Target audience opinions

I decided to do another small research task into what my target audience thought my magazine should look like and what codes and conventions I should be using. They said that rather than  a DJ facing away from the person who's reading the magazine on the front cover they would like the model to be facing forward. I had already done this so I was pleased with this feedback. A couple of people said I should change the text of the title on my double page spread so I did this and it looked allot better and made allot more sense. This was because I changed the font type so that the new amount of text fit above my headline.

Font types-again

The main types of font I have used in my magazine are sharp and bold, this is because I wanted the text in my magazine to look like the text that DJ's use to make there label look cool and fancy like the image to the left, this is because it appeals to my target audience.

Front Cover photos

These are just two of the 200 photos I had taken for my front cover. The one on the left was for my rough cut and what I originally thought to be for my final piece. I then decided I needed a change. This was decided when I cut the image out. I found out the contrast between the model and the background was bad so it was hard to cut out onto a blank background. The second picture however made the model look allot more professional and less young. The way the model isn't looking at the camera and is slightly to the right of the picture makes it look allot more professional. It was also allot easier to cut out as there was a very dark colour against a light background.

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Decoration

The colored rectangle that I created for the contents page has now been used in the front cover as well. I decided to put it behind the model as it filled in some of the white space and it made the front cover look alot nicer. 

In-design basics

So In design is an extremely helpful program which I used to create the layout of my magazine. I used a selection of tools on the left hand side but the easiest to use was the rectangular frame tool, this is the tool that created the layout of my magazine as it is what I had to put all my photos and videos in.

Photography

I took quite a few of my friend Bradley to make sure I got the perfect picture that would fit onto my contents page.

Photography

When I was taking picture of the set I realized that it was going to be extremely hard to get the brightness right on the image. This is when Photoshop came in handy as I could simply change the brightness on that.

Page Numbers

The page numbers were a massive deal when creating the contents page, this is because they had to obviously be large and bold but they also had to look as though they fit into the frame and not block up the pictures. I decided to go with red because it fitted in with my color scheme on the front cover of my magazine. I made them smaller than they are in the picture on the left aswell so that they didnt take overlap most of the picture.

VIP section

This is the top part of my double page spread. I decided to add this part to my double page spread as it implied that the double page spread was the unique part of the magazine as it was "VIP" access only. this made the reader think that the section of the magazine they were reading was exclusive and had some good information in it. This made me relate this to the article as I made it sound allot more professional than the snippets of text I had on the front cover and contents page.

Photography

I tried to take a few photos whilst we were walking around town to show the nightlife of a busy city center and too show the way teens react when walking around town on a night

Photography

Some of the images were quite serious when taking them in town but others wernt as seen by this photo, which is why I didn't use them. I needed one which made him look professional and like a DJ but also represented the nightlife that DJ's have.

Photography

The next few posts are going to be about the range of photos I have taken and why I chose/didn't chose them

So this photo was going to be a double page spread photo as I was running low on time. The reason I decided to change it (thank god I did) was because my friends became free for a trip to town one night

Layouts Cont.

 I then did the layouts for my front cover page and my double page spread. These took quite sometimes because they were allot messier and unorganized compared to the contents page. I knew that I needed to have columns of artists on the front cover so I created a bunch of frames for the titles of the artists and the little descriptions that would come with the titles. I also knew that I would have a large image in front of allot of text and the smaller images so I placed a large frame over the whole page so when I had my pictures I could add them to the frame. I then decided to add a strip at the top for maybe a "free poster" promotion to go in as most music magazines have that nowadays.

The layout for the double page spread was slightly easier because there wasn't going to be as much on the double page spread as there was on the front cover. I needed three columns (Frames) for my article, a large frame covering the whole page for the image and a frame for the title. I added page numbers and a few more frames for some smaller ideas I had for the spread which you'll see when my project progresses.

A piece of Content Decoration

So I decided the contents page needed something to perk it up a little bit. I decided to do this little bit of decoration on the contents page to make it look a bit more fitting for who my target audience is. It adds a sense of fun to the magazine and also gets rid of any white/blank space that is unneeded and makes the page just look so much better. I put it above the different pages  (page numbers and descriptions) too fill in the big white gap above the text

The pictures

So this is a set of pictures I went out and took a while ago. I went out with a group of friends with one of the schools cameras and just took quite allot of photos one night, ranging from long shots to close ups to scenic pictures. I found this task fairly enjoyable as I was with my mates and we were messing about but also doing some serious work. I told them where to stand and what poses to pull etc. but I took them on a Friday night in town so that made things a little more interesting as people kept on running and trying to get there picture taken. After I had taken the photos and went back to school too choose suitable ones I decided that I needed more variation with my pictures so I need to take some more as most of my photos were fairly dark and quite masculine. For now this looks alright as my rough cut deadline approaches i'm feeling fairly confident about what i've done so far

Photography

After getting the hang of the brightness with the photos I could make an ice rink stand look like a stage at a club

The article

I needed too write up and article to go on my double page spread alongside my question and answer section. As I'm not the best in the world at English and I don't have a wide range of vocabulary I found this task quite time consuming, however I think I did a good job overall. I made up a DJ named vintage and had too act as though I was writing on behalf of an interviewer sort of. I found this quite easy as IO prefer writing for someone rather than writing about myself. This is because I find describing others allot easier to do than describing myself. So I made a DJ up from scratch and wrote about him. It wasn't to hard I needed to come up with a few song names and venues but other than that it was all about being descriptive. I talked about how vintage had became the biggest DJ in the UK with his number 1 song hitting record breakers in beatports (Music downloading website) sales and how he has begun a UK tour to "please his fans". I have decided to put my article in this blog post so that you guys can have a read and see what you think. I did a bit of research into the different companys and owners of festivals and beatport and added that research into my article aswell. Hope you enjoy !


New DJ artist Vintage brings a stunning record to beatport’s sales for youngest DJ to ever reach no.1. Aged 16, Vintage destroys Martin Garrix’s current record on beatport by a massive 12%. “Vintage’s new album ‘Chips’ includes 6 of the most unstoppable tracks ever created” said Robert F. X. Sillerman (Owner of Beatport and SFX Entertainment). The young DJ is expected to receive record deals from companies such as Spinnin’ records and Revealed Recordings.          Revealed recordings (owned by the world’s no.1 DJ Hardwell) described Vintage’s music to be “unique” and “innovative”, which obviously created a hype for the indestructible teenager. “I want to thank my family and my fans for making my childhood dreams come true”. Vintage’s biggest track “Unleash” starts with a cruising melody and ends with an incredible drop, Dazzling listeners and leaving crowds stunned.
          Vintage starts his UK tour for the release of his new album “Chips” generating hype across the cluster of countries awaiting him. Major sets such as London’s 02 Academy and Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena provide the DJ with the amount of space he’ll need due to the masses of fans expected to participate in Vintage’s tour.
          Vintage plans on world exposure after his UK tour, with the record deal from “Spinnin”, the young teen plans to set his next destination as Belgian’s “TomorrowLand”, an appropriate venue for such a talented young artist. So with an amazing start to the young adult’s career what more are we expecting from him? Your questions have been asked and now they have been answered by Vintage himself check it out!

Photography

I took alot of photos of my friend Harry in town, I placed him behind a barrier so he could of fell into the tyne river if he lost his footing yet he was still messing about and letting me take some really good photos of him.

Questionnaire

Why do you like EDM music?

Because its upbeat and easy to dance to, it also brings people together and provides and atmosphere no other genre does.

Who is your favourite DJ and why?

Flux pavilion, I’ve seen him live and he got the crowd involved with the gig and it was so much fun he also has a massive DJ aesthetic going for him.

Do you read DJ magazines?

Yes

Which ones?

Mixmag and DJmag

Why do you like them?

Because they provide insight into what the life of a DJ is all about. They also give me news and upcoming gigs in my area etc.

What do you think a good magazine should have?

Lots of pictures and detailed articles explaining clearly what we (the public) want to hear.

Front cover Decoration

This is some decoration that i'm going to have on my front cover. The sections that aren't filled in in the middle of the text is where the photo I will have of a "DJ" so it will look as though the picture is overlapping some of the text. I stuck with the yellow and red color scheme so that it looked allot more professional and fit in with the rest of the front cover. The reason it says "CUBIC BEATS" Is because that is the name of the DJ that is on the front cover of the magazine. "Bring the Beats to the Clubs" is the caption for the DJ. The "Who came here to rock the house" Is the caption for the magazine itself which personally I think is quite witty as most DJs use that sentence in live concerts.

Initial Research

One of the very first things I did before starting my music magazine design was to create an initial planning sheet. This was my ideas wall for all the stories that were going to be included in the contents page and article, the photos i'd be taking, the Names and Fonts I would use for different elements of the magazine, the layout of each page and how things looked and finally the research I would carry out to learn more about music magazines in general. This will make the rest of my project allot easier to do as I can look back at my initial plan and get ideas straight away.

The contents

I had to write up my contents for the contents page and I decided I would split my magazine up into 4 different sections so that it would be easier to think of stories for my magazine. Obviously I had a few stories already in mind from my initial planning but I didn't have enough to fit these two columns. So with my initial planning a bit more research and a look back at my old research I came up with a list of stories and titles that would feature in my magazine and I have to say i'm pretty proud of them. The number for the pages are just the right size compared to the text, the sections of the magazine are titled with a reasonable size font and the text in between the numbers not only makes sense but looks professional and modern. I think this is conventionally what all DJ magazines go for.

The Question and answer section

besides designing a lovely magazine I also had to do some writing -_- Which can get very boring but at the same time it interested me slightly. Completely making up a DJ from scratch was a challenge but a fun one. I had to think of a name for him I had to think of a venue and song names and album names that he had created it was quite a fun thing to do. I then had to turn all this information into a question and answer section for my double page spread. This was fairly easy as I already knew everything I had to add in but the layout of it was hard to create as text would be too long for the columns so I would have to shorten it down or to short so i'd have to add to it but in the end it looked pretty good. A question and answer section is also extremely conventional when it comes to DJ magazines because the target audience like finding out about the artist from they're own words rather than someone else's. I hope you are enjoying my project run through so far and I hope to give you lots more information on my project

Thinking of titles

I needed to think of some cool titles that would appeal to the public and target audience of my choice. I decided to go for talking about artists more than talking about anything else, although I did throw in an ultra music festival headline. This was so that it added a bit of variety to the headlines. and made the front cover look abit different to a plain page with a picture and a title!

Title (Upper part of front cover)

So I decided to work on the title (Upper part of the front cover) to make it look more like a music magazine as I didn't just want a word saying "Hooked" at the top of my magazine as it wouldn't of been very eye catching. I decided to underline the text to make it stand out more. I also decided to put a circle around the "H" this was so that it added a bit of variety to the title. It changed the color of the text and it also made it look as though the circle was part of the font. The next thing I did was to add text to the banner at the top of the front cover to act as a banner. This made the front cover look extremely professional (in my opinion) I decided to add two offers. One is the poster which can be placed anywhere in the magazine and the other is the free CD which I might need to add a section to the double page spread for so I might change the CD to something else so I don't need to take up any space inside the pages I am creating for a CD.

Starting my Mag

So after choosing a selection of fonts and creating my title for the magazine I decided I would work on the layout of each of the pages. the first layout I decided to work on was the contents page. I decided to go for a blocky look with a range of different picture frames. This was so that the page looked appealing and people could see which articles were where just by looking at an image rather than having to read text. It also made the page look allot nicer. The two long columns in the upper left part of the page are where text and page numbers will be going. I still need to enter text and images and create the layouts of other pages but hopefully my magazine will soon be finished!