Our task was to create a music magazine cover. We decided to create a magazine called 'Classique' which would be aimed at an audience of young people (in particular those from ethnic minorities) who are interested in classical music. The challenge was to make a genre that does not normally cater to young people appeal to them, as an obvious genre choice of ‘young music’ would be something like Hip-Hop, RnB or Indie.
To make our magazine look genuine we used conventions of real music magazines. The barcode was positioned in a place where it would not distract from the things we wanted to stand out (such as the main cover image), instead we put it in place where it was easy to find for scanning but not obvious to the readers eye. The issue date and the price are written in white on a black strip down the right hand side of the page. On a similar black strip spanning the width of the very top of the cover is the masthead. It justified to the left of the magazine so that buyers will still know which magazine it is by the first few letters if the magazine is overlapped on a shelf. We felt that the name ‘Classique’ gave a modern and youthful edge. The classy embossed font (which is used in all issues of the magazine) is stereotypical of a classical magazine but the banner ‘Class + Kool = Classikool’ is indicative towards young people as it uses colloquial language.
The main cover line, ‘Adaggio: The Street violinist’ is unusual as ‘Street’ is not usually associated with classical music. This sets our magazine apart from other classical magazines as it shows that we are addressing a different type of classical audience; not the stereotypical mature, middle-class and white audience. Underneath the main cover line is a quote. The font is similar to the masthead font as it is red and embossed. This makes our magazine look uniformed so it does not clash.
The main cover image challenges the conventions of a real music magazine because the subject is not looking straight into the camera. However, we chose this image because we felt that it portrayed social group we wanted the magazine to represent. The image shows a young male musician from an ethnic minority playing a violin. His attire is typical of youth from ‘urban culture’- he is wearing a t-shirt with a contemporary logo, has plaited hair and a silver chain around his neck. The image was cut out and placed behind the quote and the graphic on a grey-scaled music sheet using Photoshop Elements, which adheres to our classical theme.
We used a graphic to highlight a competition to win tickets to see Adaggio (our main cover image) live in concert. The red text is placed on a yellow circle to make it stand out. To make it even more noticeable, we circled the yellow circle in red. The words ‘TXT “WIN” TO 88796’ are in a larger font to grab the readers attention because they would then read on to see exactly what it is they could win. Then, written in a smaller font is the text ‘FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN EXCLUSIVE TICKETS TO SEE ADAGGIO LIVE IN CONCERT’. The use of words like ‘exclusive’ make the reader feel that these tickets are very sought after and limited thus making them more likely to enter the competition. Furthermore, text language is used (‘TXT’) which appeals to and attracts young people, our target audience, as it is something that they are more than likely to use regularly for example texting or on an instant messenger.
Along the bottom of the cover are boxed text and images. The bottom third of the page is sectioned off by two red parallel lines and then divided into two equal sized rectangles by a single vertical red line. In the left hand segment is a picture of my group posing as a young classical group called ‘Classikidz’ and a cover line in a similar red font as the title that reads ‘Interview with classikidz!’. The groups name immediately suggests that they are not your usual classical musicians. This further implies that our magazine is addressing a young audience. In the right hand segment is a picture of an open classical music book and scattered classical CD’s. Written on the image in the same red font along the top is advertisement for a competition to win the contents of the image.
From this task I have learnt that a lot of thought and planning goes into making a convincing magazine cover. The technology used (Photoshop) is quite complicated if you are not familiar with it, a lot of our time was used trying to understand how to use the program. Depending on how you use the program to manipulate images, position text on so on, is reflected in your final products credibility. If I had the chance to produce another front cover I would spend more time planning it as this would allow us to produce the magazine faster because we would spend less time chopping and changing. Overall, I feel that we did a very good job producing the magazine and I was satisfied by the final result.
Sunday, 19 October 2008
Evaluation Part 2 Adam Elmhassani
Thuse of graphics in our media was very effective as it stands out in the magazine and grabs attention of the audience because it is in red and yellow with bold text. The main word is in Caps 'WIN' this is done to highlight the special offer of a competition.
Our front cover consisted of a variety of modes of address, such as, "Intevrivew with Classikidz!" the use of exclamation mark exaggerates the fact that the interview is exclusive and out of this world. Also slang words such as Kool appeal to the younger generation that we are trying to target.
As you can see from the description of our magazine we kept it quite conventional, as we felt thi swould be the best way to gain readers. Not to forget we gave the magazine an issue date, bar code and price.
Our music cover represents young teens in a number of ways, firstly, the banner is quite an effective way to draw in young readers as it changes there conotations of classical music, we tell them its 'kool' so they wont feel out of place if they picked it up and read it. Also we used a coverline story which is regarding GCSE's this would prove we are targetting a certain audience and age group. As a competition, we told them to text as we know young people tend to text more than call in contrast to the older generation. Finally, our boxed text shows an interview with 'classikidz' a young classical group and by the image shown you can see two members dressed smart and two ver casual which shows anyone can do classical no matter how u look. The group name 'classikidz' is spelt with a z to make it more appealing to the youth.
The media institution that would distribute these magazines are local shops as they tend to have magazines for all ages and social groups so therefore our magazine has an equal chance of being bought. Also school and college music departments may want to buy sime and distribute to their students.
Similar to many magazines, we used photo shop to design our magazine cover. At first i found it quite difficult and confusing as it was my first time but the more i used it the more i got comfortable. I learnt how to use many tools such as the magic wand to help cut people out and paste them into a different background. I learnt how to use the different layers, bringin things forward and sending things back. I was taught how to use different styles writings and many more.
If i was to make a cover next time i would make sure i had a back up plan incase my first one flopped, i would take much more pictures so i had a variety of images to choose for my main cover image, i would focus more on making my magazine cover look more professional and maybe learn about photshop alot more before using it.
Other than that i feel i succeeded in making a good magazine cover which is fit for purpose as it appeals to the right audience considering it was my first time using photoshop and we fell into minor setbacks.
Our front cover consisted of a variety of modes of address, such as, "Intevrivew with Classikidz!" the use of exclamation mark exaggerates the fact that the interview is exclusive and out of this world. Also slang words such as Kool appeal to the younger generation that we are trying to target.
As you can see from the description of our magazine we kept it quite conventional, as we felt thi swould be the best way to gain readers. Not to forget we gave the magazine an issue date, bar code and price.
Our music cover represents young teens in a number of ways, firstly, the banner is quite an effective way to draw in young readers as it changes there conotations of classical music, we tell them its 'kool' so they wont feel out of place if they picked it up and read it. Also we used a coverline story which is regarding GCSE's this would prove we are targetting a certain audience and age group. As a competition, we told them to text as we know young people tend to text more than call in contrast to the older generation. Finally, our boxed text shows an interview with 'classikidz' a young classical group and by the image shown you can see two members dressed smart and two ver casual which shows anyone can do classical no matter how u look. The group name 'classikidz' is spelt with a z to make it more appealing to the youth.
The media institution that would distribute these magazines are local shops as they tend to have magazines for all ages and social groups so therefore our magazine has an equal chance of being bought. Also school and college music departments may want to buy sime and distribute to their students.
Similar to many magazines, we used photo shop to design our magazine cover. At first i found it quite difficult and confusing as it was my first time but the more i used it the more i got comfortable. I learnt how to use many tools such as the magic wand to help cut people out and paste them into a different background. I learnt how to use the different layers, bringin things forward and sending things back. I was taught how to use different styles writings and many more.
If i was to make a cover next time i would make sure i had a back up plan incase my first one flopped, i would take much more pictures so i had a variety of images to choose for my main cover image, i would focus more on making my magazine cover look more professional and maybe learn about photshop alot more before using it.
Other than that i feel i succeeded in making a good magazine cover which is fit for purpose as it appeals to the right audience considering it was my first time using photoshop and we fell into minor setbacks.
Evaluation Adam Elmhassani
Our task was to create a music magazine cover. After generating a few ideas, my group and i decided we would create 'classique' which would be aimed at young teens who are into classical music and young teens who we are trying to lure into the classical genre.
In order to design our front covers we needed the use of cameras and photo shop meaning the cover was a cut and paste cover. Our cover consists of a masthead, banner, strapline, main cover line, main cover image, cower line, graphic, some use of mode of address, boxed text and bar code, price and issue date.
Our masthead is 'classique' which is the name of the magazine. It is in red classy fot which makes it fit for purpose as it ooks ellegant. It is in big font so it stands out from eveything else and is typical because it is justified to the left of the page. It is trademark known as it is on both magazines so we kept the style consistent.
Our banner is as follows 'Class + Kool = Classikool' this is grey ao it doesnt clash with the red writing of the masthead. It is also the magazine slogan which helops attract young people with the use of the word 'Kool' which reinforces our main idea that classical musci isn't just for old middle class people.
Our strapline is typical from any magazine and is also known as a subheading. We gave our magazine a website which was 'www.classique.com' this helps us appeal to the younger generatioon once again as we know they use the internet frequently.
Our main cover image is quite unique and strongly supports our views on classical music, its a phot of a man holding a violoin. If the man was not holding a violin he would conote the hip hop genre or maybe rap. This hsows that anyone can be classical. The way he is dressed is ver yoth ful in bold colours blak and white also hge is standing broadly with is vioolin which gives us the impresion he is confident and proud of what he does.
The young man is also wearing a chain around his klneck which you would usually associate with rappers but once again this reinforces our oppinion that classical music is for everyone.
Our main cover line reflects the image 'Addagio the street violinist' thi sis unusual as violins wouldnt be associated with the streets. The conotations that come with street are hooded youths, gun and knife culture, crimes and teh music genre would probably be rap or grime. But this statement totally ciontradicts and would make the audience think wow! street people know about violins and would probably make them change their oppinions.
The other coverlines appeal to the youth but specifically those in year 11 as it is about achieving A's in GCSE music exasm. This story was put in as we saw something similar in another classical music magazine also it would help target a certain audience.
In order to design our front covers we needed the use of cameras and photo shop meaning the cover was a cut and paste cover. Our cover consists of a masthead, banner, strapline, main cover line, main cover image, cower line, graphic, some use of mode of address, boxed text and bar code, price and issue date.
Our masthead is 'classique' which is the name of the magazine. It is in red classy fot which makes it fit for purpose as it ooks ellegant. It is in big font so it stands out from eveything else and is typical because it is justified to the left of the page. It is trademark known as it is on both magazines so we kept the style consistent.
Our banner is as follows 'Class + Kool = Classikool' this is grey ao it doesnt clash with the red writing of the masthead. It is also the magazine slogan which helops attract young people with the use of the word 'Kool' which reinforces our main idea that classical musci isn't just for old middle class people.
Our strapline is typical from any magazine and is also known as a subheading. We gave our magazine a website which was 'www.classique.com' this helps us appeal to the younger generatioon once again as we know they use the internet frequently.
Our main cover image is quite unique and strongly supports our views on classical music, its a phot of a man holding a violoin. If the man was not holding a violin he would conote the hip hop genre or maybe rap. This hsows that anyone can be classical. The way he is dressed is ver yoth ful in bold colours blak and white also hge is standing broadly with is vioolin which gives us the impresion he is confident and proud of what he does.
The young man is also wearing a chain around his klneck which you would usually associate with rappers but once again this reinforces our oppinion that classical music is for everyone.
Our main cover line reflects the image 'Addagio the street violinist' thi sis unusual as violins wouldnt be associated with the streets. The conotations that come with street are hooded youths, gun and knife culture, crimes and teh music genre would probably be rap or grime. But this statement totally ciontradicts and would make the audience think wow! street people know about violins and would probably make them change their oppinions.
The other coverlines appeal to the youth but specifically those in year 11 as it is about achieving A's in GCSE music exasm. This story was put in as we saw something similar in another classical music magazine also it would help target a certain audience.
Photoshoot ! adam elmhassani
On the day of the photo shoot although our plans were very organised e fell into a minor set back where we were not allowed to use any props from the music department. This left my group and I in some sort of dilemma as our main cover images were going to be based around musical instruments.
We worked around this and decided to take photos against a one colour background so it would be easy to cut us out and the further on use photo shop to copy and paste in the instruments of our choice.
We took two pictures in partners and these pictures would be the main cover images, then we took a group picture which would feature as a cover line story eg. Interview wit new music group and finally we took pictures of CD's and books which would be used as potential advertisement or give aways in competitions.
On a whole, although we didn't stick to the original idea due to certain problems the phot shoot was na success as we produced images which were vital to the production of our magazine.
We worked around this and decided to take photos against a one colour background so it would be easy to cut us out and the further on use photo shop to copy and paste in the instruments of our choice.
We took two pictures in partners and these pictures would be the main cover images, then we took a group picture which would feature as a cover line story eg. Interview wit new music group and finally we took pictures of CD's and books which would be used as potential advertisement or give aways in competitions.
On a whole, although we didn't stick to the original idea due to certain problems the phot shoot was na success as we produced images which were vital to the production of our magazine.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Generating Ideas !
Our task is to create a front cover for a music magazine. When we were given this task our initial idea was to brainstorm our options of music genre.
After exploring all potential cover ideas from different genres, i.e. Hip Hop, R'n'B, Rap, Grime
we decided to step away from the obvious and chose classical Music. We believed this idea was original as no body else in the class would do it, it was unique. We came away from the typical stereotype of old middle class people and decided to aim at young teens, which would make it easier for us as we could relate.
Our main concept fro front magazine cover as going to be a big image of two young people both in contrasting clothing e.g. one in casual typical teen clothes, the other in, smart elegant clothing. They would both be separated by half of an electric guitar and the other half cello. this would reinforce our strong view that classical can be 'cool'.
After exploring all potential cover ideas from different genres, i.e. Hip Hop, R'n'B, Rap, Grime
we decided to step away from the obvious and chose classical Music. We believed this idea was original as no body else in the class would do it, it was unique. We came away from the typical stereotype of old middle class people and decided to aim at young teens, which would make it easier for us as we could relate.
Our main concept fro front magazine cover as going to be a big image of two young people both in contrasting clothing e.g. one in casual typical teen clothes, the other in, smart elegant clothing. They would both be separated by half of an electric guitar and the other half cello. this would reinforce our strong view that classical can be 'cool'.
Friday, 17 October 2008
Magazine Evaluation
Magazine Evaluation
Our task was to create a music magazine cover. We decided to make a magazine called “Classique” which was aimed at an audience of young people who like classical music. A lot of the other groups made Hip Hop and R’n’B magazines, so me and my group wanted to move away from a common and obvious music genre, so that’s why we picked classical. And also, no one in my group is a fan of classical music, so it opened our minds and took us out of our comfort zone which I’m pleased about. We tried to pull away from the common stereotypes of people that like classical music are old, middle-aged white people and show that even young people from ethnic groups can enjoy it. That’s the main reason why I and a fellow pupil who are both from ethnic groups work so effectively as the main cover image. Our slogan “class + kool = classikool” was to show the buyer that classical music is about having a touch of class yet its cool at the same time.
We used the same recurring elements on our front cover such as bar code, issue date and price to make look realistic. As we were making a new magazine, we of course had to have a free giveaway to attract customers. We used a graphic to highlight the fact that we were giving away a free CD. As my group and I all read music magazines, we all agreed that this should be the main focus of the magazine. As it’s aimed at young people and I know personally how hard it can be buying things on an allowance, so hearing that something is free is extremely intriguing. Especially when your passion is music, to know that you’re getting something that is free from people who know your art professionally is also good.
As were making the first issue of a magazine we were launching a new website, so that’s what our strapline was. Our main cover line was about introducing a new teenage classical group and having an exclusive interview with them. We chose to have “We used to hate classical music” in quotation marks, to show that you don’t have to begin listening to it when your 3 years old and start having clarinet lessons form then to be good at playing any classical instrument. We also wanted to appeal to readers who have never even considered classical music before, to look at the story and say “Yes, I agree with that statement myself right now…what changed their minds?”
Unfortunately, we didn’t have the resources that we had hoped to have e.g. Musical instruments. We were only told this one the day of our photoshoot which was very disappointing. However, we didn’t allow this to faze us and despite a minor setback we still continued as were all dressed up. Our costume was supposed to be a play on stereotypes: having one person smartly dressed and the other one a bit more casually dressed. We were trying to show that you can wear whatever you want to play classically, its not about wearing a suit and tie, its about whatever you feel comfortable in. I believe that no music should have a stereotype when it comes to clothing; even though there clearly is – we shouldn’t let this dictate us.
We tried to attract our audience by also giving away free tickets to the Proms – which is relevant to our genre of music magazine. We highlighted the important “Win!” and the “The Proms” to attract our audience. Another cover line we used was the story of “Having no arms hasn’t stopped me playing from playin the piano!”
This wasn’t done to turn our magazine into a gossip magazine, but instead to genuinely inspire others into following their passion despite all odds e.g. Race, Gender etc.
If we had to make another front cover I would have highlighted the cover line “top 10” and “events” as this was done to attract the reader it should be highlighted as well. Also the lower right hand side does look quite bare, so maybe an image of a classical event would be suitable.
As I’ve never used Photoshop before, I think that next time I could copy and paste instruments in and have the main cover image looking like how we planned. I’ve learnt a lot Photoshop from doing this project and I’m certain that next time my cover will look even better. This is because we had so many difficulties which with hindsight were quite insignificant and quite easy to handle; but obviously lack of experience delayed us greatly. For example, it took a couple of hours just to get the background of the music sheet the way we wanted it to be.
Overall, I think that the cover was a success and despite small obstacles, I believe we done a good job.
Our task was to create a music magazine cover. We decided to make a magazine called “Classique” which was aimed at an audience of young people who like classical music. A lot of the other groups made Hip Hop and R’n’B magazines, so me and my group wanted to move away from a common and obvious music genre, so that’s why we picked classical. And also, no one in my group is a fan of classical music, so it opened our minds and took us out of our comfort zone which I’m pleased about. We tried to pull away from the common stereotypes of people that like classical music are old, middle-aged white people and show that even young people from ethnic groups can enjoy it. That’s the main reason why I and a fellow pupil who are both from ethnic groups work so effectively as the main cover image. Our slogan “class + kool = classikool” was to show the buyer that classical music is about having a touch of class yet its cool at the same time.
We used the same recurring elements on our front cover such as bar code, issue date and price to make look realistic. As we were making a new magazine, we of course had to have a free giveaway to attract customers. We used a graphic to highlight the fact that we were giving away a free CD. As my group and I all read music magazines, we all agreed that this should be the main focus of the magazine. As it’s aimed at young people and I know personally how hard it can be buying things on an allowance, so hearing that something is free is extremely intriguing. Especially when your passion is music, to know that you’re getting something that is free from people who know your art professionally is also good.
As were making the first issue of a magazine we were launching a new website, so that’s what our strapline was. Our main cover line was about introducing a new teenage classical group and having an exclusive interview with them. We chose to have “We used to hate classical music” in quotation marks, to show that you don’t have to begin listening to it when your 3 years old and start having clarinet lessons form then to be good at playing any classical instrument. We also wanted to appeal to readers who have never even considered classical music before, to look at the story and say “Yes, I agree with that statement myself right now…what changed their minds?”
Unfortunately, we didn’t have the resources that we had hoped to have e.g. Musical instruments. We were only told this one the day of our photoshoot which was very disappointing. However, we didn’t allow this to faze us and despite a minor setback we still continued as were all dressed up. Our costume was supposed to be a play on stereotypes: having one person smartly dressed and the other one a bit more casually dressed. We were trying to show that you can wear whatever you want to play classically, its not about wearing a suit and tie, its about whatever you feel comfortable in. I believe that no music should have a stereotype when it comes to clothing; even though there clearly is – we shouldn’t let this dictate us.
We tried to attract our audience by also giving away free tickets to the Proms – which is relevant to our genre of music magazine. We highlighted the important “Win!” and the “The Proms” to attract our audience. Another cover line we used was the story of “Having no arms hasn’t stopped me playing from playin the piano!”
This wasn’t done to turn our magazine into a gossip magazine, but instead to genuinely inspire others into following their passion despite all odds e.g. Race, Gender etc.
If we had to make another front cover I would have highlighted the cover line “top 10” and “events” as this was done to attract the reader it should be highlighted as well. Also the lower right hand side does look quite bare, so maybe an image of a classical event would be suitable.
As I’ve never used Photoshop before, I think that next time I could copy and paste instruments in and have the main cover image looking like how we planned. I’ve learnt a lot Photoshop from doing this project and I’m certain that next time my cover will look even better. This is because we had so many difficulties which with hindsight were quite insignificant and quite easy to handle; but obviously lack of experience delayed us greatly. For example, it took a couple of hours just to get the background of the music sheet the way we wanted it to be.
Overall, I think that the cover was a success and despite small obstacles, I believe we done a good job.
Music Magazine Evaluation
The genre of music upon which we decided to base our music magazine cover was classical music. Being teenagers we are very much aware that classical music media is geared towards the more mature audience, and little effort is made in seeking out and satisfying the classical music interests of the younger generation. To defy this concept we created a cover appealing to both female teenagers and young adults (aged 14-25). To ‘branch-out’ and appeal to a wider audience and to also make young people see classical music in a different perspective as opposed to the stereotypical views of classical music being mundane and for ‘old’ people.
The programme we used to edit the images we took for our magazine cover and to produce the cover was Photoshop elements. As we were new to the software we found it difficult to progress smoothly onto each stage of our magazine cover. This however created a challenge for us and spurred us on to work harder in order to create a successful magazine front cover.
The title of our magazine is ‘Classique’ to resemble the words ‘class’ and the sounding of the word ‘chic’. This was too appeal to both teenagers and young adults. For our cover decided to have a basic colour scheme of mainly black and red and other colours used were to make certain words stand out e.g. new and win.
Many aspects of the cover have the ‘typical’ conventions of a magazine, we did this because we wanted our audience to class classical music in same the category to all the other ‘trendy’ music magazines and for it to appeal equally with other types of music magazines. Our magazine cover has a masthead, slogan, logo, banners, graphics, main image, anchorage text relating to main image and feature articles.
The main image is of two females doing the same pose on a ledge with the background being musical manuscript referring to the planning, the aim of our magazine was to represent both young and old audience so one of the females was dressed casually and the other sophisticated and smart. Initially our idea on addressing the target audience was to have the two females standing side by side with an adapted image of the older female holding a cello and the younger an electric guitar. This image would have been edited so that it would show both the females holding the same instrument with the instrument being half a cello and electric guitar. The purpose of this idea was to merge the popular rock scene among teenagers with classical music, again appealing to the teenage half of the target audience. However due to lack of resources we decided to have two females in the same pose. This image connotes not only females being independent but anyone can be a classical musician and it is not just for the stereotypical ideology that classical music is for ‘old’ people meaning ages 30+.
In the right hand corner of the cover is the logo for our magazine which is two musical notes. This instantly informs the reader of the genre the magazine is. Having this logo makes the magazine instantly more understandable as the main image does not include any musical instruments. Our slogan which is above the masthead in a smaller font is ‘CLASS + KOOL = CLASSIKOOL’ represents both target audiences and connote that being classy and cool is possible with classical music. The word ‘cool’ is also spelt in slang and therefore will attract the teenage audiences attention and will instantly make them feel as though the editors of this magazine know what they’re talking about and have opinions worth listening to.
Both the slogan and masthead of the magazine are on a black banner keeping with the colour scheme. The ‘Q’ in classique comes out of the banner onto the background image of the magazine. We did this because the ‘Q’ vaguely resembles a musical note and the style of it was identifiable so it could be associated with our magazine in the future. There is also a banner running down the left side of the page and had feature articles inside of it. The bottom is then covered by a CD that is being advertised an given out free in the edition of the magazine. Overlapping the corner of the image and in the centre of the cover is the graphic saying ‘Free CD!’ in cold font.
One of the main feature articles on the banner is entitled “Having no arms hasn’t stopped me playing the piano”. This quote is similar to the style of an article for a gossip or teen girl magazine, we chose to have an article like this to attract the female audience because if they were to ‘skim’ the front cover this article would stand out and they would want to read the full article.
If I was to produce another magazine cover I would definitely make a rough sketch and plan my feature articles before starting the production process on the computer. By doing this I would definitely have more time to perfect my magazine overall and have ore time to explore creatively with what I can do to make my magazine more attractive to the eye.
From producing this magazine, I am definitely more appreciative of magazine editors as the positioning, colour, size of every aspect and feature of the cover is crucial when trying to appeal to a certain social or age group. I found that making a cover took time and was something that cannot be rushed as everything is important when trying to produce to a certain standard. Overall I feel satisfied with my work and it is completed to the best of my ability considering technical problems we encountered with Photoshop and the lack of knowledge on how to use it, the process of making a magazine cover was definitely an enjoyable task to endure.
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