Year: 2020

A contents page tends to be on the first page of a magazine or inside the cover. They tend to behold all the information what’s to follow and whereabouts it is by telling you the page number. They are very useful and can be very good at making the target audience take action (buy the magazine).

Important things I need to think about while creating the contents page would be –

• Editors hello
• Page numbers
• Hyperbole and superlatives in headlines
• Images and word clues
• Graphic illustrations and designs
• Reminder of the magazine’s name and mission statement

As well as informing the readers, the contents page is also another opportunity to apply your AIDA, as I have briefly touched on already. I’m sure if the contents page has a link to the front cover, it will yet again catch the attention of the target audience and will be more memorable most likely. Then, if these readers are into hip-hop/rap they will take an interest to the magazine. If they skim read through my contents page and see what’s to follow, this should result in them having a desire to read it, therefore they should take action and buy the magazine.

Like the front cover, the contents page beholds conventional features too. It will also contain a masthead, stating what it is, then I will have cover lines, and where these features would be, and potentially a minor description on them. There isn’t too much else too them, as you can see in the slide below where I have researched some contents page designs on Pinterest. As you can see they’re fairly basic.

As preparation for creating my contents page I sketched out some ideas onto some paper very quickly of what I thought would be appropriate, catchy and conventional. These 3 all behold the same conventional features yet have different layouts as styles. As well as this I thought of some cover lines for my contents page, these include:

• An exclusive interview with the extraordinary Travis Scott
• The 10 hottest up and coming stars you NEED to know about
• The hip-hop takeover across the globe
• Exclusive interview on the Grammy winning feeling with ‘Chance the Rapper’
• A hip-hop catchup
• The most anticipated upcoming albums
• Jay Z on how the game has changed…

The first draft for the front cover of my music magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self Assessment. For my magazine I have assessed it on a google slide, here you can see what I would change and do differently or better, then also what I think worked effectively. This self assessment in necessary as it’s a good way to reflect appropriately on the pro’s and con’s of my magazine. I can also use this as a guideline for my future drafts and final piece.

Below is my self assessment of my first draft:

Overall I feel I see a lot of ways to improve my cover, I have learnt different techniques and have learnt more about the design of a cover through some experience, which is good. 5 specific targets I have to improve are;

Find a better quality photo

Get a photo that represents my brand and photo even better

More persuasive language in my cover lines whilst keeping them short and snappy

Add a little more colour to find a more exciting hip-hop aesthetic

Find or make a better more exciting background to make the cover less basic and boring

 

Here is the batch of photos from my very first photo shoot. With these photos I tried to connote my genre and brand. All of these pictures are different whilst all holding the conventional features of a hip-hop shoot, therefore I feel as if I’ve done quite well at representing my genre in my shoot.Overall I feel like the shoot was not too bad. I feel as if I got some really good photos for my cover. The best ones are when my brand is well represented with my mise-en-scene and when the lighting and focus is perfect! As you can see as we moved through the shoot, we used a decent amount of props and changed the outfit too. We did this to get the best possible representation of the brand. They also hold some close representation to my star images of which I used Drake. We used different angles for our shots in an attempt to portray different emotions and feelings however we stuck to the conventional features too. We also used our props and clothing to represent these different emotions and feelings, encoding them in our MES. Some of the props make him look ordinary, yet the chain and glasses may connote a more extraordinary feeling, especially when it comes to my genre (hip-hop).

To make to make my magazine hit my target audience and beat out my competition I have gone through and researched my competition.  I have done this by looking at unique selling points and my gauging target audiences preferences. It will allow me to make the best magazine possible and come up with new ideas to be able to make my magazine more suited and preferred than my competition.

Below you can see some designs I have conjured up for my masthead, these are all different fonts that I have done little thing to, so they represent my brand and genre in the best way possible. Some I prefer more than others, and some I have experimented and done more work to. I hope these fonts work well, and behold affective parts of AIDA;

Attention

Interest

Desire

Action

I feel as if attention, interest and desire will be effective via these fonts, however not so much action, this will be done by the other conventional features on my cover, yet you never know!

So you can quite clearly see the ones I have done extra work on, however these aren’t necessarily my favourites. My favourite 2 are the second one, and the last one. However I feel the third one will be affective in catching peoples attention, but they may not particularly like it or take much action from it. Overall I’m fairly happy with what I’ve come up with, and hope they can be used effectively.

 

Below you can see a plan I have made so I am appropriately prepared for my shoot next Thursday. Here you can see;

• Costume intended
• Jewelry and accessories to represent to my genre
• Relation to what I intend on putting into my magazine
• The different photos I intend on taking
• Who’s taking the photos
• Who the model is
• How I plan on directing the model
• Equipment necessary

My model is Barnaby Taylor and I have some strong ideas for how to dress him and direct him for these photos. I will try get some sports links into the shoot as that will be a strong feature of my magazine. I have done this doc because it helps me understand and plan what I need for the shoot. Which is important, as I don’t wanna get there and be lost and unprepared, I can use this almost as a checklist for what I need to get for and before the shoot, and then what shots and techniques I need to use at the shoot.

For this post I have found a lot of inspiration for what I want my magazine to look like. I have found styles, colours photos and genre conventions I’d like to follow. The genre conventions I like come predominantly from my Star Images, of Drake. This photos of him demonstrate both ordinary and extraordinary features I would like to connote in my photos I take. I would also like to be able to display a meta-narrative with some of these photos too, as I feel this is a strong and affective technique.

After researching on Pinterest I have come to realise the conventional colour and style used by this genre(rap/hip-hop). This assists me a lot in catching and retaining the eye of my target audience, and it’s important I am aware at what the lack of these colours or conventional features may harm my sales or ratings. I need to make sure I use these colours and styles (my denotations) effectively, and that the meaning and usage behind them is clear (the connotation). This will give my magazine a brand, it will represent and display my magazine.

Here are some photos that I aim to have my cover photo represent or look like. These photos are good as they all have some conventional features, even if some are different features. A lot of them are clearly showing a degree of wealth with the chains and jewelry being well represented, with the hip-hop style of fashion clearly on show too. You can see this with some of the links between sport, as well as the baggy and very loud clothing.

This is my research on You.gov about 3 artists that are involved in the rap/hip-hop scene. These images below display their viewers age and features, it also show’s their other interests about music, TV shows, what they read and search and other famous celebs they are interested in.

Drake’s Audience

Kanye West’s Audience

Snoop Doggs Audience

After researching on You.gov I have found out a lot about my target audience, and how effective finding the brand and genre of your target is to being successful. This will assist me in my magazine and the branding and USP of my magazine. This helps me detect the language, colour schemes and backgrounds to use. It identifies the audience and shows me how to catch their eye, and retain their attention.

I will use quite a strong font, to interest and attract my audience, however I will also use big names and have photo of big artists, therefore many viewers will take a liking and interest to the product. This will encode the fans of this artist to the magazine, it decodes to that they will get the impression it would be of their preferred reading as their favourite artist or an artist they have a lot of interest in is involved.

My magazine will be styled around a conventional hip-hop/rap theme. This is because I listen to a lot of this music, and understand the features and techniques quite well.

Possible names I have come up with for my magazine are;

viZion

Wrapped

Wrap of Rap

Wrap Up

This is my Word Cloud, it has words that relate to genre and contents of my mag, what these artists go through before they reach the top.

The brand of my magazine will be of promotion, promoting a lot of upcoming artists and talking their story, trying to draw the attention to these young artists. Talking about their music, and where it comes from, what their lyrics mean and connote, getting to know them on a a deeper level. This is my USP (unique selling point), as everyone is always looking to find new artists, therefore people will be interested in this mag, they will also be interested into finding out more on their favourite artists so this too will attract them to the magazine.

My mission statement is to give a platform to the people who are young and underprivileged, who have the talent they just don’t know how to utilise it. Give them a ‘viZion’ in what they can do, give them a brand, promote their work. Yet it will also include all the latest news and releases from all the most popular artists and news reports and interviews from them.