These are nine possible mastheads for my magazine. I think the one at the top is my favorite because it’s quite quirky and therefore fits in well with my genre (Indie pop). Each of these fonts are different because I needed to consider AIDA to make is relevant for my target audience so they find it interesting. I also had to look for mastheads relevant for my brand.
Here are some images that I collected from Pinterest. They are a very good representation of the sort or themes and layouts I would like to include in my own magazine. Doing this really inspired me and gave me ideas of how my magazine could look and what it could include. I found images from brands with different features. Whilst looking through Pinterest I noticed that there are a lot Indie related images and a lot of them are of younger generations, this shows us that Indie is becoming more popular again. This also helped me get a better understanding of the audience. I noticed quite a few different layouts that I would like to try out and pick one to use in my magazine. I’ve also noticed the bright colour theme and after looking at each image it is clear how important colour is to connote different meanings.
On the first slide, there is some research I did on Billie Eilish. I was finding what aspects of her life ‘ordinary’ people have been able to relate to and what part of her life make her ‘extraordinary’. Therefore, the paradox of the start was whether they were ‘ordinary’ or ‘extraordinary’. I would say that Billie is an artist that most people can relate to in some way. She is very inspirational, especially to teenagers as Billie Eilish is 18 years old herself and is already a big success. I looked at quotes she made, new articles, headlines, awards, song lyrics and things she had participated in. Each one of these denotes and connotes different meanings to shows what she is like as a person. Looking at this information has really helped me gain knowledge on what I need to do to make my star come across the correct way. I has also helped me with the conventions of my magazine.
The second slide shows some of the ideas I have got from doing this research and would like to therefore include in my magazine.
Here are three Indie Pop music artists (Coldplay, The Killers and Billie Eilish)
I found this information on YouGov which showed me who the typical audience of these artists are. This is what I found out:
I found the typical demographics so I could get a better idea of what these people like and therefore include in my magazine to make in attractive to my target audience.
This is the dating profile I made for a typical Indie Pop fan. I used all of the information I got from YouGov and friends that I know like Indie Pop. As you can see, she is very socially interactive and knows her personal identity. She can express herself through her music (Indie Pop). I’ve noticed that most Indie Pop fans are very outgoing and fun. Therefore, in my magazine I will use brighter colours to make it fun and encode different meanings. My aim for my magazine is to entertain and educate my readers by including adverts, competitions and fashion tips. This is also help the audience socially interact with my magazine.
Making this dating profile has really helped to give me an idea of what a typical Indie Pop fan looks like, personality, gender and what they’re interested in. This is extremely useful because in my magazine I need to encode information and images that the audience can then decode. If I include details that the audience like, it will help audience with their preferred reading.
I have chosen to do the Indie genre for my magazine. I am going to call my magazine ‘BREEZE’. I did the Indie genre for my tour poster which I really enjoyed. Therefore, I wanted to try and be a bit more creative and learn from my mistakes in my tour poster and make a good magazine. In my magazine I will use bright colours, updated fashion ideas and brand new artists to give it a unique selling point. The aim of my magazine is for people to find their personal identity.
This is the word cloud I made which includes some of the key words to do with Indie and elements I will include in my magazine. I will include adverts, competitions and fashion tips to make it more entertaining. There will be information about upcoming festivals and events.
‘Breeze, the magazine for friendly, fun loving, fanatics. It will inform you of the upcoming concerts and festivals. Featuring your favourite Indie artists with exclusive interviews and brand new fashion statements. Breeze aims to allow individuals to express themselves through Indie. We strive to make our readers passionate about their fashion and music.’
Creating this mood board really helped me gain knowledge on what I would need to include in my tour poster. I gave me a better idea of the Indie Pop style. From making this mood board I will now use bright colours (to grad the audiences attention), an unusual style and bold text (to make it interesting), words to make the poster desirable and layers to create action. It has given me ideas of ways I could lay out my poster and make it eye catching.
This task really helped me gain more knowledge on Photoshop and in design. At first I didn’t really understand how to use either of the apps. However towards the end of this task I started feeling more comfortable. This will really help in Media in the future especially with my music magazine because I now know what features I need to include in a music based media. For example, tours, dates, locations. I think I will also choose Indie for my magazine which means this has helped me know which colours, poses and text fit in with the genre.
This is my mock-up front page. I was given the front cover on a magazine to try and imitate.
This is the original magazine cover I was given.
During this task I have learnt many useful things that will help me with my magazine. In design is new to me but after a couple of attempts I got there and learnt how to use it. I also learned how to do the magazine features including masthead, cover lines, main cover star, etc.
I think there are many improvements I could do to my version of the magazine cover. For example, I couldn’t find the original image and therefore had to find another to use. This image wasn’t great quality but I needed a mid- shot to be able to replicate the structure of the cover. I also couldn’t find the exact cover I was given to copy and therefore means that the wording is slightly different from mine. Some of the font isn’t the exact same as i struggled to get it identical.
I think that I did well on trying to replicate the structure/ layout of the magazine cover. I also found inserting the text and images fairly easy as well as sizing everything.
Overall I really enjoys this task because I learned many new things that can help me in the future within media.
These are some videos I found that will help me in the future when I am next using indesign.
Mix mag – the world’s biggest dance music and clubbing destination. This is the mission statement which tell us it is full of dance music.
Magazines need to make sure they make the cover and contents interesting and appropriate for the target audience. To be able to do this, they need to decide who their target audience is and what their audience segmentation, demographics and psychographics is.
From this task I have learned the importance of using the correct features to make it obvious who my target audience is and how to entice them. I will use this for my magazine and ensure it includes the correct images, storyline and colours for my chosen audience.
There are many design features conventional to magazines.
These include:
A masthead is the title of the magazine. You will often find that the masthead is written in a font the represents what sort of information the magazine contains. This will help catch the eye of people that are interested if the particular genre.
Cover lines tell you what the magazine includes. The cover lines on a magazine give you an insight of the topics within the magazine.
The main cover line on a magazine cover shows you the main focus of the magazine. Therefore if you are into whatever the main cover line is about, you know you will like the magazine. The cover lines and the main cover line are quite often in the same colour and font. However, the main cover line is in a larger font to help if stand out. This help the audience know it’s importance to the magazine.
The main cover star is the image that goes with the main cover line. It is a large image that cover the majority of the front cover. This is because it will be the main genre for the magazine. It will really help the audience to get a feel for what sort of thing they are about to read. You will quite often find a contrast if colours between the main cover line and main cover star. For example, the main cover star could be a black and white image, and the main cover line would be a bold red. They do this so that the main cover line really stands out.
Every magazine has a barcode and price. This is so that the sales assistant or whoever you are buying this magazine off of can scan/ know the price of this magazine. You will often find that the barcode is on the bottom right hand side of the front cover. This is because it is easier to scan. The barcode is unique to that magazine. The price also shows us the quality of the magazine and the class. For example, if it is an expensive magazine you would expect it to be good quality and for people of a higher class to buy it.
A plug is similar to a cover line. They are also selling point of a magazine however, they are made less obvious. This shows us that they aren’t as important as the cover lines. Therefore not as many people pay attention to them. But, if they have made it onto the front cover of a magazine they must still be important.
On a magazine cover pugs are the little bots of extra information in their own separate boxes. The pugs give us even more idea about the magazine. The outline of the box/ circle is often in a bright colour/ contrasting colour to the background. This is so that it catches the readers eye as well.
Insets can be similar to pugs in the fact that they are also in their own separate boxes and give the reader a better feel for the magazine. However, they often include images. These images make the insets interesting to look at. The insets link to the main cover star.
Captions can be found in the insets. For example, the inset could be an image of an album and the caption could be ‘This is the new album…!’ Captions really help to back up and explain the inset.
From this work I have found out what design features are conventional to magazines. This will help me make my magazine like the rest by including the features above. Hopefully by including all of that it will make the magazine stand out if I use the correct colours. I am excites to use this information going forward and creating and having a go at making my own magazine.
These are all the images that my group took. We tried to use a variety of different camera angles to portray different meanings. I think that my group did well. However, we could taken a lot more images and used a larger variety of camera angles to portray many different story lines. There a many different emotions shown in just these 25 images.
These are my 9 favourite images out of the 25 we took. I chose these because they all have a clear narrative. These 9 images also show a variety of different camera angles. For example, the long shot of Ben walking shows us he’s lonely and on his own. The high angle on the stairs portrays vulnerability. Each of these images leave us with a good idea about what is going on.
Although these camera shots create meanings, we still have to think about body language, facial expression, posture, proxemics and gesture. This is because although the angles create a meaning/ feeling, it doesn’t create a story. The way the person in the photo is positioned gives us a story.
During this task I have learned how much impact the camera angle has on the narrative of an image. Its not always just about the Mise En Scene. Therefore, in my media work over the next couple of years I will be sure to really think about which camera angle/ shot would be best to convey the meaning behind the image. It is a really good way to improve your creativity.
We were allocated our genre by picking it out a hat. My group chose Indie. After doing research we found out that there were different types of Indie music. Therefore, we chose Indie pop. As shown on the mood board we discovered that most Indie photos are aesthetic, fun and bright. The people also look very friendly, chilled back and quirky.
Most important MES conventions for the genre.
I think this because in the photos we found, whilst doing our research, the people were in quite relaxed, cool positions. Whilst most women in this genre had flowers in their hair and dressed in unique clothing, males had skateboards and wore baggy clothing (jeans and big jumpers).
The use of Mise En Scene in our genre (Indie) tells us it’s happy, fun, relaxed, unique, quirky. This is due to the make-up, hair, costumes, body language and costume. The Star image is that the people are young, friendly and quirky. A lot of the photos are heavily filtered to make all the vibrant colours pop. You will quite often find the colours clash.
In this image there are post-it notes stuck on Toby. These have different adjectives that people wrote on them of the first word that came to mind about how he looked. This meant that we could compare them to how we were wanting him to look so that he looked Indie.
The adjectives that were used to describe him were:
This means that we did well to convey the Indie Pop genre because these are the words that we used in our mood board.
These are the photos that my group took for our Indie Pop genre. Toby wore baggy jeans, a baggy jumper and a bandana to represent this theme. We also chose these positions/ use of body language because they were similar to the images we found whilst doing our research.
I think this image will be my final picture. This is because it represents our genre in many ways.
This process has helped me gain some knowledge that will help me through the world of media in the next coupe of years. Doing a mood board was really useful. This is because it helped me get a feel for the style of music and key points about our genre. Seeing all of these photos made us have a good idea of what we wanted our images to look like. I think our group did well at portraying Indie pop. However, there could have been some improvements such as: brighter/ more out there clothing and heavy filters.
The biggest thing I learned from this task is the importance of Mise En Scene. This is because without the skateboard and style of clothing in these images, they would just look like ordinary photos. However, with these characteristics it helps the audience know what genre we are trying to convey. Therefore, in my future media work I will know to focus more on Mise En Scene.
