Photos for Music Magazine Contents Page and Double Page Spread

These are the photos for my contents page and double page spread, although they are mainly landscape instead of portrait, but with the help of photo shop I am able to transform the landscape photos into portraits when needed. Previously I have interviewed a couple of target audience and they reflected that they wish to see an acoustic guitar in the photos, so I asked my friends to model for my music magazine with the instrument along with different energetic levels.

Photos for Music Magazine Front Cover

These are photos which I have taken of my friend Connor at the park, I asked him to pose causally in front of the camera and also look into the lens as if he is looking directly at the audience, showing dominance. 

Music Magazine: Proposal

This music magazine is aimed at young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 and are fan of indie-pop. My magazine will be about the latest music news in the music industry, especially about the genre of indie-pop. The contents will include upcoming festival dates, festival line-ups, new artists and some features of artists, making sure the readers are up to date with the latest music news. My ideas for cover lines are names of artists featured in the magazine, such as "Connor Thomson", "Wes Bonacci", "Double Muses" as well as "revealing his past relationship in his debut album" and "standing up to homophobia with his debut album". 

The title I have decided on is 'Diverse', it means "of a different kind, form, character" and can be used in sentences like "a wide range of diverse opinions". I have decided on this title because it suggests the magazine is different from others, meaning it's more special therefore attracting the audience to buy it. Other than 'Diverse', I have also came up with names such as 'Diversity' but I neglected it due to it is already associated with a popular dance group. Another name that I came up with was 'X', which stands for extraordinary as X is the first syllable in that polysyllabic word, this suggests the readers as well as the contents are extraordinary. I rejected the title of 'X' because I feel that 'Diverse' is more straightforward at explaining the contents of my music magazine.

I have chosen a variety of font to be used, then I narrowed down to the four on the right after seeing an example of the title with each of the font on the left. I am struggling to choose between 'Old press' and 'More party'. They both look retro and contemporary despite the name of the font. I will be placing both font as the masthead and see which one is more suitable for my image.

I am going to aim for an image of the model hanging casually around the park, maybe sitting on the swing or on top of the slide. Park suggests fun and that will reflect how joyful the musician and the music is. It will be a mid shot to reveal the surrounding and the model will be looking directly into the camera with confidence. The model will be wearing items of clothing that relates to indie-pop music, such as beanies, green parkas, denim jeans. 

My current ideas for taglines are "Top indie-folk music of all time" and "Free posters", both will attract my target audience because they would be interested to know about the top music in the genre they love and also by offering free items, they would definitely buy the magazine to find out how to get the free items. This issue of my music magazine will be publish in January, it is a cold season therefore my model is able to wear something cool and suitable for the weather, it is quite close to the spring which is the festival season. The publication frequency of this magazine will be every two weeks, not too often that the readers have to buy every week yet not too seldom that the "latest news" become old news. The dimension of the cover will be A4, which is just the right and perfect size to fit into any normal work bags.

Music Magazine: Flat Plans

These are my flat plans for my music magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread.

Music Magazine: Initial Ideas

Music Magazine: Research and Planning, Task Six

Analysis of a double page spread music magazine: Interview/Feature

'Spin' is an eclectic and bold magazine with a broad music coverage. 40% of the readers are between the ages of 22 and 29 with 61%  being male readers. This double page spread is an interview with Madonna, the target audience would be interested in reading about her because she is a well known successful artist whose music is recognized by people all over the world. Madonna's music ranges from pop, rock, dance to electronic, which relates to the target audience I have identified as they are interested in a variety of music especially indie-pop.

The masthead is the name of the artist in bold blue text with a simple common font to attract the reader's attention and allows them to know clearly who this article is about. Under the masthead is the by-line along with the sub-heading, it is short and snappy but it leaves a big impression on the readers as Madonna is said to be "The one and only". The target audience will be attracted to the sub-heading and will wish to find out what makes Madonna so special. Although the sub-heading is not the same colour as the masthead, it still gives a consistent design feel because it is just a few shades darker and in the same colour family. The colour of the text ranges from blue to black. The masthead and the sub-heading and by-line are in blue, which separates it from the main article, the colour gradients from the light blue masthead to the dark blue of the sub-heading then changes to black for the main article. The colour blue is a cool toned colour, which could possibly suggest how Madonna is a step ahead/cooler than other performers, especially when she was wearing the cone bra costume.

The element of drop capital is not used in this article because it is an interview with Madonna, meaning there are no particular paragraphs. However if this is to be a paragraphed article, it would be a good idea to use drop capital because it shows the readers where the paragraph begins, plus it livens up ad enhances the text. The interview is well laid out as it is written in three columns on side side of the double page spread. By separating the interview into three columns, it makes the article easier and smoother to look at rather than an entire big block of paragraph. 

The interview between Ingrid Sischy and Madonna can be seen as rather informal as they both greet each other with a simple "Hi" and "Hello". This makes the interview seem more casual which is much more relaxing for the readers to look at. The questions asked by Ingrid Sischy are highlighted in bold which allows the readers to see the difference distinctly between the two's conversation. Within the interview, Ingrid Sischy made a reference to Madonna's latest album release, not only will the readers be notified about the artist's latest album, some readers may also want to know more information about it and therefore they're able to gain what they wish to know through the interviewer's questions. The interviewer also asked about Madonna's involvement with Malawi, which makes the target audience aware of Madonna's kind hearted activity as it gives her a chance to explain why she decided to be involve and aid the people who need help.

The main image of the article is a photo of Madonna, placed on the left side of the double page spread, this gives the readers a clear image of who the article is about even if they just briefly glimpse through it without looking at the masthead. In this photo, Madonna is looking alluring and desirable in the photograph which draws not only me but the target audience to read the article. The lack of eye contacts in the image between Madonna and the readers along with the ripped piece of organza-like fabric between her teeth are very enticing. We are unable to see what she is wearing due to this image being a close-up photograph, however, this image generally relates to the genre of music because it looks rather contemporary. 

The lighting for the image would be a high key lighting, but only one soft light is shining directed onto Madonna's face from the left in stead of the usual three lights. Madonna has been lit this way because it shows homogeneous and the high key lighting suggests happiness whereas low key portraits are dramatic and convey a lot of atmosphere and tension. This photograph has stayed away from the typical medium close-up and is a close-up shot. This makes Madonna seem unusual and not like any other artists. It also reinforces how Madonna has been in the music industry for a very long time and has been very successful which makes her a very special artist who is allowed to receive special treatments. Although her facial expression doesn't convey happiness, the readers are still able to recognize her joy as she is one of the most famous artists ever. Madonna has been positioned with the 3/4 perspective along with lifting her head up slightly in this close-up shot. By lifting her head up slightly, she is looking down at us which makes the readers seem like her followers and that she is the goddess, which is pretty much the reality. 

The prop of the piece of black soft organza fabric is semi-transparent, which suggests how the readers may think they know all about Madonna but if they are to look underneath the top layer (black fabric), they may realise there's more to Madonna than to shown on the media, such as her never ending act of kindness.

Overall, the photo looks very simple but the close-up allows the readers to see the details, such as the eye make-up which may seem simplistic and ordinary yet the extra lines on the crease suggest something much different.

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/johncon/spin-magazine-research

Music Magazine: Research and Planning, Task Five

The representation of people in indie-pop music magazine

I will be discussing the representation of both the musicians and the fans/readers. I will be focusing on mise-en-scene used in the cover images and photos used in double page spreads. This will demonstrate that I understand how magazines encode representations and this will then be evident in my photography for my music magazine cover.

In this front cover of "Under the radar", we can see that the famous musician - Grimes, is looking sideways with no eye contacts with readers at all with the back of her hand holding against her face. It seems as if she is lifting her face up gracefully, suggesting she is delicately to be looked at by the readers and that she is at a higher status with achievements unlike the general public. The touch of cold tones have been edited onto the front cover, the pink, purple, blue and white makes up a fantasy colour scheme. Along with the nicely fitted dress Grimes is wearing, it visualise her as a goddess who is unreachable by fans and the readers. The lacey dress she is wear is actually a very trendy at the moment, which we can say the same with her music as they're very popular right now, this relates to the audience because they will see the fashionable garments Grimes is wearing and likely to try and find something in stores in order to match with Grimes as fans tends to mimic their idols. By placing her in the middle of the magazine front cover, it clearly shows that Grimes is the main attention, reinforced by the cover line of "Post internet superstar". The background of the image is plain therefore it will not distract the audience from Grimes, the plain background also allows area for the taglines and other details. As for the audience, due to the pink and purple tones that can be seen on the cover, I believe that it is aimed at female as it's associated with those colours. From this cover, the readers are represented as faithful followers of Grimes the goddess, for which they will agree with the magazine that Grimes is the "Best of 2012". Furthermore, the uniformed font of the cover suggests that the readers like to be simple and be straightforward with life, as it is shown that the taglines are very simply listed.

There is only one photo in this double page spread from Spin magazine, which the article is about Florence and the machine. This one photo of Florence takes up over half of the double page spread, which allows the readers to clearly see who she is and admire her beauty. Even though "Florence and the machine" is the name of a band that Florence is in, she still have the main attention and the photo only features her because she is the lead singer in the indie-rock band who is the most important member. The way Florence is looking into the camera is difficult to deceive, but it can be diverted into two idea, first is that she is looking into the camera with despair due to the lack of  positive emotion shown. The second idea is that she is staring into the camera with confidence, I believe it's the latter idea because Florence and the machine is so successful that there's no way she has a lack of confidence. Florence is clearly seen as connecting to her fans/readers through the eye contact, which will make the readers feel like they personally know about her after reading this article about her. The colour scheme for the entire double page spread is monotone without a hint of hues. This suggests that Florence is modern which means her music is contemporary and that her fans are young and fresh and energetic.