Edited Photos

Original Photos

These are my original unedited images of my model for the front cover, contents page and double page spread.
I tried to take them at different angles to give the reader more of a perspective of the guitar as that is what I want the audience to see straight away. I took all long shots of my model, but two from a facing angle and the other from a birds eye view of the artist. I did use a flash through all my images as it was at night, plus it brought out all the facial details of the model and highlighted the colour and shape of the guitar. Initially I was worried that the flash would be reflected off the guitar, because of its surface but luckily it was at the right angle to not bounce the flash off, bringing a positive aspect of this experience.
I took all these photos on my phone, which I was very confident to use as it has an 8 mega pixel camera and has facial recognition. As I do not possess an actual camera, I had to adapt to the next best thing that could do the same job and produce relatively good images for my magazine.
My original idea for the photos was take them outside on a sunny day, while the model was sitting on stone steps with her back facing the sun, that way I could officially follow the set trend from other Country Western music magazines. However I underestimated the time I had to take the photos, and did not think clearly of the season I was currently in. As these photos were taken during the winter, it got dark fairly quickly and as it was rarely sunny, this eliminated the idea of the images being taken outside.
In a short space of time I had to adapt to the situation and come up with a plan B, where it would still look like a magazine cover and withhold the idea of a Country music magazine. The only logical conclusion I came to was to capture the images inside in a large open space and made my model move around in different positions around the area.
My next steps for them images is to crop the photos so they only include the necessary space and add a different effect into all the images. I wont airbrush the artist as it will make the images look fake, but I will add in a sharpener to make sure all the details of the model, the guitar especially is more toned and defined, to essentially gain the audiences attention. 


In conclusion I would not change any of my images, take them in another angle or change the site they were taken, as they have turned out better than I thought they would. Since the mishap with the season and I had to change my location, I've gained positive feedback from all the people who have seen the officially edited images. 

Front cover evaluation

My first problem with my magazine is that it could be perceived as a rock magazine instead of a Country Western magazine, because of the font I had chosen for the sell lines I included around the page. Originally I got my inspiration from Carrie Underwood; she sings country songs but includes her own style of smashing things up and sings quite angry songs, that's where I got my inspiration from where I include a stereotypical image for a Country Western music magazine of a girl with a guitar, but incorporated my own style into the cover using unusual fonts.
When I started to research the Country Western music, I realised that they slowly developed over time being less folk music and more loud, outstanding and intimidating yet still keeping the past trends of guitars and cowboy hats, guitars and fashion. That is what I try to portray through my magazine, that it would still be recognised as a Country music magazine but it would still make people wonder what the genre of it could be. In a way this could increase my readership because the audience would want to know what is involved in the magazine and what kind of music is being advertised.
I personally am very optimistic with how my front cover turned out, because it does not look too cluttered or organised just like I said it would in my questionnaire results, but also it still witholds my perception of a Country Western music magazine with my own indiviudal style.
On the other hand the changes I would make for my final front cover would be for my quote "try till the end, never give up Emily Jayne Smith", I will change the colour of the font as it is nearly the same colour as the background image and could be quite hard to read for the audience, and I will also change the type of font involved for this quote as I do not like how it is turned out it looks too much like the font for films when it states on the screen; "The End".
In conclusion this is my second draft of my front cover, and once I make the changes I have mentioned my front cover will finally be completed. However I am enthusiatic how this specific front cover has turned out, and will only make the changes I have already mentioned otherwise it will begin to look too cluttered and might loose the music genre altogether.



 

Comparison of my first draft and a real magazine cover

I initially tried to use the magazine cover of "Oklahoma today" as my inspiration, as it is one of the most recognisable magazines specific to my target audience and hold all the exact contents I need for my music magazine, the images, concert dates and even linking to different singers fashion choices. Making it obvious that with advertising more than one topic such as music, they will gain more readership because, a lot more women or men would love to know what fashion trends are being set as well as what music they are making.
My magazine cover was based around this cover, but with my own individuality; they are both similar with the sell lines, the masthead, the bar code and call line. They both have very basic background images behind the artists, drawing attention away from whats behind them and cluttering the picture and drawing attention to the actual artist. This what I tried to institute to my magazine cover; because readers would usually affiliate a cluttered magazine cover with a punk or emo music magazine.
There is a varied difference between the camera shot used in these magazines, the Oklahoma today magazine was set in a mid shot with Carrie Underwood looking and smiling directly at the camera, posing with her hand on her hip, letting the readers in and making them feel comfortable to read the contents of the magazine that is most likely about her. Where as my magazine; "Detached Strings", has Taylor Swift sitting down on a step, directly in front of the camera but not necessarily smiling, looking quite seriously at the camera, it is a far camera mid shot. With her body hunched over and her arm over her knee, looking quite relaxed looking at the camera, it is generating the idea to the audience that she is also letting them in, and it comfortable for the contents of the magazine to be read, but also giving the reader a chance to see the kind of fashion trends that will also be included in the magazine.
Although what I will change about my magazine; is even though it is a good image and has all the positive aspects I need for my magazine, it is far to blurry and for my magazine to look professional, I need an edited non-blurry image to set the right tone to the audience that this is an actual music magazine. In addition to finding a new image, I will also edit the mast head of the magazine to it being behind the artist, following the trend of the Oklahoma today magazine, however my new image will consist of the model holding a guitar. Mobilising the idea of the stereotype most people have of Country Western music, my model will be inside, not looking at the camera and to be taken in a far mid shot giving a full of view of her and her guitar in hand.
In conclusion I will keep my cover the same with limited text, and an uncluttered background image, but not only will I change my model and front cover picture, but I will also change the masthead font type. In my opinion it seems too controversial for a music magazine, and I want to catch the attention of a passive audience and people who do not usually take an interest in this particular genre.

Double Page Spread Examples

When I researched double page spreads on google a range of magazines showed up from both professional magazine houses and past school magazines and each one vary from the themes they use and the presentation of texts and pictures.

These two double page spreads (above) are quite cluttered with all the images they use and how much text they want to include, the similarity between these two spreads is how it is presented, both are based upon an interview that has taken place over a specific topic. These pages are what is constructed as quite stereotypical for bad and rule breaker teen, mostly because the man on the page on the right has tattoos all over his arms, and has piercings and spiky hair. Portraying that the producers of this magazine wants to show what a regular bad boy would look like and how the would socialise with this particular clique.



 EMO. Both texts have a running theme throughout the page; the page on the left has a constant stream of blue black and white, it has the same size and type of font, with the exception of what they believe to be the most important information. "Kitty Pillman exclusive!" and "I don't do drugs but I can be an animal in the bedroom", of course this is affiliated with sex and drugs, construed with what they believe most teens are like in this generation. The page on the right has a running on black, silver and white theme with a hint of pink in a particular quote off the model. Yet this page has a large boarder unlike the "Kitty Pillman" page, showing it's own style that doesn't follow tradition, they believe that they should stand out from the crowd compared to all other magazines for this genre. Furthermore the last similarity between these two spreads is the boldness of the quote at the top of the page, both in different font sizes, types and colours. Awarding themselves an individuality effect where they do not follow trends but sets them, gaining the attention of the reader with such as huge masthead to show the key information of the page. This is something I could use in my own magazine, I could try a develop my ideas and create my very own trend, furthering myself away from the regular country western magazines.

These two double page spreads however are completely different than the other two, its all presented in its own particular format; each image, text and letter has its own space in the page, each one has it's own formula. Each peice of infomation has a specific reason for being there. There is not much to comment or object upon with these two texts, because in one there is two different colours and thats a red letter and the white/black picture with infomration, whereas the other page is white and blue, obviously displaying how these two magazines will in their own way stray from traditon and make a clean, non-cluttered and vintage magazine. Showing it has its own specific target audience; not only someone who likes music from lady gaga and the other girl, but who enjoy/ have an interest in reading texts that is in a particular format with limited colours, decorations and columns of text.

All these pages are applied to all kinds of social groups with a wide range of musical taste and fashion, it is based upon every person has a unique social identity, and music helps to achieve a persons specific distinctiveness. Creating each person to be a individual, and with each person interested in a different genre such as; screamo, punk, western and hip hop, it builds up an individuals self-esteem.

With a wide range of people in different social groups, they will be defined as an individual with respective social identities and that's what makes music so important. It gives a sense of security and familiarity an that is why each of these double page spreads are unique with particular style. They are generating ideas to the reader using the "hypodermic needle effect", that it is good to be unique and special in your own particular way.

Questionnaire Results

 During my questionnaire I asked 15 people that I knew, ranging from 16 years old to 55 years old. I asked them varied questions about what they would like to see in a magazine and what attracts them to reading it. 
My first question as you can see on the right is "what first catches your eye when you look at a magazine?", out of 15 people the highest amount answered with the pictures, because that would be the first thing they look at, the reader would want to know what celebrities are involved in the magazine and what kind of gossip is affiliated with them. Especially if the reader considers that particular celebrity to be their idol, this I will apply to my magazine obviously, as I will make sure that my cover photo is bold and draws attention from the reader. This I will do using a reasonable of my model and edit it to a professional extent where it still looks natural but still looks unusual compared to other photos. The second was freebies; I have given this a great deal of thought but I decided against it sue to even though a lot of readers buy the magazine just because of the freebie., my magazine is directed to the older audience who maybe range from 30+ or anyone who has a interest in Country Western music and knows who Dolly Parton is, I highly doubt that a 35 year old would want a freebie. Compared to the other options of masthead, sell lines and information, I will have to pay extra attention to the detail I include into my cover photo as that will be the immediate thing that will engage the audience.


My second question was "what is your favourite genre of music?", I asked this because it would be helpful to know how wide my target audience is and how popular the Country Western genre actually is. Now obviously reggae was not that popular, however I was surprised by nobody taking an interest in the pop genre, as I thought it was a wide music genre compared to heavy metal and indie. I was not surprised by the lack of people taking an interest in Country but 1 person out of a total of 15 is just appalling and does not give me much indication as to how many people would actually buy my magazine. On the other hand, I was not surprised by the amount of people who had an interest in R&B as it does target the largest audience compared to country of Heavy Metal, and the genre includes subjects such as; rap, acoustic, electric, loud, bass and other such aspects that could gather a large audience by including different topics of music that everyone likes and adding them together all in one genre. Country music does sometimes do this especially Carrie Underwood, she does not rap but she changes her rhythm and tone through every song she does, making sure that each song is not the same. This I will apply to my magazine as I will include a theme into the magazine but each photo and page will be different and not specifically following a set trend. 

My third question was; "if I were to create a music magazine based on Country music would you read it?", Firstly I was surprised by the results I had achieved by this question, because more people responded in a positive tone than I thought there would be. As Country music has a limited audience, and they mostly leave in texas, you can see why I was surprised that 9 English people would be willing to read a Country Western music magazine. Overall this gives me more a positive outlook upon how my magazine will be perceived by my target audience whether they are active or passive readers. 

"Do you prefer a cluttered page or and organised cover for a magazine?", in my opinion whenever you think of a cluttered magazine cover you socialise it with magazines such as Closer, Heat and other magazines that are based on gossip and fashion trends of celebrities instead of music and concert dates. I will institute this into my magazine because, even though I will not have my cover, contents page or double page spread completely cluttered, I will have some of my images overlapping the text and all pointing in different positions. However each piece of information will have their own formula in my magazine, still giving the illusion that even though some of the texts and images are in different positions, it will still look organised enough for the reader to separate the information from the images. Confusing them less and decrease the chance of them having to match the information to the picture that will be mentioned. 

"Which celebrities would you think of when it comes to Country music?". I was not surprised by the fact that barely anyone knew Dolly Parton as her music career was set from the 1950-1990, even though she is one of the most iconic Country Western singers of all time, I have learnt that I should not include her into my magazine, as barely anyone would know who she is and I could lose readership because of it. Of course when they mentioned Miley Cyrus, I am i guessing the meant when she was Hannah Montana or before she had that breakdown cut off her hair and changed her entire singing style. But she will not be included into my magazine because I want my magazine to original and that means using a singer who has remained consistent in their career, that is why I will be using Taylor Swift. As I know she is popular to all ages and will be instantly recognised on the cover of a magazine, whereas I never planned on using Billy Ray Cyrus as I have never heard his music. More importantly my magazine like many others will have a hint of the "male gaze", even if it is a female reader they will most likely by a Country Western music magazine if there is a female singer on the front than a man.

"Do you prefer bland natural colours in a magazine or bright and loud?", I asked this question because through all my research the magazines for Country Western music were quite bland, not much colour or text, and I wanted to see my audience's reaction if I were to create a music magazine following this particular trend. However with this type of results, I will not follow the bland type of trend if I wish to gain my target audience's interest. From this question I now know what type of changes I have to make to my magazine; need to add a few more sell lines, making my cover page less bland and bare, Make my masthead larger and change the font, making it less controversial, setting my own trend, and finally to edit all my photo's to make them look professional but not like the models have been airbrushed within an inch of their life. Unlike some other music magazines such as "Billboard" and "Q" who like to make their models look like their skin is just as perfect as their music, whereas I wish to create the illusion that my model is natural and original just like their music, giving a good representation of my magazine.

"Which title is more convincing for a music magazine?" This was a close call question, as the results are very close together. Personally I liked all three of the headlines, so this question to my target audience was to determine what the magazine should be called. The role of the headline is to suggest to the audience the genre of the magazine, whether the type of music it is selling, the fashion it is advertising or the products it is describing. That is why I took so long to think of more than one name I could use for my magazine and to let the audience decide which one they liked more. If the audience like the title of the magazine then they will more convinced to buy it, this is initially the reason why I did the primary research, in order to find out what I can do to my magazine for the audience to be more interested in it whether they are active or passive audience. Overall this question made the most difference to how my overall magazine will improve, with the change in the masthead of "Detached Strings".
"Which font do you prefer for a magazine headline?" I realised that I needed to change my overall font to gain the audience interest, but to also contrast with the theme of the magazine giving another clue as to the type of genre my magazine is advertising. While making up this question I scrolled down all the different options for font on Microsoft Word, looking at each one that could give off the impression of the Western look for my magazine, Rockwell Condell obviously gave off this particular impression due to the reaction from my questionnaire, and this will be the type of font I will use for my magazine masthead. However I am not sure whether or not to use it throughout my magazine for all the information I have included as it can be hard to read sometimes especially in a small font like size 12 or 11, which is the size I will be using in order to fit all my information down onto one page. The results to this question gives me another chance to improve the overall quality of my magazine, making it look more professional and attractive.

My final question was; "What them do you prefer in a music magazine?", this was the question I was unsure about because even though I said that I didn't want to follow tradition in Country music magazines, I can hardly imagine loud and bright colours surrounding my pictures and large bold fonts around the pages of my Country Western music magazine. That is why I am glad to receive these types of results as they fall exactly into how I want my magazine to be, Vintage and Retro, this means that the theme of the magazine is quite old and rustic with brown and oranges, colours you would associate with the West but also with shades of reds and blacks in order to contrast my two themes together.

In conclusion this questionnaire has helped me achieve an overall result into how my music magazine should look and gave an insight into the type of positive feedback it will receive from my target audience. If I make my changes according to results I have.

Questionnaire

1.   What first catches your eye when you look at a magazine?

Pictures

Headline

Information

Other

2.   What is your favourite genre of music?

Rock

Heavy Metal

R&B

Country

Indie

Pop

Reggae

Other

3.   If I were to create a music magazine based on Country music would you read it?

Yes

No

4.   What comes to your mind when you think of Country Music?

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.   Do you prefer a cluttered page or an organised cover for a magazine?

Cluttered

Organised

6.   Which celebrities would you think of when comes to a Country Music Magazine?

 

 

 

 

 

7.   Do you prefer natural bland colours in your magazine or bright and loud?

Bland

Loud

8.   Which title is more convincing for a Country Magazine?

Detached Strings

Boots and Strings

Country Notes

 

 

 

 

9.   Which font do you prefer for the magazine headline?

Verdana

BASIC SANS LIGHT

Times new roman

Franklin Gothic

Rockwell Condell

 

10. What theme do you prefer in a music magazine?

Vintage and retro

Loud and common

Bland and pale

 

First Draft

This is my first draft for my music magazine centred around Country...
As I said I would following the patterning trend of what most music covers look like in this industry, old and rustic yet involving the stereotype of what the common person thinks of in country, a blond girl playing a guitar looking happy. I decided to involve this stereotype into my magazine because even though it idolises women in a negative way, it will gain more readers as they like what they see.
I used the three main female artists most known in this generation to gain recognition from the readers especially if these singers are the readers idols.
I used a very plain white masthead; I was aware that it was quite boring and that not many people would instantly be attracted to it, but i was more focusing on the image i would use... as this is my first draft the improvements i would instantly make is;

1. Keep the title of the magazine but change the font and make it bigger to draw attention of the reader.
2. Find a new image that still consists of the country stereotype but the image is portrait and takes up the entire space of the page, using an image of a well known celebrity rather than a random girl.
3. Fill the space with more sell lines as it looks quite dull and boring, not attracting many readers in my opinion.
4. Lastly make a checklist of all the techniques I want to use for my cover and gradually add them into my cover, contents and double page spread.

Bauer

Bauer Media is a division of the Bauer Media Group, Europe’s largest privately owned publishing Group. The Group is a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations.

Bauer Media joined the Bauer Media Group in January 2008 following acquisition of Emap plc’s consumer and specialist magazines, radio, TV, online and digital businesses. Collectively, the Group employs some 6,400 people.

Bauer Media is a multi-platform UK-based media Group consisting of many companies collected around two main divisions – Magazines and Radio - widely recognised and rewarded as being industry innovators.

 The business is built on influential media brands with millions of personal relationships with engaged readers and listeners. Their strategy is to connect audiences with excellent content through our broad multi-touch point brand platforms, wherever and whenever and however they want. With their wide portfolio of influential brands gives us advantages over pure play magazine or radio competitors.

 

 

 

IPC Media

Founded in 1958, IPC Media is the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisher IPC creates content for multiple platforms, across print, online, mobile, tablets and events. They engage with 26 million UK adults - almost two thirds of UK women and over 40% of UK men. With their award winning portfolio of websites reaches over 25 million global users every month.
IPC Media advertise to a range of social groups worldwide; from people who like horses and their supplements to fashion and gardening, that's what makes them the number one publishing house in London, as they know how to gain as readers interest whether they are active or passive audience. IPC believes that
magazines have unique communication strengths, between the company and the audience, uncovering these and examines how advertisers might put them to good use.
 Personally I would use this publishing company for my magazine, as they do advertise in a range of music magazines, and they also offer a great influence for my magazine as more people would be aware of this type of publishing house than any other such as Bauer. Essentially once my audience has seen what house has published my magazine they might be more likely to read it compared if Bauer published it.

My target audience

The genre of music I will be advertising is Country Western music, mostly because no-one else in my class is doing it, and because this is one of my favourite music types. Country Western isn't very famous in England, it is however wilding attractive in the Southern states of America. Therefore my target audience for my music magazine is anyone male or female who has an interest in Western Country music , from the age of 16+ as it limits less of my target audience and I highly doubt anyone younger than 16 will know who half of these singers are.
When I decided to write about this type of genre I asked a vast amount of people if they have heard of the famous Dolly Parton and they responded; "who?". That's when I figured I needed to make my target audience limited higher than before as it was 14 the last time. Of course asking random people in a specific age range wasn't the most beneficial resource I could have used, as a questionnaire or survey would have been helpful in this situation. However even though this theory hasn't been particularly helpful, I will continue to use this research method but change the type of people I ask. For example I will ask older people who are roughly near the same age as Dolly Parton, people such as my teachers or parents.
Even though this method will guarantee the result I need, especially if my new target audience are around the same age as Dolly Parton and will know her music, the only negative aspect of this method is if I want to guarantee a positive result for my genre of music magazine it would have to be sold in the south of America. That overall is where the main base of people who would recognise instantly Dolly Parton and any other Country Western music singers I wish to include.

How to use PIXLR

Pixlr is a photo editing software that allows you to take and upload pictures onto a website that you can edit in any way that you want. You can change the colour of the back ground, crop a picture and even add text to the picture. This website isn't as good as others such as; www.monkeypicture.co.uk that gives you options to change the theme of the picture, change the configuration of your models facial and body features. Pixlr just gives you the basic options of editing an image and here is a set my set guide of how to use Pixlr with an ordinary image.






Once you have gone onto the Pixlrs website you are opened with a list of options of how you wish to use this website, obviously I will edit the real image I wish to use but the rabbit is just an example. If you have an image already saved to your computer then click "Open Image from computer" and it will appear on your screen as already displayed on this post. You receive a list of options that you may wish to use but I firstly decided paint the background black for all the attention to go to the rabbit (which will initially be my model). You can choose from a list of how big you want your brush to be, what shape of the brush you want and what colour you want to paint the picture. To use this option you will need to zoom into the image in order to make it look presentable without making it look like you did it blindfolded. 


You can use the fill effect, that will emphasise all the stray features of your model, in my opinion it does look good especially if you are creating a vintage music magazine. Also included is a pencil that will make a thin neat line if you are only outlining an image not colouring it completely in. 
Have you ever had that moment that you wanted to colour in an image but you cant use the same colour as the picture? Well Pixlr offers the droplet effect; which is when you click on the icon, click onto the part of the image you want to copy and software finds that exact colour so you can use it to fill the rest of the picture in with that colour.
It does also offer the option of getting rid of the red eye that some images do have if you use a flash on the camera, simply click on the icon and drag over the part of the image that has the red eye and click again... the red eye has now disappeared!
Pixlr also allows you to add text in the image, this works the same way as painting the pictures background. Click onto the (A) icon and a list of options will once again appear with what you wish to display, the colour you wish the text to be and it even has an option of the size of the text and the harshness/softness of the text colour.
This software is the same as any if you make a mistake you can simply undo it, but you can even change the brightness of the image, the filter you wish to use on either sections of the picture or the whole thing. You can create a collage with your images, select where you wish to place them and what you wish for them to look like. This website has so may options that can make your image look more appeasing to the audience. 
Of course it doesn't offer the airbrush effect, themes you can use for the image like, sepia or black and white but it does create the illusion you wish your image to look like and makes it looks more professional. In my opinion it is worth using as i will use it when editing my official photo for my music magazine.

The Four F's of magazine design

 

 

Format- The visual style of the magazine. How everything is set out, the font, the design and the image choices. Mentioning the cover of my magazine; i will choose the font and colour of the Masthead carefully, because although i could follow the trend of every country music magazine and have it in a white serif font, I want to make my magazine stand out, use and sans serif font but use a colour following the theme of my magazine. For my cover I will be using a mid shot image of a young girl playing her guitar outside, I will be following the trend through my photo because all other country music magazines, the artist is outside, smiling and usually it is sunny. I will have sell lines going over the page advertising different topics i will discuss in my magazine such as; reviews, concert dates and other artists following the country music genre.

Formula- What is in the magazine and where it goes. The articles and reviews, along with what specific page that information is on and why. This would be presented in my magazine by; what country singers are mentioned along with images of that artist. For example I would include an article about Dolly Parton, an original country singer, from where her career started to her greatest hits. It would be presented around the page; the image in a certain space with a tag line describing when that photo was taken and where. Along with a text box of information next to the photo, to make it easier for the audience to read the page and connect the photo and text together.

Frame- The margins and gutters of a page, to cut of all excess ink that is not being used and to separate the pages, i will use this to make my double page spread look less cluttered from all my infomation and pictures on that page. However i will customize the width of my margins so they don't cut off too much of my images and create a large unused space between my pages.

Function- The sum of of the magazine with either a sentence of slogan, also what is the job of the magazine? to advertise music, fashion or other such genres that will interest the reader. The function of my magazine is self explanitory, it will be to advertise different country music artists to the public, however I havn't offically created a slogan/sentence to sum up my magazine, but iit will be shown on my first draft of my magazine.



 



Different types of audience from Chloerose85

Research methods from Chloerose85

Hardware and Software

Software means computer instructions or data. Anything that can be stored electronically is software, in contrast to storage devices and display devices which are called hardware.

Firstly the hardware i will use will be PC Mac in order to create my magazine and store it onto the Mac. That way i can use the different techniques the PC offers such as; editing and photo shopping apps that mainly fall into the software i will use during my task. Other hardware i will use while making my magazine is a digital camera in order to take pictures of my model in the way that i want, using the themes the digital camera offers me, and quickly upload them onto my Mac. 

Other hardware I will use during this task is a USB flash stick, to keep all my work on it, encase something goes wrong with my work and update it whenever i make progress with my magazine. 

The software i will be using is any photo editing apps that the PC offers to change my pictures in any way and to put my magazine together like "Aperture". This will edit and enhance all my images to the way i want but it is also free with the Mac.letting you browse and edit high-resolution images with remarkable clarity and resolution Linking to the techniques that I will use, the computer will do them for me. Aperture is packed with innovative adjustment tools to refine your images, including a revolutionary Auto White Balance that uses skin tones to correct color casts, and a professional Auto Enhance that applies Exposure, Vibrancy, Curves, and more with a single click. It also includes powerful Brushes for painting image adjustments onto parts of your photo, and dozens of ready-to-use professional photo Effects.

Finally I will also use Safari; the PC Mac app for the internet, this i will use to research any other magazines that have been created for the same genre has I have picked and to also use them as guidelines to how my cover will look, the font, images and media techniques they have used to attract readers. however I will be following a set trend but adding my own originality to the magazine. 

I will use all these to plan, construct and research my task for creating my own magazine.

The main theme for all these country music magazines is quite rustic colour themes. Being brown and yellow, showing the stereotype of what people think of when listening to country music, blonde women with guitars and men with cowboy hats. These types of magazines are using those stereotypes to attract the readers attention. The country music is very original and can not be copied into this generations type of music. For instance this type of iconic music cannot be turned into rap or hip hop dance music. That is why i have chosen this genre because it has its own unique blend of originality and individuality.
The main camera shots for these magazines is either mid shot or and long shot, both used to portray all of the artists body and the instruments they are holding. Mainly guitars, again following the trend of country music and to be easily recognized by readers.
The Masthead of all these magazines are all bold and white apart from one issue which is in red, showing that each issue does not have a set font or colour as they believe the artist on the front conveys the genre of the magazine. Yet all these magazines are all obvious to what they are advertising as they are called; "Country Weekly" and "Oklahoma today". As they must not be very popular to English readers but more of the western states of america. But I am just speculating a theory. 
Each issue has sell lines to show which musicians are in the issue but also to link the sell lines with the model on the front, as you can clearly see from the mood board. The sell lines do follow the colour pattern from the masthead, if the headline is white just like "Vanity Fair" then the sell lines follow that trend.
Finally the layout designs and house styles remains the same all the way through the magazines. All the same font and colour with the same musician following all the way through, however with different images of that particular model. Reviewing their concerts, quotes and articles of their previous work. 
I have always been a fan of country music, so this is why i will be creating a magazine based upon that particular genre. To add my own originality to country.  

David Carson (born September 8, 1954) is an American graphic designer, art director and surfer. He is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun, in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known. In particular, his widely imitated aesthetic defined the so-called "grunge typography" era.

 

 

 

Carson's designs were recognised as being unusual and individual towards the public, for having pictures upside down, half cut and having words overlapping the pictures. Both of these covers were taken as a close up mid shot. To obviously show the artists clothing and facial features, being quite serious and focused towards a certain direction, unlike other magazines like "Kerrang" where they have the artists facing in different directions. These models are very natural, there is not airbrushing or tweaking to the photo, it is just showing an artist looking professional. Also he includes sell lines in his covers, however the only thing he is describing is music artists that is in the issue. That and the issue number with price. "#3" presenting the fact that the issue on the right is particularly new when is was published. Both of these issues have the same masthead title, yet they are both in different fonts. Linking to Carson's individuality, all his pictures are different why not the font? In my opinion i like Carson's individuality, because its unusual it shows that these artists are natural and have raw talent. The way Carson produces his covers are eye catching, you want to read them because it is uncommon to find a picture upside down or with a quarter of his face cut off. I would personally read it because of my interest in the cover just like any of Carson's other readers.

 

 

This issue is quite different because it is a close-up shot of the artists face and it isnt cut off or rotated in any way. Just a vintage picture of an artist in dark glasses, to portray a sense of seriousness and professionalism just like the other two covers. To show the genre of Ray Gun, its not describing dance music or hip hop music its more Grunge music; heavy and loud. Appealing to only a certain audience who take an intrest in that type of genre. Once again the masthead is the same but the font is different. It's bigger and bolder, drawing more attention to this cover than any other issue. Carson's could be rebranding his magazine to see what kind of font draws the most readers. The bigger the font, the more people look at it, because of how eye catching it is. Finally the font used for the sell lines around the page is very unusal because; the reader can just about read its contents. With the letters overlapping each other and in different places around the page is to confuse the reader. The masthead alone is to gain recogntion from the reader to show what kind of genre is being advertised. However i feel with this copy they gave up, not really caring about the cover. They have a masthead a photo and some sell lines, i believe they thought thats all they needed, that the photo alone would gain readers because the would recognise the artist and gain immediate interest.

Carson uses black as a theme, black being assossiated with death, mystery and power, that is what Carson is trying to show. That RayGun has power because of the artist on the cover and whom their writing about inside the issue.

 

This particular cover i do not like, directly the font used for the sell lines. I can't read what it says and it just makes the page look cluttered. I preferred the other ones because they looked vintage and professional, yet this one looks like it was done because they had to send out another issue in a rush.