Front cover research 1

This is a Kerrang music magazine which contains information on rock bands and their artists.

House style/Masthead

Firstly, in this magazine "kerrang" is the masthead of the magazine and is always placed in the center top half of the music magazine. House style is when the same continuous logo, colours, fonts and shapes are used to create a brand. The housestyle of this magazine is also young and the genre is reflected in teh house style and created by the masthead, this is because "kerrang" is a main brand identity/ logo.

Colours 

Secondly, in the magazines front cover, colours such as Red, Black,Yellow, White and grey are used. Red has been used to help the magazine associate with energy, war and determiation. This type of atmosphere works very well with the rock theme. The black colours are used to associate the front cover with power, death and evil. Black has a very horrifying atmospheric theme to it and suits the magazine genre well. The designer has used yellow text as it is associated with energy and is very good for attracting the attention of someone walking past.

A lot of small subheadings on the front cover are in yellow, which can be associated with caution, sickness, decay and jealousy helping the front cover to fit the rock theme. Yellow is also a colour which can be seen as very attractive and eye catching.
The dark background contrasts with the white headings and red detail of the articles. The dark background, with blood red and white fonts link to the rock music genre. Rock artists tend to dress in dark clothing, their album covers are dark. Kerrang reflects this on the front cover of their music magazine.

Other related rock band Advertisements 

As well as this, on the front cover there are articles advertising other Rock bands. This again links the magazine to a Rock theme. It would also open the magazine up to a larger target market as people who are big fans of one of the bands would buy the magazine for that one band.

Positioning

The main artist is positioned directly in the middle of the magazine, with the rest of his band further back, creating the idea that the rest of his band are like his sidekicks. As well as this, they are placed farther away to show an attitude, which links them to the rock genre as "rock" music is seen as an angry, rebellion music genre. Due to the band further back it shows the star in main focus of the magazine. The artist's face covers the middle of the mast head. When well known music magazine companies do this, it shows their brand is well known, reinforcing that they do not need to use their whole logo, because most readers would know it as the 'Kerrang' magazine.

Headings/Fonts

Furthermore, the artist and the band are covered by the band name and subtitles, one being "HEAR THE NEW MUSIC. READ THEIR FULL STORY" this causes the reader to want to buy the magazine and read about the bands story. As well as this the main parts of the magazines front cover are towards the top of the magazine. they have done this as a marketing technique. When a magazine is for sale in a shop, the shop companies sell them on shelves which hide 1/3rd of the magazines front cover.

Finally, the fonts used in this magazine are sans serif and serif. The magazine writer has used "sans serif" with the bands name. They have used the "serif" font in the rest of the font on the front cover. Magazine editors and front cover designers tend to vary with the fonts they use. This is to show importance in text and help catch the readers eye.

Promotion

Also people who have designed this front cover have used words like "free" and "win" in large letters on the front cover. This causes the magazine to persuade more people to buy the magazine as it is making out like they can win things if they buy the magazine.




In addition, the magazine has a bar code in the bottom left. This is so that the magazine has originality and so that the magazine can be sold onto a customer.

How this Research has Influenced my Planning and Creativity 

I like the style and font used in this magazine.
I also like the rebellious atmosphere given from the red and black colour scheme. \

Links, Synergy and Brand Identification

Synergy is created as a type of brand identification.

The contents page of this magazine and the front cover have the same house style.

















I can tell this is from the same magazine due to it having the same colours and music genre. The main star on the front cover is also on the content page. The image of the star on the contents page is the same as the front cover - same costume and prop.
Synergy:

• colour red
• font styles
• props
• costume
• space

How this Research has Influenced my Planning and Creativity 

• I need a strong star image that can be on my front cover and contents
• The cover story needs to be the largest on the contents
• I need to careful choose  a colour to run through my pages
• I need to select an interesting font style to use on all pages

Preliminary Task: Front Cover

I have designed this using Adobe photo elements 11. I tried to keep the overall look quite simple.  I have successfully taken a medium close up shot. I also used the best lighting I could find to show the model in a light which catches the eye of a potential customer walking past. I have used a 50p coin in the top right corner to show how much the magazine costs.

Preliminary task: Contents page

I did this through adobe elements.

How this research has influenced my planning and creativity

- I really like how simple and easy to understand it is.
- I really like the colour scheme and layout.

Selection and Rejection

This is an appropriate picture as it is a medium shot photograph and it is very sharp and engaging towards someone seeing the magazine. I like this photo as she is looking straight at the camera and is portrait.

This is not an appropriate picture to use as it is blurry. This is due to her moving whilst I took the photo. It could have also been because there wasn't enough light where the photo was taken.

Technology : joining slideshare and flickr

Today i joined slideshare and flickr and learnt how to upload a ppt.

Research 1 Conventions

Research 1 conventions from AlexanderSherrattASmedia

Research Institutions 1 - Bauer Media

Bauer Media is a huge media group, which is Europe's biggest privately owned publishing group. It is a worldwide media empire with over 300 magazines on offer, some of the biggest music ones being 'Q' which Bauer Media bought from EMAP in 2008. This now has a circulation of around 52,800 'mojo' with a circulation of around 80,000 and 'Kerrang' which has a circulation of around 33,300. There are also online areas, T.V and radio stations.

The company built up by slowly buying magazines from other institutes, for example in 1994 they bought a small magazine called For Him Magazine, which is now a major magazine. Later on they bought the digital music TV channel The Box, as a route into the small screen business, which has now led them to having bigger links with TV channels such as 4music and channel 4. 

Bauer media mainly publishes magazines but they also focus on radio stations such as Kiss 100 station. Beginning it's first radio station in 1990 which the acquisition of London dance station Kiss FM, which is now called Kiss 100.

The magazine element stretches back to 1953 when its first magazine 'Angling Times' was launched, this was then followed in 1956 by Motor Cycle 
News; both of these magazines are very well loved.

When I got onto the bauer media website the first thing that was there was this image. It caught my eye and was engaging, helping me to understand how to catch someone's eye and attract a wider audience. This is a very good aspect of design, especially for the front of a website or magazine.





This is a list of the radio stations Bauer operates, it really put into proportion for me of how large and diverse the company were and has also inspired me to look into them as a distributor of my magazine.








On the website there is an audience finder. I found this extremely helpful as it allowed me to find the types of magazines associated with my target audience.

Response To The Brief

I think it would be difficult for me to create a magazine. To help myself learn about creating a a magazineI would go into a shop and look at the best magazines that engage me the most, from this i will take a photo and publish it with an analysis to help my knowledge of magazines. I've never really considered in deep thought of a magazine. Because of this complete new start I am very excited to start this media course!

OCR G321 Print Breif

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in a medium close ip plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contexts page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.
Main: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.