Photoshoot for my front cover page

Here is my model, he is a student in my school who has the good looking for this kind of music magazine. He's also enjoy and really into hip hop and rap style of music, this makes him dress perfectly as I wanted him to dress because he really love this and this is his style. That is why I chose him as my model.

The treatment

The magazine: Monster Sound

Target Readership: The Monster Sound is a new music magazine which aimed at teens and adults in both sex. Its audiences target are people who enjoy and like Hip Hop and Rap music. The targeted audience of the Monster Sound music magazine is aged between 16 to 25. Sometimes the parents of the readers will get involve as some people at age around 16-18 still asking their parents for money, but not every times as some of them are working in part-time jobs. Therefore the readers of this magazine would be classed as middle class and also for working class. The readers of this magazine are mainly mainstreamers who don't really like something challenging, they like something the look familiar, however they could also be aspirers who would like to be like the celebrities that they like. The aspirers have a strong sense of fashion and they also like the newest songs and also gadgets. The readers of this magazine are mainly people who have self-confidents, specially people who dress themselve as Hip Hop or Rapper style. As these style are differently from other styles, for people who really into this genre of music, they would dress themselve with really big size of clothes they wear and if they don't really have the sense of self-confidents then they wouldn't wear this type of clothes because they will feel different from the other people.

Form and style: Monster Sound is an A4 full colour magazine which contains celebrity photos, interviews, fashion, news, gossips, true stories and reviews. The front cover of this magazine would normally use the famous Hip Hop and Rapper celebrities such as 50 Cent, Eminem, The Game and Lil Wayne etc. For the front cover it will be mainly male stars as there are more famous male rappers and female rappers. For the background colour and tone, it will mostly be in black or white so most of the colour will come from the rap star on the cover so it makes the celebrities of each magazine looks stand out. Cover lines will be vibrant and contemporary with the issues that its audiences want to know about the hip hop and the rap stars, they will also include detail about the special offer inside the magazine like free-CD, free download codes, poster and also competition to win somethings. Graphics used are bold and in colour that catch the audiences' eyes, the cover lines will be around the model on each issue. The magazine can be sell at £1.99 - £4.49 but as its targeted audiences are aged between 16 - 25, that means some of they might not be working of making money by themselve so the price have to be affordable, reasonable and also desirable for them. Therefore the price should be in the middle of the range or even in lower range like £2.49. And as the Monster Sound magazine is new to the market, it cannot really be sell at the same price with its competitors like XXL and VIBE magazines which are well-known by people, unless the Monster Sound magazine is very catchy and make people want to try new magazine but as we know that the targeted audiences of the kind of music magazine are mainstreamers who don't really like something challenging and don't like something the look unfamiliar which means that it would be really difficult for the Monster Sound unless it's cheaper.

Themes and Typical features: Monster Sound will have regular features typical to the Hip Hop/Rap music magazine because it would be less risks for the Monster Sound because if it tries to do something different to get more audiences then it might be very risky as they have to put more investment in research to find out what the audiences want and it's not going to be 100% sure that people will buy the magazine because obviously they're not going to do this research all over the world. Most of the issues will include hip hop fashion, along with the lastest celebrity gossip and music reviews. There will be mainly focus of male hip hop and rap stars because most famous and well-knowns rappers and hip hop are mainly male. It will contain some article about the new hip hop or rapper that might become famous. The used of language for the Monster Sound magazine would be in informal ways, so the audiences will feel like the magazine is one of their best friend. The writter will try his best to use language that is familiar to the targeted audiences' language to make the magazine looks really interesting and also to make its audiences into the magazine.

Potential advertisers: It will be a range of hiphop/rap advertise in the magazine each week, for example new tops, new jeans, new caps and other accessories and of course new albums of hip hop and rap songs.

Editorial Team: The editorial team of Monster Sound magazine will be experienced male and female writers and designers who know about the audiences very well, like know what they want to read or to know about. The editorial team have to be both male and female because male writers don't know female audiences as well as the female writers and the female writers won't know about the male readers as well as the male writers. The writers have to be people who can bring new and fresh ideas to each magazine issue to make the magazine contains new stuff on it which will make the magazine become more interesting.

Plan Photoshoot

For my photo, I'm going to pick a male student from my school who has the look of hip hop or rapper style and I will dress him as a hiphop/rapper. For the costumes, they have to be quite colourful as I will use very simple either black or white background of the front cover. Therefore the colours will purely from the costumes and also the text that have the contrast colours. As I'm going to use either simple black or white background colour for the cover so the setting is not important for my front cover at all because I don't need it, however taking photo from inside building and outside building could effect the lighting. In term of lighting, it's going to be high key light because I don't really want my photo to have lots of shadow in it.

Final masthead design

For the final masthead design, I'm going to use the first graffiti font from the masthead design 2 because it looks simple and easy to read and also suggests that the music magazine is about Hip Hop and Rap style. However as my magazine name is Monster Sound, I think it would be better to include some thing the supports my magazine name. Therefore I designed to put the alien on the name of my magazine. I designed to put the alien on the letter O on the word Monster because the alien is kind of monster so it would be good for replacing the alien instead of the letter O. In term of the colour of the masthead it designed to spray the masthead with green colour because when people think of alien, most people would imagine them either in green or in blue colour.

and here is how it looks after I put all of them together.

Masthead Design2

These is my second masthead design which are in different grafiti font styles. The font style of the masthead can suggest the genre of the music magazine so it is important to choose the font style carefully. The grafiti font style gives the audience idea that the music magazine should be about HipHop/Rap music.

Masthead Design

I've designed my masthead designs with the scary font because my magazine is called Monster Sound and I've also put some images of aliens and monsters next to my masthead to identify my magazine name which is Monster Sound. when you think about monster, you would think about something scary so I designed to use the scary font. However when I asked my media teach she said it would be alright if my music magazine is going to be about rock music because the fonts have the look of Indy and rock style but I designed to make a music magazine about Hip hop and Rap style. Therefore I have to use different font style, and the graffiti font style would be the best font which will suit this kind of music magazine the most.

My Questionnaire results

These are the results from my questionnaire about the music magazines?

For question1, three chose What's Hot, four people chose Monster Sound two chose M Mag and only one chose Top 100. Therefore I would go for the most chosen one, Monster Sound.

For question2, eight out nine people read music magazines so there is only who not read the music magazines.

For question3, shows us that most people read only one magazine, one person read two magazines per month and another one doesn't read music magazine at all.

For question4, it shows us that people would pay from £1.99 - £4.49 for a music magazine but this is also link to Question5 how many pages do they expected the magazine to be. For example the people who think the music magazine should be sell at £1.99 - £2.49, they expected the magazine to has around 41-60 pages and for people who think the music magazine should be sell at £2.59 - £4.49 and so on expected the number of pages inside the magazine to be more around 51-90 pages.

For question6, everyone think the music magazine should be released only once a month.

For question7,there are 4 people listen to Pop music, 3 people listen to Hiphop music and only go for Dance music.

For question8, it shows us that the picture on the front cover has the most influence to make people buy the music magazine. This is because the photo on the front cover gives some ideas to the audiences, what the magazine is all about and also what type of music that included inside the magazine. Some would go for cover lines on the front cover of the magazine, because if the cover lines on the magazine are interesting or relate to them then it makes them want to read it. There is some people who would buy the music magazine because of the free CD, as we know that people like free stuff the free CD also has some influence to make them buy the magazine. It also has one suggestion said how about article about the artise for example about  how much they earn and about their houses.

Internet research

Here is my internet research about the readership of the music magazines.

Thursday 11 February 2010 15.56 GMT

 

Mojo: circulation down year on year but slightly up on previous six months

Mojo has overtaken its sister title Q to become the biggest-circulation paid-for music magazine, while there were big drops for music titles New Musical Express, Kerrang! and Metal Hammer in the latest circulation figures out today.
Bauer Media's classic rock magazine Mojo had an average monthly circulation of 98,484 in the second half of last year, down 2% year on year but up 0.8% on the previous six months.
It overtook fellow Bauer title Q, which fell 8% year on year and 5.4% on the first half of the year to 94,811.
There was better news for Q's sister title, film magazine Empire, which was up 2.4% year on year to 194,239. It stretched its already substantial lead over Future Publishing's Total Film, which was down 5.8% year on year to 81,029.
IPC Media's Uncut held onto third place among the paid-for rock music titles, despite a 13.3% fall year on year to 75,518. It was ahead of Classic Rock, which was up 1.5% year on year and 1.3% on the first half of 2009 to 71,242.
But there were big year on year drops for the other titles in the rock music sector. Future Publishing's Metal Hammer was down 16.9% year on year and 9.2% on the previous six months to 41,777.
It was just ahead of Bauer's rock title Kerrang!, which tumbled 21.3% year on year and 4.9% on the first half of 2009 to 41,125, while IPC's NME fell 20.6% year on year, and 6% on the previous six months, to 38,486.
Dance title Mixmag, owned by Development Hell, was also down, falling 13.4% year on year to 26,116. Development Hell's sister title, Word, was down 22.5% year on yearto 26,555.
Channelfly Enterprises' free music monthly The Fly remained the music sector leader with an average distribution of 107,771, up 7.5% year on year.
The British Film Institute's Sight and Sound was up 0.6% on the previous year to 19,842. Future Plus's free film title, Odeon Magazine, was top of the film sector, with an average distribution of 205,380.

This information come from this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/11/mojo-q-nme-kerrang-abcs


For this readership figures of music magazines were made in last 2 years "Thursday 11 February 2010" Therefore this information is not really out of date because it was made in just last 2 years so I can used this information and compare it with the information last year but obviously not this year as it's just the beginning of this year. This information is useful for me because I have to create a music magazine so I can use this information to find out what kind of music magazine I should make.

http://www.slideshare.net/mousasow/magazine-target-audience

For this research, it has useful information for me. It says the ages of the people who filled in the form, for this research it had been filled by people around 16-24 years old so it included teenagers and adults. It also shows how many people listen to each type of music in percent. It also shows where and how do they listen to their favourite songs. It also has information about how much do they spend on music and also music magazines.

Photography

What makes a good photograph?


In order to take a good photograph, you have to be aware of the key visual elements and will make use of them in your photo. The key visual elements of good photograph are:

• Colour 
• Form
• Line
• Pattern
• Shape
• Texture
• Tone

You also have to think of framing like how you're going to take your photo and what  you're going to use your photo for? For example if you want to use your photo for a front cover, it would be better if your photo is in portrait format. You also have to think about viewpoint of your photo, which angle would be the better for your photo. You have to plan how you're going to take your photo, you have to consider about foreground, middle ground and background for your photo. When you take your photo, you might also have to think about the balance and the proportion of the photo.

How would you describe the Rankin style?
Here is Rankin words "The Rankin style is that there is no style! I don’t use a specific type of lighting, I don’t use the same way of shooting all the time, apart from looking for honesty in it. That’s my signature really, the honest thing."

These are the example of the good photographs which were took by Rankin, a professional fashion photographer and has taken images for album covers. 

Questionnaire

Here are my questionnaire about the music magazine. Could you please answer my questions below.

Q1) What would you like a music magazine to be called?

1. What's Hot

2. Monster Sound

3. M Mag

4. Top 100


Q2) Do you read music magazines?

1. Yes

2. No


Q3) How many music magazines do you read per month?

1. Never

2. One magazine

3. Two magazines

4. Three or more magazines


Q4) How much would you pay for a music magazine?

1. £1.99 - £2.49

2. £2.59 - £3.49

3. £3.59 - £4.49

4. more than £4.59


Q5) How many pages would you expected the music magazine to be?

1. 41 - 60 pages

2. 51 - 70 pages

3. 71 - 90 pages

4. More than 91 pages



Q6) How often do you think the music magazines should be released?

1. Once a month

2. Twice a month

3. Three times a month

4. Four or more a month


Q7) What kind of music do you listen the most?

1. Pop

2. Hiphop/Rap

3. Classic

4. Dance

5. R&B

6. Rock

7. Other (please write down)


Q8)What is the most likely thing to make you buy a music magazine?

1. Pictures on the front cover

2. Cover lines on the front cover

3. The masthead on the front cover

4. Free-CD

5. Other (please write down)

Textual analysis of Double page spreads

These are the double page spreads that I'm going to analyse.

1.                                                           2.

   

First I'm going to analyse the first double page spread. For this double page spread they used a picture as the background for both page but the picture has nothing on the left hand side so the columns are put on the side so it doesn't look so empty. For the photo, it shows that that this singer is listening to music which give the audiences some clue about this girl, is she a singer? or is she just a famous person who has something to do with music? They put this photo using her beauty to grab the audiences' attention and make them want to read this page. On the top right of the first page it says her name in red with a special font which looks really stand out so the audiences can see and know straightaway who she is or for people who don't know her or don't recognise her, they will be able to remember and recognise her. For the page number of this magazine is on the bottom left and right corner. In this double page spread, it contains two pictures of this singer, one in high angle shot and another one in mid close up shot. The first picture with the high angle shot show that she is an innocent girl which show her cutie.The second picture that is placed on the bottom left show her sexiness as she's bite her lip. Those two picture show that this girl is not just cute and beautyful but also sexy. 

For the second double page spread, it is slightly different from the first one as the background and the column placed in different way. They use big a photo of the person on only one page with very dark colour for the background. The background colour of the page of the left hand-side is in black but the middle bit is in green. The background colours are suit with the costumes that the person is wearing. On the other page on the right hand-side they didn't use any photos for the background, they used black colour as the background and put the photo of the person on the top of the page so it doesn't look like it contains only text on it. The background colour of the picture is also suit with the picture of the person on the another page. For the title of this page it says Disco Revenge which suggest and give audiences some ideas about what kind of music that the person on that page has interested in. However that way this person dress doesn't look like he has interested in Disco music, it seems lightly to be hiphop more. The standfirst of this double page spread has different font style with the other font text on the page. It also has dropcap at the beginning of the first sentence. On the top right of the page it has a text box that says "interview" with the white background and the black text colour which make them look opposite and different from the background colour of the page. The page number of this magazine is kind of on the side, not really on the bottom of the pages.

Textual analysis of contents pages

These are the two contents pages that I'm going to analyse.
1.                                            2.
          

For the first contents page, it's a simple layout but looks professional because it has a big picture of the two teenage boys on most of the page. The column on the right hand-side is the area which tell its audiences what topic is on which page. The bottom bit says about their project which tell the audiences what their project is all about and how the project getting on. I think the first contents page is quite good as it doesn't have much photos on it which will make it looks untidy. It also have another photo which give us some ideas where and what would P.24 be about. For this magazine it provides free CD for its audiences who buy the magazine, this also help them to be able to sell their magazine more and in a bit higher price.We could tell the style of each person by looking at how they dress.The costumes from the picture of two teenage boys tell its audiences about the style of the music that the teens sing or have interested in. For the first magazine it has only one section, features is the only section of this magazine.

For the second contents page, it's much more images in it. It also identify the kind of its magazine by saying  "DRUMMER", they also put a big picture of a person playing drum right in the middle of the page and the other two pictures of drum in the contents page so the reader can know straightaway that the magazine is for drummer and for people who have interested in playing drum. In term of colour the back ground colour is white and white colour is contrast with most of the colours. The colour of the text box is in orange and text in white colour which are also contrast so it can be easily see and read by its audiences. The number of each topic are in different colour so it can be easily see and spot. For this contents page there are two sections, the first section is features and the second section is Regulars.

So what do they have in common?

• They have images in the contents page which identify the type of each magazines.
• They show the number of each topic clearly as the numbers are quite big and not too close to the text behind them.

So what are the difference?

• For the first magazine, it has free CD inside the magazine which the second magazine doesn't have.
• For the contents page of the second magazine, it contains lots of images while the first one has only one big image and the little one on the side.
• The second contents page seems to be more colourful while the first one is mostly in black and white. However the first one is still look really good as it makes the models look stand out by putting less colour on the page so most colours will come from the costumes of the models. 

Textual analysis

For the textual analysis, I have to analyse 3 front covers, 2 contents pages and 2 Double page spreads. To analyse those pages, I have to tell what they have in common and what they have in different.

These are my front covers of each music magazines and my textual analysis of 3 front cover:

 

For DJ Mag front cover, we could see that they used lots of colours for its cover and used white colour for the background. They used lots of colours on the white background in order to make the front cover of this magazine looks very colourful. The colours on the front cover are used to attract the audience attention. On the top left corner it says DJ, the font size of the word DJ is really big and stand out so the audience can know exactly what the magazine is all about. It also says underneath the masthead "living and breathing dance music" to give the audience some ideas what the magazine is all about in case if the audience have no ideas what it means by DJ. They also highlight the cover lines with the colours that can be easy to read for example black with white and yellow with black, the colours were chose carefully in order to make the cover lines easy to read. For this magazine we couldn't see the model face so we don't really know who exactly is behind the mask, this also make the audience want to know how he/she is.

For Q magazine front cover, they used a beauty of the model to get the audience attention. The way the model touches her mouth makes herself looks very sexy and this the point of selling this magazine. The cover lines on this magazine are very easy to read as the size of the text and the colour of the text were chose carefully so they can be read by the audience easily. The cover lines are on the left side of the front cover so it doesn't come on the model as the model is the point to get audiences attention, the cover lines cannot be put on the model because it would make the picture of the model looks like it has less important than the cover lines. For the image of this magazine, the image is a Mid Close Up shot which was used to show her emotion on her face and also her body language. For the name of magazine they used red and white which make the name of this magazine stand out and can be easily to spot by its audiences.

For the XXL magazine, it doesn't have cover lines like most magazines, however the audiences could know straight away that this magazine is about rappers and rap music as they used Eminem as their model on the front cover. The font of the text that say Eminem is a see-through style, and it was chose to be like this so it doen't block his tattoo on the arm. If the font is a normal font that we cannot see-through we would know that he is about to pull his gun out. It says "vengeance is Eminem" and this is also link to emotion on his face and his body language as he looks really angry and about to pull the gun out. The model is topless showing his tattoo on his body which is the skeleton head that shows us about the death and violent that is going to happen. All of those are link together and make the audiences think what is going to happen in this magazine and this is how they make the audiences want to buy this magazine.

So what do they have in common?

• They have a point that make the audiences want to buy their magazine.
• The name of those magazine are stand out, all of them are in red colour which is  can be easily spot by their target audiences
• The DJ Mag and Q magazine have cover lines on them which give their audiences some ideas what is inside the magazines and what the magazines are about.
• The size and the colours of the text were chose carefully so they are easy to read.
• All of them have the barcode on the front cover and they have price of each magazine of the barcode incase if the barcode scannner doent's work.  

So what are the difference?

• The XXL magazine doen't have the cover line like the other two.
• DJ mag has much more cover lines than the other two.
•  The model on DJ mag has mask on so we couldn't really know who it is, this means that the model on the front cover of this magazine is not as important as the other two.
• For DJ mag, we couldn't know the emotion and the body language of the model as the mask is cover on the model face and we couldn't really the body language of this model as the colours on the magazine cover the body.

Summary P.116-P.128

Magazine
Naomi Hodkinson

On the cover of magazines, they may appear: the title, the tagline, price, data of publication, main image with anchorage, possible straplines, sidebars or puff trailing features or cover lines. Most of magazines have a content page and editor's section, and some advertising.

Analysing a magazine: the cover

• The magazine's title: what connotations does it carry? Nuts for instance connotes craziness, but also crude masculinity.
• The strapline or tagline? These can be linked to brand identity and the title's values and to give the ideas to the audiences whether the magazine is for men or women.
• The fonts and colours used. What do they suggest about the title and target audience?
• The main image: often a woman gazing into camera, she may be sultry and alluring, showing lots of skin for the male gaze; while on others, she will be friendly, unintimidating and fully clothed.
• The anchorage and cover lines - these will reveal a great deal about the title's ideologies and target audience. What kinds of story does this magazine cover?
• Other tactics may range from the use of stars and celebrities, to sensationalism and cover-mounted 'freebies'

Analysing a magazine: between the covers

• The contents pages - these offer not only an overview of the features but a sense of the title's brand identity through mode of address and design style.
• The editor's letter - this is part of the magazine's brand identity and connection with its audience; a personal touch.
• Two-page spreads - Traditional grids work in a two or three column format and are formal looking.
• The advertisements - given magazines' highly specialised audiences, the advertising they carry is also precisely target.
• IPC - American-owned and part of the biggest media conglomerate in the world, Time Warner, which also incorporates the internet provider AOL. Titles in its stable include Now, Nuts, NME and Pick Me Up etc.
• EMAP - previously a major player in the industry, but sold its magazine business to Bauer in December 2007.
• Bauer - a German company whose titles include FHM, New Woman and Empire etc.
• Conde Nast - in the UK, Conde Nast's titles include Vogue, Easy Living and Garden etc.