Music Magazine Evalution - Question 1

1: FORMS AND CONVENTIONS

EVALUTION

My house sty le was based around that of the Mixmag cover, featured bottom-r ight . I fe l t that the colour scheme of this cover helped reflect the sty le of music that I was wr i t ing about - dark and bo ld - so I started with that .

I l iked the idea of a central character , with the text fitt ing around the outs ide of them in a neat fashion. I d id, however, want to make the art is t look more dominant in my cover, so I took a d ifferent form of shot – a low angle shot .

HOUSE STYLE

I adopted the boxed text idea too. I fe l t l ike this would he lp my text stand out more f rom the background, however unl ike th is cover, I used l ighter text , which made i t more legib le .

As I sa id in the previous s l ide, I started by adopt ing the co lour scheme of a part icu lar Mixmag cover. I appl ied this scheme to the background layer ( IMG 1) . Doing the background first meant that I could bui l t on top of i t , as we l l as being able to choose colours that worked wel l wi th the background from the get go.

Fol lowing this , I added a layout layer – a layer that cons is ted of labe l led red boxes that corresponded wi th my flat plans ( IMG 2) . I d id th is as i t meant that , not only d id I have a v isual representat ion of how I wanted the magazine cover to look, but a lso that when I had a new piece to add, I new stra ight away where I wanted i t to go, and that once the rough draft was down, i t was easy to edi t f rom there .

The next step was to choose my cover shot , then edit i t , and then final ly implement i t into my cover. After an hour or so in the photo studio, I managed to get the shot I wanted, however the l ight ing was bad – this meant I had to edi t the l ight ing effects in Photoshop so that

THE PROGRESSION OF MY FRONT COVER

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the image could be used. Fo l lowing this , I removed the background of the image (by se lect ing the parts I wanted, then dupl icat ing them into a new document. )

MY FRONT COVER SHOT

STAGE 1Raw Image

STAGE 2Processed Image

STAGE 3Implemented Image

The next th ing I worked on was my masthead. As my magazine was to be cal led ‘EDM’ , a spin on the three letter abbreviat ion was something s imple , yet would work wel l . I t began wi th my choice of text . I wasn’t very keen on most o f the fonts readi ly avai lable with Photoshop and InDesign, so instead I took to dafont.com. I found a font I l iked ( IMG 3) – ensured i t was f ree to use – then went f rom there. Because the sty le of music I have been address ing is very modernised, and can often be considered as qui te futur is t ic ( in terms of sound design at least) , I fe l t l ike I had to have a futur ist ic look ing font to match.

From here , I fe l t l ike I had to add a twist to the graphic . I dec ided to use the s ingle le tter graphic approach – s imi lar to Mixmag. I fe l t that doing that by doing th is i t added repeti t ion to the overa l l e lements and message the came from the t i t le . For the graphic i tse l f , I replaced the ‘D’ in ‘EDM’ wi th the image of a bass c le f ( IMG 4) . Hard e lectronic music is o ften general ised as ‘Bass Music ’ , therefore the idea of us ing the bass c lef seemed appropr iate .

In the lessons that fo l lowed, I soon decided that the use of a bass c lef somewhat c luttered the masthead, render ing i t a lmost i l legib le – making i t a lmost certainly so for the average reader, whom perhaps d idn’t know what a bass c le f was. I dec ided to bui ld on the or ig inal text by adding effects such as outer g low and stroke layers. I fe l t l ike, as th is was actua l ly readable, that i t was a much better graphic f rom the job.

IMG 6 shows the final masthead be ing used on the cover.

THE PROGRESSION OF MY FRONT COVER CONT.

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http://www.dafont.com/

By November 20 t h , I had mult ip le cover convent ions created and implemented.The barcode was easy to generate – I s imply went (aga in) to da font .com, searched fo r a barcode font , then generated one us ing the text ‘E lec tron ic Dance Mag’ , for wh ich the term ‘EDM’ s tood fo r in th is case .The k ickers and cover l ines were put in a t th i s po int fo r re ference – obv ious ly I wasn’ t go ing to keep them as they current ly were , however to get an idea of where I wanted them to s i t , I d ra fted up a few qu ick p ieces o f text .In the top r ight o f the page, there is an p iece o f a lbum ar twork. Th is ar twork is f rom an o ld re lease f rom my own mus ic pro ject , and was to be used as the bas is for a secondary lead. The Head l ine text was generated wi th a f ree font , aga in f rom dafont .com. The next s l ide out l ines how I compi led the graph ic together.Fina l ly , I implemented a se l l ing l ine a t the top o f the page. At th i s po int , i t was un-s ty l ized and be ing used s imply fo r re ference.


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To begin with I had to find a text that I fe l t both su i ted the music genre, yet would a lso work wel l as text for a headl ine. My first thought was to find a font that was b ig and bold – th is was because a headl ine has to leap from the page towards the reader (which I th ink th is font does) , and because the type o f music I was wr i t ing about was both b ig ( in terms o f loudness and dynamics) and bold ( in terms o f lyr ica l content – i .e . some of the words spoken in these t racks are o ften making statements about something in a very publ ic way. The process for how I created the text was s imple. I generate the words ’ADMIRAL’ and ‘AKBAR’ on dafont .com, saved them as PNG fi les , put them into Photoshop; I s imply layered and arranged them how I l i ked, then saved the whole th ing as one PNG fi le ( IMG 10) .

THE HEADLINE TEXT

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November 22 n d marked the day I dec ided what I wanted my Kickers and Cover L ines to look l ike . L ike I previous ly said, I adopted the boxed look f rom the Mixmag cover, however, I dec ided to colour my text so that is was more legib le .

I a lso changed the album art to a more recent vers ion – th is contained more colours, and help breathe a b i t more l i fe into the cover. Just above the album art , I had began to create some text to use as a t i t le for the secondary lead, which current ly was ha l f sty l i zed – the box behind had l i teral ly just been drawn however.

I removed the banner where I was going to wr i te my anchorage as I thought that i t would look less c luttered i f i t were just p la in text . I wanted to have a fa i r ly neat and control led cover, hence the removal of the banner, and the reduct ion in the s ize of the text .


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St icking wi th the idea of a neater sty le o f cover, by the end of the week I had just that. In the week beginning November 22 n d , I had created a neat, and wel l balanced front cover.

Where I had the album cover in the top corner, I now had a secondary lead, which sat in conjunct ion with the main story. The album was now in the bottom corner, and was now serving as the graphic feature .

On the r ight I added a flash, conta in ing references to art is ts that we’re to be featured at some point in the issue. This l i s t of names would be aid as a se l l ing po int for the issue.

I a lso added an anchorage str ip – “ I t ’ s A Trap!”. A p lay on word of sorts , th is phrase is used as i t is a quote f rom the Star Wars character , ‘Admira l Ackbar’ , but a lso because this fict ional music ian used on my cover was to be know as an affil iate of the Trap music scene.


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I th ink the most important part o f the cover at th is point was the photo of myse l f in the top r ight corner – act ing as Akbar ’s producer.In th is photo, I ’m us ing a walk ing s t i ck to imitate look ing down the s ights of a gun. There are two reasons as to why I am doing th is – both of which are ways to address the audience. The firs t i s a lmost sub l iminal . As the urban mus ic i s so used to be ing associated with v io lence, i t can become second nature to assume that wi th Rap influenced mus ic , v io lence wi l l fo l low. This imitat ion was a s tab at drawing in the audience wi thout them consc ious ly be ing aware of i t . The second i s the exact oppos i te – look ing down the s ights , a iming at the reader of the magaz ine – a lmost ca l l ing them out . A lmost dar ing them to read the magaz ine . Th is i s re in forced through the t i t le o f the k icker , ‘Man Behind The Mask . ’ Imply ing that I have noth ing to h ide , a ‘come and get i t ’ at t i tude – a l l the t ime drawing in the at tent ion of the aud ience.


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My next draft was to become my final cover. There wasn’ t a big change s ince the last draft , however I d id add one convent ion I fe l t was miss ing.

That convent ion was the menu str ip, now located along the base of the cover. I fe l t this part icular convent ion was an addi t ion to the se l l ing value as i t l i s ted many more extremely popular producers and art ists that are popular in th is specific scene.The menu bar a lso helped remove some dead space that may have been lurk ing on the page, wi thout c lutter ing i t up.

At th is point I was happy wi th my front cover, the convent ions i t conta ined, and the layout of i t .


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Be lo w y ou can s ee the con ten ts pag e f o r J anu ary 201 3 ’ s i s su e o f M i x mag . I u s ed th i s temp la te as a p l ace to bas e th e fi rs t l ay ou t i deas f o r my mag az i ne f rom. I ad op te d the i de a o f us in g the wh i t e l i nes as s ec t i on s p l i t t e r s , a s t h i s he l ped d i s t i n c t l y s how th e d i ffe rence b e tw een s a i d s ec t i ons . In te rms o f a c tua l l ay ou t how eve r , I s imp ly p lay ed a rou nd un t i l I f ou nd a de s i gn I was h app y w i th . IMG 15 was th e v e r y fi r s t d r a f t f o r my con ten t s p age – th i s l ay ou t was r a th e r un l i ke t ha t o f th e M i xmag cov er. A s we can s ee i n t he MM cov er , t he re i s a v e r y l a rg e ph o to o f t he fea tu red a r t i s t – Po r te r Rob ins on , wh o i s the fo ca l po i n t o f th e pag e . From h ere , ev e r y th in g e l s e i s s eemed to b e fi t ted a rou nd th i s p i c tu re . When compa red w i th my d r a f t , w e can see tha t t he i mage u s ed i s no

THE PROGRESSION OF MY CONTENTS PAGE

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Where near on as large, and is not so much cons idered the focal point of the page – somewhat suggest ing that there are other equal ly important stor ies in the issue. We can see that in the MM cover , the text i s set to the le ft only. I hated the idea of this , so whi lst I wanted to use the idea of the text being d irect ly separate f rom the images, I pre ferred the idea of having the images in the top hal f of the page, wi th the edi tor ia l and text di rect ly beneath i t in the bottom hal f of the page.

In th is draft I had changed a number of things f rom i t ’ s previous state. Fi rst ly , I inc luded the black banner across the middle of the page. I fe l t th is he lped create a c lear d iv ide between the sect ions – the images and the text . I a lso added a box for where the edi tor ia l was go ing to be. At this po int i t was to be used for only for s tructural re ference, the designing would fo l low later. I combined two of the pictures to help s imulate the fact that there part o f the same art ic le – the use of one page number helped re inforce th is . I added a PNG of the f ront cover to the bottom r ight bar – this was later to become the subscr ipt ions sect ion.Final ly , I reposi t ioned the ‘contents’ and the date l ine a long the page header. This was s imply for me to find which sty le I preferred, th is way or the previous.


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This draft saw me begin to proper ly work on my edi tor ia l sect ion. I wanted to have the layout o f th is part icular sect ion fo l lowing sui t – to have the same layout as my whole page. This meant having the t i t le , p ic ture, text , and s ignature in descending order, respectfu l ly.I a lso began to work on the text layout , and sect ions headers . I wanted to keep the house sty le f requent throughout the magazine, so I used the same des ign for the sect ion headers as I d id for the K ickers on the f ront cover – ye l low text with a black boxed under lay.


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This draft was a step in the r ight d i rect ion in terms of content , I began brainstorming ideas for art ic le t i t le and wr i t ing them down, and they al l fitted onto the page wel l , so they stayed there . I a lso added more white l ine to he lp breakdown the sect ions to a better extent . I a lso removed the smal l p icture in the images sect ion, and added a b igger box for an image re lated to a d ifferent art ic le . I began to re -design the black central banner. I fe l t i t was necessary to do so – not only because i t or iginal ly drafted des ign was awful , but because i t would help lessen the dead space in the page.


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Nothing much different in this draft . I added extra whi te bars to spl i t the sect ions. I fe l t th is made the whole page look neater , which was imperat ive. Fol lowing th is I added more text in the form of ar t ic le headers and sub-headings. I d id add a graphic feature to one of the art ic le t i t les . This was because I thought i t would give the reader a sense of involvement, due to the fact i t was stat ing that there was the opportuni ty to enter a competi t ion and wine something.


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Nothing part icu lar ly different about th is draft e i ther. I added a p icture to my edi tor ia l sect ion and s l ight ly adjusted the s ize and pos i t ioning of some of the photos . Other than that i t was s imply refining what I a l ready had.


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This the final draft of my contents page.I added the text to my edi tor ia l , as wel l as a s ignature . This made th is part icular sect ion look profess ional , and this reflected wel l upon the whole page. I a lso added a ser ies o f page numbers , so that navigat ion around the magazine was possib le . I finished off the page with a panoramic shot f rom my personal music studio, which was re lated to one of the art ic les present in the contents page.

I am happy with the overal l look and fee l of the page. I be l ieve that the house style taken from the cover has been stayed current , and work wel l on th is page. I a lso th ink that this part icu lar s tyle – neat and dis t inct – sui ts the overal l look of the magazine.


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When des ign ing my art ic le page, I d idn ’t work off a s ty le model – instead I worked wi th a photograph. I wanted to have th is image as the foca l po int o f the page, wi th everyth ing e lse wrapped around i t . After hav ing the image put in p lace, I added a quote f rom my art i c le . I chose a quote that ident ified the fact that there were two art i s ts , not jus t one – despi te the name. I fe l t that by do ing th is i t accented the po int o f the a r t i c le – wh ich was to int roduce the duo; to g ive the aud ience a sense o f who they were, what the i r sound was, and where they were hop ing to go.

THE PROGRESSION OF MY DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

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I dropped in a re- render of the text used for the headl ine on the cover page to use as guide for how I wanted my art ic le ’s header to look.

As I had v i r tua l ly completed a l l the other pages by th is po int , I spent the major i ty o f the week focus ing on how the double page spread wou ld look . To beg in wi th I moved the photo to the top o f the page, and then added a wh i te banner beneath i t . Th is was a reflect ion upon the same sty le used on the contents page. I the move the quote f rom the r ight o f Akbar ’s head to between h is and mine. I added the fu l l a r t ic le into s ix co lumns, read ing le ft to r ight , underneath the whi te banner. Fo l lowing th is I added a grey background to set beh ind everyth ing so that the magazine’s theme


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Stayed current throughout . The final th ing I d id to this was to add a bevel effect to the text which he lped i t stand out more .

Th is i s the fina l dra ft fo r my doub le page spread . I added a tab in the top r igh t o f the page to work as a watermark/sect ion marker. I a l so added a d rop cap i ta l to make the ar t i c le look more p ro fess iona l ly ed i ted and refined. After th i s , I jus t ified the text wh ich he lped the text fi t the page proper l y. After th i s I changed the ex is t ing ‘Akbar ’ text to ‘ I n t roduc ing: ’ , and dropped in a copy o f the or ig ina l ‘Admira l Akbar ’ PNG. Th is meant that there was a par t i cu lar s ty le mode l a t tached to the


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Art ists .

This was the double page spread now complete . I had created a s imple, yet effect ive design that worked wel l .

Music Magazine Evalution - Question 1

Education

Transcript of Music Magazine Evalution - Question 1