What Was I Tasked With?

I was tasked to make improvements via my feedback from my first draft, some of the improvements made included:

• Masthead
• Other fonts
• Colours
• Font size

What Have I Learnt?

I have learnt that making text big and bold makes it more legible and generally makes it look more appealing to an audience. I have also learnt that making my fonts all the same instead of loads of random ones mashed together it makes my poster look cleaner and more professional.

How Will I Use This In Future?

I will use what I have learnt in future by making sure I have selected the best fonts and have made sure they are legible and professional as well as being conventional to my genre.

This is my draft of my Front Cover, this includes an image from my photoshoot and a masthead which I created. I used InDesign to create this front cover.

Peer Feedback: Amie Foulds, I made sure Amie researched the Rap genre of music magazine so that she knew all of the conventions. She looked at magazines containing modern and old-school popular rappers so that she could see the variety of Rap conventions.

What Genre Of Music Is The Magazine Featuring? 

” I think that the genre of this magazine front cover is Rap. I know this as it is a conventional Rap front cover.”

Describe The Front Cover Star- Their Star Image?

” The star looks powerful and confident, however seems to have a calm persona. But I feel that he could be made to look more aggressive and arrogant using other props.”

Are There Areas Where The Integration And Copy Is Distracting?

” You could stick to one font as it can be distracting, also you could make your main coverline more visible by enlarging the text and changing the font colour.”

What Aspects Do You Consider Conventional And Unconventional?

“The costume and accessories used portray accurately your chosen genre. You could put a boarder around the edges as that is conventional for a music magazine front cover. Also you could add more plugs and make them exciting.”

Summery: 

I think that the feedback I received was positive, yet there is room for lots of improvements to better my front cover for next time. The things I will focus on improving will be:

• More Exciting Masthead
• More plugs, that look exciting.
• Make the fonts all the same so that they are legible and look nice.
• Make the main cover line more visible as its an important part of the front cover.

What was I tasked with?

I was tasked to do a photoshoot for my Music Magazine front cover. I decided to go for the Rap genre and wanted to chose my model and costume, along with this I made the decision to take the pictures in the ‘White Room’ I had to think about things like:

• Lighting
• Camera angles/ Distances
• Costume
• Facial Expressions/Body Language

What Have I Learnt?

I have learnt that I must make sure that all of the lighting equipment is set-up correctly so that my images look good, as you can see the background in some of the images is a yellow colour which looks unprofessional compared to the nice white background.

How Will I Use This In The Future?

I will use this new knowledge in future as I will now make sure the lighting is set-up correctly before I start taking pictures so I do not waste time taking photos when it’s not all properly set. Also I will now ensure the camera is on the correct settings to get the best quality images.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, I feel I have some very good photographs but due to the lighting equipment not set-up I did waste a lot of time getting photos which weren’t good enough quality for my cover image. The images that did work out I think are very nice images and I am very happy with how they have come out.

What Was I Tasked With?

I was tasked to create a mock up of my layout for my future magazine which needs to look like a conventional page of a music magazine. I had to do a layout of:

• Contents Page- this includes lots of information about my magazine and some small images.
• Front Cover- eye catching with lots of plugs, and a massive image of my main star.
• Double Page Spread- pretty boring but important page holding articles and quotes, can also have a large image.

Using Post-It notes on A4 and A3 paper.

What Have I Learnt?

I have learnt that it is easy to make the mistake of getting the spacing  wrong and making your pages look very empty and boring, to overcome this I just re-positioned different parts of the layout.

How Will This Help Me In The Future?

This will help me in the future as I now know how to layout a magazine so it looks professional and exciting. I also now know all of the conventions that needs to go on each page and how to fit them in nicely.

1st- The font used is ‘Playbill’ I changed the spaces in between each letter, I made them closer together. This font is okay but not the best.

2nd- The font here is ‘Castellar’ again I changed the width slightly and also changed the height, the reason of changing the height is that I feel like it looks similar to a group of skyscrapers which represents the high life of rappers.

3rd- This is my favorite Mast head. The font used is ‘Rosewood Std’ I like this font as it looks like a chain so it gives my Masthead a meaning other than just being a image.

4th- This image is boring and I don’t think it is very good for my genre. I changed the boldness of this font. The font used is ‘Papyrus’

5th- This font is ‘standard 07_57’ I think that this font is awful and is definitely not appropriate for my genre, the font looks like it has been created for a younger, less mature audience.

The font I have decided to use is the third one, ‘ Rosewood Std’ as I feel it creates the most meaning of the 5 and it suits my genre, Rap, very well. 

What Was I Tasked With?

I was tasked to edit and create 5 different Mast Heads for my music magazine ‘Chain’ while creating my designs I had to think about:

• Legibility
• Colour
• Typical Conventions
• Size

What Have I Learnt?

I found out that the different Mast Heads create different meanings and connotations, for example the last one creates a feeling that it is directed to a younger audience that are into gaming and things alike.

How Will This Help Me in Future?

I will use this in my future work as I will be more cautious on thinking  about what I want to communicate and what audience I want to attract when picking my Mast Head and colour of my title.

What was I Tasked With?

I was tasked do a detailed plan on my photo shoot, this included the equipment and costume needed along with who is responsible for each individual item.

What Have I learnt?

Although it is not very fun planning everything out it really does help make things easier and less stressful due to being organised and knowing exactly what I’m doing ad who’s responsible for what.

How Will This Help Me In Future?

This will help me in the future as I know how to plan in a organised fashion, therefore I will know how to plan for future photo shoots.

What Was I Tasked With?

I was tasked to find different images of rapper Drake and see how is perceived through things like:

• News Articles
• Public Appearances
• Social Media

I also had to gather images of clothing specific to what I would like my star to wear and how to pose, this is called ‘Star Image’

What Have I Learnt?

I have learnt that stars can create a certain representation for themselves by the way they act in front of audiences. They are not always good representations.

How Will This Help Me In The Future?

This will help me in future as I now know how to give my star either a positive or negative representation to the audience I would like to attract.

Dyer’s Star Theory- Dyer proposes that: A star is an image of a real person that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials.

Meta narrative- Cool, Ambitious, Talented, Fashionable, Inspirational, Hard Working, Aggressive in some cases,  Star, Not Very Connected With The Rest Of Normality,  Charismatic. 

Click on the image to get taken to my full Pinterest board.

What Was I Tasked With?

I was tasked to create a Pinterest mood board with loads of images with hashtags that represent my genre rap. This included things like:

• Costume
• Body Language
• Facial Expressions
• Setting

What Have I Learnt?

I have learnt that different facial expressions and body language gives different messages and meanings in each image. For example if the character is standing tall then it would connote that they are confident.

How Will I Use This In Future?

In the future, when I take my photographs, I will make sure I am thinking about these different aspects of Mise-En-Scene to make sure I communicate the meaning that I intend to.

What was I tasked with:

I was tasked to create a dating profile of a person who would generally be associated with my genre ‘Hip-Hop’ so I therefore had to do some research on the demographics to get all of the information about my character accurate.

What have I learnt?

I have learnt that not all information found on the internet is necessarily correct, some is false so I therefore had to widen my research and find multiple sources to ensure my information gathered is correct. I have also learnt about audience and who might listen to particular music based on the conventions of the consumer, for example: Your race and religion may affect what you listen to due to different cultures.

How will this help me out in future:

In the future I will make sure I look at many sources to make sure I get the correct information. I also now know how to make a magazine cover more appealing to my audience by using the correct demographics and psycho-graphics.

Genre Of Magazine:

I have chosen the Genre of Rap. The reason I have chosen this genre as I have listened to this genre before and I feel like I know the conventions well and will have lots to write about, also there are a lot of people who listen to Rap.

Name Of My Magazine:

I have decided to call my magazine ‘Chain’ the reason being that there is a lot of jewelry and money in the Rap industry and the word chain connotes together which I think this genre is, everyone all in it together.

Mission Statement: 

‘Chain’ Magazine is a new magazin that will promote the best Rap artists who produce the best Rap music. My Magazine will have information about tours and concerts that are coming up. If you need to know anything about the Rap genre then buy ‘Chain’