Bars Front Page

 

On the front cover of my magazine I have used the image of my artist behind bars, this fits well with the name of my magazine. The main colours that I have used are orange and blue, I have used them in both my text and my costumes, as they contrast well and allow the text to be easily read as well as making the front cover look appealing. This is a technique I have learnt from other music magazines, such as Vibe and Billboard. I have also followed the convention of only using a maximum of three different colours on my front cover; this stops the reader from being over loaded or the page
being appears cluttered. Other conventions that I have followed are having a date and issue number; this helps my music magazine look authentic and allows it to be collected as a first addition. I have also used 4 different types of font, giving the front cover variation and again bringing it to the standard of a real music magazine.

Evaluation: How does your magazine represent a particular social group?

The artist I have used on the front cover of my magazine is in the 16-19 age range; this represents my target audience perfectly. He is also a black male, which connects with the genre of R&B/Hip-hop music, and represents the success of black artists in music.  The artist is wearing headphones, this fits well on the front cover of a music magazine and his NY baseball cap symbolises American’s influence on the music industry. The front cover advertises artists such as Rihanna and Flo Rida, again a further connection with the teenaged target audience. I have used a picture of the artist leaning against a graffitied wall, graffiti is iconic of youth culture and again the targeted genre of music. My artist is also wearing white trainers, which are a universal symbol of youth and energy.

Evaluation: Looking back at your preliminary task, of designing the front page of a school magazine, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Final Product

Preliminary Task: School Magizene

• On the front cover of my school magizene I did not inlcude standard conentions such as the, date, issue number and barcode. I made sure that I included these features on my actual music magizene. This taught me the importance of abiding by these conventioins.
•  Bettween creating my school magizene and my music magizene I learnt that using colours that are oppersite each other on the colour wheel helps make the front cover look a lot more professional.I have olny used the colour red in different shades on the front cover of my school magizene, whereas on the front cover of my final product I made sure that I used contrasting colours (blue & orange).
• On the front cover of my school magizene there is a white space at the top of the page, this looks unprofessional, and is raley seen in the press. This occored due to the fact that I had taken a landscape picture. Therefore on the front cover of my music magizene I used a portrait picture to ensure that it filled the front cover.



Neon Glow

• My photoshop skills have also improved, the images used in my school magizene were unedited, meaning they did not appear as if they were to professional standards. One of the images I took for my contents page looked dull and did not appear to suite my genre of music, to resolve this I added a neon glow to the photo.

Overall the front page of my music magazine has a far more professional appearance than my preliminary task, this is due to the fact that I have made good used of all the conventions that are used in the music press.

Photo #2

Prices of R&B/Hip-hop Magazines

Vibe is issued quarterly with double covers and costs £3.99. The magazine's target demographic is predominantly young, urban followers of hip-hop culture.

Double Page Spread

This is an example of how a baseball cap has been used on the front cover of a magazine to represent America's influence on the music industry.