First draft of contents

Diary entry week 6

Weekly review 8/03/2010 week 6

As I have collected relevant data for my magazine I can now start making a draft of my real magazine, by using photoshop and my photos that I have taken I can start to make my front cover, also by using my research such as by pricing my magazine between £2 - £3, I can start to see what my real magazine could become. Before making my music magazine I thought about the name first of all, I came up with names like Stereo, MUse, MiX (8) and styling them in different ways. Although before I could decided on my final name I had to research if there was already a music magazine out there with that name, which was very hard as there are so many of them and lots of my names I thought of were taken. In the end I decided on REPLAY as there was no music magazine with that name and I thought it really related to music as on iTunes there is a replay button so it relates to playing and listening to music. Then to make the name look more interesting and music associated I added a play and pause button, this makes it look more sophisticated and stylish to look at and remember. As I have to relate back to my style model “Q” I put the title in a box and shifted it to the left hand side to have a similar layout to “Q”, but to not just copy the magazine I have used my own colour scheme on yellow and black as it stands out better than “Q” colour scheme making it more attractive than it. i also did things like a close up for the front cover image as this is very attractive and eye catching.

First draft of front cover

Diary entry week 5

Weekly review 01/03/2010 week 5

The next step in the development of my music magazine project is the photos for the 3 pages, the topic of the photos must be relevant to my results, such as I had to take images of Ke$ha, as she was the highest voted singer, therefore I will use her as my main feature, to do this I will have to get a model and dress up as her. For development I collected some images of her from the internet for inspiration, so from these photos I could make my model have curly hair like her and recreate her personality which is quite fiery and doesn’t really give a damn about what anyone thinks. As a result I have done a plan of what photos I could take represent her character e.g. wearing ripped and frayed clothing to show that she is rough and a bit wild like an animal; which is the name of her album which is ironic and links very well. I have done a plan of what four photos I could use on my 3 pages for example close up on the front cover of the model looking straight at the camera with a lot of music attitude e.g. breaking an iPod. This grabs the reader’s attention and reflects the artist’s personality. When doing my photo plan I did a table of four photos which is needed to create my magazine, therefore I wrote down which page, location, costume etc for each photo. For example for my double page spread it is going to be very big photos which covers most of the page as this is the main feature, therefore it has to stand out. This is why I would take a picture of a full body/long shot as it will fill up most of page whereas a close up wouldn’t do this as well. I would dress a model in something which is suitable to the artist’s personality such as a leopard print top so show that she is very wild like an animal. Also as I am doing Ke$ha and her latest album is called Animal, this links well. After doing my plan I started by actual photo taking. With this I did lots of development through my photos as I took loads of different poses and use different props. I matched a lot of my photos with of my plan by adding new ideas of photos for example loo king quite crazy with my hair all messy and eating a CD this is very like Ke$ha’s attitude as she is young and mad therefore she likes to do whatever she likes. When taking my photos I took them of myself but someone else took them, although I was looking at the photos constantly and advising my photographer to do certain things to make me look more like Ke$ha, I wasn’t allowed to use these photos as I didn’t take them myself. Therefore I had to retake my photos using a tripod, although I am not allowed to use these photos I have used them for development and help me when taking my own photos so that I know what makes a good photo. I have learnt from this I took better photos and I ended up using these ones as they are better poses and lighting etc. Now that I have taken my photos I can decide which ones to use for my drafts of my magazine, as this is only for my drafts I will keep the other photos in mind as I might change my design. To make my photos look more professional and more natural looking. An important part of my music magazine development is my style model, and whilst looking at various magazines I have decided that I will use “Q” magazine as my style model as I wanted to do a pop genred magazine but for an older audience, therefore “Q” is a perfect match. For example to my make “Q”’s style into my own I could use similar layout e.g. have a box around the title in a contrasting colour to the writing and being in the top left hand corner of the magazine. Therefore why making my magazine I must make sure I always relate back to this magazine for guidance. The next week I will create the 3 pages in 2 weeks by creating and finishing one very week so that I am up to date and every page is looking like a real music magazine.

Photo development

Diary entry week 4

Weekly review 22/02/2010 week 4

After doing my interviews I evaluated my questionnaire to see what the results were and see what answers came top, therefore showing what today’s 16 – 18 year old likes in terms of every aspect of a music magazine. I presented the information is tallies and graphs to help me sum up my survey with the highest percentage, as a result making it the best answer of what my consumer prefers. I have some idea of what I want to do for my magazine to suit my target audience of 16-18 music lovers for example, through my results I know from my question: How much would you pay for a magazine? That they want a magazine to be priced between £2 - £3. Therefore if I price my magazine at this price or below it, I will know my magazine will sell as my consumer will be willing to pay for it and be able to afford it as it came out highest percentage. Another question I asked was: What puts you off a magazine? They said they don’t want too much text as they don’t like to be overloaded with things to read as it is very intimidating and puts them off reading the magazine. Therefore from each question I asked, I have taken the highest percentage of answer and made this part of magazine such as Ke$ha being my many pop artist. By doing this I am making my magazine exactly the way my consumers want and as the answers were voted for the most it can’t be wrong. All these answers from my questionnaire have made me decide what I want to do for my music magazine with the consideration of my consumer’s requirements, this has now let me imagine what my actual magazine will look like in the end. This is why I have drawn my first drafts of my music magazines front cover, contents and double page spread. I have also looked at my initial ideas to help me with this as these were my first ideas and they may have changed or stayed the same. For example I have decided to use a medium close on the front cover as normally magazines do this and I will have a band across the page to really show that this issue of the magazine is about Ke$ha then I will have lots of different, less important information down the sides in different fonts to attract the consumers eyes and not confuse them as one. For example other artist like Black Eyed Peas split. For the contents I will only put the pages down that are important such as the main features like interviews with artists, as this makes sure that the consumer isn’t wasting their time reading all the features and reading the ones they don’t want to know about, therefore this helps them get straight to what they want. For the double page spread I will make up a title about my page such as RAWR Ke$ha is here! This grabs the reader’s attention and makes them want to read on about this wild girl. I am still not sure about my colour scheme therefore I will experiment on photoshop later when I have actually created my magazine but I am think about using neutral colours such as yellow and green or grey, white and black as they aren’t gender specific. Therefore I could mix contrasting colours such as grey, yellow and black as the yellow is really bright so it makes it stand out and look colourful, whereas the black and grey gives it a sophisticated look for it to look more like my music genre of sophisticated pop. For example I could use yellow on the name of the magazine so it stands out and people remember it when wanting to buy it again. Although before doing all that I researched further, into my artists and my music magazine development. For example as I am basing my music magazine mainly on my artist Ke$ha who was voted highest by my consumer from my questionnaire. Therefore I have searched for photos and information on her to see how she dresses, acts, personal information . This will help me created a model of her when I take picture in the sort of clothes and act like her to make my magazine look more real.

Drafts & development