Front cover Feedback

This is the feedback I received from my Target Audience on my front cover: 

Helena Da Silva: Overall I love the look of the magazine it really looks realistic and believable as magazine cover, because I've seen previous magazine covers that have the same layout/appearance as this. If I saw this magazine at a shop I'd probably be interested in reading it because of the artists mentioned/displayed on the front cover, I listen to songs that are produced by these artists (Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Bruno Mars and Shakira) so I'd want to read any gossip of info about them in the magazine. The two colors you've used are really bold (Blue & Red) and I think this is effective because its very eye catching and I'm drawn to the colors because the magazine has a very limited color scheme so any bright color jumps out at me, the only criticism I would give is the feature on Lady Gaga kind of blends into the hair I think its because the font you've used is to thin but other than that you're magazine looks amazing.

Marie Rocheska: I think this magazine cover is amazing. The image you've taken is clear and looks professional, the models eyes are bright and her gaze really catches my attention also I can see the link you've made straight away with her blue eyes and the blue colour scheme you've used which I think was very clever. I can also tell right away that the front covers main focus is of the model as she's got a few features about her on the cover, such as the pull quote from her at the bottom which tells me that there will be an article or page written about her that will explain 'her rise to fame'.

Neran Gurses: Looking at this front cover I can see the genre POP which is visible from the use of facial expressions as well as the simple but clear text used around the artist. I really like the way you have used your colour scheme with the colour of your artists hair, it blends very well. as your artists eyes are blue, i like the way you have included the colour blue in some areas in the text which helped bring her eyes out towards the eye level. The shot is perfectly focused and its not crowded with loads of texts which I think the simple the better. The idea of using one colour 'RED' which is for your logo helps it stand out from the other colours that you've used so i wouldn't of have made it blue for example as it would blend in with the page. Well done with the layout as i can read it clear and its not too complicated. Its appealing to me personally. The only thing i would develop is to either make the Festival part which is on the left top hand corner bolder so it stands out but everything else seems to be good! 

Front Cover linking to Research

I've chosen two music magazine front covers to use as inspiration to create my own cover. I've chosen to use these covers because they both are pop magazine and I liked how the front covers were laid out because it goes against the stereotypical conventions that you would see on a pop magazine. What I mean by this is you'd expect to see a very colorful and bright girly cover such as this one:

But I preferred the layout/style of a more well-known magazine as its appearance comes across more established and gives a sense of maturity to its look by the color scheme they use because the other two magazines use a more limited color scheme because the magazines stick to around 3-4 main colors while on the other hand the stereotypical pop magazines use up too 4-6 colors so this indicates who the magazines target audience is - teens/adults which links to my magazine as i'm aiming it to the same age group. So using the same method of simplicity that Q magazines do with their color schemes I have used a limited amount of  color as well - blue,black and white. Also the logo/masthead being used  for Q magazines (red box and white Q inside it) is very eye catching and really stands out as red is one of the boldest colors, so its effective to use in a masthead as its simple but it stands out because of its color. So I've used the same effect making my masthead with a red box with the letter C (stands for Clash) in white on top.

Photograph Manipulation

open video on youtube for better quality:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHuW8Mr7U5A

Cover Features

Better quality on youtube, open this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncm_Y3bj1xc

Shots Taken

Shots Taken

These were the final shots I had taken of my artist to choose one to use for my front cover image.  I chose the last image because it was a clear high quality image and it was taken at eye level of my artist which was effective as this is a direct angle of gaze, so people would be drawn to the magazine as her gaze appears more intense and because my artist is looking straight at the viewer its engaging them to focus their attention on her which creates a real sense of connection between the model and those who are viewing the image. The angle I shot my model from gave an even combination of shadowing certain areas of her face and where lighting captured her face highlighted her key facial features which made the image stand out to me so this is why I chose to use this image for my front cover. I've also made sure to remember the 'rule of thirds' when I was taking my photos of my artist, by making sure my model/artist was in the centre of my shots which creates a more powerful image, but I've also given my subject room around her in my shots so I have the choice to zoom in and crop out how much I want to cut from my image I thought this was a good idea because if I took a series of extra-closeup shots and I didn't like them I wouldn't have the ability to un-zoom from them whereas leaving room around the shots I take gives me the option to leave it as a mid shot or creating a close/extra-close up shot by zooming in and cropping out of the photo. My model in my shots is the main point of interest and how I made that come across to people that view my photos is by keeping my background as minimalistic as possible, that's why I've chosen to use a white background so more attention is drawn to the subject of my shots.
I had my artist wear a black t-shirt for my shoots to use for my front cover image. I've made her wear that because her overall appearance of her hair, skin tone and eyes are all quite soft pale light colours and in addition to that the background is white so I needed a colour to bring her forward from fading into the background, so this is why I've chosen to have her wear black. Also she's wearing a gold snake chain for the shots as it links to my artists fashion sense and what females of her age group would typically wear so this would appeal to my target audience, and it also adds more to the shot by using this prop so the photos doesn't look to simple and plain, I also wrote in my shot list that I would be having my model wear a chain so I've followed through with what I had previously planned my artist to wear in this shot. So finally I've chosen to use the last image as my front cover image, reason being is that not only is it a good image but it's the most similar shot that I had drawn in my flat plan so this shows that I am putting all my drafts and planning to good use by showing the clear link from the portrait I had drawn of the artist on my flat plan and the shot I had taken of her.

Cover Layout

My final flat plan is very similar, almost identical to my final magazine front cover. As you can see I've made a small amount of changes from my plan to my final such as the appearance of my model, I initially was going to have my artists hair curled/wavy but decided against that and instead I made her have her hair straight. My reason for choosing to have her hair straight was only because I didn't want to much attention drawn to the hair so keeping it straight made a more simple look and also I preferred that so when I laid my features on top of her hair, the text would appear clear and not blend into her too much so having her straight creates less of a distraction.  I also changed some of the features on my front cover. I had planned to include way too many features which resulted in me taking some of it out to not make the magazine look over crowded, that was also a point that one of my peers made when giving feedback about my final flat plan, Neran Gurses mentioned to "Try not to over pack the text too much around the image" so I took her comment on board and made the change of removing one or two features to create that space in between each of the texts.

My artist kept her angle of gaze directed straight at us which I had planned for her to do as you can see in my draft plan, and also I had my artist smiling because it related to her bubbly personality and songs she produces are all very positive so I tried to create a link to that as well. I stuck to the the colour scheme that I had chosen to do on my cover which was blue, white and black, I also chose to use three colours instead of the stereotypical variety of  bold bright colours you would often see on a pop magazine cover because first of all the audience I'm targeting my magazine too, is towards a more older mature audience. I decided on moving the blue graphic that I had on my flat plan a little more further down on  my cover jut to replace the space I had when I chose not to include a feature about Florence and the Machine in it. The banner/cover line I had on my flat plan (#1 POP MAGAZINE BEST SELLER)  at the top was placed next to my masthead but the research I did on other music magazine covers their cover lines were always placed above everything else on the magazine cover so that's why I made that change to put the cover line at the top when I was making my cover. The pull quote changed a little, instead of having the text laid out like all the other texts on the cover I chose to make it Italic instead, reason why I did this was to make it more evident that its a pull quote from my artist (the model on the cover). I've stretched out the text at the bottom more to cover more space so the words reach from once side of the page to the other, just so it didn't look oddly placed in the the centre/middle.

Masthead and Font Decision

I chose to use a logo as my masthead, reason being is that the pop magazines I've look at/ done my research on were very well known company brands which use a logo for their magazines and I liked how it came across to me and the appearance of it, in my opinion using a logo instead of a word for a masthead makes it look more like an established magazine so that's why I've chosen to do a logo for my magazine. Also I'm using most on the conventions that you would see in a high marketed magazine (such as a logo) to give my magazine the same style as a well-known magazine company would do. I looked at the different fonts I could use as my masthead for the front cover of my music magazine. My favourite font was the middle one on the bottom row, reason being is that its clear and bold as well as being quite a formal font which I liked because it makes the logo look more professional. I got feedback from people that were my target audience (girls aged from 14-18) and they agreed with me that the font I preferred the most I should use but they said instead of the text being black they would rather like it to be white and for the red box/square to not be flat. So I took on board their suggestions and made some adjustments, I used white text like they suggested and I made a 3 dimensional effect on the red square behind the text, by using bevel effect on PowerPoint.

More Test Shots

These are more test shots that I have taken for my contents page. I've taken mid- long shots of my model. I was experimenting with different angles to test out how the lighting appears on my models face  and how the different angles she poses herself in creates shadows on her which add more depth to the shots. For my real shots, to put into my magazine my model will be posing on top of a large speaker that she will be sitting on top of, but I used a table for my test shots for me to get an idea of how I want her positioned for my real shots. Props that will be needed for this shot is a speaker, microphone and the clotheing that I will be getting her to wear for my shoot will be a black skirt with a light faded yellow top and converses, and her hair will be curled. I'll be trying out different shot angles such as low and high angle shots to see which shot works best and appears better, and also i'll be testing out long shots vs. mid shots but since i'm adding in a prop (speaker|) It would make more sense for me to do a long shot to capture everything in the shot.

Testing Lighting

As I said in my previous post of my second load of test shots I wanted to use  a pink light to light up the room with. I've used a thin pink sheet of plastic in the first photo and then I experimented using a piece of pink plastic bag  that I had cut up and placed over the spot light that my model will be posing under to create a pink glow on my models face. 

As I've said previously I'm using this effect of  pink lighting to create a theme of a stereotypical girly pop teenage backdrop to the music video shot that I'll be doing with this lighting, as I have seen in numerous amounts of music videos, like Arianna Grande's music videos is a good  example of where I've seen this effect being used. So experimenting between the two different types of materials seeing the outcome of both shows me that using the pink plastic sheet gives of a better pink, the pink glow is more of a deeper rose pink colour which is the colour I was aiming to achieve, in contrast to using the plastic bag, that gave a more weaker pink light which I disliked. So I will be using the sheet of plastic for my shot to put into my contents page.

    Pink sheet of plastic:

    Plastic Pink Bag:

More Test Shots

These are more test shots that I have taken for my contents page. I've taken mid- long shots to capture the artist in action and all the movements she's making, Its very significant to catch her in motion e.g. laughing, waving her hands around and any other movements she does, reason being is this shot has to appear like I've taken a shot from an upcoming music video being released and this photo in  the magazines contents page is advertising/ promoting her new song. There will also be a page reference on top of this image (page 5) for the reader to know where they can get more information or details about her new music video and there will be more info on that page such as '140 songs to download now' which will be a page displaying all the current popular pop songs that are dominating the charts right now. 

I'm planning to have the lighting in the room as pink bright  lights to flow with the theme of a  stereotypical girly pop teenage backdrop to the music video shot, as I have seen in numerous amounts of music videos, Arianna Grande's music videos is a good  example of where I've seen this effect being used. Also I will be filling the media studio, where these shots will be taking place, with pink balloons to represent fun and excitement to the shot and again adding to the girly appearance i'm trying to achieve.

What I have planned for my model to be wearing is high waisted shorts with a crop top and a pair of converses, her hair will be styled with loose curls and she will be wearing a bow at the back of her hair to hold half of it up. I will have her wearing a small amount of jewelry which will be gold bangles and bracelets matched with a gold chain.

Test Shots/Mise-en-Scene

Below are my test shots that I've taken of my model (Megan Lindsey) which are tests of what shots I want to include in my magazine front cover.  I made sure to focus on the aspect of mise-en-cine for a magazine from the genre of Pop by making sure that for my final shots I will focus on achieving the look of a stereotypical teenage pop singer by getting my model to wear outfits that would relate to my genre. The clothing I plan have my artist in will be a plain black crop top for my front cover but since I will be doing a close up or extra close up for my cover page, my models shirt wont be visible/ hardly seen so the clothing she wears for this shot isn't as important as it will be for my other magazine pages (contents and double page spread). I also want my artist to be wearing a gold chain of some sort, most preferably a smaller chain/necklace, and I would like her to be wearing gold hoop earrings. Her makeup will be quite light nothing too bold like red or purple lipstick, I want to keep her makeup as light as possible to translate to the viewer that she is still young and youthful, which links to my genre of pop, the appearances of young teenage female artists that I've researched and looked at don't wear a heavy amount of make up for the audience to not get the wrong impression. So I made sure I didn't make the mistake of making my artist wear a lot of makeup for my shots. Also seeing as my artists influence in music and style is Miley Cyrus, looking at Miley's style I would say that my artist has used her fashion sense as inspiration to what she would wear, also I've looked at Mileys make up style and she too dose not wear a lot of makeup but sometimes a hint of light eye shadow and pink lipstick so I will be making sure that my artist uses her as influence to what she will be wearing for my real shots.