Coursework Planning: Layout Design Ideas and Sketches

Coursework Planning: Font Ideas

Coursework Planning: Models and Casting

I am going to have two male models in the photoshoot for my magazine. I will contact these people and see when they are available, then I will arrange a date and time for the photoshoot. I chose these two people because they fit the audience profile and they look the part. Also both Billy and Jack play instruments so they will feel comfortable handling the guitars in the music studio.

Name: Billy Francis

Place in the magazine: Front cover/double page spread

Contact Details: I will use facebook to contact my model

Name: Jack Looker

Place in the magazine: Contents page/double page spread

Contact Details: I will use facebook to contact my model

Coursework Planning: Costumes and Props

For my photoshoot I want quite an old-school/retro look so the costumes and props need to match.

Props

• Guitars 
• Leads
• Drum kit
• Microphone

Costumes

• Shirts(top button done up)/tshirt
• Jeans/chinos (rolled up)

Coursework Planning: Locations + Health and Safety

For my front cover, I want the main image to be very clean and I want a solid colour background. I am going to use a media classroom set up as a photography studio to do this. This way I can later change the colour of the background.

For the double page spread and/or the contents page I would like some photos of a band playing in a music recording studio. This will also come with many risks but also similar ones to the photo studio.

Coursework Planning: Target Audience

My target audience for my music magazine is going be both male and females of the ages 16-25. Typically falling into A/B on the jicnar scale. This person will like listening to BBC Radio 1 but will also like the more abstract musicians such as 'Ghostpoet' or bands like 'Bombay Bicycle Club'.
This person will like wearing a shirt with the top button done up, and roll up the bottom of their jeans. They would shop in places like 'Topman/Topshop' and 'Urban Outfitters'. They will think of themselves as an individual but also look out for everyone else. They will have plans for the future but nothing set in stone. Even though this person likes following the trends they also want their own unique style to stand out from the crowd. This person would be constantly searching for new music to listen to by using sites like 'YouTube'. They will also have a close friend network to support them and they might also get music recommendations from their friends. This person would like the easy way of doing things but wouldn't take shortcuts that would affect the outcome.
This person would like adventures and taking everyday as it comes would be a moral they live by.

For them the unknown is the best.

Coursework Planning: Time Management

To organise my time management I am going to use my email outlook calender to show what I am doing when. This will also help me to keep track of where I need to be when, this will be especially useful when working outside of lesson times.



I will add to this as things come up like photo shoots... It will also be a good way to record what I have done and what I haven't, so I do not miss out anything compulsory.

Calender Update December 8

Calender Update December 16

AS Media Coursework: Research and Planning

During the research and planning I am going to analyse several magazines to widen my knowledge and improve my understanding of a single genre of music magazine. The genre I have chosen is 'indie'. I will research this genre and the magazine I am going to create will also fit to this.


Research Existing Magazines

Clash is an award-winning (Magazine of the Year – PPA 2008) monthly music magazine bringing originality and independent opinion in a truly unique style. Clash follows more of the independent music market while still keeping up to date with the all the latest news within the entire music industry. Clash uses a very minimalistic technique keeping the front cover very empty (December issue seen on the left). However this does not make the front page any less eye catching or less effective, if anything more so. The centre of visual interest (CVI) is clearly the photograph of Florence Welch (Florence and The Machine). Her vivid red hair and pail skin is would catch your eye straight away, if seen in amongst other magazines on a shelf. Her eyes gazing upwards could connote a religious belief look up the the sky, it could also connote a gaze of thought, things on her mind. The materialistic layout of the cover is reminiscent of upmarket magazines of the 1940's as seen below.


The old-fashioned style and minimalistic nature of 'Clash' is one that appeals to a specific audience. One that thinks of themselves as 'Indie'. You also need to have quite an artistic personality as the inside content is organised and displayed in a very unique but clever way.

     




The only word other than the masthead on the front cover is the word 'Heavenly'. In a serif font, 'heavenly' stands out dramatically. On the other hand the masthead (seen below) uses a sans serif font which contrasts the up market nature of the magazine. Using this sans serif font could connote an informal approach. They want the buyer to feel like they are getting good quality for their magazine but they want to give it in a casual more informal way.

The contents page in 'Clash' is very clean and structured. It is all contained in lines and boxes. Nothing is out of line, this makes it easier to read. I want my contents page to contain lots of lines to make it quite quirky and unique also making it legible and quick and easy to read. 

There are several double page spreads in 'Clash' that vary in their content. This one seen on the left is quite busy and includes lots of writing, however the on seen below it is more minimal and the main image takes up the whole of the page. For my magazine I am going to try and combine the two, so I will try and get a good balance between images and text. This way I can attract different types of people, those who like reading more but also those who are engaged more by images and seeing what it happening.

NME is another popular "indie" magazine. Originally a newspaper NME started becoming the magazine it is today in the 1980's. The layout and structure of NME is completely different to 'Clash'. Much more is included into the front page, cover lines and different titles. This busy nature appeals to slightly different people, people who are wanting to get more value for money can easily see that there are a lot of stories included within the magazine. Also a call out is used to grab the attention of the audience either on a magazine stand or once they have bought the magazine. The call out usually contains something that is later involved in the magazine or possibly even advertising for something else like this one.

  

The contents page in 'NME' is heavily image based, with only little text telling you the title of the story, this again is appealing to different people. Giving the reader a very clear idea of what is happening on that page.

The double page spread is also heavily image based, this shows that 'NME' believe that their audience want see what happening and not just read about it. The type of images and the amount is something i would also like to transfer across to my magazine. 

  
From my research I now know that I want my front cover to be completely image based, with a very minimal feel. I want the main image to be very crisp and crystal clear, this will take a lot of time and effort to get it how I exactly want it but hopefully it'll pay off. For my contents page I want to have every item aligned like in 'Clash' but with actual lines, blocks and boxes keeping everything together. I also want to include many images so that way I can attract different sorts of people, getting the balance between image and text is very important though. For my double page spread I want to have one image taking up the whole of the page with blocks of text here and there. Also the text should relate exactly to the picture, I would possibly like an image of some musicians in a recording studio looking very busy, with wires and instruments everywhere. Then have the text relating to their next album or single being released, or and interview with them talking about their progress.              

                                                                                                                                                       

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My magazine front cover uses many of the same forms and conventions that I discovered in my original research. The masthead stretches the width of the magazine and is in a large eye-catching font. With the mast head I also challenged my research, because in the majority of the student magazines that I found the masthead was in capital letters, most probably to reduce the ascenders and descenders. But for my magazine I felt that having the masthead was more appealing in lowercase. The main photograph takes up the whole of the A4 cover just like all the examples I found in my research. I used a sans serif font to stick with the intended audience profile and this was what was also used on other student magazines the i found. I used a callout in the form of a jigsaw piece which used and developed the conventions of real media products because i had found a callout in the magazine 'College Lifestyle' but i then developed this. Instead of having a plain circle with writing in, I decided to use a jigsaw piece which kept with the retro theme while it also served as a text box. For all the cover lines I used roughly the same font sizes that I found in my research. It is crucial to get the sizes of the fonts coordinating to the importance of the story, so the reader's eye is drawn right to the story that the writer intends. 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my magazine is college students. When creating the magazine front cover I made it look quite retro which could begin to attract a different type of audience. The magazine could now attract more radicals, people who want to be more individual and also hedonists - people who want to enjoy life now, also probably people at C1 on the Jicnar scale.

How did you attract/address  your audience?

I attracted the audience by keeping the retro feel consistent throughout the front cover. I used a pixelated font throughout the cover which connote the old fashioned retro look.

I also used bright colours of orange and yellow for the masthead and jigsaw pieces this gives a bright vibrant atmosphere to the front cover connoting a happy lively feel. When capturing the photograph for the background I knew I wanted it to be very colourful, that is why I chose the library because the books give a variety of bright colours for the background of the front cover, once again connoting the happy retro feel. For the rest of the text used on the page I used a a plain white colour, this reduces the colours making it more minimal and connotes and clean smooth line to the magazine. I also made the cover lines relevant to the target audience so to attract them into buying the magazine.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From creating the magazine front cover i know know how to use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign, both of these programs are not only consumer technology, they are also the programs that are used professionally in the magazine business.

In photoshop I learnt how to use the different layers effectively and how to use the magnetic lasso tool so part of the picture covers up the masthead. I also learnt how to use all of the simple manipulation tools eg. the move tool and the free transform tool. All of which you can find evidence of on real media products.

In InDesign I learnt how use the text wrap feature to have the text following the outline of the persons body. It was slightly harder than first thought because the picture wasn't on a white background i first had to create a separate layer in Photoshop. After I had worked this out the text wrap worked perfectly.

For this preliminary task the technology used was vital to secure a well structure, professional looking magazine. Without the technology it would have been much harder. Also before this sort of technology creating a magazine would have taken much longer and would have been much more of a challenge.

Using blogger really helped with this project because you could easily view and access and alter anything you wanted to. It was easy to view all you work so I could see straight away if i was missing anything and it was easy to set out your work in a way that anyone could read and understand it. It was also much easier to keep track of everything that I had learnt and when creating the magazine I could quickly look back at my planning to check that everything was going to plan.

Contents Page

Magazine Front Cover

Rough Front Cover Sketch

Design Ideas

Holly and I have discussed the magazine title and contents of the cover. We came up with the name 'Crisp' and also explored lots of different fonts for the magazine. We discussed the layout and all the other things that will be on the cover.


Timescale: Our deadline is the 7th October which is a week on friday. Between now and then we have 7 lessons to create and produce our student magazine front cover. By the end of this week we will have and edited photograph that will be used on our cover. We will also have started our layout on indesign.


Masthead:














Fonts:    
 Crisp

·         CRISP**

·         Crisp

·         CRISP

·         CRISP

·         CRISP**

·         CRISP

·         CRISP

·         CRISP

·         CRISP

·       CRISP

·         CRISP

·         CRISP

·         CRISP

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Magazine names: CRISP

                              YOU

                          

Story Lines: Canteen food getting you down?

                     Top 10 Driving intructors in town.

                     3 easy steps to giving up smoking.
                     How to sustain a relationship for longer than a week? Is it even possible?
                     How to get drunk fast.
                     Find your perfect guy.
                    10 easy steps to stand out from the crowd.
                  
                        

              

Picture Ideas: A student holding big book in front of a tree.
                        Book held up to a persons face with just their eyes showing, with a comic book
                        being held behind the book only just visible.         
 
                        

Preliminary Project Planning

From our research we have decided that we want our main picture to be the CVI and take up the majority of the front page. We will use minimal colours and font sizes to make it easier for the reader to see the different stories and topics. Our masthead will probably be in capital letters which will reduce the ascenders and descenders making the magazine look neater and easier to read.

Preliminary Project Research

 'College Lifestyle' is a college magazine, that uses various techniques to attract the student audience. The masthead of 'College Lifestyle' attracts attention by using a bright primary colour. It is in capital letters to make the magazine stand out more reducing the ascenders and descenders making the magazine look neater and easier to read. . The large picture takes up the majority of the front cover and is the main focal point (CVI) of the magazine. The layout is fairly minimal and the writing is rather small and uses a sans serif font. They use different colours for each titles, so you can easily see which titles go with which stories. The pink 'splat' callout immediately attracts the eye because it is a completely different colour to anything else on the page.

'College' is another magazine aimed at the college/student audience. This magazine uses very similar techniques to 'College Lifestyle' with the large picture which is the main focal point on the front cover and the short snappy titles and subtitles. The main title is also in capitals and in a bright primary colour. This magazine does not have a callout and does not use as many different colours or separate fonts, the front page is much more consistent throughout.





The 'Xbox 360' magazine is not a college magazine but it is still aimed at the same age of people. At first glance the front cover seems to be quite cluttered but if you look closer the layout and content is rather similar to 'College Lifestyle' and 'College'. 'Halo Wars' is written in the same font as the actual game acting as a logo and a recognisable symbol for the intended target audience. Less text is used on the front cover compared to the two magazines. Once again the picture takes up the majority of the front cover and is the main focal point of the magazine. The number '360' stands out because it is in a bright colour compared to the background.

Media

I am interested in film and video editing. Hopefully after college i hope to make my way into this business by becoming a runner but also work shadowing and friend I know who is a video editor. Here is a music video I made a few weeks ago... :D

First Blog

WOOAAHHHHHHH!