Possible Photo's for Music Magazine

Here is a slideshow of the photo's I have taken for my magazine:

These include possible front cover, contents and Double Page Spread images.

"It's All Country" Double Page Mock-Up

This is a hand-drawn draft of my magazines double page spread:



I want this page to follow the american flag theme of the cover, because the Dixie Chicks brought in that theme to the magazine and the double page spread is about them. I want the Questions in the article to be black, the answers red and the background of the text box to be white. This will continue, hopefully into the image with the colors very obvious. I want the text font to be "Marker Felt" bold again, which i think will connect the pages and help it feel like a proper magazine.
I want the title of the article, 'The Dixie Chicks' to be as if it is on a banner. I could either find an artificial version when editing the layout or i could get the models to hold up some white material and lay the text on top. I want the font of the title to be the same as on the front cover, "Zapfino" as it seems again, stereotypically 'Country' as well as being quite edgy, making the band more eye-catching.

"It's All Country" Contents Page Mock-Up

This is a hand-drawn draft of my magazines contents page:



I wanted to try something new with the Polaroid images and i thought it would look really interesting if i covered the page with them, with a different photo of each one. I also considered that Polaroids are quite old, an old means of taking photos and Country music is all about old traditions I think - a slower progressing type of music. To do this, I will have to either take the Polaroid images and scan them in, or take the photos digitally and edit them on the computer to look like Polaroids. I want the pictures to show a variety of artists, so I will do several short photoshoots with different people to make it look crammed with people.
I thought, even though it isn't in this plan, that I could put an acoustic guitar image on the right hand side of the page for the text to sit in - making it stand out more from the polaroids, as well as bringing it back to a country theme.
I want the text to be in "Marker Felt", thin font, because I think it looks stereotypically 'Country' and helps link the page together.

"It's All Country" Cover Mock-Up

This is a hand-drawn draft of my magazines front cover.



I've only got noted that I want two images on this, but from the last magazines research I would consider adding more. But then again, on country magazines they have very few so It is something I will have to think about. I want the color scheme to be the American Flag colors as much as possible, going on how patriarchal the magazines I looked at are. I want the font of the name of my magazine to be in "American Typewriter" because it is quite old fashioned and I think it really fits in with the genre and I want the main article's text in "Zapfrino" font as it feels very 'Country' like. The font next to it, giving a tiny bit more detail to the article, I want in "Marker Felt" font, so that it stands out more. The articles surrounding the smaller image I think should all be in the same font, so that no emphasis is put on any artist, making them equal. I haven't decided what that font should be yet.

Ideas for my Magazine

Country artists that I know of:
Billy Ray Cyrus
Dolly Parton
The Dixie Chicks
Taylor Swift
Miley Cyrus

Front Page:
Main article = Dixie Chicks interview
Photo = Dixie chicks (CME)

Other Articles advertised:
Award shows?
Upcoming Albums/singles

Double spread:
Interview with the Dixie chicks (CME)
Photo shoot with friends for this
(Look at ‘COUNTRY’ magazine’s ‘Joey & Rory’ spread)

-Looking at research, could simply list artists that feature in the magazine

Country Music Magazines

Country magazines from research don’t seem to have very much advertised on its front cover. It isn’t busy and cluttered, filled with as much information as possible which, main-stream magazines such as ‘Kerrang’ or others do. The magazines seem calm and don’t try to grab viewer attention with packed covers, bold colors and font that stands out aggressively. It’s a style of magazine, of music, which appeals to a much smaller target market group than ‘Kerrang’ so they don’t try to compete with that, keeping it styled in the way that would attract their own TMG. I've also noticed, especially with "Southern Country" magazine, that the front pages or even possibly the entire magazine, aren't as edited and polished looking as others are. For example, "Kerrang" wouldn't just use the cover image of this "Southern Country" magazine. It would seem too wide a picture, too filled with people to go on the cover - they would probably just feature it elsewhere in the magazine or even in the contents page.
The magazines seem to be very patriarchal, using their own country's color's - which is usually American. "Up Country's" Name is designed like the American flag. "Southern Country" is a mixture of British and American and have used their natural colors, It is all very real. It makes other magazines seem artificial, makes them look very styled and fake.
Even 'Up Country' which is the most modern, fashionable country magazine I have seen, is very natural. The image is of a girl standing in woods with a pretty dress and little make-up. They articles are in small font, making them seem less. Nothing is bold enough to stand out and grab viewers attention. I was surprised to see the British flag flying on the page - I stereotyped country music to be practically all American. I would like my magazine to contrast this - be country but in more of an attractive way.

Music Magazine

Our next project is to make a music magazine. We need to do the Front Cover, Contents Page and a Double Page Spread. It can be any genre of music we choose, but it has to be music.

Possible Genres of Music:
- RnB
- Drum and Bass
- Pop
- Rock
- Country
- Metal
- Charts
- Classical
- Indie

i like the idea of doing a country magazine as it is something that not many people would do. I will do more research into other country magazines to see if there is any difference to magazines I've already looked at.

Target Audience:
Since artists like Taylor Swift have become popular, I think there is more of an interest in country music, especially from young people. So I think I will try to make this magazine for people 13 to 30. Ranging from the likes of Taylor Swift to the old favourites like Billy-Ray Cyrus and Dolly Parton.

Possible Names:
- Country!
- It's All Country!
- Country Classics!
- Country and Cool!

I would like the name of my magazine to be, "It's All Country"

Evaluation

I'm going to Evaluate my Front cover and Contents page and clarify what I could have improved on and my opinions.

My Front Page:
I enjoyed making the front page of my magazine. I found it easier than the contents page because of the amount of research I did. I really enjoyed doing the photo shoot with my friend for it and laying out the text around the photo. I didn't actually edit my photo which I should have done using Photo shop, so that is something I need to remember to do for my music magazine because i think it may have made my page a little too dark. And I also didn't directly link my image to any of the text, like they do in other magazines. I advertised the Cornwall trip next to it and didn't connect it. I made my Cover and contents using Windows Publisher because I found using Adobe InDesign CS3 really difficult and Publisher is a really familiar program. I will try to use InDesign for my music magazine and practice on it. I didn't use very many images on my cover, I noticed; the magazines I researched I found to both have seven and I only used 3. I think I could have put some next to the advertisements at the bottom to attract people to the sports more. I used Photoshop to edit the 'Agony Aunt' image and I don't think I did it very well. I used the lasso tool to cut around the image and paste it on the page and didn't do it as smoothly as could be done. I think also that I should have used less black around that area, or bordered the speech bubble in one of the colors in my scheme. The last thing I noticed I could have done, was to put the date, price and bar code on my magazine. I didn't think about it when I was creating my cover, but it is something that HAS to be on it. I pretty much kept to the plan of my magazine and didn't change much at the last minute. I was pleased with the result of it but felt that I could have done better.

Contents Page:
I didn't enjoy making my Contents page as much as I did the front page. I found it harder, not having researched contents pages as much as the the covers. I liked the design idea that I had but I don't think it worked as well as I wanted it too. I found it difficult trying to line up the articles to the same angle as the notepad image. I also used Microsoft Publisher to create this page, for the same reasons as with the cover. I liked the idea of using a handwriting type font on this page, fitting in with the school pad theme. I didn't edit my image using any programs as I should have; I think I could have made it a bit brighter and not so dull. I chose orange font for the titles of my articles fitting in with the color scheme of the cover and also kind of matching the background of the notepad image. Something else I think I could have improved on I think was filling up the page a bit more; adding a few more articles which I think would have increased its professional look. With the 'Cornwall' image I added over the top of the notepad, I wanted the white labels to again help with the school child look. I wanted it to look like it had been stuck down using labels as would be in a real notepad. i think it worked to a certain extent but it didn't look extremely realistic - especially with the image not being at the correct angle. I was pleased to a certain degree with my contents page but I definitely think I could have done better and that it was a learning experience for my music magazine.

Magazine Contents Page

This is the final version of my School Magazine Contents page:

Magazine Font Cover

This is my final version of my school magazine "Chenny D":