contents page. Work in progress

After looking at mountains of contents pages to have as a style model, i finally found a double page spread, that looks suitable to show to my target audience. The colours are fairly simple, white has been used as it keeps a balance between the reds and blacks on the page. It has been divided into different headings to help the reader understand what is going on on the page, and makes it much simpler to read through.

second half of the article. Got a little more to do on it.

This is the second double page spread of my feature article. I havent used lots of images on it as i dont feel the need to, as the page has lots going on in it to start with, and the images that have been used are enough to keep the readers interested. However it would have been good if i had a group photo of the whole band together, rather than having different faces on different images. I feel i have kept the rest of the layout fairly simple and easy to read.

When i was creating my first pages of my article, i knew i wanted to have an image of a concert with a photo of the band infront. However the orginal lighting in the image made the photograph of the my band look unrealistic, as the lighting of that photo was not the way i wanted it even when i changed the options around. Another point would have been that it you would not be able to see the text that went with the page.











As i thought that this idea wasnt the best it could possibly be, i decided to use another image of a concert, changed the brightness of it, however unlike the previous idea, i split the page in two. Having half white (to make the text easier to read) and the other half as the image from the concert. This worked well with the image of my band, as it looks more like they are there. A second advantage of having it this way would be the fact that " Baptism By Fire" was able to be a darker colour, and was contrasted with the lighter, better colours of the images on the rest of the page. It is also more noticable to the reader, so it takes less to find the article if they had not used the the contents page.

Rockout front cover. Almost finished version

Here is my "Rockout" front cover. I will post the contents page soon.

plans for my magazine

Here my second idea:

Here is my first idea for my magazine:

Here are some design ideas i have came up with. Enjoy.

When we look at the Kerrang! Front cover, we notice one thing at first glance; the main picture of the band. Because the title is giving the impression that they are one of the most dangerous, they show this by the mise en scene they have used in the photograph. The man in the centre of the photo, seems to be the hardest, by the way he holding the chain, and by the fact that he is wearing glasses, give the connotation that he is hiding some thing from the audience. The rest of them are all wearing black, to fit the part of the “hard man” look as well, with all of them showing off either tattoos, our piercings, and all of them are also covering their faces in some way again, giving the connotation of them being hard and dangerous. After the text, “sex. Drugs. Violence”, the three holes through his gloves give the connotation that there is more to tell as it looks as though its leading the way to the rest of the article.
Kerrang! have also used the same four colours throughout the page, to make it consistent. They have only used two different fonts as well, one for the mast head, which is covered by the band. And one for the articles that they have in the magazine. They can afford to cover the mast head as they are a well known magazine and their target audience are well aware of what they put in their magazine and what the normal characteristics of the magazine are like.
Just in case the main article doesn’t draw the potential buyer in, they have also highlighted what else is in the magazine. However the font size in significantly lower than the size used for the main article, however they have made the band names bigger the writing telling us what the articles are about. As well they also have a free giveaway advertised, and at the bottom they have a “PLUS” which stands out from the rest of the articles as well, just for one last attempt to pull the reader in.
At the top of the page the word “mega” implies that the tour is going to be big and every one should go and see the bands that are playing. It also relates to the rock – metal theme they have going on throughout the page. As well for all the Avenged Sevenfold fans they have put a website with one of their song names as the websites address, so that once they have read the article they can go check that out.
We are able to tell the target audience for the magazine as it is produced to look more of a tabloid magazine, not an older more mature specialist magazine.

Again the front cover follows the conventions of a typical magazine page: the four colours and the three fonts used to keep the page consistent. All the colours used on the page look neutral. However if we look at them individually, and where they are positioned on the page in terms of the where they are in contrast with the pictures, we can see that they have used red to advertise the Taste of Chaos tour at the bottom left hand corner of the page. They have done this as the colour red can be associated with violence, chaos and death. The title of the article looks as though it has been written over blood, so as the tour had metal bands on it, this was a good idea to use red, as this gives the connotations of the metal genre and danger.
Pink is the most dominate colour that is used there, as it goes well with the little bit of yellow they use. They alternate between yellow, pink and white to advertise the feature article, this is so it is easy for the reader to read the different artists they have mentioned, so if they like a couple of them they will hopefully buy a copy of the magazine. They say “and more” to try to get you to hint at you to buy the magazine as they “…” is inviting you to turn the page and take a look at what else is in the issue. I would say that it is also used to try to get girls to buy this magazine as it has only men on it. The title of the article of the article makes it sound personal as it says, “rock stars that changed your world”. The word “your” is an attempt to try to make it seem as though the bands are personal to you. Again this is to try to get you to buy it. To add to the fact that this is their main article, the page is covered with popular, well known rock faces not just the ones that have just came about, but ones that have been around for a little while too.
The font they have used for the title of the magazine stays the same in every issue, and it helps represent how rock music should be played- loudly, as it looks as though it is shattering because it is so loud. This is reinforced by the fact that the slogan, “life is load” is right next to it. This makes it sound as though life should have rock music in it.
Even though all the colours they have used look neutral, they make the cover feel cold looking especially when the man on the bottom corner looks pale, and the man on the top left hand corner is in black and white, along with the person on the bottom right. This could also be a reflection on the genre of music they play.
Just like the other Kerrang! magazines the masthead is covered, this is due to the fact the it is a well known magazine with it’s audience. We can tell that it is aimed at teenagers aged 14-19 because of the bands on it, as they all are rock, punk or screamy metal. However, it could be argued that this issue is trying to draw more readers in as it mentions Kurt Cobain, and Slash, who we all know were in big name rock band in the past decade or so, but to keep its regular readers happy as it talks about the tours, and has people from the big bands today. And to advertise this, they have a picture of Billie Joe Armstrong who was a big name in the 90s in his band Greenday and still is today.
Another point to make about how they want to draw the audience in is the fact they have the only ever interview with “Tool” in about the new album.