Research & Summarise

Front cover

An image based cover is the most commonly used style, but it's important to get it right. A typical successful cover consists of one or a few main images with the main one having a model that gives direct eye contact with the camera, preferably smiling. In many cases it is the cover image that sells the magazine so it has to be right.

Another important thing is the interaction between the words and the picture. some magazines of for a few cover lines, some fill almost each empty space with the cover lines. It all depends on the character of the publication.  
A cover line needs one line set in big type and it has to be the best cover line. It can be call for action, solution to problems, a powerful statement or some word play. 

When choosing a proper body text font, you should choose one that suits your publication. The most popular font for a magazine is a serif font, they use this because it makes it easier for line to line eye transition. However from doing further research into this most magazines use a vary of different fonts within their articles so I will vary my text to follow the common conventions.

Contents page

Each paragraph of text can have a horizontal indent in the first line of the paragraph. The paragraph just below the subheading doesn't have to have to be indented, the indent should be from 3-5mm depending on the width of the text column.

The heading should be situated somewhere easily visible as people read the contents page to find out what the main feature story includes. It also has to be one of the biggest things on the page, then followed by the main image. The other images need to be smaller to show that they are the less important ones that don't belong with the feature article.

With the other smaller images should have mini coverless that include the sub heading of that story, they should also have the page numbers that they appear on so that its easier to navigate to. The text should be in a 5-9pt size font as it's a common convention for magazines, the text should also be written in sentence case.

Double Page Spread

The heading should be the biggest thing on one of the pages and should only typically feature on one side of the page. Subheadings should introduce the different parts of the article and also have pull quotes from the interview, this is to show some of the main interesting things that they reveal.

The other side of the page should be filled with one main image of the featured artist. This image should represent the theme and style of the magazine but also show the colour palette used throughout the story.

The by-line should also be quite small as it isn't an important part to the article, however it still should be quite visible as the writer would want recognition for his/her work.

Verran Edited Images

I didn't really have to edit these images much because I set up my lights in a "flat-light" set up so it would give my image a natural shadow on the side of my models face. I used photoshop to adjust the hue and saturation and also change the brightness and contrast in order to get the perfect final image for my magazine. When taking these images I referred back to my flat plans so that the position and models expression was how I wanted it to feature in my magazine. I chose to have two images of the male star and add one of my female star so that both males and females could relate to the images. If I were to change anything about my images I may have made my images brighter by changing the brightness of the flat boxes, however I feel that the darker images work with the style of my magazine.

Verran Cover Image Selection

These are the four images I got from our class photoshoot, I like all of these images as they have good lighting however the posing on some are better than the others. The one that I have selected is not your typical image for a pop magazine cover because it's not a medium close up, however that is the style that I am going for as I'm going to re-vamp the look of pop magazines.

The story line for this picture will be "pops biggest bad boy" therefore I needed an image of the model not smiling into the camera to represent the stereotypical appearance of a "bad boy". In order to achieve the best representation I am going to look at Stanley Hall's theory about the storm and stress of adolescence.

My photoshoot was taken in a studio with a black back drop. I could have chosen to do a shoot on location however, I wanted a simplistic image with the model being the main focus so if there was a busy background the attention would have been taken away from my model. I also chose for the model to have main focus to represent his attitude and style.

Verran Image planning

  

I like that this image is not the typical medium close up that you would normally find on the cover of a pop magazine. I think this image shows character and attitude which could help relate to the feature article, I also like this image because it is more relaxed/casual but still reaches out and appeals to the target audience.

However when creating my own magazine I will try and stick to the common conventions and use a medium close up of somebody that fits into the target age category this will help to connect to the readers as they can relate to the model. I think both would be suitable for this style of magazine but at the end I will experiment with both styles of images and see which one is most effective.

For my contents page, this is the type of image I will have as one of my main ones. I think it follows the casual theme set for my magazine, I also think that direct eye contact with he camera will be more effective on reaching out to the target audience therefore my model will have to be giving direct eye contact. The hair and make up will be left quite subtle as i don't want the music magazine to be mistaken for a fashion magazine, I'm also going to add in props such as headphones and a guitar to support the mise en scene. For the costume I'm also going to keep it casual just like the shoot with Justin Bieber and have my model posing in casual clothes, I have chosen to do this rather than getting my model to dress in fancy going out clothes because my target audience would be more likely to dress casual therefore it would be easier for them to relate to the artist.

This would an ideal image to use on my double page spread because it fits the casual style that my magazine is going to hold, it also looks like it came from the same shoot because he is against a wall giving direct eye contact to the camera. When creating my double page spread I am going to have one side of the page filled with my image and the other side will be text based, because its a double page spread I will have to leave room in the middle for the cut line to avoid missing parts of my article or image.

Verran Main Artist Profile

The type of artist profile I want to feature in my magazine and on the cover would be a new, young and successful artist. I chose this because I can show gender, youth, age and ethnicity on the cover and build a positive representation of its own through my magazine. I would like the artist to be aged within my target audience because I feel that if I have someone aged around 16-17 it would be the prime artist for my target audiences interest, I'm also going to have my model being a white British female because that's the ethnicity that my main audience will be.

An example of a young successful British female artist would be Cher Lloyd, she's an inspiration to many has she has had to make her way from the bottom to get where she is and it just shows that if she can do it many other people can if they try hard enough. However it contradicts Osgerby's theory that "you don't have to look far to find a bad representation of youth". In any other social situation this would be correct although in the music industry most female pop artists are seen as being a figure to look up to and are well respected. However some of the other music genre's follow his theory and youth are portrayed in a less glamorous and negative way for example; grime, rap and rock.

Verran Mood Board

In my mood board you will see the types of colours, font and image type I will be following when I create my own magazine. The background images are the type of artists I will feature in my contents page stories and base my main feature stories on. I have also included the magazines that I will look at and use as inspiration, although all of these covers have a main image of females posing in quite a vulnerable way where as I am going to have an image of a male looking quite stern directly giving eye contact to the audience which will be subverting the conventions of a pop main image for a cover, usually the main focus is a women looking happy and smiling at the camera. The colours I chose to use for my magazine also subverts the typical choice for a pop magazine because I chose black, blue, white and grey which are all quite dark colours where as usually it would be hot pinks, whites and yellows. I chose not to use those colours because I personally think that they make the magazines look tacky and childish.

Verran DPS article

This Year has been brilliant for new up coming artist Jess Darke, although it’s not all been a smooth journey for her. She’s been heavily criticised by the newspapers for her reckless behaviour, and her on and off relationship with Jackson Mills was suspected to be the reason behind her attitude. It’s still not official whether or not the pair have fully separated but another thing the press haven’t failed to notice are the sudden change in men she has been spotted with, could this mean it’s done for good? So when she came to see us earlier we couldn’t help ask the question everyone was dying to know the answer to.

With all the speculation about you and Jackson how has it affected your relationship? “When Jackson and I first met everything was perfect, we were very much connected together but with busy careers we were both away for weeks at a time. It didn’t really bother us at first because when we were finally reunited it made our bond grow stronger, however then the press started getting involved and published a lot of stuff that was 100% false for example when Jackson was touring in the US he was rumoured to be cheating on me so the trust started to break and things started to change because every time one of us went away we would be snapped with other people. do admit that I’ve made mistakes but that’s not my problem everyone has made them I was just unfortunate enough to have press there to tell everyone about them. We decided to take some time apart to focus on our careers and I feel this was the best move for us because I got scouted and now I’ve been signed to a proper label and I’m not saying that we completely stopped seeing each other but it just gave us time to realise what we wanted without all the papers interfering.

We are now in a place that we meet up at least once a week even if it’s to just grab a coffee, who knows what the future holds for us but one thing I’m sure about is whichever way this goes I’ll always be there for him.” It seems like things for the pair are going good at the moment so will their reckless behaviour stop now that they seem to be settled or do they live on the buzz they get from trouble?