Contents page analyses

Slide show magazine analyses for contents page and double spread page from jvmac

From completing this analysis I now realize how much information there is which not only relates to page numbers but also front cover singers album information, front cover producers information and editors letter.
When I used to look at magazines I would skip the contents page and straight away flick through to see what will be shown, but the contents page is more useful than I thought as you can see all it contains in an organised way and gives more excitement towards specific articles.

From analysing both magazines, which are very different from each other, I will mix the layout ideas to make my on magazine contents page.

To do list

This check list was made so I wont forget to do anything. To be able to see progress and speed my progress as I gave myself a deadline from 13-02-2016

                    to 20-02-2016.






























all these tasks were able to be established before the deadline date!!!! 

Front cover analyses

Magazine analyses from jvmac

From this magazine analyses of the front cover I learned:
-for one character front cover is very rare to use long shots.
-Use a variety from fonts, colours, sizes and maybe use outline to distinguish priority.
- Make a strapline as it very common in music magazine.
- Not spread my cover lines too much and make them too big as I done on my front cover draft.
- In-depth I will choose an another colour to have more than three colours in my colour scheme or I would make an another colour scheme from scratch.
- When doing the photoshoot I will do in a low angle perspective.
- Add accessories which suit and represent my characters personality.
- Place the date(choose if putting the day as well as the month and year) and barcode and website below on the right corner.
- I will include my opinion on one of the cover lines, this gives a identifiable style to my magazine, as people are fans to celebrities they can become a fan of a magazine. 
-The clothes chosen are plain.
- I will not include other characters to my magazine other wise it will create too much distraction from the main character.
-Add the photographer name on the front cover.
-Make my singer contrast very well with background
I will consider these points and make the changes to my front cover.

Front cover draft

This is a front cover draft with all the information I have until now

Froncover 3 derafts from jvmac

What I hope to hear from my target audience feedback.
Interview questions:
- What are your first thoughts?
-  What  are differences of a real music magazine?
- Do you believe the Masthead is bold enough and iconic, what do you think I  should do to improve?
- What is your favourite feature/which features should I keep.

Answers

Apearence for photoshoot

My front cover magazine model would have to look with the very newest trends of 2016 with a few classic references to singers or iconic music genre features.

2016 general beauty trend forecast:
This year is all about defining all your features, with the brow or bone structure highlighted over an understated base.

• Hair is controlled or swept back, as textural elements add contrast.
• Strong groomed brows introduce masculine undertones.
• Rosy lip tints and defined lashes inject a feminine dimension

makeup

hair

2016 fashion trend forecast:

Utilitarian aesthetics and uniform influences represent genderless dressing. This trend is the ultimate unisex look, fusing practicality with sophisticated design.

• Defined by androgynous shapes and uniform styling.
• Key looks include clean-cut overcoats, relaxed suits and chic casualwear.
• Pared-back mono and khaki shades complement functional fabrics.

 Ninas outfit will be:

- A black soldier blazer.                 
-High wasted black trousers.
- High heels with ankle strap.




Here I have tried the makeup look I want to attend for Ninas photoshoot.

                                   

Before                       After

https://www.weconnectfashion.com/articles/2016-fashion-trend-of-the-year

Cover lines

My target audience opinion is to include not too many cover lines, 70% of my target audience said they prefer less cover lines and 30% said to include many cover lines.
To know how much is many or few I will first research the average amount of cover lines.

Pop magazines:

                                                                      

 Rock magazines:

 Mean:

From this I know the mean pop magazine and rock magazine together is 5 cover lines, giving me the maximum of having five cover lines for my pop rock magazine as my target audience prefer less than more.

1- I consider that one of them will have to be about my double spread sheet band Princeton.

2- From my questionnaire where I asked 'What articles do you think the magazine should include'.

This can help me to have the ideal cover line, which both genders and my chosen age group would like. They mostly voted for an article about concert information, songs and lyrics, history of the band, posters and lastly fashion article.

Cover lines ideas.

1-    History of band Princeton                           'How Princeton was born'

                                                                            'Exclusive visit to their childhood'

                                                                            'The tail of Princeton'

                                                                            'The roots of Princeton'

                                                                            'Things you didn't know about Princeton'

                                                                            'How all started'                                                                             'The true story from the very start'

                                                                            'Their secret past uncovered'

                                                                            'Before heroes'

                                                                            ' The very exclusive interview'

                                                                            'Their inside story' 

2-Concert information                                         'On tour stars'

                                                                             ' Exclusive tours'

                                                                             ' Where is the rock around the world'

                                                                             'Where is the crowd heat'

                                                                             ' Worlds best concerts'

                                                                             'Follow the crowd'

3-Songs

                                                                             'Bands making UK even cooler'

                                                                             '10 must have songs'

                                                                             'Top music reviews'

                                                                             'Vibes to die for'

                                                                             'New treasures songs'

                                                                             'Best new vibes'

                                                                             'Most favourite hits'

                                                                             'Killer hits'

                                                                             'Turn up the volume, best hits list'

                                                                            ' 20 lost tracks'

                                                                            'Most talked bands'

                                                                            '20 songs you need right now'

4-Poster

                                                                             ' Free inside! giant posters'

                                                                             'Free! huge posters'

                                                                             'Giant exclusive posters'

                                                                             'Pics to keep'

                                                                             ' Poster special!'

                                                                             'Bonus posters'

5-Fashion                                                          'The rock star style'

                                                                          'The classic looks'

                                                                          'Get the look'

                                                                          ' Wear this and rock the look'

                                                                          ' Fashion Steals'

                                                                          

From section number 1 the most enthusiastic question would be ' Things you didn't know about Princeton' to develop this cover line I will include a number of amount of things to be more specific;

'10 Things you didn't know about Princeton'. This would attract all of the target audience, those who have no idea who they are and want to know what is contemporary and those that are huge fans and think now everything about them.

Section 2 - 'Where is the Rock around the world'  was the chosen cover line as it can link to a rock song 'We will rock you'. Develop I would have to link to pop as well as rock; ' We will poprock you!',

' Where to get pop rocked'.

Section 3- '10 must have tracks' Was the cover line which I thought it has most expectations of caching peoples attention. Sounds quick and easy to look at, no time wasted. 

Section 4- 'Giant free posters' Who doesn't like free stuff! I will certainly keep the 'FREE' word and probably in capital letters.

Section 5- 'The rock star style' Because it links to my rock genre and at the same time a rock star can also be referred to any singer including pop singers. Referring the cover line to music does not scare men as much of buying a magazine with fashion ideas.

Photography

To have a good magazine it must have a good quality image on the cover, the photograph on the cover is the first thing people see in a magazine.

This step is critical.

How to make your picture look professional for magazines:

Music magazine photoshoot tips from jvmac

Background

My target audience preferred to see a coloured background then a scenery,
I will work with this opinion because I believe a scenery background can take off the attention of the singer.
My background will be a contrasting colour from the singers clothes and features, as Mario Testino does.
Contrasting colours: are colours that appear opposite each other on the colour wheel.

My background colour will be chosen with the strict concept of  suiting my general front cover colour scheme:



 

Uses and Gratifications

I will refer my magazine to the use of gratification, so people would automatically like the magazine because of the specific satisfying needs we all have.

Use of gratification from jvmac

http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/short/usegrat.html

Photographer

I decided to follow a photographer's style or ideas, to be able to look like a professional photo-shoot.
To decide which photographer's work to follow, I selected four photographers who work for big magazine names and are currently popular. I then asked my target audience to choose one of them on my questionnaire.
The chosen Photographer was:

Mario Testino has most votes.

Mario Testino's work is mainly for fashion magazines but he also features singers in his work. His work is very powerful, he portrays women as powerful beings with sensuality (usually the models are with bare legs, little coverage and clothing that hugs the figure) to represent femininity. All his pictures include pink which is a stereotypical female colour, which contrasts with the stereotypical male features such as short hair, boxing clothes (men sport) blue background (boy colour). Makeup is used to refine features for a sharper look (bold eyes and cheek bones) His general use of colour is bold and contrasting (black and white, blue and pink and blue and yellow). All his models give eye contact, using fierce direct address aimed at the potential consumer.

Why is eye contact important?
This is called direct address, this is used to interact with the consumer, people are more likely to engage with the magazine as they would sense the feeling of belonging. This is seen on Maslow's Theory:

Belonging is in the third level of the pyramid of needs.

Socialising is a way to feel like we belong, from the thought of being accepted in different groups.

People socialise for enjoyment, and it helps us to feel included in our society. As we all see models enjoying themselves this is showed by smiling, confidence or freedom (independence).

Socialising can sometimes be hampered by boredom, insignificance and insecurity.



Pose and position

My target audience questionnaire results revealed they prefer a long shot photo for the front cover.
Giving me a bigger variety of poses to choose from.

After researching poses I was surprised on how different poses have specific names, each of these are based on a central mid shot:

“The Prayers hands”  The “introspective” shot.

                                                                                                               "Gun hands"










“Jesus pose”


I have then selected 5 long shot poses that would be suitable for my characters and my genres.

1 -A simple and casual looking pose. Lots of variations are possible. As the model can experiment with hand positioning and try different head turns.

2- Another very simple and elegant pose. The model is turned slightly to the front, one hand in the front pockets and the other leaning on the waist with the head turned to the side keeping eye contact.

3-A sensual pose. By holding the hands above the head body curves are emphasized. And eye contact is kept.

            4-This pose would make the singer look like she is a fun, confident and different as this pose is not as common for singer to do. The singer to be able  succeed this pose would have to balance her body into one foot, play around with the arms and body angle. This pose gives an idea of energy and youth.

 5- This is pose is performed with one arm
behind the head and the on the hip with feet together.

Now I have tried a few of the poses:

After experimenting these poses I realised the ideal pose would have to review a confident, fun, dangerous and young, similar to pose number 4. To contrast with the reasons she had a break which are serious, mature and ordinary.
My target consumers also established from my questionnaire analyses that to make the cover shot stand out it would have to make a shot in movement.

Here are some poses I will look at to inspire for my photo shoot.

To inspire my shots I have watched a few videos of Coco Rocha she is a model who is famous for her jumping poses she leaps with energy and enthusiasm:

To achieve this my camera would have to be adjusted to a different setting so it can capture the movement as if it frozen in the air, for it I will need a DSLR camera which stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex. To gain a pixel sharp image the main thing I will need is a high shutter speed. However when using very high shutter speeds less light will allow the camera to capture and compose a nicely balanced image from. Therefore I will need to adjust the amount of aperture too allow more light through the lens while taking high speed photos.

• shutter speed 1/250
• aperture F5.6