Draft Contents Page

Draft Final Double Page Spread

Planning for Front Cover, Contents and Double Page Spread

Double Page Spread Analysis

The double page spread music magazine which features a band called the 'black eyed peas' has all the simple conventions that a magazine would feature. Plan white background used to make the photo (even the faded parts) and the text stand out on the page as the text for the article is black which contrasts against the white background. The photo has been edited so that the main artist in the band stands out on the page and the other three have been daded into the background. I like how the title for the article is in grey and gold which relates back to the clothing the band are wearing in the photo. This gives the page a theme which runs throughout the double page. Most of the text is black on white although quotes of the article have been picked out and have been highlighted. These parts are white on black. Some of the text is harder to read against the darker parts of the picture although the fade effect that had been used does help against the darker parts of the picutre although the fade effect that had been used does help agaist this. Questions for the article are in bolder text which makes it clear to which parts of the article are questions and which are the answers.

Although the picture is only on one side of the spread the title for the article goes over the double page which creates a connection between the two pages. Linked in with the contents page one of the headings on the contents page one of the headings on the contents page for the sections in the magazine was 'RADAR' this is clearly listed at the top of the page on this spread. I like how there is a running theme on the page of blue, black and white. Quotes for the article have been highlighted in blue. The blue for the need to know box on this page contrasts against the picture. If this text was just to be placed on the picture without the blue It would be harder to read as some parts of the picture are quite dark. This would mean a lighter colour would be needed which would break the colour scheme on the page.

In additions I like the idea of how the page is in three sections; the main picture for the article, the main text for the article and the banner at the side with more information related to the article. The text used for the heading of the article is clever because the letters shape together. Blues have been used in the photo which keeps the theme constant. Although red have also been used which contrasts against the blue to make the people in the photo stand out. Quotes highlighted in blue makes them stand out from the rest of the article.

The fact box on the page has also been highlighted in blue to make it stand out on the page.

In my opinion this spread looks boring. The black and white theme works well but from my perspective does not appeal to me as it seems quite minimalist. I think that too much space has been wasted. Name for the magazine has been printed at the bottom of each page. The two pages have no connection. The picture has just been cut off. Although It works with this magazine I think it would have been more appropriate to let the picture flow onto the next page.

This double page spread features the main article name ‘Dirty Little Secrets’, it is an interview with the band ‘The All-American Rejects’, it features five different pictures of the band and band members which are made to look like they are stuck in with tape much like in a scrapbook, the font is a mixture of serif and sans serif and is coloured red and pink. This double page spread is an interview and is set out in the usual way. The questions to the band are written in pink, the individual band member names are written in red and the answers in white. The overall colour-code system and fonts work very well with the pictures as they match the colour scheme of the band and it makes it much easier to read and interesting to look at. The pictures work very well as they match the colour scheme. They are also very dynamic in posing and placement, and also the use of just one colour picture makes the biggest photo stand out more and make the centre of the spread much more eye-catching. The pictures portray the band in a fun and almost normal way which is what the interview is trying to portray. The interview itself is very informal, the questions are slightly crude and personal as are the answers. This article would be very interesting for a fan of the band, but also interesting for people who are not yet fans as they can find out some interesting and fun facts out about the band and get to know their personalities.

This double page spread features the main article name, which is also a pull quote ‘People think I’m an Attention Seeker, but I’m just honest’, it is an interview with the singer Lily Allen, it features one picture of Lily which takes up one whole of the page. The font is sans serif but made to look like cut-outs from newspapers, it’s black and white in colour. The picture of Lily Allen covers the whole of the right hand side of the page, leaving the left page for all of the text. The picture of Lily shows her standing confidently with her hands on her hips, which works with the article itself that is showing her as outspoken and confident in herself. The font in the article itself is all sans serif and black in colour except Lily’s name at the top which is in bold red and also looks as though it has been cut from newspapers. The fact that the article title is a pull-quote helps the audience to see what the basis of the interview is about and whether they would enjoy it or not. The colour scheme on this spread is very simple and clean with it being black and white aside from Lily herself who is dressed in red which makes her really stand out and eye-catching.

How do magazine front covers use denotation and connotation to attract their intended audience?

Look magazine lures their intended audience in several ways. The magazine is called 'look' which emphasizes the 'look' and directly invites the audience to see, signifying the nature and fashion which features in the magazine which suggests 'get the look'. The title 'look' is big, bold and eye-catching; as it is coloured a bright pinky/purple.  The magazine itself is very feminine as it has colours such as pinks, whites, blues and yellows. The various amount of pink used makes the magazine look attractive and girly and appeals female readers. The thought of Look magazine is to give the impression that Look magazine is fashionable, sleek and sophisticated, perhaps maybe for a more mature audience than Heat magazine. The genre of Look is that it is a women’s magazine, mainly dedicated to fashion. The representation of Look is that it is a magazine that a young, fashionable woman would read unlike Heat which is most likely to be read more by a younger teenage audience. I would say that Look magazine is aimed at young women who are interested in celebrities and fashion. I think that the audience for Look would consist of maybe more sophisticated women than Heat magazine’s audience. This is because Heat is all celebrity gossip and the language and phrases used are less formal than Look.

The magazine selling line 'Britain's Best- Selling Fashion Weekly' links in with the title 'look' as they are highlighting the selling line to look once again, directing that this magazine interests women who are passionate with their image. However the magazine has around the same codes and conventions of most women's magazines although look is mainly about fashion and clothing instead of just celebrity gossip like Heat magazine.

The magazine also includes images that are colourful and eye-catching to appeal to a female audience and is filled with cover lines and bright colours. The photo of Cheryl Cole a famous celebrity, posing and smiling with dark bright red lipstick appears to be attracting the audience through eye-level. The photo is close up and you cannot see the background; which allows the readers to be concentrated only onto Cheryl. Women adore Cheryl's looks and her hairstyles which is why Cheryl features on 'look' magazines often.

In addition the narrative of Look magazine is similar every week and the magazine is always mainly devoted to high street fashions. The plot and structure of the magazine remains the same each week so it appeals to its target audience. The codes and conventions of Look magazine is that it gives a stylish outlook and image to the viewer of the magazine. This is combined into every issue of Look magazine to keep the codes and conventions fluent throughout the issue.

 

In conclusion, from analysing Look magazine, I have noticed how the codes and conventions can be noticed throughout the whole magazine, from the front cover and throughout to the articles featured. This is to develop a 'house style' that all the articles, covers and issues can follow so the magazine is noticeable week by week. About my analysis there is an example of the Look magazine cover.

Analysis of an Image

This image seems to address its readers through the photo used. The photo portrays a barbie doll look, were Lady GaGa known for her appearances which changes often as she loves wearing costumes and wigs to represent different people. The picture immediately grabs the reader’s attention as it takes up the majority of the page. Her flashy red bright lipstick and her bright blonde wig gives Lady Gaga an attractive and eye-catching appearance. The background is a dark purple with light pink on the edges. I believe the dark purple makes the image stand out so that the audience gets an insight of Lady Gaga before they read the wrighting, this also shows she is superior as she stands out more.  'Going Gaga' which is coloured in pink with a thin outline of purple also

refers to Lady Gaga going mad with her outrageous outfits, the 'Gaga' which is took out of her name also creates a link between her and the image as the audience can immediatly get an insight of who the women is without her full name written.

 The photograph also suggests and addresses readers that everyone's main emphasis is on Gaga as the image is outstanding and she appears to be the main focus due to her bright wig, black nail polish which matches her big black glasses and lastly her bright wig.  

Contents Page Analysis

Negus Magazine

Front cover

Here I have created a Negus magazine front cover. I have used an image of a student holding books to refer to the magazine as the magazine is based on Negus. I have also used colours such as pink and purple to make the magazine front cover look eye-catching and attractive. I have also used different font styles to make my magazine front cover look unique and striking.

To improve the Negus magazine which i have created I could include more text and make the headline font size bigger so that it stands out. I could also use more images to make the magazine look busier.

Context Page

Here I have created a context page using various amounts of colour and font. I have used an image of football and make-up so that my magazine not only is targeting at female students but it targets male students too.

I have also used various amounts of colour so that the magazine looks outstanding as this magazine is targeted at a younger audience I want my colours to be lively and not boring.

I could change the background colour to one colour as I think the page looks really colourful. It is also hard to read the text as the background is not light enough. I could also change the font size so the text is bigger and easier to read.



Analyse and compare/contrast 3 double page articles of 3 music magazines at least one of which should be of the same genre as your own magazine

I will be comparing and contrasting three different magazine front covers. I will demonstrate how the media uses font, text size, language and colour. The first magazine front cover I have been allocated to analyse is called ‘Vibe’. The masthead is placed at the top of the magazine cover in large font and coloured in yellow. Its yellow font helps it stand out against the blue background of the text. The image takes most of the space of the front cover, with the cover lines on the sides. The image even overlaps over the masthead, but it is still recognisable, and still will be noticeable from a distance.

Different types of font have been used to create affect and make the important texts stand out. Colours such as white, yellow, green, red and blue are used, which suggest that the magazine is targeted at an older audience.

Ciara is featured on the front cover of the magazine. She is a well-known singer, which may attract and influence people to buy the magazine. This magazine targets new readers as well as usual readers.  The image is in direct mode of address, where the person in the image is looking straight at the reader. The direct gaze helps simulate interaction with each individual reader. The image of Ciara is a medium shot, and takes most of the space on the front cover but there is space for text as she is standing side wards.

The language used is not formal as the text ‘Hot like Me’ questions the audience in an un-formal way.

In my opinion, I think the front cover is effective, making it look like a classy -fashion magazine, targeting a teenager, older female audience.

The second magazine I will be analysing is called ‘XXL’. In XXL editions of magazines they will always use the large, bold and thick title. This is also used in other music magazines such as ‘NME’ and ‘VIBE’ which clearly demonstrates that a large title must be more appealing to the audience. The masthead, XXL, also denotes the meaning extra, extra large, and emphasizes how the magazine is ‘massive’ as are the rappers featured in it. The text is on a large red box which helps contrast the colours and show the magazines brand and image more clearly, the colour connotations of the red box also represent power and the energy the magazine shows.

A feature added above the masthead is ‘Hip Hop On A Higher Level’, which is the magazines slogan to attract the readers to the magazine, it also imposes the image they are trying to create about how there magazine is better than its rival competitors in the same magazine genre, making it seem that they are providing more and of better quality. 

XXL will also have one or more famous artists on the front of their cover such as above the magazine features famous singers named ‘Nicki Minarj’ and ‘Drake’ from the same band named young money entertainment. XXL generally use hop-hop, and rap. This immediately shows to the reader what type of magazine it is just from its front cover, making it very clear from the front that the magazine is based on music, specifically in the Hip-Hop, and rap area. XXL always make the font image very large to make it clear to the reader what the magazine will specify in for its best and main story. 

The image used of Drake and Nicki is a medium shot were the image is directly looking at the audience.

The language of this magazine is all indirect language as it doesn’t directly speak to the audience. 

This type of magazine is not aimed at an older audience, and I feel this magazine would be aimed at the 16-27 age groups. My reason for this is because the artists usually represented on the front cover are usually more recent era, which instantly shows us that the magazine is formed around that genre of music and everybody knows what genre of music these artists perform.

With the audience I also feel that this edition is portrayed towards a male and female market as we can see this from the intimidating postures that are represented here. In my opinion the magazine looks unique and sensual.

The third magazine I will be analysing is also called ‘Gossip’.  Colours such as red, white, yellow and black have been used to create contrast between the colours and make the magazine front cover look catchy. Different sizes of font also have been applied to emphasise the important words in bigger font and the least important in small font, using different sizes of font also makes the magazine front cover look attractive.  Some fonts are either on a strip with a background colour and some are either placed on the side without a strip with a background colour.

The medium shot image takes up most of the space on the magazine front cover of three punks.  Small stamp sized images have also been used to refer to the quotes.

The language which has been used on the front cover of the ‘NME’ magazine is simple and uses text which is straight to the point. The language is not questioning the audience, but the language informs you of what’s happening or has been happening.  

In my opinion I believe the magazine is overcrowded although it is attractive and straight to the point.

Each magazine uses different fonts, colours, and language and image style to create a unique magazine front cover. However all three music magazine mastheads such as ‘Vibe’, ‘XXL’ and ‘NME’ have been placed behind the images to create a professional magazine feeling towards the audience.  This style has been used in nearly every music magazine front cover.

How does the magazine you have studied construct and reflect its intended audience?

The magazine I have studied is called ‘Plum-line’ which includes information on updates about Plumstead Manor School such as updates on what’s new in Plumstead Manor, how students are getting on with their subjects and stories on year groups. The magazine is easy to read as the language that has been used is simple. By looking at the magazine I can instantaneously identify that the magazine is published by a school as at the top of the page I can see little logos of ‘humanities’, ‘art colleges’ and ‘Applied learning’.

The heading ‘Plum-line’ is big and bold, the background is red which creates a contrast with the coloured red uniforms. Images have also been used to show readers the experience students had as information which is given links in with the images. By looking at the images I know what the information given is going to be about.

Each article has a colourful background colour which makes the magazine look eye catching this attracts magazine consumers as the magazine is noticeable.  By looking at the colourful backgrounds I know that the intended audience is students as for adults the magazine might have been more formal, not so attractive and noticeable without bright primary colours. Heading for each article are also big, bold and attention-grabbing as they are coloured in black.

Text sizes are also formatted in different fonts and sizes such as the heading would be bigger than the article. This has been used to attract readers to the title first so that they will know what they will be reading and will be interested to read the article.

Names of students who wrote the article have been placed beneath the article black and bold with a font size bigger than the article text so that it makes it clear to the reader who had wrote the article. Italic font has also been used to represent student names to make the magazine look a little fancy and realistic.

There is also an image of the school on the right hand corner of the magazine; this has been used to represent the school. Magazine consumers can also identify what the school looks like. The title also represents the school as the heading ‘Plum-line’ links in with plum- stead manor school.

In conclusion I know that the magazine is aimed at a younger audience because of images of Plumstead Manor School, simple straight to the point information and the bright colour scheme.

Analysing three music magazines covers I have created.

I have almost finished my front cover of my music magazine I have created. I have researched into music magazine front covers on Google and used some techniques. I have used different font sizes to make the magazine look eye-catching and professional. I have used picnic.com to create my title “Buzzer”.

The colours which I included are pink and green which are opposite colours and I think by using these opposite colours such as pink and green it makes my magazine front cover look attractive.

For improving my front cover of my magazine I could use mode of address by including small images which represent text. I could also space out my text to make it look even as there is a lot of free space on my magazine front cover which makes it looks really simple.

My second magazine article I have created is called ‘Black’. The title refers to the genre of the music magazine which is aimed at gothic people who love black. The image also relates to the title as the singer herself is wearing black.

I have used a bright red font so that my text could stand out as the background is very dark. The bright red, white and black colours immediately attract my attention to the magazine so I decided to keep the colours to red, white and black.

To improve my music magazine front cover I could use different sized fonts to make the important pieces of text stand out than the least important. I could also add more text to make the music magazine cover look busy as I think the music magazine front cover looks dull and boring.

My third magazine article I have created is called ‘Vibe’. I have used the colour purple for my title as I think it looks attractive and outstanding.  The image looks as if it will be on an R&B, Hip-Hop type of magazine and normally the magazine ‘Vibe’ has certain images just like the one I have used.

I have used colours such as purples, and blues and pinks so that they stand out. Different fonts have also been used so my magazine looks attractive.

I could use different font sizes, such as making the least important text smaller and the important text bigger so the audience will get an insight of the larger text first.



Questionaire

From carrying out this questionaire and analysing the results, I found out that 45% of readers were males and 39% percent females aged 17-20. This immediately gives me the idea that hip-hop/pop music is idolised by a younger generation. Furthermore by analysing my results I know that males and females aged 17-20 like to read NME or Vibe the most, this gives me a overall idea of what type of magazine I could base my magazine on. In addition question 7 is an important question for me to find out what makes people eager to read and purchase the magazine by looking at the front cover. Females mostly ticked 'gossip' and males ticked 'Upcoming events & new albums' this question gives me an insight of what I should put on the front cover of my magazine to attract my target audience. By looking at my results I have also acknowledged females and males aged 13-16 and 17-20 like to read about solo artists whilst 21-24 year olds like to read about bands. This gives me an idea of what my target audience like to read about. These findings will make it much more simpler to create an effective magazine as it will have to be priced low as people usually spend 60-80p weekly as most 13-16 year olds do not work, and 17-20 year olds work part-time an earn low expendable income.