Evaluation for My Music Magazine Cover
In this blog entry I am going to evaluate the work I have done on my music magazine cover, the contents and my double-page spread. I will explain what I have done on each of my designs, and why I have done this.
Firstly, I gave my magazine the title of Crash Out! Music. The reason that I gave this title was because my music magazine is in the genre of metal/rock, and I wanted to have an aggressive sounding name, that could also relate to music i.e. crashing of drums, crash cymbal etc. Also crash out is a slang term to pass out, collapse etc, which I think references to a rock and roll lifestyle readers will either be able to relate to, and aspire to. Another metal/rock magazine that has done this with their name is Kerrang!
Another thing I also took reference from Kerrang! Was the exclamation mark. I used an exclamation mark because I think it makes it sound like someone is shouting it and makes it more in your face and aggressive. The reason I wanted this kind of effect for the title is because I think that it is characteristic of the metal/rock genre to have aggressive, loud music, and the fans of this genre (the magazines target audience) will appreciate that in the magazine.
For my magazines front cover I decided to have a photo of a band. You can tell they are a band as they have instruments, a guitar and amp. This is important because it is a music magazine, and it also shows they play their own instruments. In the pop genre it is less important to play instruments etc and more important to sing, look good etc. With metal/rock genre it is a lot about live music and writing songs, and I want to show this in a magazine that is aiming to appeal to metal/rock fans.
In this blog entry I am going to evaluate the work I have done on my music magazine cover, the contents and my double-page spread. I will explain what I have done on each of my designs, and why I have done this.
Firstly, I gave my magazine the title of Crash Out! Music. The reason that I gave this title was because my music magazine is in the genre of metal/rock, and I wanted to have an aggressive sounding name, that could also relate to music i.e. crashing of drums, crash cymbal etc. Also crash out is a slang term to pass out, collapse etc, which I think references to a rock and roll lifestyle readers will either be able to relate to, and aspire to. Another metal/rock magazine that has done this with their name is Kerrang!
Another thing I also took reference from Kerrang! Was the exclamation mark. I used an exclamation mark because I think it makes it sound like someone is shouting it and makes it more in your face and aggressive. The reason I wanted this kind of effect for the title is because I think that it is characteristic of the metal/rock genre to have aggressive, loud music, and the fans of this genre (the magazines target audience) will appreciate that in the magazine.
For my magazines front cover I decided to have a photo of a band. You can tell they are a band as they have instruments, a guitar and amp. This is important because it is a music magazine, and it also shows they play their own instruments. In the pop genre it is less important to play instruments etc and more important to sing, look good etc. With metal/rock genre it is a lot about live music and writing songs, and I want to show this in a magazine that is aiming to appeal to metal/rock fans.
The members of the band are not smiling, because I wanted them to look intimidating, typical to the rock stars you might see on Kerrang! For example, Matt Heafy from Trivium . I styled this picture with, black outfits, typical dark make up stereotypical to the rock/metal genre and I had them pose against a plain wall, so the main focus of the image was the band and its instruments. Other rock magazines that do this are ones such as Rolling stone, often posed on a plain background so it's all about the artist/band.
I made the image black and white, although it was not originally, because I needed an even colour to lay text on. In the colour version of the picture there was too much colour going on and I couldn’t figure out which colour I was going to use for font that would have shown up, so I just switched the image to black and white. black and white images are not something used on a lot of rock magazines so i think this gives my magazine a unique look, and it stands out from the other magazines.I also have the photo take up the whole page to draw fans in and make the cover look more interesting.
Now I will talk about the text that I have used on the front cover. The font I used for the cover I chose to suit the genre of that music. It has a kind of eroded and scruffy look, similar to Kerrang! Font and I think that this suits the genre because rock/metal has the stereotypes of being not perfect and clean, like pop is.
I used drop shadow on the text, to emphasise text so it doesn’t looks so flat on the page, and the reader is more drawn to it. The actual headlines I used on the page were all followed by exclamation marks, again to emphasise excitement or shouting to draw the reader in and get them interested.
Also I advertised some features from inside the magazine, so the reader knows what they will be reading. I wrote typical magazine headlines such as ‘top metal tracks inside’ which will appeal to a metal fan, I also wrote ‘poster special’ because this is something fans will want, to have pictures of their favourite bands, and it is a regular feature in a lot of music magazines.
The poster special was a 666th issue special and I included this in the magazine because the metal genre does have connotations of being interested in the darker side of life, devil worship, death etc. 666 is ‘the number of the devil’ so I thought it might be something a metal/rock magazine would celebrate.
I had the double page spread advertised on the front cover because that is a main feature of the magazine and I also made the title for it bigger, a different font etc to emphasise that it was an important feature in the magazine. For the layout of the front cover I kept the masthead at the top because it is most important, other features to the side to make it look ordered, and I also put some text at the bottom to fill more space. In this text I have just named fictional bands, as another way to draw readers in to their favourite bands. It also makes the magazine look like it has a lot of content and persuades readers it will be a magazine worth buying. I have placed the price and the issue number under the title so it is easy to find for readers, and this is fairly common for magazines.
Now I am going to talk about the contents page that I have made. In the contents I chose to make the background black. I made it black because I think that it looks less plain than a white background and it looks more professional than a coloured background.
I used feathering effect on most of the coloured text boxes because I think it gives it a less clean cut feel, again referencing to the stereotypes of the rock metal genre, being scruffy, imperfect etc. The image I used was of the band featured in the double page spread because it gives readers more knowledge as to what is inside the magazine, which is the idea of the contents. I had the image, and the title on a tilt, to make the contents look a bit more edgy and interesting, instead of very neat and structured, because I thought that could bore readers. At the same time, I have made the contents easy to read by its layout. I just used the page number instead of saying Page 1 etc, to make it more informal, because it is an informal magazine.
For the page descriptions, the text in the contents, I tried to keep all the imaginary article titles related to music of the genre. In comparison to Kerrang! contents page they used a lot of pictures and a plain white background. Howevere, i did not have a lot of images due to limited time with a digital camera, so i tried to bring more interest to the page with a black background and coloured boxes.
Finally, I am going to discuss the double page spread. In the double page spread I did one page of my article, an interview with the band, and one page of a photo of the band. The photo has text drawn from the article accompanying it. I did this because this is typical of a magazine and I wanted it to look like a real double page spread. I also think it gives the reader a stronger image of the bands interview to have their quotes right next to an image of them.
The image I chose again has a look of fairly musical, with the amp, guitar and vinyl. It also is style to make the band look intimidating, no smiling. I did this for same reason as I chose a picture like that for my front cover.
In my double page spread I have an orange background. I picked up the orange using eye dropper tool from the front cover. I did this because I want the magazine to have recurring features as I wanted my magazine to have a stronger sense of being one magazine rather than four pages lifted from anywhere. I also used the same three fonts throughout to try and achieve this.
The article I used for my double page spread was an interview. An interview is a common feature for magazines as fans like to get to know more about their favourite bands, etc. This is why I chose to do an interview. I used words like ‘exclusive’ to make the article sound better, and make the magazine look better. I used two columns of text because this is a layout that looks professional for a magazine, and is an easy layout to read.
Overall I think that the four pages I designed and wrote for my rock/ metal music magazine met the expectations of the genre. I think that the kind of media institution that would distribute my media product would be Bauer, who publish other music magazines like Kerrang! and MOJO and Q. I think the kind of shops that would stock it are newsagents, like WHsmith etc, as music magazines tend to have a wide distrubition especially Kerrang! and NME. The target audience would be a young male audience probably, based on other music magazines like Kerrang!
I made the image black and white, although it was not originally, because I needed an even colour to lay text on. In the colour version of the picture there was too much colour going on and I couldn’t figure out which colour I was going to use for font that would have shown up, so I just switched the image to black and white. black and white images are not something used on a lot of rock magazines so i think this gives my magazine a unique look, and it stands out from the other magazines.I also have the photo take up the whole page to draw fans in and make the cover look more interesting.
Now I will talk about the text that I have used on the front cover. The font I used for the cover I chose to suit the genre of that music. It has a kind of eroded and scruffy look, similar to Kerrang! Font and I think that this suits the genre because rock/metal has the stereotypes of being not perfect and clean, like pop is.
I used drop shadow on the text, to emphasise text so it doesn’t looks so flat on the page, and the reader is more drawn to it. The actual headlines I used on the page were all followed by exclamation marks, again to emphasise excitement or shouting to draw the reader in and get them interested.
Also I advertised some features from inside the magazine, so the reader knows what they will be reading. I wrote typical magazine headlines such as ‘top metal tracks inside’ which will appeal to a metal fan, I also wrote ‘poster special’ because this is something fans will want, to have pictures of their favourite bands, and it is a regular feature in a lot of music magazines.
The poster special was a 666th issue special and I included this in the magazine because the metal genre does have connotations of being interested in the darker side of life, devil worship, death etc. 666 is ‘the number of the devil’ so I thought it might be something a metal/rock magazine would celebrate.
I had the double page spread advertised on the front cover because that is a main feature of the magazine and I also made the title for it bigger, a different font etc to emphasise that it was an important feature in the magazine. For the layout of the front cover I kept the masthead at the top because it is most important, other features to the side to make it look ordered, and I also put some text at the bottom to fill more space. In this text I have just named fictional bands, as another way to draw readers in to their favourite bands. It also makes the magazine look like it has a lot of content and persuades readers it will be a magazine worth buying. I have placed the price and the issue number under the title so it is easy to find for readers, and this is fairly common for magazines.
Now I am going to talk about the contents page that I have made. In the contents I chose to make the background black. I made it black because I think that it looks less plain than a white background and it looks more professional than a coloured background.
I used feathering effect on most of the coloured text boxes because I think it gives it a less clean cut feel, again referencing to the stereotypes of the rock metal genre, being scruffy, imperfect etc. The image I used was of the band featured in the double page spread because it gives readers more knowledge as to what is inside the magazine, which is the idea of the contents. I had the image, and the title on a tilt, to make the contents look a bit more edgy and interesting, instead of very neat and structured, because I thought that could bore readers. At the same time, I have made the contents easy to read by its layout. I just used the page number instead of saying Page 1 etc, to make it more informal, because it is an informal magazine.
For the page descriptions, the text in the contents, I tried to keep all the imaginary article titles related to music of the genre. In comparison to Kerrang! contents page they used a lot of pictures and a plain white background. Howevere, i did not have a lot of images due to limited time with a digital camera, so i tried to bring more interest to the page with a black background and coloured boxes.
Finally, I am going to discuss the double page spread. In the double page spread I did one page of my article, an interview with the band, and one page of a photo of the band. The photo has text drawn from the article accompanying it. I did this because this is typical of a magazine and I wanted it to look like a real double page spread. I also think it gives the reader a stronger image of the bands interview to have their quotes right next to an image of them.
The image I chose again has a look of fairly musical, with the amp, guitar and vinyl. It also is style to make the band look intimidating, no smiling. I did this for same reason as I chose a picture like that for my front cover.
In my double page spread I have an orange background. I picked up the orange using eye dropper tool from the front cover. I did this because I want the magazine to have recurring features as I wanted my magazine to have a stronger sense of being one magazine rather than four pages lifted from anywhere. I also used the same three fonts throughout to try and achieve this.
The article I used for my double page spread was an interview. An interview is a common feature for magazines as fans like to get to know more about their favourite bands, etc. This is why I chose to do an interview. I used words like ‘exclusive’ to make the article sound better, and make the magazine look better. I used two columns of text because this is a layout that looks professional for a magazine, and is an easy layout to read.
Overall I think that the four pages I designed and wrote for my rock/ metal music magazine met the expectations of the genre. I think that the kind of media institution that would distribute my media product would be Bauer, who publish other music magazines like Kerrang! and MOJO and Q. I think the kind of shops that would stock it are newsagents, like WHsmith etc, as music magazines tend to have a wide distrubition especially Kerrang! and NME. The target audience would be a young male audience probably, based on other music magazines like Kerrang!
What I have learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product, is how to use the software InDesign better, which is useful for constructing magazine pages. You can see from the preliminary task that my design skills have improved, I have used a variety of fonts in the final product, better quality pictures and more effects, such as feathering and drop shadow. I planned more thoroughly for my final product, spending more hours working on improving this product than the preliminary task.
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