This week I am going to be focusing on constructing the front cover of my magazine. I've already developed and manipulated an image which I am going to use for the front cover. I will be looking back at the codes and conventions as well as my layout and feature plans. This will significantly help me to manage my time, as I know what I should be doing. 

IMAGES FOR MY CONTENTS PAGE
  This is a short animation which is representing different sets of images that I am going to use for my contents page of my magazine. The compositions are based on modelling, events and objects. Once I am going to be constructing my contents page I will think about the right choice of the images which is going to depend on the features that I have already structured within my planning. Now I need to carefully match a particular feature with the right image that will encourage the readers to view a certain page of my music magazine.

IMAGES FOR MY FRONT COVER AND DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD - RESULTS
This is a short animation which shows the result of my planned photo shot, Overall, I am quite happy with the final outcome as I gathered a variety of different shots. This will make my construction process much quicker and easier as I will have a variety of images to pick from for my front cover as well as the DPS and contents page. Besides, within the animation I included different outcomes to show the way I played around with the lighting as well as the angles of the images. Some of the images very overexposed, whereas others were underexposed. I tried to balance the lighting in order to keep a high quality image, which I can then manipulate and improve using Photoshop. 

PLANNING IMAGES FOR MY MUSIC IMAGES

This is a presentation which I've created in order to show my planning for images which I am going to be taking for my front cover, double page spread and contents page. I explained why I chose particular props, what I will need, when I am going to take the images and where. This plan will then help me to manage my time as well as to stay organised to make sure my decisions are thought out and well planned.

MAKING DECISIONS ON CONTENTS PAGE AND IMAGES

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD: For my double page spread I am planning to create an interview with an unknown artist.  This is because my questionnaire results showed that 70% of respondents is looking for interviews within magazine content. I also created a question which asked respondents about unsigned / unknown artist. The responds were balanced meaning that the target audience doesn't mind hearing about new artists. Within the context I am planning to talk about present achievement of the artists as well as their future plans and goals. My aim is to introduce the unknown artist to the rest of the readers from the best perspective. Furthermore, the images that I will be using for the DPS will come from the same photo shot that I am going to take for my front cover. I am still not sure weather I am going to use a portrait or long shot image within the DPS as this will depend on the photo shot results. Besides, this also depends how I am going to structure the layout, as two last drafts are quite different from each other and I planned already to take different elements from each after making decisions on my context. However, the use of images from the same shoot will allow me to make a clear link between the front cover and double page spread. At the same time I will save lot's of time and I will be able to make my photo shot more challenging and interesting.

CONTENTS PAGE: For my contents page I will include a large amount of interviews features (as I mentioned above this is because 70% of respondents is looking for interviews within a music magazine). I will be also focusing on album reviews as 50% of the respondents is willing to see it as well as the upcoming gigs. I might also include small amount of reader interactions and competitions which will be placed in the 'regular' column. This is a list of content features which I am planning to include within my contents page:

 REGULARS:
- TRANSMISSION - more from the mailbox- COMPETITIONS- win Simple Plan's widescreen new album 'Obsession', two superb publications and the fantastic new 'Untapped Power ' vinyl deluxe edition 
- LETTERS - Got something to say? Let us hear it - shout it out loud!

 REVIEWS:
- The best releases and live concerts
- NEW RELEASES- The latest deliveries from Katy Perry, Annie Lenox, Janet Jackson, The Outfield, Carrie Underwood, Sean Paul, Rihanna and many more!
- Marilyn Crimson comes back with a new album
- The unstoppable rise of the Royal Muse!
- Live previews - gig previews from Lady Gaga, Kylie, Ciara, T-Pain, Brian Nash plus full listings - who's playing where and when!

 NEWS:
- Royal Sound and their duo debut at the World's Music Award
- Natalie La Rose -  New releases on the horizon
- Mainstream success followed by years on the ropes. In the eyes of Marc Anthony
- Freeze Frame - the story of the month!

 FEATURES:
- 'My whole starting point is that I have nothing to loose' Exclusive interview with Jason Posner
- Sam Smith - from the earliest days, through triumphs and tragedies until now!
- Failed journalist, turned singer and songwriter. All about Ed-Sheeran
- 'It was the most depressing night of our lives. No one looked at the stage' - Uptown Funk
- Who? What? Why? Where? 2015 UK TOUR
- 'The time of our lives' - Coldplay
- The news from The Victory Parade - multi-instrumentalists and songwriters geniuses

In terms of the images I am planning to capture photographs of both people and objects for my contents page, depending on the subject of the cover stories. For example; for the competition section I will take a photograph of a vinyl CD for the audience to visualise the promoted gift. Besides, for the new released albums I am thinking of taking an image of CD rows to empathize the amount of new albums being realised within a month time. Whereas for visualising gig events I am going to use images which I took during my holidays in Poland where I went to a concert. 

FRONT COVER: For my front cover of the magazine I am planning to use a portrait image of a young artist wearing Dr. Dre beats. In terms of the content I planned to use features such as ; 

•'My whole starting point is that I have nothing to loose' Exclusive interview with Jason Posner

•'The time of our lives' - Coldplay

•Sam Smith - from the earliest days, through triumphs and tragedies until now!

•Who? What? Why? Where? 2015 UK TOUR - Don't miss out 

•Natalie La Rose -  New releases on the horizon

While creating my front cover of the magazine I might consider adding or changing features listed above. However, these are the main cover stories which I want to introduce to the readers. I mostly focused on interviews and informations about famous artists as this is something the audience wants to see according to my questionnaire results. Besides, I decided to contrast the famous artists with the unknown as my Survey Monkey responses were balanced. Besides, for the main cover story I will focused on unknown artist whereas the other headlines are going to be dominated by famous musicians. This could encourage people to look at the unsigned artists and give them a chance to shine. 

CONTINUATION - HOUSE STYLE
 

This is  a continuation of my previous post in which I will be making decisions about  the house style of my magazine.  I will be discussing the fonts I'm planning to use, their size, 

use of colour and layout. 

 

FONTS / FONT SIZE  - The font within the magazines can be seen as an important aspect as the typography can build up a mood or a reaction within the audience which could then encourage them to read on a particular text. Within my magazine I am aiming to keep the consistency of 'vintage' / 'retro' fonts (which I used within the logo) within the headlines and the cover stories. However, depending on the type of a story, I will choose a correct font which will reflect the mood of the event. This also includes the size of the font, which will be much bigger for headlines or key concepts within a particular text. Within the smaller sized text for example; the double page spread, I am planning to use simple and easy readable fonts such as 'Browallia New' or 'Calibri'. Besides, I also want to keep the size of the font between 10 to 12. The average size of the font will make the text more appealing to read. In order to keep the house style consistency within my magazine I will try to bring one font over to another page. For example;  I will use 'Arial Black' font within the cover of my magazine and I will bring the same font over to the next page or I will use the same font style for all the headlines within the front cover. Then I could play around with the size of the font to build up mood and attention of the viewers. 

 

 

COLOUR - Similarly to my logo design I am planning to focus my house style colour scheme around three main colours which include; black, white and red. I chose this colour scheme as it's very simplistic but at the same time classic. I am planning to show this consistency throughout my front cover page, contents page and DPS as I will be playing around with these colours within different elements on each page. In terms of the colours within the text itself I am planning to use wob (white text on black background or other way round). This will allow me to create contrasting composition which will make the overall layout look more interesting and appealing to the audience. The red will be used within highlighting the key ideas and headlines as it's an eye catching colour full of symbolism. In terms of the link between the colour and the font I will try to create compositions which will build up a mood or reaction within the audience. This will significantly depend on the topic of the text.

LAYOUT- The layout of the text is another important factor which will allow me to place different magazine elements in  most effective positions that will then attract readers attention. I've already created and sketched my layout ideas which I am going to use within the construction process. I developed two ideas for each ; contents page, front cover and double page spread. I will be selecting elements of both layout ideas during my construction process. By doing this I am going to be more confident as I will be able to join a suitable layout to a particular subject. I will make sure that the overall composition is appealing to the audience. I will do that by looking back at the codes and conventions from magazines which I've analysed in my research. This will particularly include Q magazine which focuses on pop and alternative music genre similarly to me. 

LANGUAGE - Within my double page spread I will be focusing on language techniques which I already identified within my research. I am planning to use informal language as my questionnaire research focused around people aged 17-23. By doing this the audience will find the magazine content more appealing towards them as it's going to become easily readable. The audience will be persuaded to read the magazine and treat it as a way of escapism because they will enjoy the context written using informal language.
 

PLANNING THE LOGO AND THE HOUSE STYLE FOR MY MAGAZINE

In this post I will be planning the logo and the house style for my magazine. I will include suggestions about ; the name of the magazine, the font and size, type of language, use of colour and layout. This part of my planning will be based on my research as well as the codes and conventions of pop music magazines. I will make decisions about all these different elements. This will make my further construction much easier and quicker. 

  TITLE SUGGESTIONS:

BEAT / B.E.A.T

I quite like this magazine title as it's short, meaning it could be easily memorable. It also contains a clear link to music, however to me the 'beat' itself would not be very recognisable by the audience as it seems to be not strong enough. I simply think it's not as catchy as it could be. To develop it even further I was thinking about placing the dots within the letter to then form an acronym which will make the title more interesting and memorable. The acronym would be focused around the 'motto' of the magazine. 

STEREO

Stereo is another magazine title. Similarly to the first idea I think this title is not strong enough, although it shows a clear relation to the music. This is why I am thinking about combining the 'Beat' and the 'Stereo' together in order to get ' Stereo Beat'. I think this composition will be more effective as it will allow me to be more creative within developing my logo. Besides, the composition of both words also makes a big difference as it makes both titles of the magazine much stronger and memorable. 

 DYNAMIC 

The last suggestion is titled 'Dynamic'. This is another title which I quite like as it automatically builds up a positive thinking full of energy and joyful people in a lively wild environment such as club or festival. Besides, I like this title as it evokes reaction and thoughts inside readers minds, however for someone who doesn't known that the magazine is based on music the title won't be a strong clue as it does not show a clear relation to it.

In conclusion, I think all three title suggestions have positives and negatives however I have decided that I am going to combine 'Stereo' and 'Beat' together. This will allow me to create a creative logo design which will reinforce the relation to music even further. I am planning to make the logo quite vintage but at the same time minimalistic using no more than three colours. The logo itself will show a clear link to my house style. 


CONSTRUCTION PROCESS 

Here are some print screens from the construction process of my logo. During this process I experimented with using different font sizes as well as different types of fonts and designs. My aim was to reinforce the relation to music as well to create a minimalistic logo with no more than three colours  as I mentioned during my planning.

This is a print screen representing the first version of my logo. I really like this font due to the sharp edged style but also the 'O' letter which is different front others. This is effective as the central letter creates some type of separation between two words, although they are joined together. Another element which I found effective, was the minimalism of colours. The white and black together creates a classic composition.

This is my second logo design, in which I focused on separating the two words together.  Using Photoshop I placed both words within a    rectangle which I then cropped to separate them. Within the 'stereo' word I kept the filling of the box white and the colour of the font black. I followed the opposite process for the 'beat' word. This created a wob effect, which I find very effective due to the expressive contrast. At the end I joined both words together. This worked really well as I managed to bring attention towards both words. This allowed me to create a minimalistic effect.

Although, I was quite happy with the logo version above I still wanted to add a detail which will directly link the logo to music. Within some letters of the 'Aristotle Punk' font which I used, the letters inside were filled in with colour. This could be also seen within the letter 'O' which is the central focus within the logo composition. I've decided to add an image of a vinyl CD which will add a small, red detail to my composition.

In the final stage I am planning to slightly blur in the vinyl CD, as at the moment it doesn't match the tone of the black used within the letters. However, I am planning to leave the composition as it is  now. I am quite happy with it as it's very simplistic and minimalistic. Within my further research I am planning to use the colour scheme of ; white, black and red in order to create the house style for my magazine. I will be linking the logo design to my house style plan. 

 

 

This is my final version of the magazine logo. In the last stage I worked on the vinyl CD. I applied 'Ink Outline' filter which made the image very similar to the font style. This worked really well as I only had to play around with the brightness and contrast in order to fit it into the whole design. I am really happy with the final outcome of the logo as it's very contrasting and expressive.

 

FINAL LAYOUT DESIGNS

This is a list of final layout designs which I am planning to use while making my final product. This will help me to outline which information is going to go where. I created two final layouts for each: front cover, contents page and double page spread. This is because I am still not sure which one out of the two layouts will be the most suitable for my content. However, I am thinking about using both layout plans for each page to come out with a successful outcome in the end as I like different elements in each layout.

FRONT COVER: 

CONTENTS PAGE:

 DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD: