Experimenting with the camera!

So during the past few days, I've been taking pictures for my front cover, contents page and double page spread. I can now say that I much more familiar with the camera than I was at the beginning. By familiarizing myself with the camera, it has enabled me to produce potential shots that I want to use in my magazine. I have used two types of shots which are long shots, mid shots.  I have used these two particular shots because they are both very common in R&B (my chosen genre) magazines. While taking pictures, I experimented with the lighting. I took a few with a light shining at his figure, then I took others outside. By doing this, it made me realise how lighting affects your image, which place was better and which one was not. I decided to take lots of images as it gives me a wide range of what to choose from. Here are all of the images I took:

While taking my pictures, I thought about the location of where my artist would be placed. Also, different locations had different lighting so this enabled me to pick out key images that I thought would work well for my front cover and the main image is the important. While, taking my pictures, I ensured I took it with a clear background as this would make it easier for me to cut out. To ensure my pictures were good, I asked my teacher for his opinion on what he thought of them. He told me I should add an item on the artist like an era cap, a watch etc. I took this information into account and made my artist wear a watch which is shown in my double page spread. I realised that it made my image stand out and I wish I had done this for my front cover as my double page spread images are much stronger than the ones on my front cover. In many music videos I have realised that most of the artists have an item whether it be or a chain or ring, it makes them stand out much more than them wearing nothing at all.

Front cover pose

After a lot of thought, I have finally decided my layout for my front cover! I have stuck to the same colour scheme (yellow, black and white) and I think my idea is effective and hopefully it will attract potential customers. I have taken parts of the magazine I got my inspiration and use some ideas of my own to create my overall front cover. As I have only use Photoshop once (for my prelim last year), I do realise that I have to use my own time out of school to make this the best it can be. I will get help from my teacher and I will be taking pictures of Monday as my model is not ready yet. By using some of my own ideas as well as theirs, it give my magazine that unique touch. Here is the front cover that inspired me:

Shot list

Front cover
On my front cover, I have decided my colour scheme to be black, white and red. However, as this is a common theme amongst many students in my class, I want to change it to white, black and yellow. I want my magazine to be unique and different from everyone else's. I got my inspiration from the music magazine 'Flavour'. As it being one of my favourite magazines of all time, I aim to create a magazine similar to Flavour by using Photoshop. However, I am aware that I need to be careful not to recreate the magazine. My artist will have two sides to him, good and bad.

Double Page Spread
My original idea on my double page spread was to include my artist sitting down, looking down against the wall which would be placed on the left hand side. However, I also found out many people had this exact idea so I decided to change it. After thinking, I want to either have one whole page dedicated to the image itself. Or have the artist posing after the wall white different shots underneath it. I got my inspiration of using one page for the image itself from the magazines Flavour and Vibe.

Contents Page
As Vibe is my favourite magazine, I didn't like the layout of the contents page. This is due to the fact of the way the title is written. In my opinion, I don't think it is very effective. I have decided to keep my magazine very simple as making it too busy might not attract potential customers.

Name of my magazine

For my magazine, I've decided on the name 'SWAG'. This is due to the fact of today's society and how artists get recognised. They don't only get recognised by their voice, but the way they dress. For example, Lady Gaga is known to be extravagant in what she wears. By doing this, it makes her become known for what she wears which symbolises her uniqueness. Another well known artist is Nicki Minaj. She is known for wearing unusual but yet again unique clothes which makes her what she is today. With today's technology, your voice can be changed into something it's not. That's why when many artists peform live,  they don't sound as good as in their songs.
'Swag' in slang means the way you dress. In other words; how you present yourself and normally if someone is dressed nicely, people will say you've got 'swag'.

Reader Profile

Zara is a 17 year old who is currently studying A levels in Media, Music and Business Studies at sixth form. She is interested in RnB/Hip Hop music and spends her free time reading magazines such as Vibe and Flavour as they cater for the similar genre. She prefers magazines with interviews, gossip about different artists and upcoming albums.  These factors would draw her attention into buying a magazine. Her favourite artists are Beyonce, Rihanna, Tinnie Tempah, Chris Brown and Alicia Keys and aspires to be as big as them in the near future. Zara is currently taking private singing lessons at home. This will prepare her well enough for her next step into the music industry as she hopes one day to become a singer. As she is very passionate about music, she promotes her music through Facebook, Youtube and SoundCloud in hoping she gets recognised. My music magazine will appeal to Zara as I will be catering for RnB/Hip Hop music and it will also include top tips from well know aritists on how they got as big as how they are today and what others who are willing to enter the music industry need to do to get there.

Flat plans

These were my flat plans. My first image I had inspiration from the music magazine ‘Flavour’. This was the only flat plan that went to plan as my final products looks completely different. The other three images did not go to plan. I believe that my final products look much better than my flat plans. I have realised that plans don’t always work and change is sometimes change for the better and in this case, the change that occurred was for the better. The reason why my flat plans maybe did not quite go to plan was due to lack of research. While doing my flat plans, I did not conduct as much research I should have done. I did not put much thought into it although I knew planning is a vital stage.

Pie charts representing my results

After producing my questionnaire, I issued a pie chart which enabled me to structure my results efficiently. By constructing this, it showed me easily what option was most popular from each question. From these results, it allowed me to start producing my magazine. I found that everyone liked the colour scheme 'black, white and blue' and hardly anyone brought a magazine so this enabled me to produce something that's fresh and unique to meet their needs. As I could not decide on a particular colour scheme, I thought it would be a good idea to put this question in my questionnaire although it didn't help me because I didn't use the colour scheme that was most popluar in my questionnaire on my magazine. I thought it was important to ask my audience what type of pose would attract them as I could then use this type of pose in my magazine

Results from my questionnaire

I then checked my account to identify my results 12 days later. From the information I have gathered, I can tell what type of genre of music most people prefer. This gave me a much clearer insight on what genre I would base my magazine on although I knew what I wanted to go with right from the beginning. One of my questions asked my audience what colour scheme they would prefer on their magazine and my audience said ‘black, white and blue’. However as this is a common colour scheme among many magazines, I wanted to go with a unique look. So I came up with ‘black, white and yellow’. But, these three colours only worked with a black background and I wanted to use a white one. While playing around with the colour yellow, I came across the colour gold. I thought this would work with my magazine because it represents money and wealth which relates to my image of him in a suit.

Scamps

Yesterday in class, we designed our scamps for my front page, contents page and double page spread. This gave me a clearer insight on how my artist will be portrayed on my front cover, and the layout of both my contents page and my double page spread, although I dont have a fixed decision on the way my contents page is going to be set out. While designing my front cover on a sheet of paper, I looked at different types of magazine covers which helped me bring different components together as one. My scamps will be up soon!

Use of semiotics in XXL

The magazine XXL relates to the genre that I want to do for my magazine. There are a variety of ways semiotics is presented on this front cover. I am going to deconstruct XXL to show you the ways in which they are shown. From the people used on the front cover, we can tell that they are the class of 2011. Without the text 'class of 2011', we wouldn’t have been able to figure out what year the picture was taken. Unless you look at the barcode which has the date it was issued. However, I only know this due to the text they wrote on right. Without out that, I would've also thought the same. This is because of the books on the desk which suggests they are at school. Many of them don't look very happy which suggests maybe some of them haven't graduated?

The topless man on the front at the right is an artist and maybe the word on the board he's holding suggests that they are his lyrics? The man with the slingshot at the back shows he's the mischievous boy of the class and causes a lot of trouble. If they were smartly dressed without any text, the reader would automatically think that it's a school/class photograph. At the bottom of the magazine, the word 'featuring' is in a different font. This might suggest the producer of the magazine wants the reader to be drawn to the names of the artists in the picture.

Without the text at the bottom, the audience won’t know the names of the artists. The text at the top 'the 4th annual freshmen issue' suggests that the words 'the 4th annual' is more important than the words 'freshmen issue'. I can tell this because the first three words are bigger and the other two which suggests the producer done this purposely to attract the reader. This might be of interest to the reader because it shows that there are more magazines issued before it which may make the reader want to buy the previous editions.

More about the use of words! On the right hand side, there is a use of the rule of three 'rappers, rhyming, and relatives’. The word 'rappers' is bigger than the other two words which suggest the importance.

How I carried out my research...

As part of my research to find out what my audience want, I created a questionnaire. I did it by using a website called survey monkey. At the end of creating my questionnaire, I was given a link that I got people to sign. I posted the link on a social networking site like Twitter. From there, my followers would see this on my timeline and eventually click the link and fill out the questionnaire. I also used BlackBerry Messenger to broadcast the link which I kindly asked the contacts to fill out. Here are some print screens of how I broadcasted it via twitter.