Friday, 31 December 2010

Feedback

Some good work here, Aimee - your are getting there with your planning but still need to try and complete the remaining tasks and get your photos for when we get back.

Saturday, 18 December 2010

Magazine article- first draft

Frontier Music Magazine 

Frontier has an exclusive interview with music’s dynamic new face, Fay Stone, she talks about her explosive new album Break Away, she talks about 2010 and about where she wants to go from here. 


The next Kylie Minogue is an accolade not given out without raw talent shining through, and that is what many people believe young Fay Stone has. Young Fay Stone, 20, from Beverley, East Yorkshire, burst onto the music scene in early 2010 with her number one smash hit “It wasn’t my fault, it was yours” has taken the world of music by storm. Winner of MTV female newcomer of the year award among many other accolades has been planning her 2011 multi- country tour. Her album Break Away stormed its way to number one like Band Aid did at Christmas in 1984. Yes, it was that damn good. You may find it difficult but she was just an average girl a year ago growing up in her sleepy little town. But when given an opportunity she grabbed it by the horns and has now recently signed a contract with Badardicardi Music label reportedly worth over £2 million. Her story is quite remarkable and shows that if you work at it hard enough every little girl can achieve their dream. Who knows maybe in the future someone will want to be the next Fay Stone!

We have been trying to get hold of Britain’s new big talent for weeks now since the release of her number one album and finally Fay Stone has agreed to sit down with Frontier magazine for a general chat. 

Frontier arrives at Fay’s house before she gets there; she has been on a busy schedule and has just been in a recording studio with her manager, she finally arrives at about 4:30. 

So Fay, finally we get to meet and talk

“I know I’m sorry, god I’ve just been so busy but hey we’re here now and I’m ready”


Excellent, well 2010 has been a truly incredible year for you could you ever imagine this happening?

“I can hardly believe it, I never saw this happening too me. Ever since I was a little girl, when I was growing up I would sit there every Thursday night and watch Top of the Pops and dream of becoming a singer. Not in my wildest dreams though have I got a number one album. Words cannot describe how I feel every single day.


Baring that in mind, we sit here in December just a small amount of months after you burst onto the scene and you seem to have the music world bowing at your feet.

She interrupts me there and says “Bowing” (laughing) “well I wouldn’t quite go that far, I see myself as that modest muddy brown eyed girl from down the road. I’m just Fay, regular, average everyday Fay.”


Well you certainly are quite a talent, that’s for sure, did you ever imagine Aimee becoming a hit in the manner it has?

“Wow, err no I guess I didn’t, my producer was telling me that it was looking better every day but I never even considered becoming number one against such amazing artist, such as Rihanna and Tinnie Tempah. Such amazing singers as them have been in the same charts as little me, it’s quite over-whelming.”


You mentioned Rihanna and Tinnie Tempah, have you considered doing a duet with another artist?

“Bruno Mars! Aww I love him ‘Just the way you are’ is soooo amazing, whenever it comes on the radio I like to pretend he’s singing it to me, he’s just so lovely, I met him at the MTV awards as well last month and he is genuinely a nice guy as well. It’s so good to meet someone like that."


Finally where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

“Well my number one fear is becoming another one hit wonder so I hope to still be up there making music that people love, and most importantly enjoying my life”



Thank you very much Fay it was great to talk to you and all the best, hope to chat soon

“Why thank you darling, I’ll see you soon”

Thursday, 16 December 2010

Magazine layouts: Front cover, contents page and double spread article


For my front cover I have aimed it to have a lot going on my front cover to intrigue my audience when they take the first glance at the cover. For starters I have included perks to my magazine such as; PLUS column where it will include a band section in my magazine, winning festival tickets, 100 best songs of 2010, things we should be looking out for in 2011 and articles about other artist. I have included a lot but in my opinion when I read magazines, the front cover is what interests me the most by what's happening in this week's article and what kind of variety as well. This makes me want to buy it and read more into it. 

My featured artist is placed infront of the name of the magazine to show that she is important and  my magazine is lucky to have an interview with her. I have learnt this from other magazines and in my opinion it shows good photoshop skills. I intend to have mid-body shot for my front cover and my artist to lead forward to show that she is confident and my audience can view her body language up close.
I have also included the date, the issue number and bar code to make my magazine look realistic and professional. 


For my contents page, I have included a lot going on on this page, so my readers could have a seek peek in the store before purchasing the magazine. This because I think the more pictures will intrigue my audience by giving my audience a better look of what's happening in this week's issue. I have included an Editors note in to give my audience an insight on the thoughts and feeling of the one who makes this magazine work. 

For my double spread article I am including about four photo, one photo is the main one by taking up half the page and the others are a photo strip. I have not yet decided on a heading yet, but I know it will be bold and at the top of the second page of the double spread. I have chosen the right side for my text to be presented in because in my opinion I find it easier to read that side whilst scheme reading through magazine, since its more eye catching. For my text I have decided to start of my article with a huge T because it looks professional and more journalistic. Also I have included the page number at the side but not on the left sign since the main photo is there. This because as I was saying before the right side is the side more readers will look at and it will indicate my reader what page it is. On the left side of my double spread I will be including a quote from my featured artist beside the main photo. I have also included a thin strip indicating my readers this is the FAY STONE article and Cover Star at the top left corner, as well indicating my readers its the featured artist on the front cover. I chose this because it looks professional and I would know this is the main article.

I am pleased with all my layouts for my magazine and I am confident this shall look good when its come to designing the piece of work. 

Wednesday, 15 December 2010

Equipment and technology

For my magazine I want to make magazine to look as professional as possible, by doing this I have to use certain equipment and technology.

  • I will be using a camera to take photos in and outside college.
  • I will be using my own camera because it has 12.2. mega pixels and I would benefit by using my own camera since I wont be on a waiting list for the college cameras. 








  • Using different lights to enhance the best possible photos. The lighting will be used for my front cover shots. 



  • Using In Design in order to make my magazine. e.g Front cover, contents page, and double spread article. 





  • Using Photoshop to cut out pictures proficiently. I will be using this for my front cover photos, and the others for touching them up with the lighting and shadowing. 

Moodboard


I have created myself a moodboard so I can reflect on my ideas towards my music magazine. As you can see I have chosen an pop genre for my music magazine, this is to help enhance my pop genre music magazine by deciding what colours, types of font, logos, props, and styles of fashion. My mood board is brightly coloured so it represents a pop genre, by using colours such as blue, yellow, red, and green.

I have included pop artists in my moodboard because I particular like the way they look, by looking quirky and unusual from other pop artists. I have chosen a variety of pop artists to represent my pop genre mood board, this is because their uniqueness is their trade mark. I chose Rihanna because her new red hair style is an statement and this could possibly to with something about how she feels towards love. Also her hair style could be telling us that she wants to be different from all the rest of the artists by being proud of her race and stating that any look will suit her.  Lady Gaga and Katy Perry dress unusual because its their trade mark of being different from all other artists. They both wear brightly colours and astonishing outfits to represent their personality. I chosen Florence and the machine in my mood board because what stuck me, was the glitter in her hands, which can also be used as prop to represent that her music is magical and different from the usual  pop music of today. I will be including an outfit that will stand out from the front cover of my magazine. I need to choose a style for my featured to lure my audience to buy my magazine, I am thinking of using the colour different colours that could make a statement in my magazine, such as green, red, yellow and blue for my artist to wear.

I have chosen two artist that are well known all over the world, Madonna and Michael Jackson, this because they are icons to other artists. Madonna has aspired other artists to wear her famous cone bra and Michael Jackson has aspired others to wear an military jacket but glam it up so it fills the description of a pop genre. For my photo I might use a piece of clothing that looks iconic to my audience.

I have used magazine logos to give myself ideas on what my fonts should look like in my own magazine, I aim to use a big bold letters with an modern feel to it. As you can see, Top of the Pops portrays a pop genre to it and has a symbol to represent its trade mark to the public. I aim to go for a modern feel to my fonts for my magazine in the future.

If you can see at the bottom, I have picked out of a magazine, an evolution of female pop artists, because it shows us that other artists are inspired by previous artist and that there is a link to decades of pop music; with each artist having similarities to one another. 

Sunday, 12 December 2010

Feedback

I know you have been working on your planning - you just need to make sure that you post all your planning work online!

Can you use the label box at the bottom of each post  to organise your blog - research, planning, production?

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Name of Magazine and choice of font.

I aim for a font that is bold and catches the eye of my audience, since my magazine is a pop genre I aim for modern theme and not mimicking Top of the Pops. 


I have come up with a magazine name to represent my pop genre music magazine; my magazine name is FRONTIER. I have chosen this name because the name is referring to areas beyond the boundary, which means that my magazine is not selling the image of Top of the Pops, but advertising to an audience aged between 15 - 25. The reason I chose FRONTIER as a magazine name is because I think it represents of being forward and pushing the boundaries by not following the rules. This what I thought straight away when I come across this name, I was going to pick Shuffle as a magazine name but I preferred the sound of FRONTIER because it does not sound like tacky but bold and upfront. Shuffle was a good name which presented music but I was not sure if it would appeal to an audience. 


I have chosen my colour scheme to be red, black, grey and white. For my font I have chosen red and that should be on a white background so it blends in well. If I choose black ground then a red font will not be permitted, I will have to think of another colour in the future, this depends on how well my image of the artist is presented. i.e. choice of colour for my artist. For a red font I aim it to have an shadow affect or have a border around my lettering, possibly with another colour. For my magazine I intend to place my artist's image infront of the name of my magazine to show that the artist is really important to my readers. By doing this I have to have a big font size that is bold and top of the magazine, which fills the along the entire magazine width.
However I have now realised that I should include more colours instead of red, black, grey and white because I aiming for a pop genre. Since I posted a post about my mood board it made me realise the more colour I include will have an effect on my readers. I will be including blue, pinks, greens, and yellows in my magazine. I am thinking of pink or blue for the colour of the name of the magazine on the front cover, because yellow and green would not appeal to my audience; I need a colour that will stand out on a white background. Blue and pink are pop genre colours and I think they would suit my magazine. 

I have highlighted the paragraph to show that I will not be using this colour however the background parts I talk about is what I will be thinking about in the future when I come to designing  my magazine. The pink writing is where I will not be considering and the red writing is where I will be taking into account.  




For my name I chose a variety of names and asked various people, the biggest number of votes was between two names; FRONTIER and SHUFFLE for a pop genre music magazine. I researched the definition behind the two names and FRONTIER fitted my ideal sort of genre. (not top of the pops). Shuffle was strong choice of word because it represented music of any genre, however I was aiming for a word that could make my readers think, 'why was the name chosen' 'its bold and a statement' This is why I preferred the name FRONTIER than the word shuffle because well suited to how I feel towards my magazine. 
As you can see the Harabara font is the most popular font that is going to be used for my font for the name of my magazine. I chose this font because it could represent a pop genre, as you can see I chose a variety of font to comply with a pop genre. I think the Harabara is a modern and simple font which is well suited to a pop genre magazine. I know now that the simpler the magazine is presented the more people are willing to buy and read my magazine in the future. 

Monday, 6 December 2010

Research Feedback

Well done, Aimee - you have worked really hard at this over the last week and have some proficient research here. Some lovely use of different ways of presenting your information. Keep using my comments on each post to improve further and just fill in any remaining gaps. I am really pleased with how this is shaping up!

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Found an institution to produce and distribute your product.

IPC Media Logo - click for home



For my magazine publisher I have chosen IPC media because they have produced many well known magazines and this company should invest well in my magazine. IPC Media produces over 85 iconic media brands, with their print brands alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men –almost 27 million UK adults – while they have online brands collectively which reach 20 million users every month. 


ICP media follow a certain way so they can find out their target audience, this is by focusing on three core audiences. ICP media would boost my magazine popularity because they would find a particular target audience by IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio which offers something for everyone by them focusing on three core audiences: men, mass market women and upmarket women. IPC would choose an upmarket women audience because my magazine would include confidence, selective and exacting in all they do, mass women have a wide variety of interests. My magazine is also for an audience that are constantly juggling tasks, and then for my women audience to take pleasure in occasional ‘me’ time, during which relaxing with a favourite magazine or visiting an inspirational website is a ‘must-do’.  ICP would have my magazine in a glossy cover and pages within my magazine this is to interest my women audience. 

ICP would research how to publish my music magazine to see what are my target audiences' needs and wants. They would reasearch how to advertise to my mass women audience. I would like my magazine to be monthly because then my target audience would have a month to get their magazine and it would go to waste unlike weekly magazines. 
ICP publishes NME magazine, as we know NME is a successful music magazine, so if ICP can make NME a popular magazine for many music readers then ICP could make my magazine as popular. This because my magazine has a different genre and target audience therefore I would not be competing against NME for their target audience since there target audience is male, however I would be competing for popularity.  

Analysed the journalistic style and structure of an article.



The magazine article is written out informally because its trying to appeal to its audience. In my opinion the magazine is avoiding to be written out formal because it would sound like an newspaper so Kerrang magazine has attempted a different approach to their readers. Kerrang uses swear words from Craig Owens because they want the interview to be not formal and bore their target audience.

For my magazine I intend to enlargen the first letter so I look professional to my audience. I intend to aim for an informal and formal written article to enhance my popularity of my magazine, by having a wider range of audience, such as women and girls in their teens. I also intend to set my article in
columns because its easier for the reader to scan read before taking in the information of the article.

Preliminary Task

In my preliminary task I will be taking a photo of a student for my front cover. My shot shall be a median-close up with a storyline and a header of that student, so this will be advertising their trade mark. Also I will need to do a mock up a two page article spread and a contents page.
For my preliminary task my front cover is about advertising a certain school events and news. As you can see I have related my contents page as much as possible to my front cover by having on the cover contents.
For my front cover I tried hard to cut around the image and placing it on a black background because it hides away the bits that were unfortunately not cut out; since it shown up a lot on my white background.

I have
chosen two different fonts for my front cover, one for the name of the magazine and the other for feature articles. I chose a bold white title for the name of my magazine because it shown up well on the black background. I chose the font to be Base 05 because it look appealing to a young audience, (teenager) . For the feature article titles I chosen a font that could relate to the name of the magazine, however I wanted to change the colour to red so it was different from the colour white. In this case I found out that using red, did not show up well on a black background, so I used a red outline for my font while the font remained white. My text boxes are transparent so they didn't cover my image of the main featured article. 

In my real magazine I will include a bar code, a issue number and date in the future since I had forgotten to include this in my preliminary.

The preliminary task for my front cover has been useful because I am impressed with my front cover and I was able to use photoshop and indesign programs; my front cover looks appeal to my young audience.

For my contents page, I have looked into various amount of other contents pages and thought about what I may include in my preliminary contents page. I have found out that using a variety of contents, such news, quiz's, win prizes column, an editors comment box, can entertain your audience more. I have included a seek peek of what's next weeks issue to look like, to influence my audience to buy next week issue. To grab your audience's attention, you have to research what their needs and wants are , by doing this you can enhance it by displaying it in the contents pages. A contents page should include images to give the audience a taster of what they expect in the magazine, having a couple of images can make it look appealing if they include the right sort of images by having bright colours. My contents page should either have a white or black background, if black then a white font writing should be used, but if white then black font instead.