Monday 12 December 2011
Blog Review
Notes From fellow Colleagues
In the class, We split up into multiple groups to view each others Blogs, telling each other their blogs Strengths and weaknesses. I received three reviews and I will discuss them now.
What do you like about it:
· The use of slide-share: It is a different style of getting you information to the audience
· The analysis of Existing products is very detailed and gives the blog reader a clear view of why things have been done in a specific way
· Detailed every item of work really well
· Breaking up blocks of text
· Good use of language and terms
What would you improve:
· Should upload more images to make the blog more appealing
· More posts and the results of your survey
· Write nicer blog posts about no-one completing survey, it comes across as arrogant and negative
· Include a ‘My ideal reader’ and add some sample photographs of what the reader would look like
· Make the blog look the same as the magazine using the same colour scheme and fonts
What is the most interesting thing about it:
· The layout is interesting and neatly organised
· The use of a forum to find information for the conducted survey
· The name of the magazine being able to be abbreviated would easily fit with any target audience
· Expanding research to beyond friend groups
So which of these should I work on and improve? Unlike the flat-plan, pitch and style sheet, I will work on almost all of these. I do believe that some of my posts are lacking visual graphics so I will upload a few pictures that match the text. I have posted the results of my survey so the 2nd one is already done, this was probably included as I probably had not posted my survey results up at the time. I do admit, one of my posts is slightly arrogant and negative but I am not sure whether to change it as that is how I felt at the time of the post as I don’t like changing my past opinions but I might come across as less arrogant if I do change this. I will Have to decide on this. I also have included a My ideal reader post but it needs appropriate pictures. The last Improvement to make the blog match the magazine with the colours and fonts is in my opinion, something that NEEDS to be DONE. I would like a cloudy theme as this uses light blues and whites (Sky and Clouds) and would match the colour scheme for the magazine.
Flat-Plan, Pitch and Style Sheet Review
Notes From fellow Colleagues
In the class, We split up into multiple groups to view each others pitches, Style Sheets and Flat-plans. I received three reviews and I will discuss them now.
What People Liked:
· Written text on Flat-plans to show what items will be where on the magazine
· The Niche market as there are no magazines on the specific genre
· Name Of The magazine
What People would change:
· Pick a font for the front Cover that is easy to read
· Add colour to the flat-plans
· The colours used on the fonts and titles
· Spacing between the article text on the Double-Page-Spread
What People found most interesting:
· The creativity of the Front Covers
· The main Image holding onto aspects of them magazine
· The backgrounds of Pictures being Edited and Non-edited
· The Name of the magazine is so Cool
So which do I work on and which do I ignore? Well, I am actually going to ignore quite a lot of what people would change because The flat-plans look good so no need for cover and this will also show a drastic difference between the flat-plans and the finished product, I believe that I did pick a font which was easy to read for the front cover, If other people cant read it then I will change this obviously to a different font. The colours on the fonts and titles are that which match the genre so these will not change But what i will take into account would probably be the spacing between the texts on my D.P.S as three small columns for the main article would most likely look better if split into two Columns and This removes some of the small spacing between the texts while still allowing the same amount of content input.
Reacting to what people found the most interesting and what they liked, they Loved the plans for the images and how these will merge with the magazine titles, The name of the magazine and how the genre is new for a magazine and the fact that it has never been attempted before. Overall, I got a lot of really positive feedback and this has increased my aspirations for this magazine and hopefully, this will fuel my ambition to create this to the highest degree of perfection as human nature allows.
Friday 9 December 2011
Flat-plans: Front Cover Ideas
These are my different idea designs for the front cover. With the 'Trio' Cover, The picture would be good and the main man holding the pull quote would be genius the picture as a whole might not leave enough room for the text.
The 'man with his arms in the air' front cover would look nice but the problem with that one is that it doesn't follow the normal design of a magazine front cover and this could prove both advantageous and disadvantageous. The 'man looking forward' cover Does suite the most with its layout for text and everything but the problem is that the image might seem a bit dull.
My main idea is to perhaps merge these ideas together for my front cover. I would use the idea of holding the pull quote, merge this with the layout of the 'Forward looking' cover while giving all this a unique look like that but not the same as 'man with his arms in the air' cover. I will try to make an image which would merge all the apects together with enought room for the text and good looks.
Monday 5 December 2011
Pitch
ROD is a new magazine aimed at the market of 14-30 year olds. The readers of this magazine will most likely be males who enjoy dancing and having a good night out.
It will cover all most aspects of Eurodance music from the popular bands to the must listen music that has just been released. It will be a mixture of Band Interviews to talking about gigs, good websites for music, maybe mention radio and perhaps mention the location of places that bands generally tend to visit often and where the best Eurodance bands will be playing. It will use a large colour scheme of light colours with one or two darks colours, Lots of text but not too much and an excellent range of photography, both edited and unedited.
The example double page spread will be an interview with the ‘Lords of Paradise’, discussing their newest album ‘Moonlight at Sundown’ and their new tour around Europe. Their will also be an article advertising the band Requiesca’s new hit single, Forgotten Past and some Tour Information About ‘Lords Of Paradises’ Tour around Europe with gig information.
Survey Progress
I created my survey and so far... nothing.
No-one has even looked at my survey so i have had an idea.
I have found one or two forum websites which are based only on eurodance fans and have posted my survey up their and as these are good fans of the music, they should answer honestly and give good information.
21/11/2011
No-one has even looked at my survey so i have had an idea.
I have found one or two forum websites which are based only on eurodance fans and have posted my survey up their and as these are good fans of the music, they should answer honestly and give good information.
21/11/2011
Redemption Of Dance's No.1 Audience
‘Redemption Of Dance’ magazine’s audience is passionate for the music, Open minded and generally Intellectuals who have a talent for art, striving to create a masterpiece through practice and discovery. They tend generally to wear bright coloured clothing specifically shoes that have no grip for when they like to dance , Light or dark coloured jeans and shirts of either black, white blue or red covered by a white and blue tracksuit. They express their art talents through any means, either painting, designing buildings, Origami or even find art is in the forms of fire, mechanics and explosions but anyway they see it, they are expressing their joy for the world and their love for art. They listen to Music generally, listening to songs from eurodance, Jumpstyle and Dubstep. Our audience usually hang around clubs or any place where their is a good beat. No matter what the occasion, Our fans believe in pride, upholding one’s honour and are the loyalist of friends, no matter the situation.
Our magazine is made up of 72% of groups ABC1 and the audience is split about 85% male and 15% female.
21/11/2011
Magazine Name
I have thought about what to call my magazine and I belive I have a brillinat name. People these days have got shotnened worlds for everything like LOL meaning 'laugh out loud' and OMG meanine 'oh my god' so i have thought of a name that relates to the music style, sounds cool and has an obvious shortened name.
the name I have chosen for my magazine is 'Redemption Of Dance' which shortens down to R.O.D
18/11/2011
the name I have chosen for my magazine is 'Redemption Of Dance' which shortens down to R.O.D
18/11/2011
Kmag D.P.S (Double Page Spread)
Photography: The photography used are almost all except two , based on the same style which is of the upper portions of the body showing their T-shirts and the people showing off. They all seems the same ( A lot of repetition)which I personally don’t like but the pictures that don’t match these are one advertising an event and the other taken in a studio of a full body shot (Only because he is knelt down) showing of his clothes and a bag. All the photo taken pictures are that of people showing off which means that they are trying to show the reader either a style of fashion just so that they are away or they are showing it to make people buy the clothing/ brand.
Colour’s scheme: Bland. That is how I would describe the colour scheme used within this D.P.S. The colour scheme consists of two main colours, Black and White. The pictures are all different colours with no consistency and the only colours that matter are the shirts that they are wearing which consists of blue, and, red and this just shows that those are the colours available for the shirts. The only other colours are yellow, orange and white which with the other colours mentioned, make up the patterns of the shirts and the only reason they are using these colours is so that the article isn’t completely bland and to flog their products onto the reader/ consumer. The only good colours is that of the little advert for an event which is a black that fades into a green through effects and the blue border at the topic which is over-shadowed by the dullness of the rest of the article. these are the only good parts of the article that I like.
Writing Style: The writing style is almost all the same within this article. All the text for description is the same size and font while all the titles are all in capitals and are a larger sized font (Still the same font). The only things that stand out is that the Font for the topics such as ‘Soul Controlled’ and ‘Care in the community’ are a larger font still with their own white border (Blends too much into the background) are bold apart from the ‘Podworks: KongKast’ where only the word kongkast is in bold while podworks is not. This could mean that the word Podworks pops up multiple times, maybe even in past articles/magazines.
Overall look: boring. This is how it looks. The pictures don’t even seem to try and stand out, The background is plain white and It feels like you are reading an Unorthodox product just like a book but isn’t a book. There isn’t much to say but the outlook on this article is quite bleak. Only the photoshopped event advertisement and the border at the top are brilliant and yo be the only things that would look good in a magazine.
Text/Picture ratio: the text to picture ratio is about 65:35 with only the pictures standing out and not even by much.
Publisher: Phoenix Publishing, formerly Vision Publishing
17/11/2011
17/11/2011
DJ Weekly D.P.S (Double Page Spread)
Photography: There are only two pictures used within this article with a video. The pictures show that of known people, most likely DJ’s whom the article is talking about. The 1st picture has been done in a studio as the background is all white and the costumes used to express themselves and most likely are not intended to have any context to them. The second picture is that of a facial shot and this has been edited so it is in grey-scale. This makes the picture look older than it appears and grey-scaled pictures seem to be used a lot when it refers to either an old artist or it seems to refer to an interview with a solo artist.
Colours scheme: the colour scheme used are that mostly of light colours. Light green can be used to represent nature and the different coloured blues could represent the sky or ocean. The writing is coloured in black, white and blue with different parts in different colours. What is interesting in this article is not the fonts used but
Writing Style: The Fonts all seem to be the same apart from underneath the march chart which is just to represent the chart, music names/bands are in capitals and some of the Worlds such as ‘Coleco’ and ‘Download now’ are surrounded by a border to make them stand out. It is set out like any other article but what is interesting in this article is not the fonts used or their sizes but the title of the article underneath the picture on the left page. What is interesting about this is that unlike any other article that I have read, Instead of giving the title a fill, It overlaps the picture and used the colours from the picture to represent itself and in this case, being black at the beginning and the end but fading into yellow in the middle. The title is also attached to the bottom of the picture and this makes the title subtle like a cat stalking its prey.
Overall look: Overall, the colours seem to give this article a ‘laid-back’ feel to it as it doesn’t seem to used too many words or use too many pictures or effects which in total, makes the magazine give of a calming sense of relaxation which is usually the juxtaposition to modern day magazine articles who plan too much and take everything and make them stand out too much.
Text/Picture ratio: The picture to text ratio in this article seems to be about 45:55 with the pictures making up 55%. What seems to be important is not the amount of pictures that take it up but the size of the pictures used as they seem to use less pictures but increase the size which may relate as to why the article seems ‘relaxed’.
17/11/2011
17/11/2011
Q Magazine D.P.S (Double Page Spread)
Photography: There are two types of pictures used within this cover. A facial shot has been used of someone who is most likely a celebrity within the bottom right corner and Another shot would be that of a band against a chain-linked fence. The context of the fence may represent imprisonment or even represent breaking out. The band’s photo is supposedly larger than that of the portrait photo as They have done something that is more important which could be releasing a song which made it to the top of the charts and it might be an interview whereas the other picture might be an opinion of another artist on the main article but sadly, I do not know as the quality of this picture I found was very difficult to read with the size of the D.P.S as it was. 0
Colours scheme: Only light colours have been used for the pictures and the only thing being dark is that of the costumes that the characters are wearing. They are wearing dark overalls which could be represented as evil yet the man who stands in front of the group is wearing a white T-shirt underneath which usually is a saintly colour which represents good.
Writing Style: Everything here seems to use the same font but with different sizes to that font. Anything that seems important or something that might attract glimpses of attention have been coloured in red as red usually represents fire or even adrenaline and these usually attract the attention of an audience.
Overall look: the overall look is that of a successful D.P.S. It shows Text which most likely relates to the band and the portrait picture although very small, stands out amidst the text so overall, the article can clearly be granted the O.K for being a good example of a basic magazine spread as usually, D.P.S’s have a larger colour spectrum used.
Text/Picture ratio: the text to picture ratio is about 55:45 with the picture being dominant over the text. The ratio would have been 50:50 but the small portrait picture on the right hand page changes this balance in favour of the pictures and the fact that sometimes, the smallest things stand out the most gives the pictures a greater authority over the text.
Publisher: Bauer Media group
16/11/2011
16/11/2011
3 Differant Magazine's Audience Profiles
3 Different Magazine's Audience Profile
Q Magazine Audience Profile
Q's audience is composed of passionate, engaged and open minded music fans driven to continually discover new music - and to use this lust for discovery to influence their friends. The audience is split 75% male to 25% female and is affluent (with 68% ABC1).
MOJO Audience Profile
Discerning and passionate music aficionados, the MOJO audience is predominantly male (77%) and affluent (63% ABC1). These heavy consumers of music see their passion as discovery without boundaries, genre and decade being secondary to quality
Kerrang Audience Profile
Young, individually minded and passionate consumers, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty.
Radio - 15-35 male bias.
16/11/2011
Radio - 15-35 male bias.
16/11/2011
Questionarre
This link is to the questionnaire that I have created.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QVR8MQZ
15/11/2011
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QVR8MQZ
15/11/2011
Q Magazine Contents Page
Photography: Two photographs have been used for this contents page, one being a group picture and the other one being that of a guy. The group seems to have been prioritised over the other picture as the single beings picture is smaller wither showing that he is not as important in the music industry or that his news is less important so the size of the picture seems to matter a lot.Colours scheme: The colours are white, red black and grey white match the cover of the magazine and as some of the titles are surrounded by a red border, as red can mean fire and danger, this like other magazines of this music genre, are empowered this creates an intensity and attracts attention in itself
Writing Style: The writing Style has been adapted so that everything represents something. Something that caught my eye in this article was that almost every number used was coloured red while text was black and titles being white. This is interesting as it seems that everything has been colour coded, even the background of the text and smaller picture at the bottom as had its colour changed so that it can clearly be seen as a different section.
Overall look: It is easy to follow the page because of the subtitles, because of the image quality, the text is unfortunately hard to read but main titles clearly are enlarged and have been made bold, The layout is understandable as the picture is on one side and text to the other so the layout is well organised and the colours attract attention.
Text/Picture ratio: as this is a contents page, the text to picture ratio has changed to accommodate the needs of the page. The ratio seems to be in ratio of 60:40 with text being 60 and the pictures together being 40.
Publisher: Bauer Media group
14/11/2011
14/11/2011
DJ Weekly Contents Page
Photography: There is a range of camera shots and photos used here which involves establishing shots, two shots, and mid shots and the est of the pictures are that of animations, software and titles. The large range of picture types and the mixture of real-time and staged ae used to advertise there own article and to give the audience in my opinion, a larger perspective of the entire magazine.Colours scheme: The colour scheme is set around bight colours such as pink and blue which attracts attention. Writing is in black and white which can overlook the background colours, allowing the writing to be clearly seen. At the bottom, it has a bubble which reads 'read more' which is in red and yellow and as this only uses these colours, the common eye of readers glance which gives them the message.
Writing Style: There is a multitude of different writing styles. The pictures for articles down the left side for the contents are the same font and seem the same size except for the smaller text underneath which gives a clearer look into what the article is about. The effect of this is so that people who have never seen one of these magazines before can tell what a topic is relating to. The text for the article itself has enlarged the titles so you can tell what part of the article something might be talking about such as 'FEATUED' is all in capitals, been made bold and is a larger size than the long boring text of in-depth detail into the article and what the link to the you tube video
Overall look: It is colourful which can attract a lot of attention and the overall look can be misleading as you do not know what page articles are on, it only tells you what thee is and this is also quite discrete as it is down the left side of another article
Text/Picture ratio: the text to picture ratio is about one-third being pictures and another third being that of text. For some reason, the designer of the article seems to have paid more attention to the background as that seems to be in my view, the key element that dawns people into the gasp of reading the article/contents.
Publisher: Thrust Publishing Ltd.
14/11/2011
14/11/2011
KMAG Front Cover
KMAGPhotography: The Picture used is that of multiple men sitting at a table at an angle with the men at the back being smaller as they are further away, this being the only picture and covering the entire front cover of the magazine, the lighting is dark around the sides yet not in the middle so the men’s faces can be seen indicating that they may be someone that people know/ recognise such as a band.
Colours scheme: The colour scheme has used dark colours such as browns, dark greens and dark reds (which could represent the genre of music) for the picture while using light colours made up of blues, yellows and whites overlaps this which allows these bright colours to stand out from the background
Writing Style: There is hardly any text on the front cover unlike over magazines but to make up for it, the cover has instead used bright colours to contradict (Juxtapose) the background By using yellow, white and light blue on a dark green and brown background. What is interesting is that in one of the magazines I reviewed, they colour coded numbers to be red whereas in this situation, Unlike that article, anything here that is Yellow or white is only spelt using an informal register which is by spelling only with capital letters while blue writing uses a normal register of writing. All the text has the same font with no bold or italics but the works ‘SHOGUN AUDIO’ is larger than the rest meaning that this takes dominance over the rest of the text and is more important as the larger something is, the more attention it attracts.
Overall look: It is bland yet looks interesting because of this. because of the lighting used within the picture, although the picture is seen more, I believe that the text in empowered in this situation as I am focusing more on the text than the background picture.
Text/Picture ratio: The picture to text ratio is about 15:85 with the picture being 85 but in this situation, as I have said within the ‘Overall look’ section, The text is powering over the background image.
Publisher: Phoenix Publishing, formerly Vision Publishing
14/11/2011
14/11/2011
Kmag and Mojo Magazines
I have found a good Music magazine that I can review called Kmag and this has great front covers and Double page spreads but unfortunaetly, none of its magazines seem to have any contents pages so to solve this issue, I will instead use a contents page from the music magazine called MOJO and this hopefully will solve this issue.
13/11/2011
13/11/2011
Magazine Covers
The magazines that i have chosen to look at do seem to be of different music genres yes? well, that is because they are. the music style that I have chosen is that called Eurodance and as this has no magazines of its own, it was influenced by hip-hop, rock, pop and electronic dance so that is why I am reviewing magazines of different genres of music. The magazine of Juice is also a skateborading and surfing magazine which was unknown to me at the time so instead of continuing with that magazine, i will instead make a 4th coverpage and focus on a differant magazine instead.
11/11/2011
11/11/2011
Juice Front Cover
Juice
Photography: the Picture is that of a medium shot, seeming to have been taken on the street with no editing of the characters. The lighting is bright although the characters are covered with shadows which could portray their style of music (How they perform their music)
Colours scheme: the colour Scheme is both of dark and light colours. On the characters, It is focusing on dark blue and white on one character yet having another wearing dark blue with green, yellow and red on and finally just dark blue on the furthest away character. The text is white and the title and bar at the top being a Greenish colour , white and black. The background is lit up in very bright colours seeming to be outdoors.
Writing Style: The writing Styles are sized differently and the fonts are basically categorised into three categories. The first being the title which is then followed by the second underneath being what topics are being included such as ‘hip-hop’ and ‘Rhymes’. The last one is that of the articles themselves which are sized differently but quite thick in font.
Overall look: It seems to be prioritising the colours over everything else . It is focusing on the clothes of the characters being a very dark blue and white on one character yet having another wearing dark blue with green, yellow and red on. There seems to be a CD placed on top of the shoulder of one character ( most likely Photo- shopped in) which I cannot read but most likely would have said some of these characters songs on.
Text/Picture ratio: the text to picture ratio is about 70:30 with the magazines name and title being dominant over everything else.
Publisher: Piranha media GmbH
11/11/2011
11/11/2011
DJ Weekly Front Cover
DJ Weekly
Photography: The Picture used is a frontal shot of a mans face with him staring out as if trying to make eye-contact. This can be effective as this can draw in the attention of passers-by. No editing seems to have been done although there would have been some to make the picture and character look as good as possible.
Colours scheme: The colour scheme is based around many colours because it is a DJ magazine, different DJs can be represented with different colours so the magazine seems to have chosen black, white, yellow and red.
Writing Style: The writing Styles are quite complex. The articles that have been surrounded by a colour are the same font and seem the same size except for the larger text surrounded by black where this has a different font. The text at the bottom has bee made into italics and a increasingly different font has been used by the magazines name and the exclusive so that these stand out.
Overall look: It has the article being prioritised other the character on the cover, It has an Intelligent look with nothing ‘over the top’ being done. It seems quite casual which can relate to the topic of being out having the night-life.
Text/Picture ratio: the text to picture ratio is roughly about 80:20 with the picture being dominant over the text They have prioritised the text over the character it will have the latest updates on the world that they have used.
Publisher: Thrust Publishing Ltd.
11/11/2011
11/11/2011
Q Magazine Front Cover
Q Magazine
Photography: There are to types of pictures used within this cover. A facial shot has been used of someone who is most likely a celebrity and Another shot would be that of an extreme long shot taken of the band and editing has been used to merge the pictures together in this case, putting the band within the persons mouth.
Colours scheme: This magazine likes to use dark colours for the pictures and prefers a white to grey fading effect within the background, This gives the context of the rock and roll style of living and using red clothes and orange for effects, this gives the feelings and portrays danger and fire. Gold colour is also used for some texts that can be deemed important such as the band ‘Arctic Monkeys’ and that there is a ‘Definitive Review’
Writing Style: The writing Styles are simple yet effective. Everything uses the same font but what is interesting is that each separate text has its own colour scheme and size
Overall look: It has the character being prioritised other the name of the magazine with some of the name being covered up and the magazine is also trying to be humorous at the bottom in stating ‘Dave Grohl Saves Rock. Again.’ Unlike other magazines, this one is completely different as it has its barcode on the front of the magazine as well as the barcode not being in the uttermost bottom right or left corner. This is different as it goes against the layout of many other magazine but this can be related to the topic of the magazine itself.
Text/Picture ratio: the text to picture ratio is about 70:30 with the picture being dominant over the text They have prioritised the character over the text as the character who is probably well known like a celebrity would attract the audience by letting them see a familiar face.
Publisher: Bauer Media group
11/11/2011
11/11/2011
Re-Creation
The blog on which i was working on Crashed or something and diddent respond to anything so I have created this new Blog to repost everything.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)