Friday 23rd March 2012

I did have everything up and blogged about my first attempt of making tghe front page, until it all got deleted. Sad times. But anyway on Tesday 20th March I took my pictures with my model and we took many different pictures, indoor and outdoors so that when I started making the magazine I would have a wide variety of pictures to choose from. I had started doing my front page but then I had changed my mind and decided to chnage the picture.

From this....

To this one. I did this because I thought about how much space at the left side of the magazine plus more space to write information. I will probably use the first picture a little bit later in the magazine but for now I will stick with the second one.



Magazine Pitch

In this post, I will mainly be talking about my main plan for my magazine since the last few weeks I've been researching and also been looking at other magazines, so I have an ideea of how I want mines to look like.

Name Of Magazine
I have decided to call my magazine "Smooth". I believe that it will go with the type of genre that my magazine will be associated with.

Target Audience
My target audience would be both males and females from the age of 18 to 28. This is because I believe that they would be at the main age where they would like to have collections of items that they like or would be able to afford the magazines, which would lead them to being loyal customers to the magazine.

Weekly/ Month And Cost
This magazine will be a monthly magazine that will be around £3.95. This is because it's the average price for these types of magazines and other types of magazine that are the same types of magazines such as mine are about the same price

Association With Magazine
This will associate with the chosen genre because the type of people that would want to have a monthly update of all the issues going on within the music industry. This is because a weekly one might be difficult to constantly get a lot of deep information that the audience would like. So by having it as a monthly magazine, it would give the stories and the magazine enough time to develop properly and to talk with enough sources and organise things.

Similar Products
There are a number of magazines that could be slightly similar to the idea that I had for my magazine, such as pictures like "Vibe" and "XXL" sinsce they seem to have the more famous R&B and Hip Hop arrtists and stories. These two magazines are of two very specific genres, for example it would be very rare for them to promote a rock bands such as The Beatles.

What Makes My Magazine Different
To make my magazine stand out from other R&B magazines, I will do exclusive interviews with new artists each month but still have the latest gossip for those that like that kind of thing. I will also include some sections dedicated for the female type of fashion side which would encourage more female readers to buy the magazine.

Contents Page Analysis of Vibe and Q

Both of these magaziens have images on the contents pages. Vibe has one picture of Chris Brown and he was also on te front page. On the other hand, Q has two pictures and neither of them were on the front page. In the Vibe magazine, the picture has been put as the background with the contents displayed around it. In Q, there's one main picture at the top right corner the one around the center. Then another one at the bottom of the page in the middle. I personally thought that Q had more of a rock genre and more edgy, but with the contents page and the front page, it has proved to be promoting different genres, mainly pop and rock. On the other hand, Vibe did show that it has more of an R&B and Hip-Hop feel to it, but in this case it has empahised more of the R&B genre since the front page shows a well-known R&B artist. This has proved that the type of audience that both of these magazine have proven to be more like the type of people that would listen to those specific genres of music.

The colours that are used in the Q magazine seem to be more of greys and whites that seem to show a more calm feel to the magazine. There are a few headings and subheadings are are in red and most of the writing is in black. It doesn't really stand out much since the contents page has very basic colours. On the other hand, the Vibe magazine doesn't really have any bright colours either. The contents page consists of black and white, with little hints of yellow where the number are. In this case this does support the front page since it didn't really have many other colours such as any reds or electric blues. The main colour that did stand out was the name of the magazine that was written in yellow plus some white writing with a black background. In the Q magazine, it had many colours in the front page, then when it came to the contents page, the choice of colours went slightly softer. This could be because they've already used the front page to grasp the reader's attention so they feel like they might not need as many bright colours as they used in the front page.

In Q, the information has been organised in a manner that first of all shows what's new in the magazine and in this case it's talking about a band, then some offers for getting some tickets. Then after a few more main headings, it has a women's section where it will be promoting female artists and more things that are to the women's taste. Things such as the "10 Most Powerful Women In Music" and a review about Adele. At the bottom of the page there is another review about "The World's Biggest And Best Music Guide". This clearly shows that the magazine is yet again selling itself to the reader since it's ranking itself really high. On the other hand, the Vibe magazine takes a more patriarchal approach to things. It talks quite a bit about masculinity and about men than it did about women. In Q it more or less had the best of both worlds, but in Vibe, it mainly talked about men and masculinity, including people such and Kobe Bryant and Lil Wayne. There are more articles about Hip-Hop/ Rap and other things that talks about the musicians that will be featured in the magazine. In the Q magazine, there is a type of promotional feature, it shows that each month, there will be Q mail and things such as crosswords and Life Lessons being told by Alan Carr. In the Vibe magazine, not so much, if any at all.

In the Vibe magazine, there's the logo at the top of the contents page with some type of bar-code design at the top in the middle of the page. In the Q magazine, the big "Q" is still at the top left corner at the page beside the place where it says "Contents".

The magazines don't really have any franchises that show that the the magazine is sponsored or is sponsoring anything else really.

Front Page Analysis on Vibe and Q

This is an R&B Music Magazine. From the front cover, you can tell that some issues like an interview with Chris Brown and some information about Amber Rose are going to be included in the magazine, as well as some issues about a recording label called Def Jam.
The target audience would be people who like R&B and Hip-Hop. This is shown through the choice of the artist that is on the front page. The age group would vary from 18-35. The interests would be about things like life living in a ghetto, or money, and the personal lives of the people in the music industry.
Chris Brown is on the front cover, this may be because of all the drama that he had in the past with Rhianna and also more information about his new album and more to come from him. Although he does look quite serious on the front page.
The central image wants you to have a type of close and non-judgemental; approach to the magazine since the artist sort of looks vulnerable but yet keeping their pride.
It says that there's and exclusive interview about the artist so it could imply that the artist would be coming clean or revealing a side of him that wouldn't normally be seen.
In this picture, Chris Brown sort of has his hands up, and a serious face, in a sort of way to show that he's probably vulnerable, since he might be opening up in the interview that is in the magazine. Plus also the lights seem to be in more of a high angle which could show that he might be getting exposed slightly.
There aren't any groups being represented that much except from the music label Def Jam and there is some information about them too within the magazine.
The block capitals on the magazine shows that it sort of had a cool vibe to it, and it's not an in-your-face type of magazine, which really mainly represents the genres of music it represents too.
The slogan used in the magazine is "R U STILL DOWN?". This tells me that the magazine has a cool and chilled out feeling to it. The main colours that are used are black and yellow and the most common font used is Sans Serif. In a way i do find the attractive because they blend together nicely. They're not too bright since there's the black in a dark type of way, then the light side of it just even out the black and at the same time it's eye catching. The strategy used to capture the audience is the way that they advertise the most famous celebrities within that genre of the music industry to get the audience's attention.

This is a pop/ rock type of magazine. From the font cover the type of articles that are going to be in in are of some celebrities such as Madonna since she's on the front cover. Also issues about people like Russel Brand, Girls Aloud, and shows like Little Britain are going to be in the magazine.
The target audience for Q is more of the older generation, ranging from the age of 25 and upwards of both sexes. Their type of interests would be things like old ‘classic’ albums and music from past decades as it would suit the audience. Q features many genres of music so it is suited to all music lovers. The magazine has a mass audience as it is so popular, but could also be referred to as having a niche audience, as it is specifically aimed at only music fans.
The central image gives a feel of glamour as well as feeling like, the artist is still trying to hide away, since she's looking over her shoulder.
This shows that the artist and the magazine wants to show the reader that they're opening up and saying things that the reader probably wouldn't even know about them.
Madonna is one the front cover because she is a very well known artist, she's also been in the music industry for such a long time and could be seen as a huge icon, for fashion and for music.
The overall message that the artist is giving is that she doesn't mind talking, as long as no stupid question are asked as it was stated by a quote from the interview. Plus it doesn't really look like she's hiding anything, but in a way she could be trying to be cautious too.
Some music groups that are being represented are the Rolling Stones as well as the Arctic Monkeys. The magazine only states what the groups are doing and there are probably more articles about them inside the magazine. There's a buzz word that was said by Madonna in the articles which said " Stupid Question! Next" which could imply that she didn't want to answer some questions maybe, which could be used to attract the audience and make them curious about the reason why she said that. This could be one of the things that could be used to persuade the audience to buying the magazine.
The title of the magazine is in red and white, which are colours that both stand out in the crowd so this shows that they have a good way of standing out.
The image and the style of the magazine does give some sort of glamour as well as a calm feeling.
The "puffs" suggest that this issue of the magazine wouldf be mainly targetted to women as majourity of the articles in the magazine are about women.
No, there isn't a slogan in this magazine.
The colours used are red and white but, they seen to be too bright form liking. The strategy used by this magazine to attract customers are by having a lot bit and bright words that will grab the reader's attention because they have little details o the reader will become curious about what will be in the magazine which will lead them to buying it, then cloud lead them to being  a loyal customer if they enjoy the magazine.

Analysis of Vouge Contents Page on Prezi

Analysis of a Contents page on Prezi

Yay! lol I finally completed the presentation. I did so on my computer at home. At first it was taking forever to load but then it eventually started to work after a lot of patience. I did as much analysis as I could with the contents page plus a little bit of more research about the types of fonts that would be used in the Vogue magazine. Overall I am quite pleased with my work and it did take me a bit of time to get used to Prezi but after a while (like what happened with PhotoShop) I did get the hang of it and it became rather quite easy to use.

Okay so before I go, here are some of the screen shots of when I was creating my Presentation on Prezi. It was when I was linking all the areas I was analysing together to complete the presentation. They're just some basic print screens.
Hope you enjoy!