In one of the previous media lessons, we analysed covers of music magazines that are already on the market.We were put into groups of four and we discussed ideas about the main features of a new music magazine. After that each of us had to do their own front cover of this magazine.
We came up with the idea of a magazine that every month represents a different genre of music and social groups so that it would appeal to many people and there would be a much wider audience. Although that is not typical at all for a music magazine, we think it will definitely help boost the magazine’s popularity and sales.
Our magazine is called “Mixture” which, is easy to remember and perfectly suitable as a title for a magazine that unites different types of music. It is aimed at males and females in the age group 16-25 who are interested in music.
In our group each of us produced their own cover for the magazine with different house style.
I chose to focus on rock music for my front page as that is the music I like and normally listen to.
The target audience of my cover of course are mainly fans of rock music.
My music magazine cover has used the forms and conventions of a usual magazine, so it does look like a real one. The masthead is bold, with big capital letters and it spans the entire width at the top of the magazine. For main cover image I put a cropped picture of myself (that had been taken in one of the lessons) dressed in black, wearing black eye shadows and looking straight at the camera. I put a plain red colour as a background because I wanted the cover to look more provocative and be able to grab the attention more easily. There is a banner across the bottom of the front page that gives details of what can be found in the magazine.
For the cover lines I used a white simple font so that the cover doesn't look too complicated.
In some ways my cover challenges the conventions of the most magazines on the market as it doesn't feature any graphics, special offers or gossip that would not be appropriate as they might be considered by the readers as too superficial and commercial.
It is important for a rock magazine that the information in it and the cover in particular is all about the music and about nothing else since for people who listen to rock, the music is usually of great importance.
There is also no boxed text and the information on the page is also not too much.
In order to attract the attention of my type of audience I chose for the cover the combination of black, white and red.
In order to make it appear more like a real rock magazine and to satisfy the interests of the target social group, the cover contains the most well-known names in the rock music industry as well as a picture of a famous rock band.
The cover also displays a bar code, issue date and price on the bottom right corner that every real magazine contains. It was a good idea for the magazine to be out monthly so that there would be more content and news about each genre and that makes the price of £3.00 also realistic.
Given that I am the person who is on the cover I had to develop skills to pose effectively. Focusing my look at the camera and expressing emotions as real as possible required efforts but eventually the result fulfilled completely my expectations.
I also became familiar with the proper usage of digital cameras.
I was introduced to Adobe Photoshop software in order to edit my pictures. This was very useful because I acquired new knowledge, for example how to add text on pictures and how to choose the right font and font size for each line on the cover. I learnt how to cut images out from backgrounds and how to place different layers that contained images and text. In my opinion this is basic knowledge required for developing further skills.
In conclusion I experienced in detail the whole process of creating a magazine cover which gave me a clear idea of how professional magazine editorial operates.
The potential media institution that might distribute our music magazine may be newsagents as well as big chain stores such as ‘Borders’.
If I had another chance to do my magazine cover page again, I would have planned it better. I would add some more rock looking pictures and would try to make the cover look more aggressive. I would also use may be a little bit lighter ranges of colour.
Friday, 17 October 2008
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