Double Page Spread

I thought the double page spread was going to be the hardest section of the task as it required lots of writing. This, however, was notthe case and it turned out to be one of the easier sections.
I used an existing story that I had very briefly heard about to give me a baseline for my story, I then adapted it and changed it to better suit the sub-genre of my music magazine. I think that if I knew more about the story  then it wouldn't help me to produce a better article, but rather it would hinder me because I would then know too much and I would be running the risk of almost copying the article all together. On the other hand, I think that if I didn't have a story to base my article on at all then I would have struggled a little bit to think of original ideas, this would have been a considerable problem because I only had about a week left to do it in and I still had to take photos appropriate for the double page spread within this time limit.
I only included one image in my double page spread as I feel that this simple approach would appeal more to readers and I have seen that in existing music magazines that I have researched, such as NME, they often only use one photo in their double page spreads as well. Once i had taken a large amount of photos I uploaded them to the computer. I browsed through them and found that all of the photos I considered as possibles for my double page spread needed editing. Even though the editing wasn't extensive it still took plenty of time to complete and the deadline was creeping up very fast. I did though have the advantage of also studying photography A-level meaning I, hopefully, have a better understanding of what would make a good (and appropriate) photo to go with the story I was writing and a better understanding of how to use photoshop for the editing of my photos. I believe these skills made a significant difference to my work and also a slightly artistic touch to soe of my photographs (as photography is an art form).
All I had to do at the editing stage of my photos was to make the background whiter and the subject darker to make them stand out better on the page. I decided to go for a plain white background on the double page as this would help to emphasise the subject of my photograph, particularly as I took the photos in black and white. I took them in B&W because I felt it added something a little artisitic to the magazine and it was my own unique take on what a magazine should look like. It was also for convenience because in the process of taking my batch og photographs I found that the lighting was difficult to master as the lights in the studio were not particularly bright. The lack of decent lightng manipulated the colour in the photo and rendered it unusable, however, when I applied a black and white layer over the top of it n photoshop the problem disappeared and i was able to tweak the image to make it suitable for the magazine.   

Next I started on the creation of my contents page. I found that there were many design templates I thought of that could be used to great effect. To help me with this stage I looked at existing magazine contents pages to get an idea of which layouts worked which ones didn't. I thought the ones that worked best were the ones with smaller images with page references as these helped guide the reader to the specific part of the magazine they wanted to read, not only this but it also makes it more efficient as this would enable shoppers to pick up the magazine and quickly and easily find out what the main stories are in this issue. Although this made it more effective, efficient and appealing to the audience, it was also harder to do as choosing this option meant I had to take more photos to go with the variation of stories.

After creating the basic front cover with an image, barcode, price, date and masthead I added the cover lines. I found that it was easier to research current music news than create my own because this made it less difficult to write about them. However, this did make it harder to do the photography side of the magazine as it meant i needed to replicate the style specific to that artist. Despite this the task was not too dificult. Below is my final finished front cover complete with coverlines etc. I think my cover looks quite professional and, generally, everything stands out as it should. To help the masthead and cover lines stand out from the background image I blurred the background (using photoshop) this made the background appear plainer therefore making the copy stand out more. I chose a colour theme for my cover - red, black and white. I believe this emphasises the copy and gives it a more professional feel because if there was a large variation of colours then the front cover would appear cluttered. To make my magazine appear conventional I have made use of the left third for the positioning of my coverlines to help organise it and to add an unconventional touch to this I have made parts of the main image black and white. This adds a sense of mystery to the image whilst at the same time providijng a plainer backgrounf to emphasise the coverlines, masthead etc.

Overall, I am very pleased with my music magazine front cover and I think it would attract the eyes of shoppers passing by if it were on the shelves ready for selling.

The next thing I did was start on my music magazine front cover which I did on photoshop, I entitled it 'EUPHORIA', I called it this because of the exilerating feeling you get when your performing on a big stage. The genre I have chosen is indie/rock. Below is a first draft of my magazine without any cover lines on it. I have chosen to go with a font that appears to be representitive of classic rock/indie rock music such as The Beatles. I have backed this up by use of the image I have chosen; the hair style and clothing of my subject has a very retro feel about it, I have used photoshop to create a partially black and white layer over the top - I think this adds a certain unique quality about my front cover and the black and white mixed with colour is also a representitive of older rock bands from the past when colour photography wasn't quite 'up to scratch'(this ties in with the font type I have used as it relates to the past which is what I was tryng to do with the masthead font). The original image is a colour photo and I have applied a layer over the top to turn it monochrome, I then rubbed out part of that layer to reveal the colour underneath (in his clothing and the guitar), I decided to keep the face monochrome as I feel this gives a sense of mystery as to his personality, but also because it makes the cover stand out as this is not a typically conventional cover image (although the pose of the subject in the photo may have been seen before). I have blurred the background of the image so that the magazine masthead would stand out better, because before it did not stand out against the bright colour and patterns of the guitar behind it, not only this but it also makes the cover appear almost 3D which I think looks appealing and would attract a customers eye when browsing shelves full of magazines. I did find, however, that it was clear and easy to read over the black and white section of the photograph. I have included the date and barcode in the bottom right-hand corner in a vertical position as this took up the least 'useable' space and was less distracting from the image (and the cover lines when used). Also it was more convenient to place it on the right of the page because of the use of the left third when the cover lines had beeb created and applied.  

Having done the preliminary task we were given our main project of creating a music magazine. I did some more research but this time more specifically on music magazines, I went into more detail by analysing the front cover and contents page of a specific magazine and then going on to analise some mastheads of some of the big music magazines in the UK.
I took images from google and used magazine subscription websites and the respective magazines websites to gaher infomation about them. Here are some websites I have used:
http://www.kerrang.com/
http://www.nme-magazine.com
http://www.nme.com/magazine
http://www.uncut.co.uk/
http://www.qthemusic.com/

Following magazine research we were given a preliminary project to create a school magazine. For the the task we had to mock-up a front cover and contents page. The cover had to feature one main image, ideally, within the image there would be a boy and a girl so that the front cover would appeal to both genders. We looked at the conventions of a magazine front cover and attempted to apply them to our own front covers. For example, on my front cover I tried to use big, bold masthead so that it would attract the audience and make a big impact, I arranged the cover lines into the the left third so as to make it apear more organised. We then did our contents page, I found this slightly easier as there was a little less to think about with  regards to presentation of information etc.     

In our first couple of Media Studies lessons we started by looking at magazines. We had a brief introduction to the different technical terms and phrases we should be using to describe such things as the masthead and cover lines on a magazine.

We also made a trip to Tesco to do some research on magazines with a specific set of questions to answer.
The questions were:
How many different types of magazine are there?
How are they displayed? (What genre headinngs?)
What is the most popular type of magazine?
Whats the most expensive?
What do all magazines have in common?
What differences are there between the different magazines?

The types of magazine we found were Gaming, Photography, Sport, Motorsport, Mens Magazines, Fishing, Gossip, Properties, Celebrity, Film, Nature and Kids Magazines. These wer sorted into the following headings: Technology, Mens Interest, Motoring, Sport and Motoring, Sport, Homes and Leisure, and Women's Interest. The most popular of them all were the Gossip and Celebrity magazines such as Vogue and Cosmopolitan. The most expensive was 'Playstation' which cost £5.99. The majority of the magazines used the Left third to present the cover lines and used one main image to give a striking impression and to present clearly what the main story was in that issue of the magzine. Many of the womens magazines used a lot of cover lines unlike magazines such as 'Empire', a magazine about the film industry, which used barely any cover lines and so there was less to distract you from the main image.