Location

The locations of my photography for my magazine is an important element in constructing my music magazine. I went to places such as :-

• Kingston university 
• Butlins (the lighting was beautiful in this place)
• Wolverhampton 
• Charing Cross skate park 

Whenever and wherever I went someone where, I always ensured had a camera with me in case across any beautiful scenery. Even if I weren't with one of my models I still took the picture because I could use it as a background.

Target audience

The target audience for my magazine will 16 - 26 year olds who love/interested in Rap and R'n'B music. I choose the age range because from generations to generations the love/interest in R'n'B and Rap music has started to gain the interest of younger years. However this particular age range of my target audience incorporate individuals that are not only interested in Rap/R'n'B music but interested in it to the extent of buying a magazine of its genre. Moreover I believe the age ranging from 16-26 are people interested enough to buy my magazine and may look up to artists such as these:-

Time Management

During the construction of my magazine, time management was very important to me. In order to help with my time management, the construction was split up into five parts which made it easier for me to complete my magazine.


Monday 5th December - Photos for front page, contents and DPS
Friday 14th January - Front Page complete
Friday 27th January - Contents
Friday 3rd February - DPS article draft 
February 27th - DPS complete.


Theses deadlines helped me to review whether I was being efficient enough with my time. Although I must admit keeping to some of the deadlines seemed harder than I thought (due to me carelessly losing my USB a couple of times). Also the first deadline out of the all five of them was the most hardest because my model was in university and was in his exams season, moreover it cost me around eighteen pounds, fifty-six to travel from my house to his university. Also because I wanted to make sure all the images I take come out very vibrant and detailed in colour, I used my friend canon camera. However in order to get the camera I had to wait three days as she does a photography course therefore her camera was unavailable to me, and that took up a lot of my time. Altogether the deadline did give a good structure, and contributed very well to my time management.

Flat plan - Front Cover

Before making my magazine in photoshop, I created a flat plan on the computer of what I wanted my front cover to look like.

As you can see it is quite basic, this is because I wanted a basic structure which I could play off, be creative.

Strapline - while researching magazines, the format of Vibe magazine stood out the most to me.

As you can see their strapline it quite chunky with a bright contrasting background ensuring it stands out. However I would want my strapline to stand out but to the extent of deterring the focus from the image of my artist, therefore I am going to use a black background, using the colour white (contrast beautifully with black), red (bold colour, usually symbolises urgency and it is the colour of my artist hat) and blue (to slightly calm down the remaining colours.

Masthead - I want blue to be the dominate colour on my magazine, therefore I would like my masthead to incorporate the colour blue. I also want it to stand out so I will add a gradient effect on the colour blue to also make it vibrant. 


Coverlines - I want my coverline situated around my artist (making my artist centre of focus), I also want my coverlines to be controversial to catch my target audience attention making them want to pick the magazine up. Nonetheless I am going to use the colours red, blue and black, am going boxes to emphasis certain coverlines that I believe my target audience would love to read.


Bar code/Competition - From my research I found all magazine both successful and failing have bar code, so I must include one. However to stop it from taking up space I am going to put in a rectangular box, positioned horizontally. I also want to add a competition into my magazine which many well-known magazine do as a unique selling point. Although I do not want my competition to be as ordinary as text so and so to see if you have won, but to make it more adapted to our modern technology. Moreover from my research I discovered that owners of a blackberry as of:-
2010 - 47,452
2011 - 62,600
2012 - 79,335
It has been predicted 2015 - 122,864
Overall the amount of people owning a blackberry which could scan a bar code has increased and is set to continue to be increasing, so I made up my competition based on that.


Featured Artist Album - I want to add a free giveaway inside of magazine rather on the front as a cover mount because it would take up too much, although to make my readers aware that there is a featured artist album as a free giveaway in my magazine. I will make a small box at the bottom of the magazine using the colours - black, dark red, and grey. I would add a small description of what the album is 

Clothing

Once I have chosen my models the next important to do was to sort out their outfits. I was able to figure this out from what I had seen other models/artists where on front covers of R'n'B and Rap magazines - urban style. The urban style has become very popular in particular the trainers in shops such as Footlocker, JD, whereas the clothing has become popular in shops such as Blue Ink etc. However because the theme of my magazine issue is 'identifying the business man behind every successful rapper' I would need to incorporate two types of style, one would be urban and the other smart.


I believe the best artist/group to get the urban look from is a group called 'NEW BOYZ'. Their style and fashion very vibrant and to me definitely stands out, plus they put a lot of thought and confidence into their style. Using Google I found background information on their style/fashion, here is a short clip on how they describe their type of fashion - 'jerkin'


Loungin with the New Boyz: Jerkin Fashion #3

New Boyz | Myspace Music Videos

 In order to get the business look, using Google I researched on the entrepreneur P Diddy whose dress code is all about the elegant, sophisticated look. Here is a short clip that describes his fashion and fashion line. (Watch 1.20 - 4.10).




Overall from all the information I found I would like to dress up my model in a tailored suit and then dress them in the 'jerkers' style incorporating things such as a snap etc. Then find a way to merge the two styles together.

Planning - Model

In making my magazine I realised that with model I would not only have to think about their look but the financial cost of this model, therefore the type of model I use is extremely important when it comes to making my magazine. Due to the genre of my magazine I need a model that would the fit the urban, R'n'B and Rap look. Moreover I made sure my models were at least 17 and above avoiding any chances of my rapper looking too young. However through researching I found that males in particular tend to look younger than their actual age, this is sometimes as a result of constantly exercising or sport which majority of men do. Nonetheless I contemplated about whether I just use women. Next I cancelled out the people who I felt at first would be unreliable enough to take on the photoshoot - e.g university exams, AS/A2 exams. Then cut down my models to who I felt did not have a mature enough face to give my magazine a realistic look. I then chose the model which I felt was the most versatile to use on my frontpages. This left me with eleven models.


Out of the eleven models I need the one perfect person that would really make my magazine stand out if put on the shelf. In order to help me with my decision took sample pictures of all the models I felt could potentially be on my front cover.

Through a lot of deliberating I choose my model Daniel to represent my first issue, and as mentioned before is 21 years old, 5ft 10 and a size 8 in clothing - a comfortable age, weight and length of a person for me to work with. Also I believe due to the expenses of university, he was forced to carry the rugged look as its was cheaper for him than constantly cutting your hair, this worked perfectly well for me as I thought he fitted the stereotypical rapper's image perfectly.

Flat Plan - Content page

Before making my content page in Photoshop, I drew up a flat plan with annotations in order to guide, along with one that I made using microsoft word.

  = Buzzin
 Font to be American Purpose | gradient effect (same as masthead - consisting of baby blue, black and white).

 = Content

White, small enough to fit inside the letter 'B' | font similar to Buzzin; American Purpose.

 = This Week

Font that would contrast with American Purpose (Buzzin) but does not deter the attention from the title (Buzzin) | Font will be 28 Days later in order to keep the consistency with the fonts I use; 28 Days Later has been used on my front cover. 

= Strip 

Will be baby blue

= 4 Boxes 

This is the section I am going to place four images, using a selling point from Q magazine that speeds up the process of what the costumer wants to read by looking at the images | inside the boxes, on top of the images there will be smaller boxes which will include the page numbers corresponding to the images in the boxes.

= Background

Background of this section will be gradient effect, using the background colours black, white and grey. This section will consist of the features and music.

= Image 

Rotating the image 89 degrees to make it seem like he is leaning off the page | white box on the image will be used to write the page number. 

= Feature and Music Box

White box around each word | Font will be American Purpose | Colour of words will be black to replicate the desaturated image of my model on my front cover | listed articles will have a number before it (colour white), the title of the article; blue and the details regarding the article (description) will be in white.

= Bar

Blue bar on top will be 70% baby blue and the rest black.

= Background 

Background of this section will be white.

= Section
Online/Event/Subs - red | font will be American Purpose | Award/Buzzin.com will be in black and the font will also American Purpose | Paragraph for each section will be in black except for the last line which will contain words that are in baby blue.

= Chart's Hot 100
Upper half white with word 'Chart' in black and apostrophe in baby blue | Font will be in American Purpose | Lower half  'Hot 100' in red (same red as the red as 'The Week' and the background will be black.


= N0.1 On The Chart
Letter 'N' and the number '1' will be in white while | Number '0' will be baby blue | The dot will be in very dark burgendy (A letters, font and punctation will be in the font American Purpose).
= Box
'On The Chart's will be in a white rectangular box | Font will be American Purpose - 'N0.1' will be smaller to reduce the focus.

= Box
Background grey (it will correspond with house style).
= Album/Singles/This Week
Will be in baby blue |  Font will be American Purpose
= Song

Catergories of the songs listed will be Myraid Pro Condensed Bold and in uppercase (size will vary on space) | Name of songs will be in Myraid Pro Condensed Bold and the name of the artist will be in Century.




= Competition Box
Box will be black | 'Win Tickets' will be baby blue | Description will be white to create the contrast with the black background | The image will be rotate anti-clockwise 89 degrees.

Peer Assement

In class we were made to peer mark the work of our peers, which helped me in a variety of ways. I was able to in some way see my magazine through the eyes of my target audience, I was also able to nip a few ideas from the magazines I saw. 

My feedback was quite varied both good and bad which made me learn a couple of things, like make the impression that I want to create with my front image much clearer. For some said 'the inner image did not match the front image' and 'the frame could have been edited a bit better along with adding more to the front cover'. However I also got good views from my peers like 'I really like the picture of the blackberry bar code, it is a good idea' plus 'good combination of colours and font and good title' Another person said 'I really like the front cover and it resembles genres very well'.

Music Magazine Prepartion

                          

I used a Canon 600D camera which was extremely useful and its properties really revealed themselves in my images.    

     - Properties 

         = Megapixel - 18.0MP

         = ISO - Auto,100,200,400,800,1600,3200,6400,(with boost)

         = Exposure compensation - -5 to +5 EV in1/3 or 1/2 EV steps

         = Metering - Multi (63 area), center, partial, spot

         = Shutter (Min-Max) - 30sec-1/4000sec

         = Continuous Drive - Yes 3.7fps

         = Focusing - TTL-CLT SIR with 9-point

         = Lens Mount - EF/EF-S

         = Uncompressed Format - RAW 

Using the Canon 600D I took twenty-seven photos, in order to have a wide range to choose from when making the front cover. Many of the images may seem duplicated even though they are not - each image have a slight difference in lighting.

                                  

Top Twenty Gadgets 2011

Trying to adapt my magazine to modern technology, can be quite tricky because I am aware that using too many gadgets in my magazine could have my readers mistake my Hip Hop and Rap magazine for a IT magazine. Moreover I need to research and find out what are the best selling gadgets of 2011. Nonetheless using google I came up with the 'Top Ten Gadgets 2011'

1. Ipad 2
2. XBox Kinect
3. Macbook Air
4. HP/Palm TouchPad
5. Amazon Kindle 3
6. Motorola Atrix 4G
7. Blackberry Playbook 
8. Motorola Xoom
9. HP/Palm Pre 3
10. Samsung Focus 

From this list I picked out the gadgets that could:-

• Easily be available
• Easily fit in with the genre of my magazine 
• Not deter the focus from my artist

This resulted in me picking:-

• Ipad 2
• Blackberry Playbook
• Macbook Air

Next I research on the statistics of the products; how much have been sold so far in 2011, how much do you think they will sell in 2012? ....According to Wikipedia:-

• Ipad - More than 15.4 Million Ipads have been sold, selling more than all other tablet PCs combined - Apple sold 300,00 Ipads on the day they first became available. This all generated to 9.5 billion dollars (6.1 billion pounds) in revenue and captured more than 90% market share in the tablet computer segment. By 2012 Apple would have released 'The new Ipad'. 
• Blackberry Playbook - It has been estimated that there are 504,000 Playbooks have been sold to date. 
• Macbook Air - In January Apple reported to have sold 2.9 million Macs. 

From all the information I had gathered, it was clear to me that an Ipad would be the best electronic gadget to use in my magazine. 

Ideas For My Magazine

 The genre of my magazine is HIPHOP|R'N'B. The format in which i am guiding my magazine is Vibe magazine. I chose this magazine because even though it may not be the biggest selling magazine of our time, (I am clearly aware of the financial issue with Vibe) I still believe that their magazine structure is very appealing; the controversy they write about (to me) highlights the independence of the magazine - they're not afraid to speak their mind. 

 I made a questionnaire (but no ordinary questionnaire) to make it fun and active i created a questionnaire using a Microsoft Word in which i typed up a list of possible names of different papers for my magazine. I then went round to different individuals and told them to hold up the name they believed sounded suitable for my music magazine. From my research I found that BUZZIN (76%) was the most preferred name (FUSE - 20%|MUZIK - 5%).