Possible layout of my double page spread

This is one of the layouts that I like for my magazine, I have just quickly put the images and text on here just to see what it would look like. With a big of work this may start to look really good.

Rationale Questions - Double page spread.

Double page spread flat plan rationale questions

Colour usage: The colours I am going to use for my text title will be black or green to highlight either the mood of the band and to stand out on the page or to outline the craziness of the band with the colour green. I will use the colour White for the first paragraph indicating a new start to the article, and then as the article continues I will use either purple or green, depending on which colour I use for the title. The colour from the title will contrast with the article as they will be on opposite ends of the colour wheel, or at least colours that contrast well.

Image usage: for my double page spread I am going to use 3 separate images with the page separated in half at the top and then in half horizontally at the bottom, the top is where the singer will be, and the bass guitarist will be on the bottom left and the drummer will be on the bottom right. The singer will be looking down at the other two, with the other two looking at each other in shock or with a star struck/ confused look on their faces. The images on this page will be close ups as that compliments the personal level of the article itself, also the camera angle will be eye level so it again compliments the personal level of the tone I’m creating with the article. There will be black background so it doesn’t steal focus from the images, and it makes the expressions easier to see.

Text usage: the narrative voice for the magazine article will be male as it is written from a male point of view and the context used in the article points towards a male narrative voice. There will be a joke/pun at the top of the page underneath the title of the page, probably something to do with the bands funny antics. There will be their slogan “We’ve come to conquer” near the top of the page making the readers aware that the article is about Misfits of Mayhem.

Layout and Font: I will use the same font as I used for my masthead on the front cover to indicate that this article is important or worth a read. I will use the font Tekton for the article as it suits the style of the magazine and it will assist readership of the article. I have created a photograph framing of sorts for the bands photographs; this is to create an effect of wackiness within the band. The frame looks like this, the singer will be on the top, and the other two will be on the bottom squares.

Rationale Questions - Contents page.

Contents page.

  Colour usage- The reason I have chosen to have a black background is because it makes the red writing stand out, additionally it conforms to the general pattern of this kind of magazine. There will only be two colours on the contents page so it will not conform to a three-colour scheme.

Image usage- I am using a large image at the bottom of the page underneath an article about the image below. I have also used images down the right side of images of articles on other pages so the images are related. Most of the images will be of bands doing gigs and bands posing with their instruments to let the audience know what the article will be about. They will mostly be mid shots of the bands; however the gig photos will be long shots as it’s hard to get photos of gigs close up.

Text usage- There will be the use of teasers and hooks such as “find out what the band has been getting up to on page 12”  Title of content at the top of the page will be in the same font as the front cover’s masthead. There are not going to me any enigma codes, sell lines, headlines; however there will be puns as captions on some of the images.

Layout and font- The contents text on the top of the page will be the same font of the masthead on the front cover. The Article title’s font is going to be in the font sans serif / impact, as these fonts stand out and are easy to read. The layout is easy and simple to read which also follows an easy format to read. I haven’t placed anything in diagonals because a contents page needs to be easy to read and follow as it is essential for the audience to be able to find which articles they want to, otherwise they would have to take time and find it themselves. If it wasn’t easy to follow the magazine wouldn’t be very successful.

Rationale questions - Front Cover.

Rationale Questions

 

Front cover-

Colour usage- The colours I used for my front cover are red for the main text and white for the non-main text, the masthead is going to be colored black, thus conforming to the three-shade colour scheme. Colours will contrast well as all colours make each other stand out, and don’t look similar.

Image usage- The images I will have will be the front cover of three people using a mid-shot with an eyeline match with the audience. The other images I will have placed along the bottom as a lesser known band image x2, then I will have a gig image of an upcoming band, then it will be followed by another lesser known band image, lastly there will be an image of the promotional item that I am including in the magazine.

Text usage- There will be a male narrative voice as the images are all men. There won’t be any key words. There are teasers such as “read now to find out about the music event of the year!” and “Don’t miss out!” There will be sell lines that relate to the main image and that relate to what’s inside the magazine, which can be used as teasers and can be seen as enigma codes.

Layout and font- for the masthead the font will be Sans serif bold which will make it look appealing to this kind of audience. The main sell line will be Sans serif/impact to make it stand out from the other sell lines/enigma codes. The layout helps the readers eyes come down the page, from the masthead to the main image, then to the main sell lines/enigma codes, then to the sell lines, then to the images across the bottom, then finally the barcode.­­­ I have put the bar of images along the bottom on a diagonal slant to conform to the “Z” shaped format.

The convention, the producer and the target audience of my text.

The conventions, the producer and the target audience of my text:

1.    I plan on keeping all of the conventions on my text simple so that the reader wont get confused and that it illustrates the simplistic conventions of the whole magazine. In my images I intend the light to be dark to suit the style of the magazine because males suit this style, I will have to ensure that you can clearly see what I have photographed too. The font will be bold for the title and sub titles to make them stand out; however the font for the text itself will be fairly small and not bold in comparison to the title and sub title. The text may be limited however there will be enough information in the text to explain what the audience will need to know. The colour palette will be a mixture of three main colours which are, red, black and purple, having these three colours makes the magazine conform to which style of magazine it is.

2.    The distributors of my magazine would be a producer who has a reputation of signing pop-punk artists as this is the style of my magazine and their music would probably be featured in my media. Producers who also have a reputation of influencing great pop-punk albums would also be involved in the making of my product. The producer would also have to be a big fan of my media.

3.    My target audience is within the age range of 16-20 years of age and the majority is male. The audience would probably be determined by social class and background, as working middle class people. However working middle aged people would probably not enjoy my media as it is aimed more at the younger audience as not many older people listen to pop-punk music. These people would dress in skinny jeans/normal jeans with checkered shirts and trendy shoes.

4. Companies/ brands that would support my magazine would be some clothing brands like Vans would support, this is because they base their company on pop-punk and pop-rock. Retailers such as earthworks would sell physical copies of my product as we have a similar target audience for what we both want to sell and that would mean more income for both of us, and establishing with the customer a place which sells the things they want to buy. Supermarkets like asda and tesco would also probably sell copies of my magazine, however this would mean giving them a percentage of what we make as they don’t have very many things in common to sell alongside the magazine which would result in fewer sales.

The Recce

The recce

1.    There are minimal risks in the places I have decided to take my photographs as they are very safe locations, so risks are minimalized. The only possible risks would be if the path or grass was wet and the models slipped over and hurt themselves, and these risks will be reduced if I decide to choose a day with no rain beforehand.

2.    To ensure that the risks are minimalized I will try to pick a day were there has been no rain to make sure the models cannot fall over and hurt themselves.

3.    The time of day and weather will affect the outcome of the photographs, I would rather take photos in the dark so the dramatic effect will be in place, however that would not be possible as my camera will not take the photograph unless the flash is on, so I figured that taking the photographs during the day and editing it to be dark would be my best bet. If it was raining that would also be really good however I cannot use my camera in the rain so I will have to edit the rain in –If I decide to go with a rain look, also rain is a potential hazard so it would be best not to take the photographs in the rain.

4.    The background to my photographs will either be matching the photograph itself or edited in by using Photoshop. If I could get a natural background to look professional enough then I will use it, otherwise it is going to have to be edited in using Photoshop.

5.    Taking the photographs outside propose a number of lighting problems. If it is really sunny that day the camera lens will not focus properly and the photographs will have to be taken another day. If it is really dark the flash might spoil the mood also.

6.    I do not need permission to take photographs in front of the castle, or in a back alley next to my house. I chose these to create a dramatic effect and to see if the mood would set properly.

7.    I do not need to book time in room for a professional photo shoot as the venue’s I have chosen to take my photographs are good enough for the effect I want to create.

8.    Other people/ crowds will be an issue for me however I have chosen venue’s suitable enough to prevent seeing other people/ crowds.

9.    I am very reliant on friends as they are my models. I had a plan B in order if none of my friends could not help me, I would have asked someone to take photographs of me in the same venue’s.

Looking at previous years work.

Looking at previous years work at my college, there are a number of things that I can learn from them.
Firstly and most importantly, I can see what the examiners look for in a piece of work, and I can then utilize this to my advantage. I can then see why that person got the grade they did by what work they did. Then I can see what kind of quality the examiner is looking for and then make my work have the same kind of quality or professionalization. Other things I could learn from previous years work is what fonts work well with different styles of magazines. I could learn what type of image suit different styles of magazines and I can learn from their mistakes too.
There is one persons work from last year in particular that I had a few inspirations from. They had a bar across the bottom of the front cover which had images inside them, this was in my draft front cover, but unfortunatley I was unable to make it look proffesional enough to make it into my magazine. They had big writing for the title of the double page spread too, It looked really good, and I thought that it would work well in my magazine, provided I changed the colours and the words as well. then I had to change the layout of it. Nevertheless, It inspired me to make my own, in a similar fashion to the work of the student of the previous year.

Which Images I didn't use and why/ Images I am contemplating using.

It goes without saying that for all of these images ( If I were to use
them ) the background would be cut out and replaced with a more suitable one in Photoshop.

This is the first image that I took, one of the reasons I did not use this image is because of the sign that the model on the left is holding up, it isn't visible enough for the photo to be viable. Also the angle of the poses are a little off, they should have been took straight on at an eye level.

This is the fourth photograph I had took. The pose we were going for was a bit different than what should have been took. The best pose for my magazine front cover would be one person and for the pose to be serious to demonstrate some of the conventions of this style of music.

The reason I did not use this image was because the model sneezed just before this image was taken, leading him to have an unprofessional facial expression, through no fault of his own. Needless to say, I did not use this photograph.

This is one of the images I am contemplating using for my main front cover image. It great in every aspect I can think of, pose, lighting, eye level. I think it fits the position of front cover image very nicely. All I would have to do to make this image my front cover is crop out the background and focus in on the model so it would be a close up image.

Another image I was contemplating using for my front cover is this one. The lighting is good, the pose is great and would suit the style of the magazine and the eye level is also good. Plus I wouldn't have to do much in terms of editing as this image is already portrait, which is perfect as magazines are portrait too. The only things I would have to do would be take out the shadow in the background on the left, and remove the lens marks in each corner.