Research/Case Studies (Part 2) - NME Front Cover Analysis

The second magazine I choose to base my research upon is NME Magazine, the main genre of the magazine is Rock however over time Alternative and Indie have graced the scene. 

How can I tell that this is a Rock magazine? 

Well, already the girls who are on the front cover look wild and rebellious through their styling -  also isn't the genre of the magazine a little bit rebellious as to what were opposed to listening to? 

Firstly I analysed the Image on the front cover and I can see the shot type used was a medium-long shot, even though the front cover looked very unconventional as were opposed to seeing just a normal band on the front cover, with a few cover lines dressed on the page, but in this instance its almost as if were looking into their lives ('Haim') and there taking a picture of what they see (us) looking at them, and it just so happened they was able to catch this moment that's why the shot is framed as if it were a real picture which looks quite cool and its a very different approach of what i'm used to seeing on the front cover of an NME Magazine. The lighting used is very white-washed  the front cover is really bright. NME did add some props, one of the band members is holding up a camera - this adds to the whole theme of the featured article (taking a look inside Haim) 

Conventions of Page Layout

The masthead is in its regular position for NME in its colour red, seen as this issue was very unconventional the theme colour red ran through the magazine which includes the styling of the band to the anchorage text and pull quotes. The font used is very bold and basic, the cover lines on this issue was very disperse and were spread out onto the frame of the shot, you can see artists names like "Maccabees" "Metalica". The way they incorporated the pull quotes from the double page spread was a nice touch as there was a quote from each of the members and they summed up what kind of attitude they have as a whole. I really liked the use of the anchorage text where it says "GET THE PICTURE?" it was well thought of as it linked to the image, the pull quotes, its as if there sending a message that they are here and they are here to stay. 

Language

There isn't as much writing on the front cover as there usually is on a NME Magazine, but this is a very different issue. 

That sums up the front cover of NME Magazine 

Reaserch/Case Studies - Secondary Audience Research - MOJO Magazine Press Kit Analysis (Part 2)

For my research, I decided to focus on a different type of genre rather than the usual genre i'm used to picking (Hip-Hop/R&B). 
I decided to focus on MOJO Magazine. Let me brief you on MOJO's mission and what they offer to the music magazine industry. 
MOJO Magazine is for rock lovers but they do dab into classic rock. The typical age would be 35 and over for both genders. The artists they most focus on; Boy Dylan, The White Stripes, Guns and Roses and many more. The ideology of MOJO is showing its value as they're allot of classical rock artists out there. MOJO Magazine focuses more on having articles rather than writing reviews of gigs and festivals like Kerrang Magazine. 






Here is a screen shot of MOJO Magazine's Mission Statement from Slideshare - http://www.slideshare.net/HeworthMedia1/inside-nme-and-mojo

The Credentials 

MOJO Magazine is the worlds largest UK Magazine and there unique selling points would be there monthly dosage of world class journalism and its iconic photography to an audiences who are extremely passionate music consumers. 
So basically if you're featured in a MOJO Magazine you matter!

MOJO is The Music Expert - as the magazine is filled with high brand values. Its carefully crafted music archive, covering the best music across genres from classic rock, folk, soul, country, Reggie - the list goes on. They prefer quality over popularity - music that will stand over time. 

The MOJO Reader

 This is a screenshot of MOJO's reader. Collectively i gathered that males are 73.1% of the reader, this tells me that the magazine is mostly male orientated. I also found out that the popular age range is 45-54 as they had the highest percentage rate (28.8%) with the age ranging from 15 - 65+. Those are the things i picked up on.

Publishers
MOJO Magazine was initially published by Emap but since January 2008 Bauer are now the official publishers. Bauer Media Group is a multinational media company headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. Which operates in sixteen different countries worldwide. Other than publishing MOJO Magazine. Bauer also invest in different projects as they have there own radio company called 'Bauer Radio' they also own 50% of a British television company called 'Box Television' which broadcast a variety of popular music channels such as; 4music, Kiss, Smash Hits, Kerrang etc. 
Bauer is very familiar with cross-media projects for example, Bauer brands include women's weekly and TV listing magazines such as; Take a Break, Total TVGuide etc. They also produce a number of puzzle magazines.

Drafting and Finalizing House Styles, Drafts and Layouts (Planning) - DRAFT

This is just some thoughts and ideas for my main task which is creating my own magazine. I have not yet finalized my ideas, but this is a sneak preview as to what may become of my finalized piece. Here I've talked about possible magazine titles and the genre of the magazine.

Magazine Newsstand Task/ Distribution of Magazines - Part 2 (Planning)

For my research in other magazine distribution methods, i decided to go with VIBE magazine which is a R&B/Hip-Hop magazine.

Distribution and Selling Areas

As of April 2013 VIBE Magazine is owned by Spin Media.
VIBE Magazine has many ways in which its distributed for example; you can find a VIBE Magazine in nearly every magazine outlet or in a supermarket in the UK. They also have an online website (www.vibe.com) where you can also get additional information but the magazine and vibe.com do not all the time correspond as the magazine is issued every other month, whilst the online magazine is constantly updated.
I have also found that VIBE online has a larger presence than the magazine and that's its selling area, but i personally think we are now in that generation whereby everything is technological so not many people buy magazines anymore but read them online.

Attracting and Satisfying 

Id say VIBE's biggest selling point and what attracts most readers is there daring front covers and the artists they feature on them. Over the years these artists have graced the covers; Beyonce, 2pac, Micheal Jackson, Obama, Ciara, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj, Amy Winehouse, Lil - Wayne - the list goes on but just to name a few.
The magazine also satisfies audiences by including revolutionary music reviews, its celebrities gossip columns, next profiled up-coming artists. They also devote several pages to photos of high-end fashion for example Rocawear and Fubu.

Online Magazine vs Print Magazine

• The online version has more information than the print magazine. For example the print magazine is dedicated to specific articles displayed inside it, whereas the online magazine goes very broad staying in trend with what is going on in the music scene right now
• The online magazine has ore facts and extra information like including videos in relation to a specific article, however in the print magazine its up to you to research a specific topic being mentioned in the magazine as it isn't available in the print you're able to look it up on the online magazine. 

Technologies Used to Develop their Product

• By having their merchandise on other internet sources other than their own for example you can buy current or previous issues from eCommerce websites
• They can create adverted on TV or on the Internet
• By having their magazines placed either the first or second shelf of a magazine stand in a magazine outlet as this will bring better business for them.

Social Media/Networks

Nower days it is very important to involve yourself in Social Media/Networking because its sort of  place whereby you can advertise yourself for free, whilst being able to promote your brand as at least one person belongs to a Social Media/Network so its a good way of putting yourself out there. 

VIBE Magazine have many was on how you can keep in touch with their movement through various Social Media/Networks.You can find them on:

Twitter: @VibeMagazine

Instagram: @VibeMagazine

Facebook: www.Facebook.com/VIBE

Magazine Newsstand Task/ Distribution of Magazines - Part 1 (Planning)

For this task i went to visit WHSmith, which is a book/magazine store.

I found that the music magazine section was quite restricting as it didn't have a variety of different genre magazines, but i worked with what i got.

Lets begin with the top section of the music magazine stand. 

The magazines that are displayed here are; Prog, Blues, Q - just to name a few. These magazines have been displayed on a shelf and when you walk into the magazine section they are facing the audience (you) and for this specific shelf the magazine are facing upright not slanted, displaying the whole magazine name, maybe this was done as these are prestigious magazines and they deserve to have their full name of the magazine displayed. From looking at this shelf i can identify that these must be rock or indie magazines by just looking at the front covers, for example; i'm not quite sure what the name of the magazine is but where the masthead says 'Arctic Monkeys' i know that they're an indie band, i can tell this through the image of slumped looking guys, whom are dressed very laid back, with that " i don't care attitude". 

I also noticed that most of the magazines displayed here have a very bold and striking looking masthead apart from that magazine 'Shindig' which is quite funky in comparison to the other magazines displayed next to it. I didn't really notice any prominent cover lines here, the ones i picked up on was on the 'Country' magazine whereby it says "Johnny Cash" this is probably referencing this issue of the magazine is dedicated to that artist. Another cover line i spotted was on the magazine where the Arctic Monkeys are displayed on and as far as i  see it says "From the rubble" that must have a correlation to the artists on the front cover as that's what cover lines are meant to do, its like giving the reader a short snippet as to what entails inside. 

Lets move onto the middle section of the music magazine stand.

Just to name a few of the magazines displayed here; Rolling Stone, XXL, The Source, Terror, Kerrang and 

NME. The way these magazines have been displayed in is more of the usual way i'm used to seeing it, which is called the 'Left Third' this is when the magazines are placed - showing the name of the magazines and where most cover lines are placed (on the left hand-side) this is a good feature to include in making a magazine, and i have taken this into consideration as i will soon be producing my very own magazine, but when we enter a magazine store or anywhere where they sell magazines most of the time or eyes go straight to the center (where the image usually is) or to the left hand-side (where you will find a cover lines). I couldn't really see all the images of the magazines, but what i got to see was 'Terror' magazine and i identified this as a rock or a heavy metal magazine because of the masthead, its still bold but the font-style has that bloody halloween feel to it. i also noticed the house-style of the magazine is black and white no colour at all, even the image is shot in black and white. However the image doesn't really scream rock or heavy metal because of the artist they choose to use because the artist is styled with glasses, but then again hes wearing black and his hair and beard are black and hes embodying a true rock or heavy metal artist.


Lastly lets move on to the bottom section of the magazine stand.

The magazines displayed here are; mixmag, Beats & Bass - just to name a few.
These magazines are also displayed in the 'Left Third' technique and the magazine that stood out to me the most was the Beat & Bass magazine because i like the front cover, there is no image but it looks like a sound wave coming out a giant speaker and this tells me that this must be a dance or techno or house music - something in that lane of magazine genres. Also Beat & Bass magazine isn't its usual layout for a magazine because firstly the masthead is usually in the top right corner but not in this case, its very much centered and on top of that there is writing above the masthead which is quite usual and also there isn't that much on the front cover of the magazine this tells me that the magazine doesn't really need to sell itself that they may have loyal audiences, and their guaranteed to sell magazines even without the typical conventions of a magazine.

So that sums up my findings from the magazine newsstand task.

Audience Feedback and Evaluation - Preliminary Task/College Magazine (Planning)

What I think went well with the front cover is the photography, I really like the image I have chosen as it shows a strong happy person, I think the pose as well caters to the layout of the magazine it doesn't look to messy it has a simple but sophisticated look to it. However, seen as its a student magazine I wish the image included the Student ID card so that it will be more identifiable to the target audience. Also on the contents page i tried to show college life that's why I've chosen to put up a few students instead of using the same image but different shot on the contents page, so its a student magazine i thought that made more sense.

I like how i manipulated the image on Photoshop, as I have made the image be placed on the right side of the page, whilst the text is on the left hand side, I think this gives a straight forward look as in most magazines you normally have the main image on the front cover centred and the text is adjusted around the image but in this case I was going for something very simple as I didn't want the audience to feel uneasy, I think my colour scheme makes up or it.

As I've alliterated i enjoy the page layout, i like how I've kept all the text to one side of the page as this is what they call the lower left third. This is a good feature to possess on a front cover because this is a key factor into distributing magazines. The layout of the contents page is simple, following the same features from the front cover, as in the text on the left hand side of the page and the images on the right hand side.

The masthead I've chosen is LSC as its Leyton Sixform College abbreviated and I've used this purposefully as this is how the school is recognized amongst the youth so it as a play on words a bit like 'text' language which my target audience will know well of. The colour I've chosen blue and black compliments the image as the colour of the top is blue and the skirt and jacket is black so I thought it would be nice for the image and colour scheme to correspond, and this followed through on the contents page. My main house style was Stencil Std I choose this as its very bold and strong and that's the impression I want to give off. I stuck in the same colour scheme I used dark blues, light blues and off purple. For my cover lines on the front cover, I wanted to do something different, so for my first cover line I took out what is yet to be a feature from inside the magazine and extracted a quote so that the reader is able to read it and if they'd like to know more about this student they will have to read on. My second cover line is of coarse a freebie as anyone who sees something free is instantly drawn towards the magazine and I've made it relevant to any student at the college even though I haven't said what its for, but once they find out that its a free voucher to the school meals i know this magazine will be on demand as everyone would want one! The last cover line I included is something that is relevant to the whole student body so I think it was a nice touch to add that piece of information as everyone - second year or first year can relate. This is also how I've set out  the contents page in the same format only difference is I've added page numbers and I created it on InDesign, I wanted it not to look that different from the front cover, although I could've made it look more interesting as right now it isn't standing out as much as the front cover is on its own.

What I need to improve on mainly is the contents page as its quite bare at the moment, so I've only added simple features I haven't made it dynamic in any or even interesting at that matter.

I have taken the audience comments into consideration and these are the three main points I need to improve on when it comes to producing the main task, what I need to do is :

• Put more thought into the structure of the magazine and how my layout is going to stand out from the rest and be more dynamic
• Put more thought into picking the right images and placing them where necessary in order for the magazine to have a nice flow to it
• Put more thought into the cover lines and the magazines selling point, as I feel on this task I didn't put enough thought into it so that I'm able to give the best possible magazine out there, as this is a very  important aspect of a magazine, it must have meaningful content. 

.

Preliminary Task : LSC Magazine : Contents Page : (Planning)

Preliminary Task: LSC Magazine (Planning) : Student Magazine

 

 

This is the final copy of my student magazine (the front cover).

 

I like the colour scheme and I don't really like the picture for a student magazine. 

Student Magazine : DRAFTED NOT FINISHED!!!

 



Research/Case Study - DPS : XXL

The DPS which features Drake consists of 9 pages this is unusual for a normal setting of a DPS. Lets begin with the introduction to the article. The image is that of Drake holding an owl which is a medium long shot the constancy of the lighting follows through. This in the first time the image was in colour as they've all been black and white so far.

Conventions of the Page Layout
There is a masthead on the top right corner in a thin bold font saying 'Everything I Am' and below it its got a Pull Quote from the article this is nicely done as the audience would want to know more and understand the quote more.

The next DPS that's linked to the feature is a text on the left hand side; the text looks quite messy as there's no structure into it its just writing so as the reader you haven't really got a set place to focus your attention on. However on the right hand side we have an image of drake - a close up, whereby tge lighting is focused more on his face and the rest of it becomes a shadow, it looks very editorial. The font is very simple and straightforward wasn't really anything to catch your attention.

The next page of the feature is that of another black and white image of Drake where hes showcasing his tattoos, on the right top corner we have another pull quote and this is becoming effective because as theirs so many breaks between the article the editor is giving you snippets of what is yet to come therefore you wouldn't mind that there's a gap as your more focused on reading along. The house style was included here as we began to see the theme colours of white and red showcase itself. They highlighted important information through further bolding out the words and making it larger so that the readers eyes will go straight there and hopefully be intrigued.

The next page of this DPS had the unusual similar but effective layout there was 3 text boxes all aligned around the image, the font that was used was very standard, they used a thinner and thicker font to highlight another pull quote from the article. The colour scheme was dull but it relates to the type of images displayed so everything corresponding.  The image used is a long-shot with the same theme of black and white.

The next page is a continuation of the previous page which carries out the same layout only difference is the image that they've used is a close up and its in colour.

The next page of the article has the same layout also but what differs is that the image is a  medium-long shot and the pictures in black and white.

The final page also has the same layout but they've chosen to include another pull quote with the same conventions as the previous and the image used is that of a black and white with a medium - close up.

That sums up the DPS of XXL magazine.

Research/Case Study - Contents Page : XXL

 

 

 

 

Firstly I analysed the Contents Page, I began my analysis on the Image. I began on page 1 there was various images used but the 7 different shots consist of Medium Long Shot, Medium Close Up. The lighting used for the images varies but the style of the front cover runs through. The styling of the first page of the contents page relates to the front cover as its the same image just different shots. Page 2 has a different approach, instead on focusing on Drake they've shot various different artists//celebrity's. For example A$AP Ferg, King Louie and Troy Aves shot is a Long Shot and the styling used clearly portrays the genre Hip-Hop/ Rap from the gold chain to the oversized attire. Page 3 of the contents page is an editorial column and the main image that relates to the editorial article which is the owl which denotes that the editor has intelligence, brilliance, has wisdom, power and knowledge as these are the things associated with an owl therefore the article is meaningful. Page 4 is more of the credits but its still a part of the contents page but there are no images.

 

Conventions of the Contents Page Layout:

On Page 1 & 2 there is a Masteahd - The A-Side & The B-Side. This is a good word play about as The A-Side is the most important feature which is Drake that's why he's the only one on the page. Page 1. Consists of the magazines logo 'XXL' this is usually done throughout most magazine contents page. There is a use of Margins whereby the magazines just dated the issue. There is a use of alignment instead of text boxes, this is better as the text just flows through the magazine and it looks like its meant to be there. Page 2 also consists of the logo 'XXL' and has the same layout as page 1. however there are more text boxes filled with images with just a small piece of text with numbers this is done to not give too much away as you want the audience to flick to the article and read for themselves. The relationship between the image and the text correspond as they're leading you in with the text displayed through the image as the images are purposefully chosen.

 

Language:

The language used on Page.4 is very standard English as its formal its writing to the reader so it has to be addressed formally so that the readers can take the editors seriously, that explains the mode of address.