Article

The first thing to do on my article was to decide what the subject would be. I wanted firstly to focus it on the model on the cover my first attempt at a magazine cover. But, after the changes I made to that, I wanted to also change the article focus. I used the same name, but used different pictures. These pictures were better than the original ones as they had natural light and a more detailed mise-en-scene, using four models instead of one, all in smart outfits. The original pictures I took are already published on my blog, but I edited them on photoshop to enhance their effect within my article;














So, my final decision for my article subject was an article about an artist "SHH!" This was going to be the original name for my artist, although I completely changed the artists look. SHH! was changed into the lead singer of a band Sammy and the Boys, who are in my pictures here.
This is the first draft of my article, I changed a few things towards the end to fill it up in my final.

Music in the 80’s: AS TOLD BY SHH!

The 1980’s were a time of bad haircuts, horrendous fashion mistakes and angst ridden teenage dramas; a time for Thatcherism to either be much loved or much despised and a time when a lot of notable things changed in the world of music.

One person who remembers the decade well is our very own Shh!, lead singer of indie/pop band ‘Sammy and the Boys’ and currently the new face of L’Oreal men, in the advert that everybody’s talking about. Despite what the press has been saying about him recently, we at The Classic feel he is very much the prince of pop he has been since the early late 80’s early 90’s when it was all about loud clothes and even louder hair.

“As a teen in the 1980’s I very much felt the impact of all the changes in society. My dad was a politician and he would have to be in London for long periods of time doing what he called; ‘Thatcher’s dirty work.’”
But Shh! was never bothered with the political side of life; his days consisted of clubbing with his friends – the soon-to-be other members of Sammy and the Boys. I asked him what those times were like, when he was young and free and careless. He looked at me with deep, black eyes before answering with a vague, “well…”
I got the feeling that the stories that have just recently been written about him in the papers had affected the way he spoke to journalists, and really, it was not surprising. I asked him whether he didn’t want to go into too much detail (to show how kind and considerate we at The Classic are) and he just shook her head. I was going to have to work harder if I wanted any real answers…

“Let’s talk about music” I said, realising that that was really the whole point of this interview. “Who were or are your inspirations?”
“Ooh, now this is a good question. How many can I have? I was really into anything and
everything as a teenager; Adam Ant, The Culture Club, Banarama.”
“So quite a mix then?”
Grinning, he answers “You could say that. But my favourite all time band had to be Blondie. I was deeply in love with Debbie Harry.”
“But weren’t most young boys in the 80’s?” “Yes, and also, although we are ashamed to admit it, the girls from ABBA had quite a large place in our hearts. But maybe I’ve said too much…” What a revelation. Grinning still, Shh! carries on to say that even though being in a teenager in the 80’s should have meant he was all about the rebelling against society and worshipping music like The Cure, he actually favoured the quieter, less aggressive styles of music which were deemed ‘girly’ by his peers. “I still listened to a lot of everything, and I even had a cassette of Joy Division’s album “Unknown Pleasures” somewhere, a thing that made me very popular for a while.”
After all these revelations, I decided to turn the topic to more neutral grounds and asked Shh! whether he attended the wonder that was the Live Aid concert of 85.
“Of course I did!” Shh! looks shocked that I could ever question his allegiance to the very best of British music at so important a time. “I was 18 at the time, so of course it was somewhat of an excuse to take a road trip up to London for the day. It was such a brilliant concert, in so many ways. I was with my mates at the time, 3 of whom would go on to become members of Sammy and the Boys in a couple of years. We were all so hyped up on excitement the whole day that we kept missing people go on stage. At one point, after Queen had played, we were so awestruck by Freddie Mercury going off stage that we failed to see David Bowie coming on the other side. It was an awesome sight.”
And it certainly sounds like it.
I could tell Shh! was beginning to open up more with me, and so I asked him what he was planning to do with his career now that he was a true connoisseur of pop.
“A connoisseur? Really? Wow… I would never have called myself that. But I guess I have been in the business for quite a while now. So, yeah, I like that title! At the moment, me and the boys haven’t got any big plans, but we’ve had some offers to guest on a couple of albums. Not going to say whose, but its all quite exciting!”
“Sounds like your career is only just beginning then, what with the new advert and all these offers!”
Shh! Looks at me for a moment before answering my last question with a smile. “Well, I wouldn't say just beginning, but it’s certainly not over!”
That’s the spirit I like to see in a guy and I tell him so as we leave the interview room. What an insight we have had into the life of our greatest pop star and what a taste of things to come!TC

I ended the article with TC to inform the reader that this article had finished. It stands for The Classic, which also gives an identity to the article.
I then made the double page spread for my article to be on using Microsoft publisher. Firstly I added a title, using Word Art and different fonts to create a professional looking headline.

Next I added the first picture plus a caption. This added a focal point to the first page and meant that it would not be completely filled with text.

I decided to keep a very straightforward layout for my article page, and so my text was split into three equal columns. I also added in a few of the most interesting quotes at random points in my article in bold, red letters to link to my title.

“I was deeply in love with Debbie Harry”

For the second page, I kept the cohesion by still using a very straightforward font and layout and also adding in pictures and quotes in a simple pattern.

This was how I thought my article pages would look:

This is my final article:

Contents Page

After changing my front cover, I knew I needed a whole new look for my contents page. Still thinking about my inspirations; Vogue, Elle etc, I decided to concentrate on designing a contents page that was simple, yet stylish. To begin with, I sketched a design that I thought would suit the ideology of my magazine:

I didn't want to make my page like a typical music magazine contents page and fill it up with pictures and colours so I stuck to a white background. Obviously, this made the detailed design harder for me, as I had to fill up enough white space to create a professional look without completely over doing it. So, although in my sketch I had four pictures in total, I decided to cut this down to just one for my final page.

I chose a low angle picture because I wanted to give a slightly distorted to the reader, to show that the simplicity of my contents page was not necessarily the same throughout the whole magazine. I also chose this picture because it could be linked to my editorial, like I had the idea of originally, or it could become an advert for an article about the subjects in the picture. I used photoshop first to enhance the picture because I wanted the natural bright blue of the sky to stand out more against the black and white of my subjects:

I then added the title. I wanted to give cohesion to my magazine, so I brought the colours, font and style of my magazine title "The Classic" into my contents page. This link to the cover gives a uniform affect to the reader.

For the rest of the text, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to go for. So I played around with a few different fonts and, after looking through some existing magazines, I came up with this style:

When I had decided on my text style, I added in the rest of my contents. I wanted to give my magazine the look of a glossy magazine, so I filled it up with articles and features. This look of fullness was emphasised by the way I squashed each headline up against its page number.

I wanted a small editorial piece in my contents page because I had like the one in the NME contents page that I analysed. The text needn't be anything to do with the rest of the issue but I wanted it to link with the ideology of "The Classic". I did this by making it about the Beatles; a classic and brilliant band.

So, I added this text and then felt that I needed some sort of call out or free gift to draw my readers in. I had also noticed that in a lot of existing magazines, there was an advert about subscription. So, I combined this idea with the idea of a competition or offer and came up with 50% off subscription. This added the necessary detail to my contents page to fill it up.

The finishing touches were to add a small picture in the bottom corner and a tag-line across the top to give another offer. The bar across the top also gave a slight border affect, which made the page more uniform.

This was my final contents page:

Second attempt at front cover

After a failed first attempt at my front cover design and production, I decided to start completely from scratch and so proceeded to take a new set of photos to use. I then picked the one I thought suited my magazine cover the best.
Like my previous photos, I still wanted there to be an element of bright, bold colours, preferably red and so i had my model wear a red shirt. But this is where the similarities with my previous cover ended. In this one, I had my model placed in the bottom right corner because I wanted him to take up more space and not be so symmetrical, like my last model. Also, I didn't stick to a plain simple background like before. Although my ideology for my magazine is still to make like the 'creme-De-la-creme' of music mags, I found that not many glossy fashion magazine didn't have some sort of background. I used a brick wall because I don't think you can go wrong with them. They add enough texture and shades to be interesting whilst still keeping a balanced background for the main subject of the photo.

This is my photo after I enhanced it. I increased the hue and the saturation of the red in my models shirt to really bring out my primary colour and I slightly lightened the background to give the same effect.

I then started adding text. Although, on my original sketch I wanted quite a lot of different sub headings, I decided through more research into existing magazines that I should be careful with the amount of text I put on my cover as it is hard to get the balance right. When I started to put my text on I decided to play around with different fonts and see what came out of it. My title font was my best feature. It kept the classic feel, which was crucial to the ideology of my magazine, but had a modern twist with the bold, rounded font of the "The". Also, to contrast with the very classic look, I had the words "the 80's issue" in stencil writing. This was in keeping with the 80's motif while also making the magazine look modern.

This was my first go:

The best thing about my first draft was the placing of the picture on the page. I made it bleed to the edge to give a typical music magazine look, using the brick wall as a solid background. The text and font was good on this draft, although I felt there was something missing. So, on my second go, I tried to rectify these mistakes.

As you can see, there were not too many changes. Upon completing my first draft, I printed it and found that the whole thing was too dark and the model looked quite washed out. Obviously this was not the look I was going for and so I enhanced the colour of the whole page in my second draft. I also changed certain other elements, for example the font, because I didn't think my first draft had enough variety and this made it look unprofessional. So, I changed the fonts of the smaller headlines from being all corbel regular to being a mixture of fonts, styles and sizes. After looking at the sort of magazines that I was basing mine on, I found that they had a lot of different headlines and tag lines, but all very separated so there were only one or two words with each. So, I changed my line "We talk to T.V's SHH!" to "SHH! tells all..." I found that this gave a more simplistic effect to my magazine. Also, as I had made the colour of my magazine brighter, I found I needed to change the colour of a few of the words to make them stand out against the model's clothes. So, I simply changed the start of some headlines to white which also added a cohesive colour scheme of red, blue and white.

The last difference between my two drafts is that I added a some other small things to the cover to increase the profession look of it. I added in tag lines along the top and bottom, a bar code and an issue number, date and price. Although these were small aspects, they really added to the believability of my magazine.

This is my first attempt at designing my music magazine front cover. As you can see, I slightly changed the ideology of magazine by getting inspiration from glossy fashion magazines such as Vogue. My thinking behind this stemmed from the results I got from my questionnaire which suggested I design a whole new magazine. I knew from my research that most magazine focused on bright bold colours with lots of information being thrown at the reader on the front cover.

So, these photos were part of the inspiration for my front cover:









I took my picture and increased the saturation of the girls dress to make the red colour really stand out. This red then became the primary colour for my cover. I tried to match closely the exact same shade with all my red font and particularly the BLONDIE sign which I got by taking a picture of the title of a Blondie CD and photo shopped to get it on its own.

I then used photo shop to add a title and the text, which was a very complicated job as I did each small bit of text separately. Of course, this was better in the long run as it meant I could move each bit round easily.

However, after spending many difficult hours working on this cover, I realised that in fact, it didn't look professional at all. The picture was too dark as I hadn't used natural light and, to be honest, my model wasn't posing in the right way to give the impression of sophistication that I wanted.


Another thing that was wrong was the fact that, in trying to keep it looking clean and simple, like the Vogue and Elle covers, I actually ended up making it look like my prelimanary piece of coursework, which in turn showed that I hadn't moved on in ability from the beginnning of the year.

Photos 2

These were the second lot of photos I took, which may also be used on the front cover or in the magazine. I was aiming to produce one or two really good pictures with an 80's theme, so I used 80's costume and added make up and hair from the era to add to the believability. Also, in some of the later pictures, I introduced 80's motifs sch as record sleeves, big headphones and walkmans.

Not all of the best pictures I took are going to feature here until they have been edited because there are too many to analyse in their original state.

However, I like these particular ones because of their mise-en-scene. The red of the dress is prominant against the wall and in the last photo links to the colour of the cushion.

The first two are the best because of the odd way the light is playing off the dress and so I am pretty sure I will use these in my magazine.

Photos

These were the original photos I took for my magazine. The main subjects are a young band who are aspiring to greater things and they may be the subject of my article or they may have a smaller role as contents page pictures.

The thing I love about this first one is the wierd, distorted perspective of the wall. With some editing I think I can enhance this wierd effect to make it really stand out.

I like the second photo because of the way the subjects are neatly lined up and the odd, contrasting red of the heart really livens the picture up. The heart means that the picture could link to any number of things in an article etc.

The third photo is unusual because the subjects are totally covered by tree branches. However, the bright blue of the sky and the brilliant light on the shirts means that this picture would work on a dull page to lighten it up.

The only thing I like about the fourth picture is the symmetry. I can see this photo working when it is accompanying an article, but it is too uniteresting to work on its own.

The las picture is probably my favorite as it shows the emotions and ideals of the band as well as being very well focused with some perfect lighting. I could see this being a main picture in my magazine.

I will now edit these pictures on photoshop to enhance their positive points so I can decide exactly what to use in my magazine.

Fonts

My magazine is going to be a music magazine which focuses on all the best music since the 50's. It will include articles about music and music ideas a long with the usual reviews and photos. It will focus on mainstream bands because, these are the most widely loved artists.

The reader profile for my magazine would be someone of any age who enjoys good music and who feels that music is a big part of their life.

These fonts all caught my eye while researching. I like how they all fit the name "classic" and therefore give the magazine title the start of a brand identity. The kind of identity I'm looking for is retro/retro chic, being inspired by 60's adverts and 80's pop culture, which fits with the whole ideology of my magazine.

My Preliminary Task - CONTENTS PAGE

This is my preliminary contents page which I was pleased with, however I know many ways in which I could improve it. Obviously, without photos the page looks empty and if i were to properly complete it, the colour from the other pictures would hopefully improve the aesthetics of the page.

The thing that I did do well on was the use of house colours. The dark red of the title and headline link to the front cover and add cohesion. Also, I used the same star shaped call out to make a link in the readers mind and persuade them to read the details which follow on from the front cover. Under the star, I used underlined text to make the writing stand out. I have seen this done in other magazines and I thought the effect was a more professional on.

However, if I were to do this contents page again I would look at adding a block of one or two colours behind all the writing, to stop the page from looking so unfinished.

I think the main problem is that this piece was only preliminary and therefore didn't need to have a complete look to it. So, without all the text and photos I can't make a complete evaluation of the page.