schedule for photoshoot

I am doing my photoshoot for my magazine tommorrow (30th November), so I have created a rough schedule of my day:

10am: I will get my cover star ready in the first outfit to take pictures for the front cover.
10.15 am:  Me and the cover star will go the location and start taking some photos
10.30am: I will get my cover star into her second outfit and take some more photos
11am: I will then get my girl band who will star in my contents page ready
11.15am: once on location I will start taking some group photos
11.45am: I will get my coverstar back onto location and start taking photos for my double page spread.
12.15pm: I will look through my photos and see if I have any useful ones, if I feel I need some more I will take some more photos.

The location: My photographs will be taken on a blank wall outside the common room, as I cant actually use a studio I selected this location as the lighting is good and the white wall will enable me to edit the background on Paint.Net easier.

Actors: for my cover star I am using a friend of mine called Jessica Payne. I decided to use her because she is very photogenic but the main reason was because I think she would be able to bring attidutde to the pictures which is what I want.
For my band I have selected 3 girls, they all look slightly different as I think girl bands are made up of different types of girls. I choose three girls which are good looking because pop girl bands are always made up of good looking girls.

Masthead ideas

As I have decided my magazine will be called beat, I  have created some mastheads for my magazine:

I like the effect of this masthead, the fact it has two colours makes it stand out more as the black is a strong colour and the pale red contrasts against this. However I dont feel this masthead fits the conventions of a music magazine, as looking at other mastheads they are quite simple and are usually block colours.

I then created this Masthead. This time I stayed with block colours to improve from my last design. I choose red and black again because I like this strong colour combination. I changed the font to a bolder one t o try make it more eye catching, however looking at it now I dont think this is the best font I could of used, it doesnt look very professional. I also added some black around the text because without it I think it looks plain and boring. I also think it doesnt really suit my pop genre as well as there is alot of black.

This is my third masthead. I kept the red background from the one above as I red was one of the colours my target audience associated with pop. However my font is now white as I think this brightens up the masthead, pop is an uplifting genre of music so its important my masthead reflects that. I also made the font alot bolder so that it stands out from the red background more, I want my magazine name to be the first thing people notice.

 
I also created these mastheads, which are quite different from the ones above. I do like the font on these two but I dont think it fits my Pop genre as well, as when i first look at it I think of RnB.

Decision on my ideas

I have spent the last couple of days thinking about which double page spread idea I will go for as I can then start planning around this.
I showed 10 people who represent my target audience my ideas in order to get some feed back to help me decide which idea I will go for.
I did have a mix of responses, as 6 people said idea 2 (the different shots of their personality) and 4 people said idea 1 (Cover star towering over British icons). There isn't a clear divide in the responses so I had to look at their feedback also to help make my decision.
Idea 1: Everyone really liked the concept that she is over taking the British pop industry, but some did say that this was abut unoriginal as there are a lot of articles about this type of thing. Most people also liked the idea about the British landmarks as they thought it was quite a creative way of representing the fact she leading the British pop industry. However the negative part was my front cover, they feel it would be very hard to try and be creative with this idea and its also possible that the cover star could come across too serious and not connect with the reader enough
Idea 2: Everyone thought the the idea of the snapshots was really creative and is a good way of showing an artists personality. Also they said it was different to most double pages as they normal base it around one main picture, and the idea that it will be based around artists being robots is something they would be interested in. The one negative is that I need to be careful there is not too much text on the right page and I will need to make sure I lay the page out so it doesn't look like one big block of text as there are no pictures to separate it.

After looking at my feed back and considering the idea myself I have decided that I will go with idea 2. Although I do feel the idea of the woman surrounded my the British landmarks is really strong, I know that I need to use original photography in my magazine and I would be unable to get original photography of Big Ben ect. Also the feed back for my idea two was alot more positive as they thought it was a more original idea, and I need to listen to my target audience as these will be the people who buy my magazine.

I also decided I am going to have the female cover star instead of the girl and boy band that I also considered. I have created a atrists profile for my cover star:
Katherine Johnson - "Selena"
Real name: Katherine Johnson
Stage name: Selena
Age: 21
Music style : Pop
Nationality: English
Years in the industry: 3 years.
Selena is a young, fashionable singer and song writer. She has a big fan base in England, with a mix of females and males ranging mainly from the age of 16-25 but mostly anyone who is into Pop. Selena is starting to get more popular in America, but hasn't quite made it yet, with her first single going to number 24 in the American chart.
Selena's has 2 albums out, both going to number one for two weeks. Her albums consist of a mix of slow love songs and convention up beat pop songs. Over the past 3 years Selena has secured 5 number ones, in the UK chart, which makes her one of the leading females in the Pop industury at the moment.
Over the years Selena has become a fashion icon and is well known for creating new trends for the high street. Recently Selena has created her own clothes range sold in Topshop, which features a range of party dresses and is selling remarkably well.

Double page spread idea 2

Although I have already came up with an idea for my double page spread I wanted to come up with another so that I could choose between the two. Throughout my research I have put on my blog any particular layouts that I liked, so I went back through my posts in order to remind myself and get some inspiration. I found one inparticular very inspiring and it helped me to create an idea for my double page spread idea.

I particularly liked the images of Solange Knowles at the top in black and white as I thought this gave a hint into her personality and showed her fun side, I also thought this was a very unique idea and I had not see it before.

Another thing that inspired me when creating my idea was one of Andy Warhol's paintings:

 

I really like Warhol has taken  close up picture and changed it so there are lots of little 'snap shots'. Although I do feel the colours are abit to bright and out there for my genre so I would just stick with natalistic lighting or black or white.

A also noticed a band called Stranded were inspired by Warhol and created their album cover based on that painting:

 

 

From looking at these things I came up with my own idea:

 

 

This is a draft of what it would look like, on the left page there is space for 9 pictures, these will be 9 close ups of my cover star doing different poses. For example showing her fun side by sticking her tongue out, showing her care free side by laughing and showing her serious side by looking stern.
I really like this idea as this will show my cover stars personality, and my readers will feel like they know more about her. In the middle is the cover line as I feel its good to have a mix of text and pictures. In this draft  I used the cover line "I'm no robot, I do what I want", although it may not stay with this, I want to stick with the same theme. The cover star is going to be talking about how they are not controlled by their record label like many pop artists, they are completely their own person and record the music they want to record. I feel this is a good topic as it has come to the surface more recently that many artists are told what to do or say by their record label and in fact have become almost like 'robots' and this shows that this artist is unique.
On the right side of my double page spread will be the main bulk of text, I have used a big S to start the sentence with artists name as I noticed this is what a lot of magazines tend to do. There will be short introduction into the article, explaining the basics on my artists, again after doing research I realised this is a common occurrence in magazines. The text will be then be a question and answer session split into two columns to make it easier to read.

Magazine name

I Know the name of the magazine is important as it needs to describe the magazine in a few words, once I have decided on a name I can start to create a logo for it.
I brainstormed some magazine names, and these are some of the ideas I came up with:

• Just POP - This is simple and the reader will instantly know what the magazine is about. I do feel that this name may however suite a younger audience as it is quite basic and holds no real meaning.
• Beat - I like this one as its one word which is simple and easy to remember, also alot of pop songs have a strong beat so it links to the pop genre. The beat is an important part of a song and can completely change how a song sounds this reflects the fact I want my magazine to play an important part in the music industry as artists will want to appear in my magazine to influence their popularity.
• Popular - Popular describes pop music in one word and people often refer to pop music as popular music, this is good as it will inform the reader straight away the genre of my magazine. Also calling my magazine popular suggests that not only is my genre pop but my magazine is also popular which will encourage people to buy it.
• Modern - This word describes my magazine well as it will be full of up to date songs and artists, it is important the title of the magazine creates a good image in the readers mind and 'modern' suggest the magazine will be up to date and fresh. The thing about this name is that it does not relate to pop music, it is not clear that my magazine is a music magazine by the title.
• Pop Power - I like some aspects of this name as it suggests pop is powerful and has an impact on society, this is good as its a positive representation of my genre. However I do feel this is a bit cheesy and childish and would work with a younger target audience. I think a 16-30 year old would not buy this magazine as they think it will be for children/ younger teenagers.

Out of all these names the one I like the best is 'Beat'. I think its short and catchy and represents my magazine well. I like the fact it is not childish like some of my suggestions, and often the genre pop can be seen as quite cheesy and I think 'Beat' sounds mature and professional, which is important if i want to appeal to my target audience as some of them may be quite mature.

Mock up of contents page

I was stuck for ideas for my contents page so decided I would spend some time looking at various contents pages for inspiration. My favourite layout was NME's contents page, there seemed to be an on going house style as a lot of their contents pages looked the same, this informs me that I need to create a strong distinctive layout.

I like the layout of this contents page as I think its straight forward and easy to follow, which is important as the contents informs the reader of where the articles are. I began to think about how I could use this contents as inspiration and I decided I would draw a mock up of a contents page I would use with this as inspiration.

 I have kept some things similar but changed it to suit my style. I kept the logo of my magazine in the top left as this is where it will be on my cover so I want to create a house style. Also along the top in a date line, again similar to my front cover. Down the left hand side is the UK Top 20 chart, this was an idea I had already came up with and posted on my blog, I think it will make my pop magazine unique. The main image will be my cover star as I have noticed alot of contents pages also feature the cover star. Along the bottom will be 2 more pictures with the page numbers, this will give an insight into what the article will be about. Down the right hand side I have separated my articles into 4 sections, I noticed that most contents pages do this, the one above also does this. This helps the reader find particular articles easier.

The draft is in black and white as I have yet to decide a colour scheme, I will need to make my contents and front cover colour scheme link as this is a convention of magazines.

Publication plan

I created a  publication plan to show how far I with the ideas for my magazine. Some things are more definate then other such as my target audience and price where as others are just draft ideas.

Powerful cover star idea

One of the idea's I had for my Magazine is that my cover star is going to be a female who is dominant. I want to make her to look in power reflecting her being a dominate feature in the Pop industory. The front covers below show poses that I could use to make my cover star look powerful.

The cover star has her hands on her hips which is a pose associated  with authority. She is using direct mode of address which connects to the audience  and  she has quite a stern look on her face showing that she is the one in charge. Although I do like the hand on the hips I'd prefer my cover star to be slightly less stern with their facial expression as I want them to come across as more friendly.

This magazine has slightly the same idea as me as Billboard are celebrating woman singers that are popular in music. In this picture Beyonce head is slightly angled up suggesting she is higher and showing she is dominant. She too has her hands on her hips. Her white dress contrasts against the dark background making her the main feature of the cover which reflects how she is a main feature of the music industry. Beyonce is also cover a section of the masthead which also represents how dominant she is.
 

I have also done a brief draft for my double page spread for this idea.

 

One of the pages will be a picture of my cover star in the middle towering over British landmarks, for example Big Ben and the London eye. This reflect that she is taking over the UK pop scene as my cover star will be bigger than all these famous landmarks. I haven't made a decision on the colour scheme yet, i am considering red white and blue to  keep in with the British theme but I'm not sure if that will be the most effective colour scheme, so I may also just keep basic colours, such as greys, white and black. The other page will be the interview, I have noticed that many double page spreads have a layout like this. I will split the text up into three sections to make it easier for the reader to follow. In the middle will be a quote from something she says as this is something I see quite regularly on double page spreads. The mast head that i have used in my draft may not be the one I would actually use as I am not 100 % happy with it, I think it could be improved but it does reflect the theme that my cover star is in control.

 

Target audience questionnaire

After creating a target audience I wanted to ask my target audience questions in order to help me create my magazine.
I asked 20 people who would fit into my target audience to fill out a questionnaire, these are my results:
Q1- How often do you buy magazines?
My research suggests that I should create a monthly magazine as the majority of my target audience buy magazines monthly

 

Q2- How much would you be willing to pay?

Although there were a mix of answers and not a clear decision, I noticed that those who would buy the magazine monthly said they would pay more for it (between £3.00-£4.00) so as my magazine will be monthly my research shows I can increase the price a little. I will need to make sure it is not too much over £3.00 as otherwise my research shows i may loose custom.

 

Q4- What influences you to buy a magazine?

There were two answers that seemed most popular, the cover star and cover lines. This shows that it is very important I get the front cover right, and select an artist who is popular. Also I need to create interesting cover lines that my target audience will want to buy the magazine to find more about. Although the articles on the contents page and the regular features only got 3 votes each they are still important as this is only a small sample of my target audience.



 

Q5 - What music magazines do you buy at the moment?

I made this an open question so I could get a variety of answers. Quite a few of my responses said that at the moment there is no Pop magazine on the UK market for their age group as most of them are aimed at a younger demographic e.g top of the pops. This tells me there is a gap in the market that for my target audience. Quite a few did say they liked Q magazine as although its not all based on pop music there is always some artists who they like.  Others say they subscribe to Billboard as its an American Magazine they cant buy it over here but really enjoy it. This means when getting inspiration I should look at Billboard and Q.

 

Q6- What type of articles would you like to see in a pop magazine?

The most popular answer was interviewers with popular artists, so in my magazine I need to make sure I have enough interviews. Also quite a few people liked articles that tell you what festivals and concerts are coming up and also some concert reviews, so they know who would be good to see live. Another suggestion that came up more than once was a regular feature written by an artist, an example was a dairy.

 

Q7 - What colours would you expect to see in a pop magazine?

Most answers were not specific but gave a range of colours. It appears my target audience want a mix of pastel colours (purple, sky blue, peach ect) and sophisticated colours (Reds, whites, blacks ect). This tells me that when creating my magazine I need to stick to quite basic colours and make sure they are not too bright.

 

Q8 - What words come to mind when you think of Pop?

There were a mix of answers, but the ones which appeared a few times were: popular, new, fresh, fun, dance. These words could help me create a magazine name.



 





target Audience Profile for my magazine

In order to help me start comming up with ideas for my magazine I need to create a target audience so that I know who im  trying to make my magazine appeal to.

Target audience profile:

Age: 16-25

Gender: Male and Female. However some of the artists who would appear in the magazines may appeal to females more (eg: JLS) but on a whole it will be a unisex magazine

Music style: people who enjoy listening to Pop music. My target audience will enjoy most of the songs that are in the Uk chart, which could consists mainly of Pop, although there are elements R&B and dance in some pop songs. Their music style will be very main stream.

Interests: They enjoy listening to music and attending festivals and concerts. My target audience would attend festivals such as V Fest, Glastonbury and T4 on the beach as these festivals have a mix of artists that have dominated the chart over the past year and there are usually a wide range of pop artists. Aside from music my target audience will also be interested in the personal lives of the celebritys. Although the magazine is music based, in interviews there will also be questions where the interviewer is trying to find out some gossip on their lives. My target audience may have an interest in main stream fashion and shop in high street stores such as Topshop. Some of the featured artists may be also seen as a fashion icon, such as Katy Perry and Cheryl Cole.

Favourtie Atrists: Their favourite artists/bands are those which are very populare in the uk at the moment, these may include Adele, Emeli Sande, Rita Ora, Ed Sheeran, Chris Brown, Ne-yo, JLS,Fun and LMFAO

Magazines they read: They would be subscribed to Billboard as you can not buy it in the UK  and sometimes read Q if the main cover star is someone they like as Q have a mix of artists, although sometimes they are mainstream artists such as Lady Gaga, Cheryl Cole and Plan B
On a whole my target audience will be very mainstream pop and are very up to date with the latest trends.

creating my own billboard magazine

I created this front over for Billboard to show my understanding so far about the codes and conventions of music magazines.

I used original photography to get me used to taking photos for my own magazine.Although the quality of the photo would be better for my final design. The cover star is making eye contact with the reader slightly which is a convention of a music magazine, but she is adding personality to it but winking. This shows she has a fun, quirky side and it is important for magazines to portray the artist/bands image right. Also like all the music magazines i have looked at the cover star is dominating the front cover in order to entice the customer to buy this magazine as theoretically the cover star will be someone people are interested in. I didn't consider much mise en scene for this photo, such as clothing and make up, but for my final piece i will make sure the mise en scene adds to the effect i am going for. To go with the cover star image i created a main cover line to go with it too. However my main cover line is not as big as conventional music magazines so for my final piece I will have to ensure I make the font larger. Although I do quite like the pun used 'First Lady of pop', it is not a convention of music magazines to have puns and alliteration ect in there cover lines, however during my research i have noticed a few magazine covers which use these devices. The main aim of a cover line is to attract and interest the reader and I feel the pun on this front cover would do that.

I included a bar code and date line which are both conventions of a music magazine, i made sure they were big enough to see but not too big so they do not take away from the main features of the magazine.

I created all the cover lines and tryed to use the left hand side rule so I put a puff and a pug on the left so when the magazine is on the shelf and just the left hand side of the cover is on show the customer can still see some of the articles. Pugs are used to persuade people to buy the magazine and usually involve something free, or a competition ect. As Billboard is an American magazine I decided my pug would be a chance to win MTV music award tickets as this is a big event and is world wide but especially popular in America. My puff is an exclusive with Drake who is extremely popular with a large fan base who would buy the magazine to read about him. The cover line about Rihanna is a small introduction to what the interview will be about, only giving a small snippet will interests the reader enough to get them to purchase the magazine with out giving too much away.

After doing this cover it highlighted some key areas I will need to spend time on when creating my magazine. First of all is finding a suitable font, although the font used here isn't dreadful for my final piece I need to find something more professional, I also need to create a bold colour scheme which will help the magazine stand out and adds to it meaning.

Peer assessment

They noted that I had used most of the conventions however I need to remember to use the web url and the price. Also they liked the size of my cover star image as it made it clear to the audience what the magazine was centered around and thought the photo was 'cheeky' which added some character to the magazine. The layout was pretty good in their opinion althouh a few more cover lines could be added. The main improvement though was that the main cover line needs to stand out more, they were unable to tell which coverline linked with the cover star.

 

Cover star ideas

I wanted to start creating some ideas for my cover star, so I have created some artist profiles.

Katherine Johnson - "Selena"
Real name: Katherine Johnson
Stage name: Selena
Age: 21
Music style : Pop and R&B
Nationality: English
Years in the industry: 3 years.
Selena is a young, fashionable singer and song writer. She has a big fan base in England, with a mix of females and males ranging mainly from the age of 13-30 and but mostly anyone who is into Pop and R&B. Selena is starting to get more popular in America, but hasn't quite made it yet, with her first single going to number 24 in the American chart.
Selena's has 2 albums out, both going to number one for two weeks. Her albums consist of a mix of slow love songs and dance classics. Over the past 3 years Selena has secured 5 number ones.
Over the years Selena has become a fashion icon and is well known for creating new trends for the high street. Recently Selena has created her own clothes range sold in Topshop, which features a range of party dresses.

Josh Cafford and Sofia Sellman - "2real"
Real names: Josh Cafford and Sofia Sellman
Band name: 2real
Ages: Josh - 20 Sofia - 21
Music style: POP
Nationality: English
Years in the industry: first year
2real are a up and coming group made up of a female and male. They are becoming popular and have just had their first number one in the UK chart. 2real are seen as 'different', they songs consist of a mix of quick tempo almost rapping by Josh and softer strong vocals from Sofia . The mix of the two is something the UK pop scene hasn't seen often and it is suggested this is why there are doing so well. Surprisingly there fan base is much wider then you would expect, both females and males mainly ranging from the age of 16 - 30 who enjoy a mix of different genres.
2real are still creating a strong band image and are trying to get magazine covers and interviews to establish themselves and get their personality across. As they are a little bit more street then most chart bands, they want to portray a down to earth image. There inspired by Ndubz, which is a band from the streets of London who managed to get a name for themselves.




 Lilia

NME Cover and double page spread

I got this NME magazine which features Florence and The Machine to see how the front cover and the main article link.

The article and cover line is about Florence taking over America. In both the front cover and the main article the pictures relate to America. The front cover shows Florence getting out of a yellow taxi ; yellow taxi's are something America are famous for and are often used to symbolise America. This helps the Mise en Scene link in with the theme of the interview. The picture on the main article is of Florence sitting on the American flag, not only does this link in with the front cover, the fact She is sitting on it symbolises how she has concurred America, almost as if she is in control of it.

In both pictures Florence is also wearing the same the same outfit, which is all black, showing her rocky edgey side.

I partically like the clever mast head on the double page spread, as "got the love" is one of Florences most famous songs.

Language anaylsis

I wanted to see the language magazine use in double page spreads, so I re-looked at the 'We love pop' magazine I previously analysed to see what type of language they use in the interview articles.

The tone of the interviewer is friendly and informal, yet there is still a hint of professionalism in the questions. The interviewer wants to create a conection with the interviewee so they need to be quite chatty and informal, they say things like "sexy scale". This also makes them appear on the same level as the reader, as they are trying to ask questions that the reader will be interested in.

The interviewer asks mostly opened questions in order to allow the interviewee to answer the questions fully to get the most out of the interview which will make it more interesting for the reader. However there is one closed statement, "oh dear me, talk about bad first impressions", which is a response to something Rihanna has said. The interviewer would have done this to prompt a reaction out of Rihanna.

Rhianna's responses are alot less formal and she uses spoken language devices, "I have gotten". Also her none verbal reactions are also in the interview, for example when she laughs it says " no (laughs)".

Q magazine