Creation

 I started the front cover by making the page A4 and Making sure that my background was white so it would be easy to manipulate in terms of colours and changing it.Next, I inserted the first image to use. i chose one based on pose and how it fits with my magazine, but also colours. As I had to improvise at the time of the photoshoot, I didn't have a solid white background so I had to find the closest thing I could to this.

Next I removed the background using the magic wand tool and turned my white background into black. This was to be a part of my front cover colour scheme and is one of my three colours to be on the cover.

I then moved onto crating my font for the backround. It was originally surrounded by black, so incase I wanted to font to cross over anything, I removed the black by using a white background to make the colour stand out. From there, I magic wanded any of the remaining black out of the image.











I then moved to applying it to the rest of the cover. I feel the red outline around the white text made it stand out and I also feel the font I chose was a fitting font for my magazine. Also, i added my date and issue number to start filling the front cover with more of the required stuff.









I then started applying text and created my first draft. I asked for some views and gained feedback on how to improve. Here I had added the text but was told by the people  asked that I was missing things, so I went back to photoshop to continue.

 

 Then came the second draft. I added more of the third colour, red here after feedback suggested it was lacking in the colour. I also added the barcode and QR code as this is convention and was missing from the first iteration of my cover. Next I will get more feedback and improve.

 

One of the main Problems with my previous drafts was picked up on in this next one. The image in the previous ones looked blurred and so here I decided to use a clearer image to adress this. I think it looks alot better then the previous ones and spent alot of time removing the background once more. after feedback I will hopefully improve even further.



My fourth draft saw me improve my font. I was told the original looked to plain and didn't reflect the genre too well, so I changed them and repositioned to compensate for the fonts larger size. Next i will get feedback to move to my final cover.

   This is my final cover. I changed the positioning of the QR and bar codes as they looked slightly off, but also changed the lighting slightly and the background to make the artist stand out better. This was to make it more professional and look more natural.

Liiar- FC,DPS and Contents

Front Cover

L-The language shows that there is going to be unheard of information in this issue from the lexis used. Firstly, the use of the word "secrets" tells us that we are going to learn something that has been hidden from the audiences if we buy this issue. Also, the use of the word "revealed at the bottom of the page enforces this idea of being given new information, which increases appeal. Furthermore, this links in with the image which shows someone in a position of telling a secret. On top of this, by using the names of artists on the cover, it reveals that there is going to be some focus on them in the issue. By doing this, any fans of the artist will want to buy the magazine to find out what is being said about them.

I- The institution is Kerrang, which shows that it is a professionally made and will contain the freshest, hottest gossip on musicians and their endeavours.

I- The ideology is to inform people of new stuff in the music world, but without revealing too much on the front cover.This is to give the audience a little taste of whats within the magazine, without revealing enough for the magazine to be not bought.

A-The audience would be based on several things. Firstly, anybody looking to learn stuff about their favourite artists will buy the magazine to keep up to date on what they do (e.g. Bullet for my Valentine), and extending from this comes my second point. The age would be teenagers to adults (13- 20's), due to the fact that the bands are modern and alot of teens might be interested in getting the free posters, whereas adults wouldn't care much. Also, with the price being £2.20, which is relatively cheap, I feel that the magazine is aimed at lower-working class people.

R- The representation really stems from the points I made about the language. It shows somebody telling a secret, so we know there is going to be some kind of big reveal about something. Also the use of the words "secret" and "reveal" definitely extend this idea. Also, with the large amount of images on the cover, it represents the magazine as being packed with a lot of information and a lot of news about a variety of bands and musicians.



Contents Page

L- The language includes a lot of proper nouns, the names of artists, so the reader will recognise some of the things that the magazine will be about. Also the use of the word "win" in big red writing implies that you can win a competition and is done to invoke attention in this idea. Also, on the images, we see several things. The first one is of musicians casually standing with each other. This could show that we are going to see artists outside of the music. But also, as they are a part of the page where it says win, it could be showing us that these are the people we could meet and so is showing them in a more casual element, on the same level as the reader.

I- The Institution is the same as the front cover shown by the top of the page and the editor's note.

I- The Ideology Includes some new features. Firstly, the use of a plug is intended to advertise the fact that there is a chance to win a competition and to inform the reader/ buyer of this. Also, the magazine is trying to get a steady flow of income/ sales from the use of the subscribe advertisement in the corner. Also, the ideology is to show the reader what is in the magazine, and where to find it. Along the left this is done and is clear, which makes it easy for the reader to find what they are interested. Finally, the use of a date at the top, which is larger than on the front cover, is for reference to when the magazine was released so we know how old/new the information will be.

A- The audience is the same as the front cover but is furthered to fans of particular artists.

R- The representation shows that there is a lot of stuff in the magazine and features a wide variety of articles. There is stuff about albums, news and more all ordered for the reader to find. This represents the magazine as being a professionally made one rather than an amateur magazine with everything all over the place.





Double Page Spread

L- The language used includes several things. Firstly, the use of a rhetorical interogative poses a question to the reader, but we know it is instead going to be about the man pictured. Secondly, the use of quotation in the pull quote allows us to get a deeper idea of what the article might be about. This is also there to grab our attention to the article.

I-The institution remains the same as the conents and front cover.

I-The Ideaology is to inform the audience through the article written on the page about the articles topic, which is the man with the joker theme on him (red mouth and jokers iconic question).

A- The audience remains the same as the contents and front cover.

R- The representation all depends on the article and image. in this case we are seeing something related to the Joker from the batman series, which could represent madness/insanity or some kind of humour. 

Google Draft

This is a quick rough google draft of what my magazine will be like. I think I will replace the white with black when it comes to the background as I feel it might look a bit better, but that might change during cration. I chose my magazine title here as Represent aswell.

Artists to Include

In my magazine, I should include names of artists that are established in the industry. By using known artists it increases the magazine appeal and how well it would be recieved by audiences. Below I have named some people from the hip hop industry who would fit in as a part of my magazine.

Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Dr Dre, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Lamar Hall, Ludacris, Lil Wayne.

Artist Photoshoots

Below are some photoshoots of music artists. I think by looking at some I could come up with some ideas for my photoshoot.

Hair and Costume- Female Rappers

From what I can observe here, female rappers have no specific style. The hair can be long tidy or short and messy. Also, the clothing seems to vary. Some wear hats, some wear glasses, some wear hoodies etc. This shows i could have some freedom if I get a female model for my images.

Test shoot- Images I liked

For the test shoot we tried different lighting and angles to get a rough idea of how to shoot out final pictures. I got a model and took some pictures with different lighting changes. Here are the images I liked and why.

I like this image due to the fact the light is above my model giving an angelic image, but also it seems to fit well with the canted style. The second image on this post also gives the same feel, and I like the fact that my model looked up in this picture as it renforces the angelic look. I like the light above idea, but the lack of light to the left and right of my model makes it look a bit unprofessional.

For this image, I really like the lighting on this image as it makes the background easy to remove. It looks bright and really mixes well with the model's colours.  I also like the high angle and is perfectly positioned. There is nothing I dislike about the image.

 

 

 

 This image is also one of my favourites. The lighting is fairly decent and the edges of the background are not visible. I think it would look better if it was brighter, but overall it is probably one of my more well done images.

Existing magazine prices

  Here are some hip hop magazines/ rap magazines that I am looking at to decide how much my magazine will cost and how often it will be released. In the corner of each one, the release is noted. Each magazine only shows a month, which tells me convention may possibly be monthly release. Also, on the bar code the price is shown, except for on Vibe. The price cannot be seen on the covers probably due to coming in a plastic seal cover.

DPS Conventions

 Here are some double page spreads from hip hop magazines. All of them have several things in common that I immediately notice at first glance. Firstly, there is the image. On all of them, the image dominates one of the pages. But on one of them, the image also carries onto the next page. Overall though, for my magazine, I will have to put the image alone on it's own page to follow convention. Also, there isn't any pictures featuring the full body of the person in the images. One features down to the legs, but most feature less, and tend to be close ups of the face. In addition to this, the article/ writing also tends to be 2 or three columns, no more or less. And finally the pull quote is features at the top of the page for each one. So, when making my double page spread, I should follow these conventions.

Hip Hop/ Rap in the Charts

 

I looked at the top 40 to see how poplular my chosen genre is, and i didn't see that many hip hop/ rap artists. Psy, the Korean rapper is high up in the charts but has been dropping recently. Also another artist, Labrinth. This shows it might be difficult to make my magazine popular to sell, but it is still obvious that the genre tends to be quite high in the charts, so has some popularity. I will have to research artists in the genre to include in my magazine.


As shown here, they are not low in the charts, but they arn't moving up and becoming more popular.

History on my Chosen Genre

The genre i have chose is in fact a sub genre of a type of music. Rap, is a sub genre of hip-hop, and has many different variations. A few variations of rap include gangsta rap, rap rock, freestyle rap and rap opera.

In the past, hip hop wasn't as mainstream as it is now. The culture first surfaced in the 1970's in New York. Block parties, which are large public gatherings, became popular, commonly among the African American population. Funk and soul music would be played, and the percussive elements would be isolated by the DJs. Rapping came not long after this.Rap would take the percusive elements and disc scratching that DJs did, and speak lyrics over them. They wouldnt sing, but actually speak, and rhyme.

The Image of the rapper depends on the type of rap they represent. So, gangsta rap represents the violence of rap, and lyrics include things relating to crime and youths with their inner city lifestyles. The first song considered to be gangsta rap was a song by Ice-T, who is very popular for his contribution to the genre.

Established artists currently include the likes of Eminem, Jay-Z,Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes and some even in the digital world such as Lamar Hall and EpicLloyd.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hip_hop_genres  Genre list
           

Text Box Drafts

These were made to give me a clearer idea of what I need to consider in terms of layout during the creation of my music magazine.

 

 

 

Hand Drawn Drafts

Below is a hand drawn draft for the front cover, contents and double page spread drew on an iPad.

Contents

DP








 

 

 

 FC