Indie veiled magazine final draft

Crux magazine draft 1

Veiled magazine draft

Crux magazine draft 2

Photo shoot for magazine cover and analysis

As you can see, the colours used in the photos I took are dull dark colours and are taken at night as I want my cover to look enigmatic and I want the audience to be intrigued as soon as they look at the magazine. Also my genre of indie is a little peculiar and ranges from other cliché genres such as pop and rock. I realised each photo features the bright white light somewhere which I think gives an eerie feel as if something is being hidden from the audience and more people need to listen to this genre of music and in the future it could become more popular with more ages. The people presented in the pictures always face away from the camera too and I think this helps finalise my idea of indie genre as there is something else to be known about this type of music. It differs from others.

Profile of my targeted audience

Teenagers - early 20's

Psychographics - My target audience for Indie music are likely to:

• Be a student
• Enjoy spending time with friends and going to gigs
• Own an IPod and listen to music on the go
• Enjoy music and is a big part of their life
• Wear skinny jeans, checked shirts, plimsolls, converse, vans
• Likely to play an instrument like a guitar or drums (bass)
• Use sites like tumblr
• May drink alcohol and smoke
• Likely to enjoy indie films as well

What my target audience may look like:

 

 

Ideas for magazine masthead

CRUX - enigma synonym

enigma definition - a person or thing that is mysterious or difficult to understand

Enigma in Igbo - omimi

VEILED or OCCULT - secret definition

secrets in Igbo - nzuzo



Omimi - Final published masthead
Links to Indie as the music is very different to pop and rock music and the style can be a little unique and intriguing.

Connotation and denotation

Semiotics

The study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.

The combination of the signifier and signified makes a sign.

Arbitrary system - written language in arbitrary, made up system

Are music magazines doomed?

Yes

• People are not like to pay for information they can get for free
• Magazines can't respond as quickly as the internet can respond
• Magazines don't fit with our multi - tasking world
• We like to use convergent devices (e.g. iPads, phones, etc.)
• We like to access information at anytime, anywhere
• Magazines need high sales and high advertising revenue, making them very expensive to produce

No

• Steve Auckland Metro Publishing told InPublishing. "90% plus of our money is coming from print"
• Diane Kenwood,IPC: "There is still a lot of money to be made from the sale of magazines: £2 billion worth are purchased every year, 2.6 million of them are sold in the UK every day. They're read by 87% of the British population"
• It can be hard to monetise the internet. It is especially hard to get people to subscribe to online magazines/newspapers, e.g. The Sun
• Many things have been predicted to be doomed (cinemas with the advert of TV, radio with the advent of breakfast TV...) But they are still here!

Analysing my school magazine

Youth culture

Dictionary definition: Youth culture is the way adolescents live, and the norms, values, and practices they share.

This can include things such as beliefs, behaviour, styles and interests. Many adolescents believe that clothes, popular music, sports, vocabulary, and dating set them apart from each other and it gives everyone their own individuality. However, some people argue whether the whole idea of youth culture exists because they say they share the same culture as their parents and this makes having their own separate culture unbelievable.

The Penumbra Effect

The Penumbra Effect in media is the amount of unexpected audience that doesn't fit into the general audience of that genre. A niche magazine could have a Penumbra Effect where the magazine has been targeted specifically and carefully at a group of people but there still ends up being a small amount of people that don't fit into that.

Music magazines from different era's

Moodboard of places for my magazine genre

Key things that make a good cover design

• Exaggeration is always useful but you should know what to exaggerate in every issue and it should remain within your concept and style.
• Each cover needs one headline that will pop out. In size, in color, in attitude.
• Cover page should always have a focus point. Something that can draw the eye of the reader.
• Rule of thirds
• Masthead should be clear and main focus point usually. Needs to stand out.
• Photography and images sell the magazine so they must be good quality and of people that the public can relate to.
• Give an answer to all your questions.
• The biggest cover line should appeal to the biggest section of your target readers.
• Use numbers when possible because this shows there is a lot in the magazine. For example, "22 top tips for..."
• For smaller cover lines, preferably go with black text or white if the background is dark. For bigger ones use colours.
• Main colour has to be different than the one in the previous issue. Buyers may mistakenly replace the new issue with the old one and not buy it.

Top of the pops magazine cover analysis - How does it appeal to it's T.A?

National Readership Survey

The National Readership Survey was established in 1956 and today provides the most authoritative and valued audience research in use for print and digital advertising trading in Britain.
The survey looks at Britain's most popular and major news brand's and magazines covering the size and nature of the audiences they achieve.

NRS PADD:

Print And Digital Data

A fusion of NRS print data and comScore digital data

A single database for planning across print and digital platforms of NRS publisher brands

Led by requirement from our stakeholders for NRS to represent the expanding reach of publisher  brands through non-print platforms

Various possible solutions assessed

The favoured approach was a partnership with an established provider of online audience data

PADD will provide full data for profiling and targeting and focus on which websites a publications readers visit.

Analysis of my favourite magazine cover - NME

Billboard magazine cover analysis - how does it appeal to its T.A?

Kerrang magazine cover analysis - how does it appeal to its T.A?

Shindig magazines

Shindig! began in 1992 as a photocopied garage-punk fanzine called Gravedigger. A couple of years on editor Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills and PJ Crittenden reinvented the title as Shindig! Shindig! was distributed via record shop before falling in the late ’90s and becoming a reviews website. Shindig! re-emerged under the wing of Volcano Publishing in the early noughties and has been popular throughout the high street ever since, growing way beyond its garage roots... In 2015 Shindig! left Volcano and joined forces with Silverback Publishing. The magazine is now monthly.

Why is Shindig's design innovative?

The overall appearance and design of Shindigs magazines largely differs from any magazine that are published these days. Some of the reason it appears this way is the fact that these issues are a lot older and more vintage that recent ones, however I also believe that there is small intention to make the magazine a certain way to show readers how much you can enjoy these ones if not more than others. It definitely presents the older days to younger generations and helps keep the vintage look to many people who haven't experienced this era before and some people find this fascinating to read through and learn about because they haven't personally lived through this time. Everything was different including the clothing, the music and general lifestyle. They present this by the fonts, images and headlines they use. For example, the ombre bright red and yellow colours the headline uses is very unlikely to be seen nowadays in recent publishing's.

Bauer publishing

H Bauer is the largest privately owned publisher in Europe and one of the most successful media companies in the world.
The Bauer Publishing Group was founded in Hamburg in 1875 by Johann Bauer.

• 570 + magazines
• 300 + digital products
• 50 radio and T.V stations
• 6,600 employees worldwide
• annual turnover of 1.79 billion Euro

Bauer entered the UK scene with Bella Magazine in 1987. They introduced a new format that mixed previously unseen real life editorial and exciting service features. Bella made a large significance on the women's market. The company gained attention again in 1990 with the launch of Take a Break magazine. With its unique style of real life and competitions, the title quickly became market leader as it touched the lives of millions of women. Despite strong competition, Take a Break has maintained its No.1 status, currently selling over 1 million copies a week.

1990's - launch of 'TVQuick'  in 1991
2008 - changed UK businesses to Bauer media and expanded its portfolio further by acquiring Emap’s Radio and Consumer Magazine divisions

Bauer is now the largest consumer magazine publishing company in the UK, playing a primary role in the Women’s Weeklies, Women’s Interest, Women’s Lifestyle, TV Listings, Puzzles, Men’s Lifestyle, Music & Film and Specialist magazine markets.

David Carson

David Carson is an American contemporary graphic designer, art director and surfer. He is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography (the theory and practice of letter and typeface design). He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun, in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known. In particular, his widely imitated aesthetic defined the so-called "grunge typography" era.

Would I attempt this design?

I think this design is very peculiar and unusual. However, I would attempt this deign when creating  magazine cover because the style is very intriguing and catches the human eye. Most people I have spoken to have said that they prefer this style compared to styles such as Kerrang and billboard. The cutting-edge advertising, musical artists and pop culture icons spotlighted were typically ahead of the curve, putting such artists as Radiohead, Bjork, Beck, Flaming Lips, PJ Harvey and Eminem on its cover long before its better-known competitors.

Qualitative, quantative, primary and secondary data

Qualitative - The human touch - interviews, surveys and observation
Quantitative - Data - statistics and numbers
Primary - Research you conducted yourself
Secondary - Using existing research

So far I have used mostly secondary data because it was easier and much faster to produce, however I think I should also include more primary data as its more accurate as I have found it out myself.

 Advantages and disadvantages of primary data:

• Data is more reliable as its came from them
• Relates directly to persons research

• Expensive to collect the data
• Takes a long time to process information

Advantages and disadvantages of secondary data:

•  Saves time
• Accessibility
• Saves money

• Lack of control over data quality
• Inappropriateness of data

Case Study of rhythm and blues music

Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B or RnB) is a popular music genre combining jazz, gospel, and blues influences, first performed by African American artists. It is now performed worldwide by people of many cultures and ethnic groups. During the 1980s, James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone had used parts of psychedelic rock and other styles in their music. Funk became a big part of disco music. In the early 1980s, funk and soul had become sultry and more sexual with the work of Prince and others. The modern style of contemporary R&B came to be a major part of American popular music.

Today R&B uses a style of African - American music. It combines elements of soul music, funk music, pop music, and hip hop in what is now called contemporary R&B.

During the 2000's, the only big difference between hip hop and R&B was whether the vocals of the song had been sung or rapped. By this time, it also started to focus of solo artists rather than groups. By 2005, the most famous R&B artists include Usher, Beyoncé (formerly of Destiny's Child), Ashanti, and Mariah Carey.

Social Identity Theory

Is a person's sense of who they are based on their group membership. Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem.

Social Identity can create different tribes because everybody is different and unique in their own way which means they are easily fitted into different groups and are able to get along with people that have more in common with them. Sometimes being different to others can cause conflicts because there are differences in the way people do and say things. Often this can lead to social comparison where the group the individual has identified themselves with starts to compare themselves against their out group, they see themselves as better, this leads to discrimination, which leads on to prejudice.

Social identity can be linked to Ideology because for example there is basic agreement that rock “is a form of music with a strong beat,” but it is difficult to be much more explicit. The Collins English Dictionary suggests that “rock is a kind of music with simple tunes and a very strong beat that is played and sung, usually loudly, by a small group of people with electric guitars and drums,” but there are so many exceptions to this description that it is practically useless. Many may disagree and argue that this is the wrong definition of Rock and roll and that is because of the difference of opinions people may have about one certain type of music genre.

This can then be associated with music magazines because of the way that the genre is portrayed through the use of colour, font and images. For instance, in the Kerrang magazine the look is very different to top of the pops magazine as the styles of music are completely different to each other.

History of music magazines

Billboard:

The first issue of Billboard was published in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 1, 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan. Initially, it covered the advertising and bill posting industry and was called Billboard Advertising. It was shortened to The Billboard in 1897. Billboard is an American entertainment media brand owned by Prometheus Global Media. It publishes pieces involving news, video, opinion, reviews, events and style. It is also known for its music charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most popular songs and albums in different genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows. The target audience varies from young teens to young adults particularly between the ages of 16 to 26.



Kerrang:

'Kerrang!' is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music, currently published by Hamburg based Bauer Media Group. It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper. Named after the onomatopoeic word that derives from the sound made when playing a power chord on a distorted electric guitar, 'Kerrang!' was initially devoted to the new wave of British heavy metal and the rise of hard rock acts. In the early 2000s it became the best-selling British music newspaper. Typical readers of this magazine would be

School magazine analysis

Musical Genres

Musical Genres

Pop

• Pop rock
• Pop punk
• Dance pop
• Indie pop
• Pop rap
• Pop funk
• Latin pop
• Country pop
• Art pop

Rock

• Folk metal
• Glam rock
• Geek rock
• Gothic rock
• Blues rock
• Hard rock
• Pop rock
• Power metal
• Rap rock
• Rock and roll
• Wizard roll

Ideology, dichotomy and music genre comparison

Ideology - a set of beliefs e.g.; anarchy
Dichotomy -  a split between types of music e.g.; between pop and rock

Pop - conformity

• Clean cut image. Good look key to success
• Songs about love - asexual, non - threatening
• Perform in a conventional way - typical song structures, sings well, catchy hooks
• Ability to play live less important conform to norms
• Manufactured, created by others
• Seen as ephemeral - here today, gone tomorrow
• For kids

Rock / Hip hop - rebellion

• Can be scruffy or untidy , looks less important
• Songs about sex, anger and drugs
• Loud, abrasive, sometimes deliberately offensive to mainstream
• Must play well live
• Non - conformist
• Genuine, authentic, for real
• 'classic', built to last
• For adults

Preliminary task - School Magazine

Magazine cover diagram

The four f's of magazine design

The four f's of magazine design

1. Format - Design choices that are continuous in every issue. They define the overall look and feel of the magazine. These can include the logo, cover lines, size of the magazine, department headers and other things that can look similar in every issue.
2.  Formula - This is known as the editorial content ( i.e. what's in the mag) The types of article, their length, departments in the front and back of the book ( sections that are in the mag each time) all contribute to the formula.
3. Frame - The frame is the standard size for outer page margins and gutters. Depending on the magazine purchased, some will vary the width throughout pages and others will keep it the same each time. The rule for using margins establishes consistency from issue to issue.
4. Function - The function is quite simply, what a magazine is trying to achieve and the message its trying to send.

    

       Consistency - Magazine should be the same from edition to edition
       Unity - Should be a united theme throughout editions

Southfield school AS media studies task

Southfield School AS Media Studies

 

 

Task:

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.

Main Task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as a group task, each member of the group must produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style). Maximum of four members to a group.

 

All images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate(s), minimum of FOUR images used per candidate

Definitions

Masthead - The title page of a newspaper or magazine at the head of the first or editorial page

By line - A line in a newspaper naming the writer of an article

Pull quote - A brief, attention-catching quotation taken from the main text of an article and used as a subheading or graphic feature.

White space - The unprinted area of a piece of printing, as of a poster or newspaper page, or of a portion of a piece of printing.

Recto and verso -  Refer to the text written on the "front" and "back" sides of a leaf of paper in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet.

Artwork - Illustrations, photographs, or other non-textual material prepared for inclusion in a publication.