My 3 templets

Here are my templets of my front cover, contents page and my double page spread

Here is my front cover, i need to add more text and a picture which i will do shortly. I like the light blue colour but i am not sure if it will work for a music magazine so i will have to keep trying different colour schemes and see how i feel on this subject.

Here is my contents page.. i have tried different colours for my magazine to see which suits it best. I am liking this one the best.

I dont like this for my double page spread, there is too much background for my liking and think i could definitely fill it more.

Year 12 Assesment - Mr Murphy

Year 12 Assessment: 12/11/2012

Question: Given the current technological developments in terms of magazine production, distribution and consumption explain your reasoning for your choice of company to produce your magazine.

Answer: The Institution i have chosen to go with is Dennis Publishing Ltd. Due to Dennis now publishes over 70 magazines, digital magazines, websites and mobile sites throughout the world. Dennis brands include The Week, Monkey, Auto Express, Men’s Fitness, evo, PC Pro, Kontraband, Viz and Octane. It also publishes The Week in the US. It posts over 25 million subscriptions copies to paying customers every year. Someone buys a Dennis Publishing magazine from the newsstand every 2 seconds. It is now one of the world’s leading independently owned media companies with a turnover in excess of £95 million a year. iGizmo, the world’s first digital, technology magazine was the number one download in Apple’s store. 700,000 people visit one of Dennis’ 35 websites every day. Its first successful title was Kung-Fu Monthly. 

Why i respect the company: Dennis Publishing was the only publisher named as one of the Sunday Times’s Top 100 Best Companies to work for in 2007 and 2008. Felix Dennis, owner of Dennis Publishing, planted 102,000 trees in the last year. And last but not least every year, four lucky Dennis Publishing employees are treated to a trip of a lifetime to Mustique. Showing Felix Dennis treats all of his employees with the height of respect. 

Dennis Publishing Ltd. have expanded there company by out-buying Kontraband, so now they own there own distributing company and have widened there target audience. This is a prime example of what is happening in todays media via magazines, producers are becoming producers and distributers, cutting out the middle man so it goes straight from the producers, who now distribute and then straight to the consumer (target audience) via either a magazine (The best of EVO) or online (the best of EVO). 

The best thing about Dennis publishing Ltd is that it has transformed itself and now leads the way in being a multi-platform content provider i.e. magazines, cd's, online, on the go (phones, and tablets). 

Dennis Publishing Ltd. 

Planning for my front cover (music)

Planning for my front cover (music) 

The most important thing on my front cover will be my shot! 

I have decided to go for the kasabian styled shot, with 3 people in my shot instead of 4, the front man with people diagonally falling off behind him. My participators are Joseph Thomas, Jordan Ronan and William Jones. I have talked with these 3 lads and have arranged there dress code and the props (joe is bringing his guitar, i will arrange with the music department to borrow a pair of drum sticks and i will provide 2 pairs of sunglasses for the 2 lads who want them). 

I have spoken with Mr. Liddell and have arranged the resources i will need which are a camera along with a tripod. 

I am taking my shots in an alley-way down in Liscard, theres a nice brick wall in there along with cobble stones giving it the working class affect, this reaches out to more people because they can relate to this. 

Once i have taken my mock photo shots i will upload them and then compare then to my final shots. (i cannot take any today as one of the people i need is not in) 

This is the sort of shot i am looking for... 

But mine will be a brick wall in the background, and the rule of thirds will be in place with a medium close-up shot.

Pre-liminary contents page

Contents Page 

I have been looking through my pictures and i have been deciding out of the photo's provided above, which ones to have in my contents page ... I am going to include the second and third picture due to it being a mix up of students and my first picture being on the front cover.

Research - Notes

Research - Notes

I have looked at Bauer Media and also NME, I have chosen to go with Bauer media due to there company being so much bigger with all there brands being so successful it seems the best one to be published by.

Here are a few of the magazines i am going to look at and base my final design around.

MOJO: Targeting a specific genre. Mojo is for rock lovers, but is more interested in Classic rock. The age range would be around 35 and over and both genders. Mojo focus’ on a genre of music and the magazine is a representation of it. It focus’ on the love for classic rock and the artists/bands involved. Mojo targets it’s audience by concentrating on classic rock e.g : Boy Dylan, Pink Floyd, The White Stripes, Guns and roses etc. The ideology of Mojo is showing that rock music also has a value due to the amount of classic rock artists. It focus’ on having more articles in then it does with reviews of gig and festivals like Kerrang does. Normally MOJO would feature more older and wiser Bands/Artists.

KERRANG: Target Audience : Mainly 16 – 24 year olds, both genders which are interested in punk/rock. Mostly new and well known , e.g : My Chemical Romance, Bring me the Horizon etc.. Kerrang targets its audience by the images and articles that Appear in Kerrang, they have a mix of photo shoots and gig shots. Kerrang concentrates on punk/rock/metal bands such as Lostprophets, Green day, Marilyn Manson, Alice in chains etc. Kerrang keeps their audience interested by having articles and reviews in about bands, gigs and festivals. Every week, Kerrang magazine has a big focus on a different band new, old or upcoming and has either one or two double page spreads. Unlike Q and MOJO, Kerrang’s ideology is set on rebelling against the classic hard rock views. Kerrang Focus’ is the rock/metal/punk bands that are recent or new and sometimes classic.

Q: Targeting older people - it's a magazine for mature music lovers, not teens and young adults, it shows respect for the history of music and features iconic artists. Q magazine represents the legendary side of music featuring old artists which are still significant to today's music. Q features old artists but also features new artists which have also had a big impact on music today so this helps bring in a wider audience. Q logo is White on top of Red , Red is used to make the logo stand out as red is an alarming colour so it would make a colour of white stand out. Because Q has been around, their logo has been known as a house style. The ideology of Q shows and idolises icon artists new and old as there are not ay magazines that target both genders, and both young and old. Cover image is presented in direct address which helps draw the reader in. The cover image Is made central so this represents the central story for this addition. The imaged is posed which makes you look at it more because it shows a sense of seriousness.

KERRANG, Q and MOJO are my 3 magazines i have chosen to look at from Bauer Media... Here are 6 front cover designs (2 from each magazine) that i can look at and get a few good ideas from.

front cover idea - Mojo

Magazine Q

front cover idea - Kerrang

front cover idea - Kerrang

Magazine Kerrang

Magazine Mojo

front cover idea - Q

front cover idea - Q

front cover idea - Mojo

 I have chosen to go with Bauer Media - And my magazine is going to be Kerrang due to Q being for the older and more mature music lovers and Mojo's age range being around 35 and over.

Kerrang seems the best for the age range because i have a better understanding of what younger audience's want reather than the older audience's.

Researching Institutions

Researching Institutions                                       Lewis wilde 

I have been looking for a suitable company to produce and distribute my magazine i am producing, i am going to look at three options 1) Magazines only 2) Online magazine only 3) Online magazines and normal magazines

Media institution that might distribute my magazine

• What kind of media institution should i distribute my media product and why?
• The publisher that I would use to publish my magazine would be Bauer Media. The reason for this is that they are one of the leading media institutions in the UK, and also that “Kerrang magazine” and “Q magazine” both use them as their publisher, which are both magazines that my target audience would read. Bauer Media is a very well known publisher, with the group being a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations. so by using them to publish my magazine I will definitely know that they will be doing a good job. Also, because they are such a big and well known company, there should be more advertisement options as it should be both easier and cheaper to advertise with help from such a big media institution.
• The kind of distribution methods that I would be using would firstly be the most common way, of putting physical copies of the magazine in various popular retail shops (For example, WH Smiths and  Local Newsagents). This is so that I reach all of my target audiences as most people who want a magazine still goes straight to the shops. Nowadays, big chain supermarkets such as Tesco, Asda and Morrisons are becoming the main sellers of magazines and are the first place people now go to to buy magazines. This is why I would make sure to distribute my magazine to supermarkets to get the most people seeing and buying my magazine as possible. I would also however have visual copies of my magazine online and use internet distribution. Many more magazine companies are now putting their magazines online, so by putting "..." issues online also, I would be keeping up with the competition. Also, it would help to attract younger audiences to my magazine as many more young people are spending there time online, rather than in magazine shops.
• Another reason that I chose Bauer Media to distribute and publish my magazine is because I feel that they will also help me to appeal to my target audience. On there website there is a section on the audiences that they reach, that i am hoping to reach through my magazine.

My first picture for the pre-liminary task

This is the picture i chose to base my front cover on from the 32 shots i took, this seemed the best to work with and the best picture i wanted. Here is the starter image:

This was my first go on photoshop so there are still a few things i can work on.

Today i have learnt how to add layers, add mast headings and how to blend my headings, how to change the background colour and also using the magic wand tool to be able to remove the original background better.

On the cover the things i need to improve are better editing, better headings and sub-headings, the composition of the shot is poor, the audience will be looking at the white in the middle whereas they should be focusing on the shot which is the main target. The thing i done right was taking the background of the library out and adding a plain white background giving space for my titles, pictures and logo's.

Initial Audience Feedback

Initial Audience Feedback 

We took our shots and came back to the classroom, we sat around a table and had the pictures uploaded onto the big screen in front of us all and we gave our opinions of whats good and whats bad about the photos. 

My class mates looked at my initial shots and gave me feedback on whats good about the photos and also what improvements could of been made. 

The feedback i got was i needed better composition and also needed to work on my Mise En Scene, with this negative feedback i am able to improve on future shots. 

 Here are a few of my first shots! ...

In this shot its the top left of the photo that spoils it with the object that has nothing to do with the purpose of the shot, the location is in a library so you would never know it was for a school magazine, also the choice of clothes in the shot was poor as it could be a teacher in a suit not a pupil admiring the school's memorial.

The rule of thirds

The rule of thirds 

After taking our photos and getting the group to access them on a whole, we looked at this video showing the rule of thirds which is vital if you want to capture a good photo ... take a look ! 

After watching this video i know now for the future that if i ever take a photograph i will keep the rule of thirds in mind helping me to take a better shot overall.

Original images for my preliminary task

First images for my Preliminary task

Here are a couple of the first lot of photos we took looking for media, we gathered them back in the classroom and looked for errors such as the lighting, background and the composition of the photo.

Photo one:

Deciding my brief for media 

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 medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.

Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new magazine.

All images and text must be original and from the candidates ourselves (minimum of 4 images per candidate).

We have have decided to do this brief because of all the equipment we have available and also we think we are capable of producing high quality coursework as we have seen from previous students.

One thing we looked at last was the rule of thirds ... here is the video we watched ... take a look !