Music Magazine Pre-Production Work

After looking over my research I’ve decided I want to make a Dance music magazine.The images on these magazine colours inspired me as I found them dynamic. I really like the dark/light contrast used and think I want a similar contrast to the image for my music magazine colour. I also think I want to make some of the lightest parts glow, as I like this effect and think it suits the genre of Dance music like in the Mixmag shown above with the group Justice. I prefer the images with just one figure as I think they are more effective and eye catching.

These images really stood out to me, I really like this low angle shot of a figure. I have included the image on the left as it has a dark figure against a light background, I like this contrast in the image and think I want a similar style of photo for my magazine front cover as it is quite striking.

I have included these images as they have things I want to incorporate into my magazine front cover. I think these things are all relevant to the dance genre, and would suit, however I do only want one figure on my cover but I think a crowd dancing would be an effective and genre related image to incorporate in another part of my Magazine. The record, needle and studio could all easily be incorporate into a photo shoot with a DJ used for my double page spread feature.

I have chosen the working title of ‘Strobe’ for my dance music magazine, as a reference to the lighting associated with the genre. I think I want to use this font above for my Masthead as of the fonts I have looked at this is my favourite. However I think I will use the font reversed out against a black background.

I also think I want to use one or both of these fonts for other large text in my magazine for example the title of my double page spread or for my cover lines.

Here are some development sketches of my front cover for my Music magazine, the one on the left was my first idea, the other is a more final idea however there are some things I am undecided on I like the idea of using a record for the O in the Masthead however will not decide on until I have tried this in Photoshop. Also I prefer the colour design in the Masthead on the left and think after trying I would prefer not to have a skyline as it makes for a more focused looking magazine. My cover lines read “trance talk” a highly genre focused article in keeping with my research, “best beats of 09” and “Top ten dance sites” another research related cover line linking to the internet however I may re think this cover line to something more obvious. I want the white background to glow as if it’s a bright light shining at the camera, I think I want the same effect on the fonts which are reversed out. My main cover line will be about my double page spread however I will only decide on the wording of this cover line once I've interviewed DJ Vocoda my feature artist, so I can write a more relevant one. The photo I want to use will be looking up at DJ Vocoda with a record on mixing decks with the needle angled up to underline the main cover line I will have DJ Vocoda wear a dark top to contrast the white background.

This is a very rough flat plan for my contents page, I want the Magazine Masthead shown in small in the top left, keeping to a black white red and yellow colour pallet. On the left boxed photos going down showing a close up on someone and a mid shot of someone both being interviewed looking relaxed the midshot will be inside with curtains behind the person and the close will be outside on the street. Also some people dancing in the other photo in a somewhere that looks like a club, each of these will have a number on the photo, I also want page numbers in the middle for the corresponding stories shown in-between the black lines on the right which will all be a various angles to look more interesting and to better fit the size of each articles title. Again I want to make the white space glow. I have included early article titles on the right.

Here is the layout sketch for my double page spread article. I will have 3 column of text to a page, including various sized photos and one pull quote, I will choose this pull quote carefully after I have interviewed DJ Vocoda. The images will show him being interviewed, him working at mixing decks and him playing to a crowd as well as the large image on the first page cut out of him mixing. These photos will not be posed and will be shot naturally in the environment DJ Vocoda works with his equipment. This adheres to my magazines beliefs of being truly about music. I will probably have a white background however I may change this depending on how my photos come out and if anything DJ Vocoda wears anything particularly contrasting, however I may provide a plain top for him during the photo shoot to help aide the design.I want the title to be in a box with a gradient with the first letters white and later ones black once it is visible against the background, as this fits with my colour pallet and I think will look effective. I will also used red and yellow at the top of the page and over page numbers.