amount of sub-stories on the page etc. On the other hand i would use a plain colour scheme again as it doesn't bring too much attention away from the image. From doing this preliminary task I have become more familiar with the programs used in creating my final music magazine such as photoshop and indesign, also I have learnt when taking an image the lighting of the photo can make a great difference to the overall product as a natural lit picture can create a 'glowing' affect however a dimly lit photo could create a negative image. 

Feedback 10.3.09

Sam, you are working well on this project and seem to be making steady progress. Continue on with this and see the comment i've put about your most recent blog entry. You need to upload a front cover and analyse how it is constructed - what are the typical conventions of a magazine front cover, contents page etc? See the notes on Moodle for assistance with this. Don't forget to do some audience research also to back up all you have said about the target audience.
You need to finish your prelim task by the end of the week also please and make sure it too is uploaded to the blog and evaluated. Your front page should be produced fully but the contents page is a sketch/mock up so can be scanned in whenever you've finished it. See Rachel if you need help with this.
Next week you must start detailed planning for your own magazizne so you need to focus on getting this research complete by friday.
(Mrs Abell)

Colours and text etc.

From the research I have done on hip-hop magazines such as hip-hip connection, XXX and Urban I have noticed that on their front covers they use dark colours such as black, grey, silver and gold but also occasionally use reds and whites. By using these 'masculine' colours, they attract male consumers and also create certain connotations such as strong and to some extent mysterious connotations as the blacks and reds are dark angry colours. The colours also reflect the style and fashion of readers as the clothing worn by a stereotypical hip-hop magazine reader don't tend to be bright colours but quite plain etc. For my magazine cover, i think i am going to use a mixture of both for example gold and white. 

On the front cover most of the top hip-hop magazines use a varied amount of text for example on the XXL magazine featuring 'Lil Wayne' they use a medium amount of text and they leave quite a bit of white space on the page however in the issue of URBAN featuring 'Nas' they use a lot of text to fill up the sides of the page in order to focus your attention on the central image.  Hip-hop magazines also use quite plain and bold fonts such as arial, times new roman and georgia. I would use strong, bold and angular fonts as they suggest masculinity where as if i was to use smooth curvy fonts this could create a feminine affect which would be appealing to a completely different audience than I plan to as I plan to appeal to a male audience. I have now chosen the font Angie's new font which i have downloaded from www.dafont.com 

Reader Profile! 3/3/09

A typical reader for this genre of magazine would be on average the age of 14-20 years old and they would most likely be male white or black. Their occupation would tend to be skilled or unskilled worker (social-economic groups C1,C2, D or E). Readers main interests in life would usually be their music, sports, and more casual activities etc. They usually tend to like gang related films (Get rich or Die trying/ Notorious/ 8 mile), aswell as teen movies and television programmes that also land in that genre aswell as regular TV programming etc. And based on the phoenix project, my readers would be enthusiasts or savants to the type of music.

A reader of this kind of genre of magazine would stereotypically be a student at either school, college or university with music tending to be on of their main priorities in life. They would tend to wear more casual clothing such as 'baggy' or loosely fitted clothing with high-topped trainers and a hooded jacket, maybe with jewellery on show. Using psychographic profiling, i have split an audience into four separate categories:

       + mainstreamers - persons whom like to fit into social groups etc

       + aspirers - these persons try to be something better than others 

       + reformers - set out to make the world a better place

       + individuals - tend to set out their own styles and listen to undiscovered artists rather           than mainstream artists for example Akon and Ludacris. 

I am aiming at mainstreamers, aspirers and individuals, this is because they are the people whom tend to read music magazines and listen to this percific genre of music generally.