Thursday, 6 January 2011

My magazine was inspired by KERRANG magazine which was all about heavy metal music. A lot of magazine was based on that but for my magazine to be original I had include my own take on things. Like I stated in my initial planning I explained that there were a lot of sub genres of rock and that I would be going down the grunge route opposed to the KERRANG route which was metal/emo music, so that I would be doing an original magazine. Indeed my magazine would follow similar codes and conventions of KERRANG magazine such as the colours which are very masculine; the red, black and white would typical of these types of magazines. I included a masthead featuring all the artist within the magazine; I also add the Unique Selling Point (USP) which was the prize give away of a pair of head phones and a bar code in the bottom left corner of the front page. So I certainly follow all the codes and conventions any magazine would, without them it would look like a magazine. My magazine would most likely fit into stores such as HMV due to the fact that the variety of genres they advertise is important, also the age range for HMV is also the close to the target audience age range for my magazine which would be 17 to 23 years. They also advertise KERRANG within these shops which would have a similar target audience which the chart shows. This is a good indication that my target audience will be able to find where it is being sold and would be suitable place in there.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine represents teenagers as what they are usually stereotyped as, aggressive, loud and out of control. I drew from this stereotype to create a magazine which looked aggressive with the central image which was also a 17 year old male with an angry look on his face. Even though a lot of teenagers aren't like this it is the only view i can go by. With this issue i feel that it would appeal more to college students with the same type of views as the main article. It explores their aggressive nature of music and exploited it by drawing on what the think, the main article essentially was design to provoke readers into arguing on whether it is right or not. I made sure that the image on the front reflected the genre of the music which is rock (which the reputation they built up though smashing drum kits and breaking guitars) by making the glare look menacing.
The target audience I aimed it at was 17 to 23 year old because the language used in this is quite advanced, and the subject matter is for older students. The article music is war was designed for those kind of the educated sort of people. I mention Blumer and Katz in my preparation power point and took note of what would this article do in terms of the needs and gratification theory, The magazine entertains the reader with interesting disputes, and it definitely creates a sense of identity, whether they agree with the article or not.
The choice of language was entirely my own, I didn't copy any other magazines tone I just created the magazine which i would read it like, basically the main article was all about my views of R&B and how there is no point to it, so really it is a teenager complaining about something which conveniently is what the stereotypical teenager would do. The language is very masculine because it is all about violence and war, I enphasised the word war by writing it in red among other pieces of text which I felt emphasizing.
Like my last magazine I used photoshop to create it, but this time I did every aspect of my magazine in photoshop opposed to what id did last and make the text sections in word and then transfer it onto the page. The advantages of doing this is that you can do a lot more creative and therefore more professional articles with it. I had two designs for my front cover, one looking through the broken glass and the other (which as chosen to be on the front cover) with the cracks layed across the face. It was actually a very simple process. I download a series of brushes for photoshop which were broken glass brushes, the first image (the one i didn't use) was done by adding a layer which i then place the paint brush over the selected area of the face. I then changed the contrast of the original image so that the picture look as though light was shining through the broken bit. The image i use was done in a similar way apart from the face which looks as though it had been scratch was done with the same brush tool but instead of using the paint brush i used the dodge tool (it lightens areas when used). with this I place the tool over areas of the face and applied it to them making it look like scratches to the face.
I feel that i have develop a lot since my first attempt at this task, the main reason was because i look a lot more into what makes a magazine look like a magazine, because last time my double page spread was to bland and boring to make anyone want to read it, this time however I made it look more professional and visual enticing. My ability to use photoshop also improved to the point that it look like it was actually a magazine opposed to a poster.

Tuesday, 4 January 2011

Front cover
Contents page

Double page







This was the final central image I went with because the earlier image I went with didn't suit the front cover. I thought that this was a lot more manacing because the effect of the shattered glass tool on the face makes it look as though the image is scared from the broken glass.








This one of the front covers which I experimented with in photoshop, In the end this wasn't the one I went with in the end.




These are the photos which I took for my magazine contents and double page spread. I chose from three of these images and included them in there. I also quite heavily photoshopped it so that it looked correct and look like the chosen genre.

Monday, 3 January 2011


This is my flat plan. The crude version until my magazine is complete. I have decided on gojng with the same house style with the red,black and white all the way through, it is still undecided on what the pictures would be but i will be able to chose the best ones out of the series of photos i have currently taken. I wanted this magazine to have a violent look about it because of the music it is accociated with, the whole Rock/grunge genre is all about loud guitars, shouting and drums. which I thought would be ideal for teenagers who are my target audience. So i indeed caried out the same format of the broken glass and ripped paper through out to maintain a consistancy of a violent magazine, hence the parental advisory which would be ignored any way. The font i went with in the end was called 28 Days Later, convieniently named after the zombie apocalypse which is also a violent action film.
The double page spread also included a prize give away which appealed to my target audience because of how popular the skullcandy head phones are for teenagers.


Saturday, 1 January 2011


These are the fonts which chose for my title called Rendition. I looked up what rendition meant from Wikipedia and it said In law, rendition is a "surrender" or "handing over" of persons or property. I chose to have these fonts for when it comes to making my 2nd magazine. these all caught my eye because the would all right for my rock magazine but my personal favorite would be the bottom right title because of the block capital and the styling of the letters. I myself made the middle section of the writing red because of my colour scheme which happens to be black,white and red.





Maslow's hierarchy of needs
This theory was created during 1943 by a psychologist called Abraham Maslow, he studied the human motivation, This theory can also be applied to the media and magazines.
For a magazine to be successful it must aim to at the very least hit one of these criteria and in particular the "self-actualization" as it is at the top of the list and therefore the most important.The high the pyrimide the more important and therefore more attractive the magazine.



KERRANG! magazine is a curtain magazine designed exclusively for the rock?metal genre. Whats interesting about Kerrang is that because Rock has some many sub-genres it branches of into a lot of those creating a large range of magazines which appeals to a lot of people but doesn't become too vague. I have chosen to look at Kerrang mainly due to get inspiration for my magazine but to also see how a rock?metal magazine is layed out. These are the special addition of the slipknot front covers which in its sell is its unique selling point They all have the exact layout, the same house style which appears to black, white red and the beige title, the only aspect of the magazine which had change was the central image. The target audience for Kerrang magazine would be aimed at 16 to 221 years old's which listen to the The unique selling point for the "free poster special!" which is indeed directly aimed at teenagers which hang posters in their rooms. The front cover featuring Avenged sevenfold in predominantly black clothes and hair with the majority wearing sun glasses, the title saying "sex, drugs, violence" would most definetly appeal to a lot of young people as the would be getting up to a lot of that, the lead singer and the person on the left both have weapons where on the back have nothing almost as though they need protecting
Their facial expression suggest show arrogance and aggression towards the the viewer as almost like a show of dominance, The teeth also are defiantly looking like a show of dominance, almost like a peacock shows its tail feathers off to show its status. The house colours are certainly very masculine as the red and black suggest danger and aggression which seem to be amplified of the white back ground.
This front cover is on of the more rock/emo genre types which i mentioned before in which it features emo band 30 Seconds to mars but also a secondary image including iron maiden, so a bit of a difference between the two bands. The y have the same USP which the other magazine included but has a different house style which includes yellow and blue which is less masculine than the other magazine which may suggest that they are look for both genders to be interested in the magazine. Their pose also seems more passive which may suggest that they exert less aggression but also wear black which suits their emo image.
Due to the grades which i got for this unit of work i have decide to redo my AS course work media magazine, this time however i have decided to do an entirely different genre to my previous magazine which was pop/R&B. My magazine genre which I chose is going to be the rock grunge genre which is indeed a lot more tailored to my interests.