Front Cover Images

This is the main image I will be using for the front cover of my magazine. I used this person as my model because I felt that his long hair and facial hair would fit well with the genre, as the stereotypical representations of rockers are that they have long hair by male standards. Along with this, he is wearing a long black trenchcoat which fits in with the mood of the genre being represented in my magazine, as rockers and rock music in general has been stigmatised in the past, so I thought that the colour black would be a good colour to use to represent the stigma attached to rock music. He also has claws on his right hand which represents power but this also induces some fear into readers.

After some editing around with the image on Photoshop, I managed to make this. I am leaning towards going for a black and white front cover due to my idea of the stigmatisation of rock being present on the cover through colour symbolism. I made some cuts to him by removing stray hairs and his shadow too which would have otherwise made future editing troublesome. However, the problem with this is that it is quite difficult to make a monochrome image stand out, and I also fear that the model himself will not stand out, so for these reasons I will not be using a monochrome front cover image.

After more editing around, I managed to create this, and have decided that this will be the edit that I will be using as my front cover image. I really like this one because the model stands out really well against the background and overall just looks intimidating, and a good representation of rock. One may also notice that the bottom of the original picture was cropped out and that the model is lower than in the original picture. This is because after I took my image and uploaded it, I immediately realized that the model's head was too high for my masthead to go anywhere, so I decided to crop the bottom out and move the model lower to make space for things I plan on placing at the top, such as the masthead, promotional item notification, price, etc.

This is a picture I took of one of my friends who acts as another model for my magazine. I will be using her on the front cover like I did in my first magazine by making her transparent (where the background is removed) and placing her on one of the lower corners of the page which will notify the readers of the fashion segment of the magazine. I wanted her to dress simple, which contrasts the heavy nature of rock music, but even on most rock magazines, you will see that a lot of the models are dressed very casually, and that is why I wanted her to dress simple too. Her colour scheme of black also fits in with the magazine genre too.

This is the finished result of me attempting to make her transparent for the magazine front cover. I am aware that there are some parts that a look a bit off and that is due to my shaky hands, but I am overall very pleased with this image. Next I need to change the size of it so it can fit in the corner of the front cover.

Making My Masthead

The title of my magazine has not been confirmed yet, but right now I am leaning towards Vex Nation. These are some of the practice designs I've made using Photoshop. Looking at all the other magazines, the masthead was usually only one or two colours, so I tried to stick to only using two colours, but on the bottom two, I used three colours. I really like the designs of the bottom two because the rectangle makes it flashier and more eye catching.
In the bottom, I incorporate the masthead colour scheme of Kerrang, which was black and white. Along with this, I made the V and X red because it links with the red background of the Kerrang front cover. When I was making my masthead, a few of colleagues were able to see developing it and at first I was using multiple colours even though I was fully aware that most mastheads only had one or two colours. The excessive use of colours were criticised and in the end led me to coming up with these simple but effective designs.

Title, Logo, and Layouts

I am soon going to start constructing and developing my magazine, but before I do that, I need to consider a number of things that I could not do with the questionnaires. For example, the magazine logo. I could not use the questionnaire for this because then it would be as if the audience has complete control over the magazine, which while most magazines do need information from the audience so that they are controlling content to an extent, they cannot make the important decisions or decide the brand of the magazine.

Firstly, I should decide the name of the magazine and then start designing its appearance using Photoshop. Currently I am not sure what I want to name my magazine, but I do know that I want it to be strong and stand out to fit in with the nature of rock genre. 

Catatonic: I like this title because it's short and simple, which contradicts my previous statement about wanting my masthead to be strong and to stand out... It links well with the rock genre due to catatonia being a disorder where a person is hyperactive, and the genre of rock is one of the most hyper of them all. However, using this title may be insensitive towards certain people due to it being an abnormality. Although, Kerrang's ideologies seem to be that teenagers should stand out, and in society, just being eccentric is considered an abnormality but not necessarily a psychological one, rather just a societal one. Another problem with using this title is that I feel that it would be more appropriate for a genre such as dance music or electronic music, rather than rock music, but I wanted this to be an option because I really like the simplicity of this name.

Red Flow: This title incorporates colour symbolism, using the colour red to connate danger, which links with the violent and chaotic nature of rock music. One of the meanings behind the title that can be interpreted by the audience is that they can link 'red' to the female menstrual cycle, which is an extreme comparison but 'reds' is a slang term for it these days. 'Flow' is also a word for it. This can affect the audience, making it have a larger female audience compared to male, but this could be the end result regardless of the masthead due to fashion model I plan on having on the front cover. It's very likely that I will not be using this as my masthead due to it being a sort of taboo topic in society, but one of the ideologies behind Kerrang and other rock magazines is to make yourself heard and to rebel against society. The audience age range for my magazines, which is teenagers to young adults, are usually rebellious and also commonly portrayed in the media as rebellious. Another problem with this is that there is a colour in the name, which may mean I have to make more colour associations due to the title. This is not necessarily bad due to the colour red being favoured by a number of people, and how it's commonly used in a lot of music magazines. 

Vex Nation: Or alternatively 'Vexation'. I like this almost as much as I like Catatonic. This also has a black magic/witchcraft sort of mood behind it. This was done in reference to the front cover of the Kerrang magazine I analyzed. where there was a pentagram or some sort of ritualistic pattern often seen in summoning demons or performing other sorts of black magic. I also think that it has some sort of powerful feeling because of 'nation'. The word 'vex' is also used colloquially to state distress or some negative form of emotion, which also links to the genre since rock is portrayed negatively. The audience especially is represented negatively in the media, as teenagers being portrayed as rebellious (although this is a valid stereotype). Overall, I prefer Catatonic over Vex Nation but I feel Vex Nation would be more appropriate just because Catatonic sounds more appropriate for a dance/electronic genre. I also associate the words 'vex' and 'hex' with the colours purple and dark blue, so I can try and incorporate those colour schemes with the title perhaps? On the other hand, I'd still need my masthead to be visible and eye catching to grab attention.

This is just a crude possible logo for Vex Nation that I quickly made up on the Snapchat app should I ever need to make a separate logo to represent the magazine. In it I tried to make join the V and X in 'vex' to make the logo. I personally like the idea of this as a logo, especially because I think it's so simple, but of course it doesn't look very good here. I also think that this logo would be more appropriate if the title of the magazine was Vexation, as if I used Vex Nation it might more sense to incorporate the N of 'nation' in the logo somehow.

Right now I am not sure how I want my masthead to appear. Most magazines have it simple, and I feel like I should make mine simple too, but this also makes it less likely to be seen and won't stand out. I could be making a mistake by designing the masthead in association to its representative genre.

We had to make sketches of our front covers, content pages, and double page spreads. This is the sketch I made for the front cover. I tried to make it look like most magazines with the layout, but in the sketch I also think it looks a bit too organised which contrasts the nature of rock music, so in the end product I will most likely make it look a more disorganised. I'm also keeping with some codes and conventions with the cover with how I have the free consumable on the top left. The masthead and barcode are also there and follow the conventions, but these are present in every magazine and not just music magazines.

This is a draft for my contents page. Most of the layout is based off the contents page for the Kerrang magazine, for example, the semi-circle in the top right corner. Also in the Kerrang magazine, I noticed that the contents page was organised in contrast to the rest of the magazine and goes against the nature of the magazine's specialist genre. That's why I've also chosen the layout to be organised. I also want to add small medium shots in the middle of the page to use to break apart the contents, and this also shows off more use of modelling. At the bottom I may also include a notification of a competition or something else, mostly filler space because I don't want the page to be overwhelmed with just contents.