Monday, 30 November 2015

Google mock up of a front cover

Google mock up of a front cover

For this mock up I had to create a front cover of a magazine using images from google. The front cover I was creating had to be related to the genre I am doing (which is Punk Rock) this is because while creating this mock up I would be able to show what type of things I would like to use in my final product. By doing this I am also getting more practice which will allow me to create a better end product. In this post I will explain how I created my final front cover and I will also show what it looks like. 

I had a variety of photos to choose from, but here is what the image I used looked like before I had created my front cover:


Here is how I created my front cover: 















































Here is my finished product:







Wednesday, 18 November 2015

Double Page Spread House Styles

Double Page Spread House Styles

The house style is very important in a magazine and especially on a double page spread because it allows the reader to get a sense of what the magazine is like and will help them see if that magazine is right for them. I have created a presentation where I have analysed three different double page spreads from the same Rock magazine company but they are different issues of magazines, I have explained how different features are used to help create a house style. Here is my presentation: 


Contents Page House Styles

Contents Page House Styles

The house style of a magazine is very important because it allows the reader to know that unique style is only for a certain magazine. I created a presentation where I have talked about three different content pages from the same magazine company but they are different issues. In this presentation I have talked about how different features have helped create a house style for that certain product. Here is my presentation:  


Colour Scheme Ideas, Name Ideas and Feature Story Ideas

Colour Scheme Ideas, Name Ideas and Feature Story Ideas


Colour Scheme Ideas

The colour scheme for a magazine is very important because it tells the reader what sort of magazine it actually like. Without a certain house style people wouldn't be able to tell what genre of magazine the magazine they are looking at is. My genre I have chosen is Punk Rock so I decided to look at different Punk Rock magazine that already exist to get an idea of what kind of colours I could use on my magazine. Here are some examples of magazines that helped me decide what my house style would be; 


After looking at different house styles on existing magazines I then wanted to think about what colours I might use on my magazine. Usually magazines use a minimum of 3 different colours for their house style because if they had less than that then the magazine wouldn't seem very interesting as one colour would have been used which meant nothing would stand out. Magazines do use more than 3 different colours but I have decided to stick to using only 3 different colours. Here are the different colour combinations that I have created; 

After looking at all the different colour combinations that I had created I decided to choose which one I wanted to use for my magazine. The colour combination I decided to use was Black, White and Red. I have chosen to use this combination because I think when people see all these colours together they will automatically associate it with Rock music which is what I will want them to think. I have also chosen these colours because I know that a lot of Rock music magazines use these colours so by using them people will know the genre of the magazine is Rock. Furthermore, I also choose this colour scheme because I personally like it and I think all three of the colours work well together.  



Name Ideas

The name of a magazine is very important because it allows the reader to know what the genre of the magazine is and gives them an in site of what the magazine is like. Underneath I have listed some magazine names I have created that I could potentially use as my Mast Head for my magazine. Here are the names I have come up with; 

1) Rock World
2) Uproar
3) Riot!
4) Amplify
5) Rock Voltage
6) Rock Wave
7) Rock Weekly                                           
8) Rebel Rocking
9) Rockin' & Rollin'
10) Plectrum
11) The Rock Life
12) Revolutionary Rock
13) Rock Talk
14) Raging Rock
15) Rockin' Rebel
16) Rockefeller
17) Loud
18) Powerful Rock 
19) Rock Mayhem 
20) Rock Overload

I was able to come up with a variety of names that I could call my magazine and all of the ones that I have named are related to Rock music in some way. I think some of the names I have created would be too long to be on the front of a magazine so I most likely won't use those ones. Since I had so many different names to choose from it was hard to pick which name I wanted to use but the name I eventually decided to use was 'Plectrum'. The reason I choose this name was because it stood out the most for me and seems very different to all the other names that I have. Most of the other names I have created have the word 'Rock' in and this could seem boring and people would hopefully know that the magazine is about Rock just by looking at the colours and the images, so there should be a Mast Head that stands out. This name is related to Rock music because plectrums are what are used to strum a guitar which is again associated with Rock music. I think I have made a good decision by picking this name because it is very different to other Rock magazines which means it is unique and people would want to buy it as it is different to all other Rock magazines.   




Feature Story Ideas

Feature stories are very important on the cover of a magazine because they allow the reader to know what is going to be in the magazine and what the main articles in the magazine are going to be. If there were no feature stories on the cover then the magazine wouldn't even look like a magazine and people wouldn't be able to get an in site to what the magazine is going to be like. If people don't know what the magazine is going to be like then they probably won't buy it because they won't want to take the risk of buying it and then finding out there is nothing interesting to them inside of it. Here are two examples of feature stories on existing magazines;





For my magazine I would have to create my own feature stories which I think would appeal to my target audience and would be interesting. Here are some feature stories that I had come up with:

1) An artist talks about how the 'Rock life' is so hard
2) 10 Tips to help you learn your first instrument
3) We talk to Busted about their come back
4) What being in a band is really like
5) Win a signed guitar from a certain artist
6) 50 bands that you must see live
7) Has your favourite band been keeping secrets from you?
8) All Time Low - The big secret
9) 10 Reasons Rock bands hate mainstream music 
10) The biggest gigs of 2015
11) What My Chemical Romance song are you?
12) Tom DeLonge talks to us about Blink 182
13) Why Rock music is the best music there is
14) "Being mobbed is one of the worst things in the world"
15) What not to do when meeting a band  

I won't use all of these feature stories because if I did then there would be a lot of information on the front cover, it would look very messy and people wouldn't want to look at it or read it as there would be too much to look at all at once. I will be using the feature stories that I think will appeal to my target audience the most because I will want to entice as many people as possible to look at and read my magazine. I want to try and include a feature story on the cover where I would be able to add a quote, I want to do this so I will be able to enlarge the quote on the cover which would stand out and make people look at the magazine and therefore buy it. As I won't be using all of these stories on the cover of my magazine I might also use some of them on my contents page where a variety of different feature stories will be shown.