Vogue - August issue analysis

I looked into last year's August issue for inspiration in closer detail.  

In this issue, the actress Emma Stone is the main focus, taking up the cover and the main double page spreads. Here, Alexa Chung (a famous style icon, model and journalist) has an interview with her - her style of writing is very descriptive which is a quality I really like. This is apparent in the pull quote 'Stone is the cool, quirky girl from school; the one you'd sit next to , hoping you'd become cooler via osmosis.' I like this interview, and due to the fact that 55% of the people I asked in my questionnaire said they'd prefer an interview to other articles such as a review, I will try to create something similar for the article of my on double page spread. Similar to NME, the image of Emma Stone takes up the whole of one of the pages of the spread, and this seems to be a reoccurring theme across many different type of magazine. As I mentioned before, the pink colouring on the cover of this issue is a detail that I find very appealing, as my audience is going to be mainly girls. 

As well as the Emma Stone double page spread, I also looked at the images that were taken for another article in the same issue with the model Lindsay Wixon. 

I loved these images, as they show the youth and feminine side of the model. This are connotations that I wish to convey through my on photographs, and so I want to use these as inspiration for my own. I love the use of props (they drink and the ice cream) and also the use of black and white. 

As you can see from this double page spread, similar to the Emma Stone pages, the image takes up a whole page, and the article takes up the other. I like the layout of the article here too - the 3 columns of text, drop cap, kicker and the title of the page come together to create a neat and professional looking double page spread.

Fashion magazine inspiration - Vogue

As well as looking at NME for my inspiration, I also looked at other magazines from different genres, not just music. I decided that because my magazine is going to be aimed at mainly girls, who also have an interest in fashion I should look at the conventions of Vogue, an extremely popular and established fashion magazine. Over the past few years, I have bought many issues of Vogue and I keep these along with my issues of NME. Here are some photographs that I took of a few of the issues I own. 

As you can see from these covers, the main image is just a single mid/ mid close up of the model and the colour scheme, as with NME changes for each issue. I particularly like the pink colouring on the two issues, as it stands out to the reader and has connotations of a female orientation. This may be something I consider for the colour scheme of my own magazine. Also, the bar code is always in the right hand corner, again, similar to NME. I also like the cartoon font that is used on the third cover - it looks handwritten and glossy, and the colours of the font also have feminine connotations. I will definitely consider the conventions of Vogue when producing my own magazine, as the audience (females who are also interested in fashion) would be similar to my own. 

Music Magazine Ideas

These are some of my initial ideas for my music magazine. I have thought about what I might include on my front cover, contents page and double page spread.

Target Audience Considerations

Qualities of target audience I want to reflect - For my target audience, an important quality could be that they are artistic. This would be reflected in my magazine through the use of artistic fonts, and maybe even graphic design/ illustration components which would make the product arty. Another quality could be that they are very up-to-date with new bands etc, but are also very educated in older music (they have a broad music knowledge). This would be reflected through the type of features that I could include throughout my magazine.

Aspirations of target audience - My target audience would maybe aspire to be creative in their futures, and this would be reflected in the design and creativity of my own magazine. They might even want to go in to desgining their own magazines in the future.

Features ideas - 'Libertines Reunion?', 'Strokes New Album 'Comedown Machine' Review', 'Peace's New Album 'In Love' Review, 'Interview with Two Door Cinema Club', 'Haim's New Album pending Hit or Miss?', 'The Smiths 30 year anniversary', 'Jake Bugg: One amazing year'

Regular ideas - 'Live!', 'Gig Guide', 'Crossword', 'This Week', 'Best Newcomer this week'.

List of advertisers to approach - If I was to actually create this magazine, I would be approaching advertisers such as IPC Media. IPC are the distributors for NME magazine, and as my magazine is also of the indie genre, they might be interested.

My School Magazine

This is my school magazine cover and contents page. I wanted to recreate something that looked more like a magazine, rather than  'newsletter', so after analysing the two newsletters from other schools, I decided to try not to include some of the features that I noticed which made the newsletters look unprofessional. 

I edited the photographs on Photoshop (as seen in my previous posts), and then put the two pages together in Word Publisher. On the cover, I used the Deyes badge and also a simple colour scheme of red, white and blue as these are the school colours, and they also contrasted well against my background image. I actually sampled the colours from the badge to use, as I couldn't get the right colour by eye. I used a serif font for the headline as that type of font has connotations of being more established and traditional (which was one of my ideologies for the newsletter) but I also used a simple serif font (Calibri) for the rest of the text, as it looked unusual with all sans serif font because this contrasted too much against the font used in the masthead (which is actually taken from the Deyes sign at the front of the school). 

For my contents page, I used the same sans serif and serif fonts that I had used on the cover (again, I only used the Sans serif font at the top as it looked too much to use it through out the whole page). From research into established magazines such as NME, I had noticed that on the contents page there were also a number of smaller images that related to other articles inside, so I inserted several images to accompany the one from the main article (from the cover). I added a small line of text to anchor these images, and page numbers. The page numbers only go up to 20, which would be very unusual for a normal magazine, however, this is a school magazine, and so, from looking at the newsletters I had analysed before, it is clear that a typical school newsletter would not include as many pages as a typical magazine. I added a slight shadow to the images on the contents page to make them contrast to the background. 

Mood board of the Indie Genre

This is a mood board of things to do with the 'indie' genre of music I have made, including bands and artists,  lyrics from songs and even some of the artistic side of the genre (such as album covers and typography). I have also included small things which give an idea of the type of style that an indie musician/ artist may wear in relation to the type of magazine I want to create, for example, the three girls from the indie girl band 'Haim' (the black and white photo near the centre of the mood board) - their dress sense will be something I consider when deciding on what clothes I would like the people in the 'band' I create for my magazine to wear. 

Title Evalutions

I have narrowed it down to 3 possible titles; Charged, Lisztomania and Reckless. 

Charged - There are several connotations of the word 'Charged', including it being suggestive of electricity - an electric charge, which could be suggestive of an electric guitar. Indie music is very reliant on electric guitars, as they are one of the key instruments used in the genre. Using this as a title would conjure up that image which would be effective as the title of an indie magazine.

Lisztomania - I originally came across this word when I first started listening to the indie band 'Phoenix' as it is a title of one of their songs. I didn't really know what it meant, but I was curious, so I looked it up and came across an article in which the term 'Lisztomania' was described, "Lisztomania or Liszt fever was the intense fan frenzy directed toward Franz Liszt during his performances. This frenzy first occurred in Berlin in 1841 and the term was later coined by Heinrich Heine in a feuilleton he wrote on April 25, 1844, discussing the 1844 Parisian concert season. Lisztomania was characterized by intense levels of hysteria demonstrated by fans." I thought that this name was quite unusual, but quite appropriate, as if the target audience is as intended, they would be familiar with this word if they listen to Phoenix (as it could be quite confusing for someone who listens to rap music for example). As well, the fact that this word basically means fan hysteria, I thought it would be good for people who are very interested in bands that would be featured in my magazine (my target audience). 

Reckless - I looked through all the music on my phone for inspiration of titles that may have came from bands names, album titles or song names, and I quite liked the sound of 'Reckless Serenade' by Arctic Monkeys. I thought that the two words together may have been a bit long for a magazine title, and just the word 'Serenade' may have sounded a bit too classical to be the title of an Indie music magazine, so the word 'Reckless' seemed more appropriate. I think this title would be good for the heavier side of indie rock, such as if my magazine focused more on bands like Arctic Monkeys or The Libertines, due to the fact that 'Reckless' has connotations of a more manic music fan (and their music is definitely heavier than that of bands like Foals or Two Door Cinema Club). This may mean that I'd have to solely concentrate on bands which produce heavier music if I used this title.  

Ideas for Magazine title

This is a mind map of all of my ideas for the title of my music magazine. I thought of words that linked to the indie genre, music in general, and also some bands I like that may have names or songs that could be made into a title.

Target Audience

My target audience for my music magazine will be round the age of 16-25. My magazine will be directed towards females, as the new bands that will be featured, colour schemes and arty feel to the magazine will probably be more female orientated. My audience will be interested in indie rock and enjoy discovering new bands, as well as going to intimate gigs. Their favourite bands would include bands like The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, newer indie pop bands such as Two Door Cinema Club or Peace, and also older bands such as The Smiths, The Cure and The Clash.  They may also be quite artistic, due to the more artistic features of the magazine (such as the photography) but they would find music a very important aspect of their lives, listening to it every day. I think it is important for me to design a magazine that I would actually want to buy, which means that my target audience would probably be aimed at a 17 year old girl who loves similar music to me. 

Media Theory - Male Gaze Theory, Star Theory and Moral Panic Theory

Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory

Today, many feminists would see most media output as a product of a male dominated order. In 1975 Laura Mulvey, a British feminist film theorist, created the 'Male Gaze theory'. She stated the cinema audiences look at films in 2 ways; voyeuristically and fetishistically. In turn, this leads to 2 side effects; the 'objectification of females' and the 'narcissistic identification' of the ideal image on the screen. Her theory confirmed that the media was created for the satisfaction of males, with women merely being 'objects of desire for their visual pleasure'.  

Richard Dyer's Star Theory

Richard Dyer noted that a star is just an image created for audiences, not a real person - they are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings. The 'star image' is based on 2 paradoxes; they must be both ordinary and extraordinary, and they must be simultaneously present and absent. 

Cohen's Moral Panic theory
In this theory, Cohen says that within the media, certain groups of people are portrayed as a threat to society by people in power (such as the government), and this is played on, causing a moral panic among the public. The panic among the public turn them against the certain groups of people, turning them into 'folk devils'. Major examples of this is seen today within the media, where newspapers have turned many British people against immigrants, and turned many Westerners against Muslim countries and all people who live in them. 

Edited photographs for school magazine

These shots photos are some of the better ones from the photo shoot that I will be likely to use in my school magazine. I have edited them in Photoshop, and have included the originals on this post.

You can see from this pictures that the editing process was very subtle, but by editing it, this photograph looks much better. The original is the top photo, with the edit underneath. I boosted the brightness and contrast very slightly, and then using the clone stamp tool, I removed the clock and random 'happy birthday' banner from the top right hand corner. 

Again, the editing on this photograph was minimal, however just by increasing the brightness and contrast of this image, it has improved it greatly. I am particularly pleased with the shallow focus on this image. 

With this photograph, I first cropped the image slightly, removing the head and shoulders of the student in the top right corner (his expression was a bit strange, and his face was a bit dark). Then, I increased the brightness and contrast of the image, and used the clone stamp to remove the burn marks off of the mat that the Bunsen burner was sat on. I also removed the bag that was sat on the desk behind the students in the middle of the left hand side of the image. I am quite pleased with this image, and I may use this photo for the front cover of my school magazine. 

This took me quite a while to edit, as after I had cropped the plug socket and box of folders out of the image, I used the clone stamp and spot healing tool to take the bag and soap out of the photo. It was quite difficult to edit this so it looked relatively realistic. I also removed the burns from the mat again using the clone stamp tool.