Front Cover:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B7UvtIIhueitOGE4ODY3NjktNmNlZS00MDUyLWJhMDQtM2ZhNzk3OGUzZTVl&hl=en_GBDY3NjktNmNlZS00MDUyLWJhMDQtM2ZhNzk3OGUzZTVl&hl=en_GBContents Page and Double Page Spread:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B7UvtIIhueitZGE2NDBhNWUtZjgyMS00ZmJlLWE0NmYtY2E2Mzg1NWU1N2Q3&hl=en_GBI'd like to start by stating everything I have changed from my flat plans.
The Front cover is only slightly different, added a strip at the top of the page and moved some of boxes around.
The contents page has changed considerably because for my flat plan I put 'CONTENTS' in a pattern going down on the top right corner. I felt that it didn't work well with the layout, it made the pictures of the groups squashed and too thin and wasn't the right technique for my target audience.
Finally, my double page spread hasn't changed much at all, I have kept it the same as my flat plan.
Existing Analysed Magazines:
Front cover - My front cover is fairly similar to one of the existing magazine's, VIBE. Both have got a main picture showing main topic of the magazine for that issue and has the other topics going down each side of the picture. I have chosen and big, bold font and in capitals for the title of my magazine and both have a strip of news above the title. The other front cover is different to mine, same genre and target audience but my front cover is less formal and not as imposing as mine is not a close up picture. Again the title is still big, bold and in capitals.
Contents page - My contents page is completely different to the existing one, however, I think that my one is more to do with my target audience. The existing one, has one main display picture and then a small section showing the featured. I like the way that they have set out 'CONTENTS' but it didn't fit with my layout. Both contents pages, mine and existing aren't particularly vibrant. They have only used three colours, grey, white and black. I have used a blue for the title and then black and white for the writing and backgrounds, however the pictures, even though they are quite dark too, brings colour to it.
Double page spread - The layout for the existing and my double page spread are similar in the fact that they are split horizontally for pictures and writing (although mine has been split in half, theirs hasn't). However, the existing magazine has got 6 columns, to my 4. I have decided to put my title as one of the columns and they have theirs along the top of two columns. There text is an article about one person over all 4 columns of writing (2 out of 6 being another picture). Where as, mine has 3 columns of writing and not all on one thing... I have various different topics and then 2 columns full of an interview with the group.
Overall, I have tried to keep my magazine as similar as possible to the existing ones, without copying.
Look at the similarities in our two fonts for the mastheads:
They are both bold and use caps ... It doesn't matter that they are the both same colour because all issues have different colours. 'SOUL SCENE' looks thinner because there are more characters.
Both mine and the existing front cover has one main photo... however I have also added others to it.
My magazine is for the urban industry (hip-hop, soul etc). Therefore my pictures are very suited for this genre, the age, race and gender support this. All of the people in the my pictures are in their late teens, which will involved these as my target audience. The fact that a lot of the people in the my pictures are black shows where the majority of the urban groups come from, and therefore people that are from urban areas will most likely be interested too. And as for gender... there are male and females in the pictures so it neglects neither.
The written parts, will also target the above but because this type of magazine targets 18-34 year olds, the writing will be colloquial but written with no spelling errors. I would say that the higher end the age range will be more interested with reading about the new groups rather than the youths, especially the interview.
I would see this magazine being sold in supermarkets, newsagents, garages and any music shops. It may appear in specialist record shops however, I'd expect to see it in supermarkets and that too because the hip-hop genre is growing and I can see it being popular so the more places that sell it, the more chance it has to keep going. But not only that, a lot popular and all genre magazines are sold in these sort of places.
As I said in blog 2 (link below) my target audience is 18-34 both sexes.
This will appeal to the higher end of the age range because they will probably be more interested in the background of the group and then decide to listen to them where as the younger generation will like the look of them and test them out straight away. However if the youths did feel they wanted to read this then the language is quite colloquial so they wouldn't have any problems. The idea of an interview is for the groups point of view and it is effective for all ages.
This picture would very much appeal more to the younger end of the age range, although the elder would still look... Youths are more interested with the look of the band and their genre/music. This would be the same for any other magazine... as their front covers are similar.
For the final two questions...
Before doing Media Studies, I had never used Adobe InDesign or Photoshop so I didn't really know what to expect.
The Publications that I used in this project helped to enable all of the ideas that I wanted to come into reality, for example on the double page spread the style of writing and the layout was achieved due to Adobe In Design, and without that system I may not have been able to get the results that I did. Also the styling to the pictures is very important to have the computer software because otherwise I would have found it hard to crop and do what I wanted to do with the pictures. I feel that even though I hadn’t used these publications before, I learnt quickly and I would be willing to use it again because of how easy and efficient it is to use.
Since the preliminary task I think that I have improved dramatically, the reason for this being that I had analysed other magazine beforehand and therefore had an idea of what front covers and contents pages generally look like. I could also link this to the topic on hand, music which of course we didn’t have the chance to do with the preliminary task. I also think the way the design phase went in my planning went a lot better and I had a lot more ideas. I also tried to make sure that I did everything in the order that I was supposed to so that I had the right knowledge the next stage each time and I didn’t want to get behind because I feel as though I rushed the preliminary task.
Plus after using the publications, Adobe InDesign and Photoshop in the preliminary task, it gave me a practice on them before the real magazine. Knowing more about these publications would have given me a bigger scope as to what they can do and then they could be put to use. Also comparing the language I used, it is a lot more appropriate and sophisticated (where needed to be) to the target audience. Another way I think I improved was in the Styling of the magazine as it flows more with the theme's of the magazine and the same style runs through the whole magazine.
Soul Scene: 
