Double-page spread- Planning

Here is an example of a double page spread from a popular, published magazine called Kerrang! magazine.

Analysing a Music Magazine

Analysing Kerrang! magazine.

Kerrang! magazine is a popular music based magazine which is published in the United Kingdom by Bauer Consumer Media. The magazine was first published on June 6th, 1981. Kerrang! is a weekly magazine that is highly acclaimed for representing many 'emo' or 'metacore' music.

Iconography is important for any magazine that wants to publish itself on a routine basis. The Title Kerrang! is iconographic as it unique and features the same in every issue. In the example issue above part of the title has been covered up for the celebrities head however due to iconography and recognition the audience still know that it is Kerrang! magazine; even though only the first three letters are eligible.

The colour black is a distinguishable feature of Kerrang! magazine. Black is used in every issue that I have researched and come across. Other features are also consistant throughout every issue such as the barcode being on situated at the bottom of the page, on the front page, in every release. Another feature of Kerrang! is that they have celebrity status on the front page, situated centrally and filling most of the page. The celebrites are usually solo performers or group bands such as 'Greenday', 'Paramore' and 'YouMeAtSix'. In the photo above the main person represented is the singer who is in the front out of the four band members. He is pointing at the front, towards the reader, which involved the audience in the magazine, including them in it.

The tagline "Panic At The Disco" is another popular band. The word 'Panic' is written in red. Red has connotations of anger, panic, blood and pain; these are all features of metal and emo music. The word 'panic' also stands out more than the rest of the text.

The background is white and therfore suggests blankness, clearness and stops the page from looking crowded and overfilled. Both male and females have been placed onto the front cover to reinforce that the magazine targets both males and females. However, the magazine rarely features black song artists or anyone other than white english or americans. The magazine generally targets an English audience by using American ideologies. The magazine is based in the UK however represents mainly American singer/song writers such as My Chemical Romance and Greenday to target other audiences.

In the front cover above you can see that Kerrang! have used 'Plus!' and 'Inside!' to entice the reader into buying the copy and seeing what is inside the issue. Plugs, side photographs/imags and sublines are an effective method of doing this.

The image is a medium shot of the band.

The largest text on the page is the masthead and the headline, both include block capital text to make it stand out as if the letters are screaming out at you.

Titles for my magazine

• BluesIsBack
  
• Soul


• BringBackTheBlues


• Bluesoul


• Blue Blues

The name for my magazine that I have decided to go for is Soul. This is because it targets the audience who enjoy Blues music without having to directly include 'Blues' in the title. It is also short and catchy so it will be memorable for the readers. 'Soul' has many connotations- Life, unknown, peace and importance. These features are significant as it will entice the reader into purchasing the magazine; and to ensure continued, regular purchase.

The title 'Soul' will also fit much easier onto my magazine front cover whereas 'BringBackTheBlues' would take up more room and the layout of the overall piece would be less effective.

As part of my planning I have decided to include this list of potential titles for names so the reader of this blog knows my thought process as I concluded on the title for my magazine.

Here is an example of a draft front cover of what my magazine would look like with the title 'The Blue Blues' and 'Soul'

Music genre

The music genre I have decided to represent is 'Blues' music.

I have decided to do this because of the following reasons:

• Blues do not have many magazines that represent it with only a handful of very popular magazines.
• The genre still has a very wide fan base and I believe many people would buy it, if it was properly represented.
• Although I am not a fan of Blues music, I believe it should be a more appreciated genre type and a magazine may help promote the music for new audiences.

Music Magazine Analysis

In this section I will analyse magazine front covers. To do this I will look at the music genres, target audience, sub genres, cost of production, layout and design. I have decided to create a magazine that appeals to an audience with limited sub genres as I want to target one specific genre. The music genres that strike me as the most popular types are: Rock, Metal, Pop, Hip-
Hop and Rap. However, because these genres are very popular there are already many magazines that have large fan bases for these music types. Rock music, (with all its sub genres included such as Acid Rock, Psychedelic Rock and Punk Rock), already has many magazines that target it: Kerrang!, NME and Mojo are examples of this. For this reason I have decided to choose a music genre that is largely popular however does not have many magazines that advertise and represent it. The music genre I have therefore decided to represent is Blues music. The leading Blues magazine in the United Kingdom is "Blues Matters!" magazine. This magazine is similar to many of the Rock magazines in layout and design. The central image is a band member who was looking directly at the camera when the shot was taken, catching our line of sight immediately. This creates a personal, more interactive feel between the song artists and the audience/general public. The magazine similarly has a large Masthead that is the magazines name. As you can see from NME front covers (see above), the Headline 'The Automatic' is the name of a band that is featured in the magazine. Similarly, Holly Golightly (as seen on Blues Matters above) is also the name of a featured band. The colour is also important as each genre can be identified by their colour scheme and layout. For example, rock and emo music tend to have black colours associated with it. This is done because that music genre wants to create certain images and ideologies- black represents darkness, the unknown and mystery. This suggests that rock music wants to appear as mysterious and different from the rest. Dark red is associated for heavy metal music; this colour connotes fire and flames which is an iconographic symbol for this genre type. The 'Blues' music similarly has blue as their main iconographic colour; I assume this is because of the name of the genre and that the reader perhaps expects to see this colour.

Examples of magazine front covers

Here is a compilation of magazine front covers with different genres and purposes.

Introduction to the Main Task

Today I am beginning the music magazine task that has been outlined as the main production -task. I will include a Front cover, contents page and a double-page spread.

I will begin by researching music magazines that have been popular and had high sales rates and then decide on the genre for my music magazine.

Here are a list of music genres:

Acid Jazz
Alternative
Ancient Greek Music
Art Song
Black Metal
Blues
Boogie Woogie
Breakbeat
Caribbean
Classical
Country
Dancehall Reggae
Death Metal
Disco
Drum and Bass
Early Music
Electro
Folk
Funk
Garage
Gothic
Hardcore
House
Industrial
Jazz
Latin
Lounge
Medieval
Metal
Musical
Opera
Progressive Rock
Punk and Hardcore
R&B and Soul
Rap and Hip-Hop
Reggae
Rock and Pop
Rockabilly
Salsa
Ska
Tango
Techno
Western

As you can see there are many music genres to choose from. The most popular genres are Rock, Pop, Jazz, Blues, R&B, Metal, Heavy Metal, Country and Alternative.

Now I will include a few examples of music genres and give examples of popular music talents that have shaped that particular genre.

Rock and Roll- Elvis Presley
Early British Rock- The Rolling Stones
Surf Music- The Beach Boys
Folk Rock- Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell

Conclusion of School/College Magazine

In this post I will form an overview of the whole education magazine that I have created on this blog. Here are the main focuses of my blog:

1. Introduction to production outlining my aims and objectives

2. Magazine front cover

3. Magazine analysis pages 1-4

4. LIIAR- using the media terminology

5. Conventions

6. Target audience

7. Title for magazine ideas

To conclude, the magazine front cover I have made, in my opinion, was successful however could have been improved. The analysis was in-depth and I included a thorough evaluation of the LIIAR techniques: Language, Institution, Ideology, Audience, Representation.

Magazine Analysis #3

On the front page I included a WordArt image, "Want to know Wyke?". This entices the reader into questioning their knowledge and suggests that the magazine can help them.

I also included a price of 50p, bar code and website address-www.collegemag.co.uk. This was used for added effect and realism.

I used photoshop to edit the image and cropped it.

I used a coloured background to make it stand out and more appealing to a younger audience. The whole page was colourful to indicate straight away that the magazine will have a light-hearted approach and not wholly serious.

I have used many rhetorical questions in my magazine front cover. "Want to Know Wyke?" "What's happening at Wyke?" and "Job Hunting?" are examples of rhetorical questions. This has been done to include the reader.

I included a Byline- "EVENTS, SPORTS, CLUBS, ENRICHMENT'S, LATEST INFO." This informs the reader and tells them what is inside the issue.

I also included plugs to add realism to the magazine and information. I separated the plugs with bullet points as I have seen this in magazines before and found it adds to the effect.

The Masthead "What's Happening At Wyke?" is large and in coloured font to make it stand out.

To summarise, the magazine front cover of "What's Happening At Wyke?" aims at targeting college students and in my opinion, was successful.

Magazine Analysis #2

The image I used is a medium shot. Before taking the picture I planned out the following:

1. How the student model will be situated, her facial expressions and the feelings she is trying to portray.


2. The location of the photo and whether that will affect the image.


3. The Mise-en-scene - what is in the background of the photo.


4. The props in the picture. In addition, costumes are important.


5. If I will crop the image or insert text or editing.
   

The student was situated in a domestic setting to show a personal and relaxed mood. I asked her to smile as this would envoke a feeling of happiness or ease in the reader and portrays an ideology that Wyke College is fun. In addition, her body language is relaxed.

Mise-en scene in my image- I decided to include the student, as this is relevant to the medium. I included a domestic background for the reasons given above. I positioned the camera so that the student filled most of the frame; however some background was intentionally shown.

The costume in the image was black and white, to reinforce the schooling institutions ideologies. The student models line of sight is in the centre of the page so that the reader will immeadiately draw their attention to her.

Magazine Analysis #1

My Magazine Front Cover

Types of Camera shots I could use

I could use a variety of camera shots when taking my central image for the magazine. Here is an overview of several different types of camera shots:

Extreme Wide Shot

The object is so far from the shot you can not see it. Often referred to as an establishing shot.

Very Wide Shot

The subject of the camera is just visible, but the main focus is to show its environment or surroundings.

Wide Shot/Long Shot

The focus of the camera, or the subject, takes up the full frame but you can still see some of its surroundings. An example of this is a camera shot of a whole person where you can see the full body on the picture.

Medium Shot or Mid Shot

Shows some part of the subject. More detailed than a Long Shot but still showing most of the person or subject.

Medium Close Up

More focused than a Mid-Shot. Shows subject in more detail.

Close Up

A feature of the subject or focusing image is shown in more detail and takes up the whole frame.

Extreme Close Up

Shows the feature in extreme detail. This shot is often used in films, usually in Horror genres to focus on something such as the "bad guy's" eyes or in a romance genre to show the characters lips before they kiss.

Cutaway Shot

A shot of something that is not the current action, only used in film.

Cut-In shot

Shows some part of the subject in detail.

What I will include in my magazine

The type of magazine I am aiming to produce is one that is informal, aimed at teenagers and students which provides information regarding upcoming events at local colleges. It will be a small-time magazine that discusses concerts/gigs near to the college or that students are involved in, clubs and groups that are recruiting members in college, Enrichment Courses that students can join, sports events, advice on how to get involded with the College and other events. I aim to include photographs of events or groups to give the reader an idea of what they are like.

Here is a draft for the Contents Page that will appear on my magazine:

Draft of my Magazine front cover

Here is a draft of my magazine front cover.

Ideas for Magazine Title

Here is a list of names I may use as my magazine title:

MoneyMania?

Students Savings

Tips for Trainee Teachers

School Stress

Wyke Magazine

What's aHappening At Your College?

What's Happening At Wyke?

Worried at Wyke?

Why are students used on magazine covers?

Students have been used on the magazine covers because it is relevant to the target audience and issues that the magazine discusses. Teenagers instantly show the reader that the magazine will be about youths and issues surrounding that target age group. The fact that they are in uniforms shows us that they are young adults that attend a college or school.



The students are posing for the picture, showing personality as there eyes are meeting ours. The posing look also creates a staged appearance to the photo.

Conventions- Comparing Covers

So far, I have analysed three magazine front covers: DisCover, Secondary and Young Money. To recap here is a brief overview of the covers. DisCover Magazine had a central image of a woman, just showing her face and hand. The purpose of the magazine was to teach students, of primarily high-school age. The magazine was preparing readers/students for exams, school or college stress and touches on the financial expense of buying stationary and revision books, offering discounts and deals to students and parents.

Secondary Magazine had a front and back cover that had images of a male and female student. The purpose of this magazine was to inform teachers of new ways of teaching and to provide information and statistics about teaching and education across the country. This magazine was not intended for students, but for teachers or perhaps parents.

Young Money Magazine had an image of a woman. The image was the centre picture and she was the first thing a reader sees when looking at the page. This magazine was intended for college or university students who are struggling with managing their money.

The masthead of the magazines were DisCover, Secondary and Young Money. On the cover for DisCover there is a logo for the magazine, the logo is consistent throughout each issue the magazine publishes.

All magazines have subheadings. This is important as it tells the reader what is inside the issue.

Some magazines have advertisements of some sort, DisCover advertises revision books as one of the plugs mentions discounts and money-off vouchers. The Young Money magazine implicitly promotes the clothing that the woman is wearing and the Anchor Woman that is featured in the issue. Secondary Magazine does not advertise because its primary motive is to teach and sell itself in that sense, whereas Young Money and DisCover have another agenda as they have products to sell and promote to readers, e.g. Student Cards, Revision books, stationary etc.

All the magazines also have a central image, all showing students. This must be effective because it portrays the magazines purpose, whether it is teaching/educating college students on financial management, or aimed at teachers and parents.

Analysing Magazines: 3-Young Money

Here I will analyse another magazine front cover. This magazine title is Young Money and its aim is to educate "College students and young adults on money management, careers, investing, financial aid and credit and debt." This magazine has been described as the "leading magazine for college students".

In contrast to Secondary Magazine, Young Money has decided to use a colourful background which is not blank or one-coloured, but shows a street and trees, implying that the woman is standing outside a college or near a housing estate. This background is important as it creates a more natural feel, as though she has been approached on the streets with a camera on her way home from college. If the background was all one colour, or blank white it would have appeared more staged and obviously planned.

The white shirt she is wearing reinforces the educational ideology of a uniform, we immediately associate her as a student. The shirt also makes her stand out, as the white is a contrast to the darker background. Her shirt is unbuttoned, her collar is slightly up and she is wearing a stylish belt and necklace. These all create a more appealing cover for younger people, this is more socially acceptable and also suggests that she has finished her day at college and the smile and active face suggests she may be ready to go shopping; which relates to the aim of the page, money management.

Similar to DisCover magazine, Young Money has a central image of a visually attractive woman. The woman is posing for the picture, smiling and is young. The womans hair is straight, tidy and well-kept creating a more eye-catching picture. Her hair is also slightly wind-swept to show that she is outside.

Language is important in the text for the following reasons. The magazine title Young Money immeadiately targets young people who are perhaps having difficulty managing their money. The text your life, right now also targets the reader straight away, directly making the reader feel involved. The title page shows several purposes of the magazine, "Car Sharing Comes to Campus" tells the reader that the magazine will address managing money to buy cars for college. The use of another person, directly named "Jenna Lee", could perhaps show celebrity status at the college, improving the ideology of the magazine. At the bottom of the page there is a website address www.youngmoney.com and a price, $3.95 and a date. This text is in small font because it is not as important for the magazine, however needs to be on the page.

Analysing Magazines:2- Secondary

Secondary teachers magazine is a magazine dedicated to an informative approach towards teaching and learning alike, using facts and figures to support its points. The magazine has many advantages that encourage people to buy and read its content.

Tho choice of colour is effective as the white background makes the students stand out. White symbolises cleanliness and purity, as well as blankness. This suggests that nothing else is there, just the student raising his hand or holding a pencil. The uniform colour is also effective, the red is more appropriate to place on a white background than if they were wearing a white shirt without a jumper, for example. The minimal amount of colours used on this front page makes the whole piece stand out. On the front page, the page with the male student, the text is mainly blue whereas the back page with the female student has mainly pink text. This is to illustrate social/ideological differences from and the male female students. Pink is usually associated with females and suggests femininity which most teenage/college student age girls aspire to, similarly blue is a more socially excepted colour to be associated with male.

Institution

The front page shows a black student raising his hand, presumably in a lesson as he is wearing a school uniform. The fact that he is black suggests that Wyke is a multicultural college, encouraging a sense of social acceptance for everyone. He is raising his hand, this shows the college institutions idealistic belief that students should actively be enthusiastic towards learning. His facial expressions suggest enthusiasm, happiness and eagerness towards lessons. This contradicts the ideology which is usually portrayed in the media that teenagers of college age are rebellious, outruly and unconcerned with their education.

The girl is looking to her left, away from the readers eye, as though we are watching her chatting with friends. This creates a personal feel for the text and encourages the social ideology. She is also dressed in school uniform and reinforces the ideologies enforces by the educational system.

The question on the front cover "Do boys and girls learn differently?" is effective as it grips the reader and informs them that the question to this will be answered inside. The use of language is important as it sums up the piece of the text, determines whether a reader will read on and can be used to show ideologies and opinions. The use of a rhetorical question causes the reader to think about the question, however does not have to answer it.

The white background suggests blankness, like a clean page, suggesting that fresh starts are available at the college.

Analysing Magazines:1- DisCover

This is a magazine front cover for DisCover Magazine, which is a school learning, educational publication. This design has decided to use a young, attractive female figure as the central image. This encourages the ideology of attractive girls attending the college and represents young people; which is the target audience the magazine is aiming to address.

There are little text on this page. The title DisCover is the most noticeable of the text. The other text is generally describing what the content of the magazine is.

I will analyse this front cover, as well as several others (see later blogs), to come to a decision regarding how to design my magazine cover. This front cover was found using http://www.google.co.uk/ and by clicking on a link appeared on Google Images. The link for this post was found on the link provided.

The colours used on this text are purple, to suggest something "out of the ordinary" and shocking. The colour purple is bright, exotic and interesting. The purpose of this magazine is not immediate just from viewing the front cover briefly, this is both an advantage and a disadvantage. An advantage from this is that readers may read more to find out what the magazine content is. A disadvantage of this is that readers may immeadiately lose interest as it does not follow the usual conventions of a front cover. The title DisCover encourages people to read on and discover what the magazine is about.

The conventions that it does follow is that there is a central image, a barcode, title of magazine and logo.

LIIAR- (using media terminology)

This blog will underline five key terms used as preparation for any media work. The five terms are:

• Language
• Ideology.
• Institution
• Audience
• Representation

LANGUAGE in the media are terms that are specific to the medium that they are associated. Several examples of language terminology that are specified to the media are Masthead, Splash, Plugs, Anchorage and Jump-line. This is important as it creates all the text that is used in the media. This can be seen in magazine front pages, billboards, on the television, the speech used as script for the radio, etc. Denotation and Connotation are also examples of language.

IDEOLOGY in the media is used to create, reinforce and alter aspirations and ideas. Ideology for a Wyke College, for example, would be that it offers aspirations for young people to mature socially and economically, after fulfilling a rewarding course and sustaining a high-paid job. This type of ideology is effective as it targets a specific audience and offers them the belief that they can be in a certain class or social group. E.g. X Factor reinforces the Ideological belief that the everyday member of the public can achieve high potential in the music industry.

Ideological values are displayed both explicitly and implicitly. Explicit values are clearly expressed, for example, Wyke openly states that its aim is to achieve high pass-rates in A levels and make students learn. The implicit values that are expressed would be that Wyke offers many courses from a wide-range of choices and mentors to encourage learning.

INSTITUTION is basically the company, business or person that controls the production of the media product. The promotional or advertising company can affect the final product because, even though they are ordinarily a corporation, they are still presented by people with their own beliefs and ideologies. These beliefs may affect the way the program is presented and the Representations that are portrayed.

The institution that I will use for my College magazine will be Wyke College, written by the students.

AUDIENCE is another example of something I will need to address in my work. The audience I am targeting is 16-18 year olds, who are hoping to attend Wyke, OR who already attend however want a broadened knowledge of the courses on offer at Wyke.

When evaluating what target audience to address you must first take a look at the social structure of the audience. Class is one way of defining this structure. I will not be targeting under-class people because they will not be attending Wyke. Similarly, Upper Class students are most likely not hoping to enroll either. Therefore I should take into accound the fact that my audiences class structure will most likely be Middle-Class.

Key points to make about Audience:

Age- 16-18 year olds for my magazine

Class- Middle/perhaps some lower class

Occupation- Students-mostly unemployed

Gender- Both male and female audience, my magazine should be gender neutral.

This is called S.E.G (Social and Economic Grouping).

REPRESENTATION will be used in my magazine front cover. I will be representing students of college age at 16-18. I will perhaps decided to include a central image of a student who is young and also attractive to represent the ideology of young people. I may decide to represent a student who appears to be from a Chinese ethnic background, for example, to illustrate that Wyke is a multi-ethnic college. Similarly, I could use a white student because the majority of people hoping to attend will be from this ethnic group. The students portrayed shall be represented as eager to learn and also have fun, I may include a picture of students working as a group, laughing, to encourage the feeling of a social acceptance at this College.

Introduction to the Practical Production

Practical Production- Preliminary Exercise

Welcome to Nathan Madsen's blog.

For this unit I will plan the layout of a new Wyke College Magazine. I will include photographs that have been edited to create effect, text which is both informative and humorous in approach, a podcast and a presentation using a slideshow software called PowerPoint.

This task will challenge and test my observational skills of the modern day media and how I present this is my work, the way in which I relate to my target audience and how I use media terminology however still make it suitable for a blog-style presentation.

Firstly, I will outline the target audience I wish to address. The social group I am aiming to attract with my magazine are both a male and female audience, aged 16-18, who are hoping to find out more about the college they are:

• Hoping to attend.
• Already a student at the College however want more knowledge on events and courses.
• Do not attend the College however would like more information on the subjects and courses taught, for example a parent/guardian or teaching assistant.

The social class I will most likely be attracting with my piece are middle-class students. This is because the majority of students, if not all, are from a middle-class family status. I will not be aiming to appeal to a under-class social group, for example, because the people in this society will not be interested in a College magazine.