Georgiana Angus: 2015

MY COVER

My cover uses three of my original images that were either terrible or taken when someone was joking around

I tried out various ways to use these images as my photos but I generally hated the way they turned out. It was impossible to edit the images into a way that looked visually appealing. The covers I made were not very good and I really did not want to submit it. Despite the fact I was proud of my editing skills, the image itself look awful and was not what I wanted my magazine to look like.

So instead I decided to try a new way to make the covers look how I wanted them too.

To do this I decided to make my images look more like my mock cover of APOLLO that had The Sonics album cover on it. I really liked the colour of the magazine and the way the main image was done with a stencil effect, also known as pochoir. In addition this effect would allow me to avoid using the terrible pictures entirely but still let me use original images.

Finding a way to make stencil was difficult, and after review I realised that there was a lot easier way to do the effect. But for the sake of review, I'll just talk about the way I made it and not the easier method.

THE METHOD

I started off by having the image of my choice placed over the top of a transparent background. I then removed the background of the Image so that I didn't have to worry about it later in production. I didn't have to worry about the background being choppy, except around the hair, as most of it would be cut out later entirely. Then I duplicated the image so that I had an original copy and a layer.

I then reduced the brightness and increased the contrast dramatically so that the darker areas I wanted, like the hair and the eyes would stand out against the rest of the image. Now this is were it gets difficult.

I then reduced the opacity of the layer copy so that the original would be shown. Then, whilst being on the layer copy, I used the eraser tool to rub out everything around the eyes and hair.

Throughout the process I had to keep checking that it looked the way I wanted it too by hiding the original so I could see the one I was editing clearly. When I first tried it out it took a lot of time, but as it went on, I found it easier and easier to do. After I done all the erasing I needed to do, and I made sure I was happy with it, I had to then make the image completely black so that the effect would carry. This was simple, all I did was reduce the exposure to zero and voila, a stencil out image of my model.

I then saved the image as a .png so that it would remain at full quality and also transparent. And then I opened it up as a layer on my magazine cover spread and positioned it to were I wanted it to. I repeated this two more times with my other models so that we had three face in total. I then added the star layer over the top of the stencil faces and erased the area around it that I didn't need. So finally I had the main image for the cover sorted and all I needed was the text.

For the cover, the text was not too difficult as I was going for the more minimalist look than anything else. So I used the name of my fake bands that I had been using for the drafts, and I used the Masthead that I had pre-made whilst again doing the drafts. I pulled in a barcode and a date to make it more conventional, and finally added a last minute slogan that I am currently on the bench about.
And that is how I made my cover.

The Final Product

These are the final pieces of my magazine. The double page spread, the cover and the contents page.

The double page spread

I am most proud of my double page spread. It looks like how I wished it would look and maybe turned out a lot better than I expected it would.

The Cover

For my cover I went for the minimalist look. Despite how happy I was with it, it is mostly because my images were, in my opinion, terrible. so going for a look like this allowed me to use a minimalist look whilst still using my original images.

The Contents page

My contents page is my least favourite of the three. Whilst it turned out better than I thought it would, visually it is not my favourite.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD DRAFT

This is my draft of my double page spread for my music magazine. I had the idea that my magazine, as it pays homage to vintage and classic music, would have a monthly article where they would review and talk about an artist prior to the 21st century. So I decided to make a mock up of this article. I had David Bowie as the main point of my article as I had already made a cover of him and I decided I could continue with that theme to demonstrate my ability to follow a house style. I am also working on a mock content page which I will post soon.

For my double page spread, I followed on with the colour scheme I had previously laid out in my David Bowie cover. However the pink, which is what I was going to use for the block back ground, was too dark, so I used a more washed out pink for the main body.

My article on the page is unfortunately not my own, as I didn't want to spend to much time on my draft. So instead I wrote the introduction so that the basis of the article was down, and then the rest of it was a Wikipedia article. For my real thing I will write it myself but just to get the feel of what the text would look like on the page I cheated a little. I added a few bits of intertextuality into my portion of the article to indicate I understand what it means and how to use it consciously. In addition I thought that would be a nice add on for Bowie fans out there.

The main layout of the page was just to demonstrate that I knew how conventions worked and to be honest I like it much better than what would happen if I did it non conventionally. I don't know if this is because the conventions have been ingrained in me since a young age but that's an essay for a different post. Within the main text I used 3 basic columns, then went onto adjust around the quote I put on there. I wanted to use it as a pull quote but unfortunately I did not have an interview with David Bowie so I used a famous quote of his instead.

And finally to add more interest to the second page, I added a picture of David Bowie at the bottom right hand corner. I choose one specifically where he was looking dead into the camera as I wanted to make this page stand out a little more, and so having his signature eyes on show, was a way I hoped it would catch the readers attention. In addition its the only picture of David Bowie I have so far that is looking at the camera. The main photo of the article and the cover have him looking away, but this one he is looking ahead. I did this because the quote is on that page saying how he wants to be more than human, and the way he looks into the camera is almost as if he is addressing the reader himself. The idea of being more than normal hits home with a lot of people, so looking them in the eye makes them relate more to him than the other pictures where he is looking away.

MAGAZINE MOCK UPS

I decided to make some mock magazine covers so that i could be certain with the style that I wanted for the magazine. These turned out a little differently than from what I had in mind but I'm still very pleased with how they turned out. I kept with the idea of space and vintage all mixed to together, but I did it in a way I had not originally planned.

My first one I took a picture of David Bowie on the cover of one of his albums, because the background was so clear, it was easy to edit out. However, when it got to editing around him and putting it on the background, it looked a little out of place. So a friend of mine suggested I make it look like pop art and put a white line between him and the background. I really liked the way that looked. I then went on to add the band titles. Whilst playing around with the editing I put a space image over the entire picture. I really liked the way it looked on his dark jacket so I went back and edited stars onto his jacket. I really love this element of the picture as it's subtle (most people didn't notice until I pointed it out) but without it the picture felt like it was missing something.

My second cover looked a little bit move unconventional. I found a picture of child playing a drum and thought that this could be some sort of album cover. In my survey, I asked which would people prefer, an artist on the cover, or album art, and most people picked album art.

Here are a few over covers I made.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality, a way to make the nerd feel smart and the movie fans feel honoured. The time old method of paying homage to other pieces of text, within your own work. I plan on using a lot of intertextuality within my work, even my magazines name is based entirely off of intertextual references within intertextual references. So what is it?

Intertextuality is a way some content creators add references to other peoples work. A good example of this is actually the entirety of The Simpsons, which one of its main points of humour is built around intertextuality. Other shows like family guy and south park also use but sometimes in a more satirical way than The Simpsons.

However intertextuality can extend further than comedic value. In the recently released film The Martian, they have the character played by Sean Bean explain what the council of Elrond is from the Lord of the Rings. I thought this was a nice intertextual reference as Sean Bean is obviously in the Lord of the Rings films.

Intertextuality comes in a few different forms, Extreme, Subtle and unintentional

Extreme

Extreme would be the Family Guy example to the right, where they are obviously dressed a posed like the Star Wars movie poster. This type of reference is so obvious you don't need to be a fan of the thing they are referencing to get it. This usually happens when people want to pay tribute to something and they want people to know they did. Some other examples are The Simpsons reference to Clockwork Orange, and the album cover of Nirvana

Subtle

Subtle would be like The Martian example I said earlier. It's only usually noticed by people who are fans of the text they are referencing. This personally is my favourite type of intertextuality as it makes you feel flattered and smart if you get the reference, and we all like to feel smart. I know that when I was in the cinema watching The Martian, it made me so happy that I got the reference they made and the person I was seeing it with didn't. So subtle intertextuality is usually used as a lighter way to pay homage to a previous piece of text, but is also used as a way to make the audience feel good about themselves.

Unintentional

This happens when someone does something in their content that is similar to that of another creators work. As this is unintentional, it means it is not a way to pay respect to the original idea, or a way to flatter the audience, it just sometimes happens by accident. It's usually much later when someone comes along and says that something the creator made is similar to something another creator made, and usually the person who had the reference in their content, didn't even know the other persons content existed.

Bauer Media Group is a huge European media company, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany that has more than 600 magazines, 400 digital products and 50 radio and TV stations under their wing. They have been going since 1953 and are on of the largest publishing firms in the world. With magazines like Q and SmashHits in its portfolio, it definitely is a publishing firm to consider if I want my magazine to be guaranteed to reach a large audience. In addition, as it has a large amount of clients, it could be considered a reliable firm and they definitely have knowledge and experience in the publishing field.

Time Inc. UK, formally known as IPC Media, is a the leading British publishing firm in print and and digital magazine production. They were founded in the mid 1800's and has over 60 brands in its clientele including NME and UNCUT.

Independent Publishing is done mostly by Indie magazines. This means they rely entirely on the proceeds of their sales to keep them running. Magazines such as DAZE and CLASH as produced by there own private publishing firms.

Apollo Greek god

NAMING THE MAGAZINE

Naming the magazine, one of the hardest choices in the entire design process that requires a lot of thought and time put into it. As I have already laid out a few of the fundamental themes I would like to have as the back bone of my magazine, it was a lot easier to come up with a handful of names that would fit these criteria. I had three main factors I wanted the name to include in it's connotation.

I wanted it to have a space futuristic feel to it as I want the magazine to have an element of revolutionary themes. I thought having a name surrounding the theme of space would full fill this category very well.
I wanted the magazine to also pay homage to our routes in music, for example classic music, or music that still sticks with us today. As my magazine is being sold in a western society, I thought it would be extremely fitting to link the name back what some people would consider is the route of western culture, Ancient Greece. I wanted this part of the name to tell a story as history is about stories, so making it link back to Greek mythology would connote the idea that my magazine likes stories.
I obviously want the magazine name to be something that is music related, as it is a music magazine. There isn't much more to this requirement, but I knew the name had to relate to music in one way or another

All this considered I came up with a handful of names that links to some of these requirements, most of them link to two but I was especially interested in the ones that could link to all three. In the end I narrowed it down to three options which I then put them in my questionnaire to see what others thought of those options. Those three were

Apollo
Pandora
Aulete

In the end I opted for Apollo, for my current working title, as not only does it fit all my categories but the story behind Apollo fits my design perfectly. Apollo in Greek mythology is the Greek God of music, the sun, and also prophesy. In fact he was in charge of the oracle of delphi. Apollo's name also link heavily to space, as we all know about the famous space program in the 60's and 70's.

Apollo has all aspects that I wanted the name to connote, Music, Mythology and Space. So even though it is not final as I may change my mind along the way, I definitely am learning heavily towards the name Apollo.

USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY

The uses and gratification theory, asking the question on "What people do with media?" instead of what media does to people. It focuses more on the audience and the consumer instead on the production and the message, such as the HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL. It's the idea that audiences understand and know why they consume media text and are active in the consumption. It suggests that people use media to fulfil certain aspects of their lives, that audiences use media for gratification.

There are a few different ways that people use media within this theory.

IDENTIFICATION

People use media because they like to identify with the characters or situations the media text is portraying. It can be used to help them understand themselves, or their lives and may actually be beneficial to the consumer. This section is coming up an awful lot in the media relating to representation of minority groups so those said groups have a character to identify with. For example the lack of representation of People Of Colour is a huge problem in the media as it means a vast majority of the audience does not have a character to self identify with.

EDUCATE

People use media as a way to educate themselves on the world and people around them, this one is pretty self explanatory.

ENTERTAIN/ ESCAPISM

People use media to be entertained, they use it to get enjoyment out of it. In other words it can be used for escapism from everyday life. That might be why fantasy is such a massive genre as within it you can experience things that would not be possible with the constrains of our world.

SOCIAL

People use media as a way to be able to have social interactions. Such as talking about that new episode of the walking dead, or having a book discussion online. One of the many reasons people find new media text is because of the social stigma around that text.

As media is such a major part of our society I asked a few people why they think people consume media as who is better to answer this question, but the people who consume it.

"People consume media because they want to expand and widen their knowledge on different peculiar topics. Media such as books and the internet are a source of everything that has been discovered or learned about in the past."

"People consume media because it gives people the opportunity to look at topics from other perspective so we can gain an understanding of how other people look at those topics, which could influence the way we see the world."

QUESTIONNAIRE

In my survey, I had a series of four questions all revolving around the aesthetic of my music Magazine. These questions varied from the title of the magazine, to the colour scheme and from reviewing my results, their is a definite trend in what people want to see from my magazine.

QUESTION ONE

My first question was related to the name of the magazine. As my magazine has a fictional aspect to it, along with a light futuristic theme, I decided to base my name around something space related that also might be related to music or fiction.

I had a choice of three names the candidate could pick from

APOLLO

PANDORA

AULETE

APOLLO is the greek god of music, so I feel like I had the music and fiction aspect down. In addition it is a name heavily related to space exploration and travel. I feel like APOLLO fits all the criteria I wanted the name to fit.

PANDORA is also a Greek name related to space and greek mythology, so it checks the space and fictional theme. However PANDORA is not related to music but instead to gifts as PANDORA literally means "Gifts for all". That is probably why the popular jewellery brand is also called PANDORA.

AULETE is the one that checks the least of the boxes. AULETE does not relate to ancient greek mythology but rather the ancient culture as an AULOS is actually a greek flute and an AULETE is someone who plays that instrument. So it definitely targets the music category however it does not relate to fiction or to space so it fits my genre the least.

According to my questionnaire most people liked the name APOLLO over the other two. APOLLO was voted for 54% of the time, with PANDORA taking 33% and AULETE with 13%

This makes it very clear to me that APOLLO is my best bet. Which is convenient as out of the three, it matches all my pre set criteria and is actually my favourite too.

QUESTION TWO

In my second question I asked if they would prefer to see a band on the cover, or an artistically pleasing cover. This was so I could evaluate what kind of photograph should I aim towards and If I had to organise a band photo shoot for the main image. It turns out most people would prefer to see and artistic cover over an actual band or artist on the cover. Just under 70% said that they would prefer things like album art over the 30% that said they would prefer a band. This again is useful as I was going to go for a more artistic cover in the first place and now that I know will be more well received than a band on the cover reassures me that it is the right choice.

QUESTION THREE

In my third question I asked what type of font people preferred out of SERIF, SANS SERIF and HANDWRITING.

Surprisingly the one I liked the most and was leaning more towards , sans serif, was actually the least popular, pulling in a percentage of 8%. The other two SERIF and HANDWRITING had the same amount votes at 46% each. This has lead me to do some serious thinking as now I will need to evaluate if I want to appeal more to what the audience wants or If i go against what they said and still continue to use SANS SERIF. I will have to consider this and try out multiple font faces for my final magazine and who knows, maybe the audience was right on which one will look better.

QUESTION FOUR

My final question was related to the colour scheme of the magazine. I predesigned three different colour palettes that I thought portrayed my main themes of fiction, space and music.

The top one of just Blue was designed to look like space and have futuristic element to it, this fits into the theme of space I have. In addition blue is said to heighten people creativity and intellect and I want my magazine to portray those virtues. This was the least favourite with on 13%

I had one which was purple-blue as I tried to make it look like the night sky and sunrise. This one was the favourite with a percentage of 59%. I wanted the colours to feel much like a dream and fantasy as this would tie in idea of fiction.

My last on was Pink-Orange. Again following the theme of sky I made a colour palette that looked like a warm sunset. This pulled in a vote of 27% ranking second best. It again has the elements of fantasy and fiction.

TARGET AUDIENCE

What is target audience? Target Audience is the intended audience or readership of the media text of which you are producing. A target audience is a specific and carefully selected group of people within the large populace that the media text is geared towards in a specific way dependent on the audience.

A target audience can be formed of people of a certain age group, gender, martial status etc. Most people don't just specify on category but instead use a mixture of many. One popular group for target audience is heterosexual men aged 20-30.

Other groups, that are not the target audience, may be interested in the product they are not the main focus of the producers.

One of the biggest mistakes a company could make when creating a target audience is trying to appeal to everyone and then failing to appeal to anyone.

However, I am a big believer that you cannot fit people into clean cut boxes and that you shouldn't try to categories people. However I am also aware that without a target audience, it will be hard to create a magazine that generates a profit. Considering all this I will have to develop a way to be able to figure out a target audience, whilst also maintaining the belief that I can not box people up.

Thinking about all of this, meet Morgan.

Morgan is a student currently in higher education between the ages of 17 - 22. They are intellectual but find their talent in Art and Fashion more than mathematics and science. They study Essay subjects and are usually extroverted despite their differences from society. They dress deliberately different and you may argue try to hard but Morgan wouldn't care, they wear what they want.

Morgan is Socially aware and prides themselves in that, in addition they consider themselves progressive with a strong willingness to learn new things. However despite their eagerness to help society, they do come from a privileged background, and background which allows them to fund their love for the arts and social justice.

Musically wise Morgan listens to everything that they find sounds interesting and unique, however Morgan is someone who never had to worry about not having things, so Morgan is not a fan of people who strive more towards materialist goals as that is not something they understands. Morgan likes music with a message behind it. They are the kind of person who will memorise all the lyrics to all the songs.

Morgan is on the look out for something that will combine their love of music and fiction and also their love of the arts together in one giant super mesh.

Georgiana Angus