Simpsons Poster

Firstly i put the background as the iconic simpsons' Clouds. The image itself was too small to do it as one whole image so i basically just layered the background with a tile effect. i then made the title "M-VIE" I did this with a basic sans serif font and then added FX on it with a drop shadow and an emboss to give it a Simpons' look. I then added the iconic doughnut, along with spider pig and bart simpson to give it a full simpson effect.

Proposal Table - Stage 2 (More Advanced)

Proposal Form

Describe your idea for the brief: My magazine is going to be named “sample”, Its going to have one main image on the cover with a mini image surrounding it or even in it. It is going to follow the concepts of my genre and stand out from the background. The main image will be placed over the masthead signifying importance of the image. Mostly vibrant colours are going to be used, since it follows the general stereotypes of the genre of music this magazine is going to follow

Genre/ sub genre: list similar texts which have inspired your thoughts The magazine is going to be of a Dubstep/electro type style music genre. There isn’t many magazines around that are of this genre so I don’t really have a lot to go on, but it also means that I don’t have a lot of restrictions, since there isn’t many types of these magazines, it means that my ideas can be off the wall. However the current magazines available that I will draw ideas and concepts from are: KMag and GetDarker. These are the major dubstep magazines on the scene at the moment so it will give me the most idea of what is modern, what is suitable and what are people reading.

Target audience: gender/ age/ characteristics/ behaviour. My audience will be unisex, music has no restrictions on sex so why should the magazine? Anyone who wants to read my magazine can. However it is likely that keen follows of this type of music genre will be interested and im expecting late teens to late 20’s to be buying/reading this magazine. They will obviously have to have a keen interest in the music and be wanting to understand more about it. It will house quite vibrant and slang language. So people that have never been to a dubstep gig, might not understand it.

Major conventions I will use a masthead that will be pushed behind the main image, to give more significance to the main image and show that I am confident in my magazines ability to pull in readers without them seeing the full name. I will use Headlines and strap lines to follow to give a fancier look and to pull in more audience. I will also use lures all around the cover of the magazine to, well lure people in, it will create an enigma which will make people want to read the magazine. I will also house the pugs on the front cover, which will house all the necessary information. Moving into the magazine I will use a double page spread followed by a kicker on the double page spread to increase interest and an enigma.

Conventions I may subvert/ change/ not use . I am likely not to use a menu strip on the front cover, I feel it will overload the magazine and if anything push the readers away. I will subvert the masthead by placing it behind the main image so it takes away the power of authority from the masthead and places it on the main image. I will likely change and “fool around” with the strap line and the anchorage, trying to give the best possible chance to my magazine by enticing people in with this sentence.

Original images: what/ where/ what. I am going to be getting my images of a person on a pair of decks with them dancing, to give the effect of them dancing along to their music. I will take these photos in my house. Im hoping these images will give the best possible chance to my magazine, as its going to entice people in by giving them an enigma of who this guy/girl is and where you can listen to his music. The other images will be those of other friends that will be them in gigs/nightclubs to get the full effect of them being in a dance environment.

Potential difficulties/ Plan B: The photo’s could pose a challenge, if I am unable to get my hands on people who will willingly get their photo’s taken. Another problem linking with photographs could be the image quality themselves. Plan B would be to completely redo my magazine genre and go with a more conventional rock magazine, so I can get easier images and have more choice and more magazines to get ideas and styles off. Which would make my job easier. But this would only be in extreme conditions, since it would take a lot of time to completely redo my whole magazine and get my thoughts and idea in a mind set of another genre.

Photoshop Skills Development 1 - Jarvis Cocker Task

In this task i have taken an image from the internet and have engineered it in photoshop to be representative of a magazine cover. I have changed a fair amount of things from the original image to make it suitable for a magazine cover.

To start i firstly changed the background colour i firstly did this by selecting all of the background that was originally there and deleted it by removing it from a duplicated layer, leaving a blank canvas. Choosing the background colour was difficult i had to pick something that complimented the image and was easy to pick other colours for sell lines that would be complimentary both of the background and the image. White seemed a good choice as a neutral background and has the most choice of complimentary colours.

Once i have selected the colour of the background i then had to decide on a good font, good size and a good colour. I've chose to go with a neutral black to stand out from the white, an obvious colour opposite, i used the text preferences tool to edit the stretch and width of the text to give an extended look to it. I then had to put the masthead behind the image. Doing this was difficult i chose to do it differently instead of layering it. I chose instead to use the brush removal effect where i would duplicate an image and add a layer mask, i would then select the brush tool and paint over it in a black colouring and it would remove the selected piece of the text giving it the look of it being behind the image.

I then felt that he needed a change up on his look. His bland facial skin colour and his expression didn't really blend well with the rest of the magazines tone. So i decided first to sharpen the edges, i then turned up the contrast and mixed about with the hue to give him a darker look and a more refined look to match with the magazines tone. Finally i Put on the sell lines and made the "Skate" have a popping effect by putting a drop shadow on it, messing around with the depth etc. 

AS Coursework Proposal Table

AS Coursework Proposal Table

Type of Magazine (fashion, music, etc)	Music
Name of Magazine	Sample – I have used this headline as a kind of a generic feel, it also has a slight connotation of giving an electro feel. Looking at it, straight away you would know the style and type of the magazine, its also not a complicated name to remember it’s also a word people see every day making them remember our magazine even more.
Audience (male/female)	Unisex – constricting the audience to just one sex will be a massive loss in money profit, and since music is unisex and it unites people It only seems natural to appeal to all.
Audience (attitudes and interests)	Dubstep/House/Drum and bass music. They would have to have a genuine interest in the topic which they would get form the main image, they would have to want to know, upcoming gig dates and festivals or maybe they just want a certain opinion from a fully established D’n’B artist.
Outlet (where it can be bought from?)	All newsagents and major book stores. Mainly News stands. This would make it very easy and accessible to everyone, Just walking down the street you would see our magazine and that straight away would leave a lasting impression on the audience. I’d also put it in all major bookstores, WH Smith for example, this would widen the audience even more and possibly bring in a hint of sophistication and professionalism to the magazine causing people to subscribe to annual copies.
Necessary Information	Issue number, Date of publication, Bar code, E-mail. Its pretty generic its just to tell people what issue it is too see if they would like to read earlier or later copies and make sure they’re up to date by checking our website. Obviously the barcode for purchasing.
Selling Point	Headlining act of a concert. This is going to be the main ‘thing’ or theme. Its going to draw people in by giving them the option of wining tickets to a massive gig that everyone is talking about and that YOU specifically you have a chance to win. This creates an emotional relationship with the audience by the use of the personal pronoun. With people drawn in by the chance to win they would then be drawn to our main image which will link heavily with the main sell line. This will stand out and create a huge enigma. Finally bringing the audience in
Theme (article)	Drum and bass with a minor section on dubstep and house. Ive chosen this theme because well its huge at the moment it will have a big audience and of course bring in a heavy profit. Obviously the theme will follow the pattern of the main cover which will be of electro/drum and bass which is very fast paced, flashy with big drops (News headliners). This will of course make the audience appreciate the magazine, keeping to a genre and sticking with its connotations.
Images Front Cover	Photo of main singer in a band or solo dubstep artist. This will of course link heavily in with the main sell line. It will be big, bold and definitely make an impression. It will be colourful and vibrant following the theme of the magazine its going to explore the unexplored. Many connotations will be able to be drawn from our picture as its going to be vague but very mysterious.
Images Inside	Varied between house, electro dance, dubstep and drum and bass, with images of bands around the region that are up and coming. This again will be linked with the Main image, they will follow the pattern of dubstep ect. They will be very vibrant showing off flashy images which of course will make the audience want to read what goes with the amazing image.

Contents deconstruction.

Masthead

Same text and colour used on the cover to keep up the consistency, In big bold font with the name of the magazine being highlighted in a bright red to make a memorable impact on the reader so they will always remember the name of the magazine.

Necessary Information.

This magazine seems to lack alot of the "necessary information", it only seems to house the date of the publication. However it states next to the masthead "This Week" giving it a slight hint of an exclusive and rare magazine that readers will do well to cherish and endulge themselves in.

Text

There seems to be alot of text on this contents page, enough to put some people off, however it has counter-acted this by putting in a slight sneak peak at its main article "Everybody got on board Africa Exprez" drawing people in to read the magazine, The image does well to split up the plethora of text with the long red list of bands to the right and the general contents that viewers need to navigate the magazine. NME has used a flashy arrow shape to signify its importance and give a sense of haste to the reader that you MUST! turn over the page to read this. Its backed up by putting in the "UK's No.1" Making people want to obtain this 'once in a lifetime' information. Underneath the 'Mini-Article' Is what the magazine makers want the most. Subscribers. They have cleverly place this under the main article to give this sense of if you want to read more stuff like this you can subscribe for "Just £5.57", Just being used selectively to make it feel like youre missing out on a lifetime offer! Its been highlighted in a bright yellow front on a black background to make sure that it is not missed and is standing out for all of the readers too see!

Font

The font seems to all follow the same style only the size really varies to create emphasis on certain part. Colours of fonts tent to switch between black, white, yellow and red. Obviously black and white are just your standard information colours highlighting page information and page names. Red seems to be to highlight key information, stuff like the masthead, page numbers and band names. Yellow has been used to really make things stand out and for this reason has onl;y been used once for the information. It gives the sense of force feeding the readers this information to make sure that you do it! It makes sure that its the most memorable piece of information on the contents page. Boldness is only really used for the obvious masthead to create emphasis and the subheadings again to create emphasis.

Image

There is only one key image on this contents page that is linked with the main article 'sneak peak'. It seems to be anchored at normally however it is split up to show two different band instruments and members, two on the guitars and the other on the synth and trumpet. Its rather big to really draw attention to the image giving it a sense of importance!

Composition

It seems to be mostly text led with there only being one main image and the rest layered with text. The framing tends to be structured in a way that the reader can easily navigate and pick out information they only want to. The main 'mini-article' has key relation to the image used and advertising there music style by showing their instruments, immediately creating a fan base just by the recognisation of their instruments.

Linguistic features

The main feature i can pick out is one in the main article, They have cleverly used "The moment everyone got on the Africa Exprez" suggesting they were going on a train ride, however the last word changes the whole context of the sentence with the name of the band instead of express. Underneath the sub-headings there is use of enigma, making people want to read on and understand the Enigma.

Masthead

They dont have a masthead placed, there is no image of distinctive sign of the magazine in the cover. It only seems to have "Inside this week" all in capitals to create an apperance and it has the same font as the cover, i can only assume to keep up consistency.

Necessary Information

Again it seems to lack information, only housing the date of the publication, making it seem like the celebrity status of the magazine is enough to not include necessary information and they assume that people will just instantly know its popularity and other things.

Text

The main or largest image is followed or captionated by a quote that is in italics, usually used to create a contrast, in this case between normality and the feeling the person saying it has. It makes people relate and in some case disagree, both are major things that can make people read on in the magazine. The other texts seem to be varied and quite unstructured giving it a sense of hecticness, which very much fits the connotation of the magazine.

Font

The font is for one of a better word, hectic! Its constantly changing with each new page of contents. It makes you think that with every new topic they cannot have the same font as it would just be generic and boring, this style really adds a 'hipster' feel to it, changing the way or breaking the mould of the other music magazines.

Image

There is alot of images all spread out around the magazine Varying in size and position, It would seem to me as they change the size of the image to indicate the importance of the topic or what the magazine deems that way, they are almost force feeding you what you have to read! the images themselves all seem to have different connotations surrounding them, some very vibrant emo/punk rocker, others very hipster/dark and others just pure simple rock.

Compostion

This magazine is mostly image led followed by annotations and captions to go along with them, Images seem to be almost framed and have they own sort of section with the middle image being the most important, all of the images seem to be anchored around the main image also.

Linguistic features

The main one i can see is, "i want to be like a boot stamping on a human face forever", an obvious use of a similie, making people want to understand it. Its also scattered with enigmas under all of the pictures.

Masthead

The initial image of 'Q' itself seems to be rather small and insignificant compared to the rest of the contents page. It doesnt really stand out and is in the background.

Necessary Information

The magazine includes the date and issue number, issue number to really emphasise the amount of time that this magazine has been going on! it also houses the website to make sure that people know that this is a well established magazine.

Text

Text is very sophisticated and sleek, its structured and has a sense of exclusivity! Its made quite small so that they can fit all of the necessary information of the magazine on, so when the readers look, it looks like the magazine is packed with information and gets their moneys worth. Its mostly black on a grey and white background not really standing out or making anything massively important. Its highlighted page numbers seem to follow the colour pattern of red.

Font

All of the font seems to follow a generic, but sophisticated style, nothing hectic or off putting, its seems to be more for the classy and sleek looking readers rather than it being cluttered and rebelious to the generic magazine style.

Image

Main image seems to be of adele and it is linked with the biggest font of the contents page signifying its importance and making sure that the fans know that this is not too miss, its also highly linked with the main cover as its highlighting its main article in the contents page, keeping up the consistency. The other minor image suggests that it is not as big a story as adele and is almost insuperior to the main image.

Compostion

Seems to be mostly text based with the text being anchored around the main image, it gives it a very classy and structured look to the magazine, making readers know its proffesional attitude and can expect only the highest standard from the magazine. The biggest contents that stands on, whilst covering adele seems to represent its importance and they have cleverly placed this not too cover the image only it seems to enhance it.

Linguistic features

It doesnt seem to have alot linguistic features other than it being scattered with enigmas, its seems to rely on its proffessional look and sleek attitude to entise its readers.

Double Page Spread Deconstructions

Double page spread from GetCritOn

This is my Double page spread deconstruction, ive clearly identified key features on 3 double page spreads. The final magazine ive deconstructed is a gaming pc magazine to show a little contrast between the double page spreads.

Inspirational Videos

These are examples of the type of music that will share the same genre of the magazine. They are Dubstep/Hardstyle/Drum+bass. Just some types of electronic music, the artists are, Skrillex, Breenan Heart and Netsky. all big names in the electronic scene!