Music Magazine Research

Rock music mainly took it’s roots from the 1940’s-1950’s style type themes.

Cases in point could be “ROCK & roll”, “Blues”, “Country Music” or even “Folk” Music.

Whenever you question Rock music, you would mainly picture them playing such instruments like, electric or bass guitars, drums, keyboards, however Blues styles, such as Saxophone & Harmonica, can often seek their way into Rock titles too.

Rock music is known to air on some music channels, such as MTV (having it’s own channel in Finland), the Internet Channel, rocktelevision.com and an hour Block on the “Lava” channel.

In Magazine media, there are almost over a dozen Rock Magazines, some listing in the area of Q Music, Kerrang, Jukebox Magazine, Melodicrock or Rolling Stone.

There were even Websites such as Rock.com or Pure Volume.

Rock music can be shown to still be active.

Bauer Performance

The company, Bauer Performance, owns a majority of Music magazines, such as Q or Kerrang however, while Q has it’s own radio channel, Bauer is more known for making “Take A Break” magazine & Puzzle books.

When Q Magazine began, it was originally titled “Cue”, however had to change it, due to not wanting it mistaken for a Snooker Magazine.

While being sold for an average price of £3-£5 on a monthly basis.

The normal music magazine can consist of up to 150 pages worth of content.

These Magazines would often consist of Reviews of either New music or Re-Releases, Top Countdown Lists along with a Spine message where audience have to figure out what the message has to do with the magazine issue.

Artists can often be included in part of an Interview, if they are part of the Top Countdown or if they are doing something Prominent Lately, possibly earning them a spot as the Cover stars.

While the Audience is mainly addressed to a normal music going public, there are some certain areas in which a certain gender can be noted too.

In one case in the Gorrilaz edition of ‘Q’ (Issue 284) there is one subject which talks about Wayne Rooney, of football fame, beginning to hint the majority audience to be male.

Pages, to which I scanned, from this issue are shown below….

Another piece that hints that the Magazine is for Males is the certain aspect called, Disco Inferno.

This page consisted of a pretty much, naked, woman sitting, staring in an arousing type manner at the viewer.

This is bound to have some attraction from the male audience…

Like mentioned, this Magazine is meant to be about Music.

To tie in with the theme of Rock, I was able to find a page which not only had the Disco Images of ‘The Village People’, but along with the Rock legends of ‘Kiss’.

These images will appeal to the Audience because these groups are some of the most famous Music Groups known, as any regular Music going viewer, would easily recognise the area.

The Kiss image can help for my project because, their genre of music is mainly in Rock. This could help in showing, what the average Rock band group shot, should consist of.

The National Readership survey, is a site in which can be used to determine the viewer ratings of each Magazine.

'Q' magazine would possibly be high on the list, because according to the cover, it is "The UK's Biggest Music Magazine".

'Q' Magazine was originally meant to be called, just "Cue" in homage of a Performers 'cue' to come onto the stage.

However, because some issues and concerns that people might mistake the magazine for a 'Snooker' magazine, the title was changed to just 'Q'.

Another Music Magazine called "NME" (Run by IPC Media, See posts below) is in fact an Acronym for "New Music Express", possibly hinting to the Magazines theme of trying to find and express their opinions on new bands or music styles, along with the fact to technically being one of the first Music Magazines published.

For my Magazine, I would most likely need to come up with Multiple titles for it, however doing the best I can to make it music related.

One example could be for a Jazz Magazine, 'Coltrane' as in homage to 'John Coltrane'.

I will consider what titles I can use, before releasing a questionnaire, asking others which title they preferred most.

I shall continue my research and determine what genre and titles, I can use...

Today, I uploaded the second of my music magazine analysis, along with working on my research to music in the genre in Rock.

I should be able to post or continue the piece, next week.

Q Music Magazine Analysis

Upon the magazine cover, we have a cartoony type image to effect their exclusive story with the Gorillaz, which is advertised with a large stamp, just below the magazine’s logo (to which takes up roughly, one third of the magazine’s left hand side, with the boat featuring the main Gorilla members beside it, keeping it eyeliner in the rule of thirds.

The tagline, on top of the cover, also helps to demonstrate the popularity of the magazine by establishing it as the “Biggest Music Magazine” in the UK.

The wave, almost crushing the lower boat is made up of many images of popular music idols, possibly to foreshadow what also is in this edition of the magazine, hinted with the large sub titles, lining the bottom of the cover.

The font of the cover is bold, however a simple type of bold, making it easy to see and have it stand out from the other bizarre fonts appearing on other magazine covers.

The location of the text as well, could be set in those specific places, so that they don’t obstruct this possibly, original and specially made ton  image featuring the band.

Within the eye line of the rule of thirds, it is aligned to be set with the main band whom are riding on top of the wave of music. This can help with selling a magazine as the first thing the audience see of the cover is the presence of the band. Making the audience wish to buy the magazine.

November 29 Lesson

Upon this Session today in Media, I have uploaded the many blogs in which you notice in the many posts today, along with having to create a flickr account to link to in one of these blogs.
Next time, I plan to post up the second of my Magazine Cover Analysis.

Raveline Music Magazine Analysis

The magazine masthead appears (like most magazines) on top of the cover, however to it’s left, there is a small logo, which bares resemblance to a record player. This can work along the theme of Music and Dance, due to the fact that music was originally played on record players and Dance DJ’s are known to work on decks. One differ though, is how the tagline is above the title, rather than under it.

The font of the cover is that of a rather fold one. With the large black & white colours standing out against the low grey background.

The photo itself, whilst being a head shot of the same person, has many colour edits to it in rectangles, as if the image was made up of many snippets of other photographs.

This could have been used in the sense of symbolism with that of identity which the musician may be talking about in this Issues article.

This can also differ greatly in the perspective of cover lines. Whilst a majority of magazine covers swarm their covers with many pieces of text, almost cramping the image between it,  this one calmly has a simple list of what is featured in this issue, to the free space beside this cover image face. Although, his name could be the big black text, saying he is the prominent member of this issue.

The issue’s cover isn’t really so exciting. They are mainly calm and gentle tones of Black, White & Grey.

It can be guessed that this magazine can already has a set and loyal audience. So, It won’t make an over the top effort to grab attention.

Reflection Of Student Magazine

When I did my first piece of creative work for the college student magazine (See Post below), I will say that I was already use to the many items within Photoshop, having worked with it before in Photography GCSE and Film Making A Level.

Whilst I had no issues with Photoshop, I did however find some lesser working items with InDesign. Case in point was the text.

On Photoshop, you are usually able to make any letter in a single sentence, a different colour or font, while on Indesign, if you have one text post; you are unable to make the other letters differentiate from each other.

One item, I am quite pleased with, is how I was able to edit out the blemishes, from the Animal Care student’s face, with help from the clone tool on Photoshop.

I also like how, I was able to edit out the background of the Students image, and replace it with a totally different image altogether.

If there is any down elements to this case, it probably would be the text upon the cover. Aside from the Dalmatian story and the blue text, the other pieces of text are either too bold or too dark, that you can barely make out what they are saying anyway.

Overall though, I will say that for the first piece, this magazine cover & content seem to have been a good opening piece for this course.

Hopefully, I will be able to do more when it comes to creating the music magazine.

Custom Magazine Covers (College Magazine)

For my first piece of creative work, I had to create a cover and contents page to a College Student Magazine.

As you can see, for the cover I have taken two images (which I took earlier) and merged the two together.
Case in point is the Animal Care student and chicken, having their background replaced with one of the Animal Care building.
To those with a keen eye, you may also notice, I have used Photoshop to remove the students blemishes from his face.

For the contents cover, you may notice how there is an image of a Dalmatian which may not appear in my original photos (See Flickr post below). This comes from images found upon The Sun newspaper website.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2736254/Britains-fattest-Dalmatian-lives-in-Macclesfield.html

I also used  Adobe InDesign to place the text on top of the magazine cover & contents.

Here are the link to my Original Photos, before being edited in Photoshop.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56471139@N03/

AS: Media Magazine Proposal

For my Magazine cover, I plan to set up a certain “Theme  Of The Month” type idea, with each issue being about a different department of the college education.

For the Cover I plan to create, the certain theme of the edition, would be that of the, “Animal Care” department of the College. This can be spoken about with an image of an AC student  confronted with an animal in the cover.

Whilst most College magazine covers, I have seen in research, mainly consist of a student sitting of standing about with some books, of a sports player with a football under their arm.

I feel these covers to be a bit cliché and won’t drive much attention to someone walking by, whom might notice it.

My magazine cover would be aimed to both of, preexisting students or that of students whom happen to be checking out colleges at the time.

Whilst, each issue would be printed monthly and on the subject of a different department in the college, my cover could offer help to those whom might consider taking up “Animal Care” as an option of courses.

A typical content of the magazine would most likely fit to the theme of the Issue. The main cover student could be that of one who is possibly interviewed for the edition.

Other pieces would also be on items relating to the theme. In my case, Health Care for Animals, RSPCA news and for other college students, a little bit on the other courses near the back, in hopes not to have them feel Alienated.

For my cover lines, I plan to have the main title at the top of the piece, like a majority of magazines.

Cover Line Ideas.

Interview with AC Student (Insert Student Name Here), talking on Big Complications of Work.

News of RSPCA.

Proper Creature Aliment

And Other Animal Anecdotes

For my Magazine Titles, I have been thinking up of an acronym to make up the Title. Such cases can be…

Animal Response Magazine

Virtuoso Education Text

However these were unused, due to the fact that it had to be a College magazine and not just for veterinarian studies.

This as effect has made me choose the Magazine title to be…

College Education Departments

MAIN	TITLE
	Tagline…
Piece of Cover Image	Cover Line
Cover Line	Piece of Cover Image
Issue Information (Date, Month	Season Year, etc.)

Beneath it, I shall show my Tagline, I want it so, that it demonstrates what the Magazine is all about.

So, I would probably add the word ‘Guide’ into the Tagline.

Case in point, might be “Your Guide on the Education Path”.

For my cover fonts, I plan to have each Title or Subtext to be printed out Bold. This way, It will stand out a bit more.

Whilst I am not entirely sure on what the Font Type can be yet, Fonts like…

Blackoak STD, AstroGanza or even Far Side, do sound like good suggestions for me.

My main image for the Magazine would mostly try to attract attention towards the Magazine. This can be evident by taking two different images and combining them upon the same picture, with prominent use of ‘Photoshop’.

While my shot of the Student shall be Medium Close Up (Taken from the Waist Up), I would require them to be sitting next to a window, my second image would then be taken and manipulated into the window, creating a somewhat, special effect for the cover. There by, drawing attention.

My ideal cover size, would most definitely be in A4, as that is the common size in a majority of Magazines.

Within the Contents page, I would probably have a normal (unedited) shot of my cover model, an image related to a News story, which may be present within the magazine and possibly one of a normal College themed shot.

(Above we have a rough idea of Cover Mapping, If the magazine is split into a table, this is where I plan each text to be in the set positions…)

The History of ICP

IPC’s main Target Audience is mainly linked to Adults in the UK. Their main audience is almost two thirds of UK Woman and 44% of UK Male.

Their main Magazines for Males are Country Life, Horse & Hound, Rugby World and Decanter, as well as lifestyle brands including Nuts, Mousebreaker and NME.

Famous women's weeklies including Look, Now, Chat and Woman; TV entertainment brands including What's on TV, TVTimes and TV & Satellite Week and, online, the goodtoknow network.

IPC Media groups its current titles under five magazine divisions: Connect (women's weeklies such as Now Magazine and Look), Inspire (leisure and specialist), Ignite! (men's lifestyle and entertainment), SouthBank (women's lifestyle and home interest), and TX (portfolio of television titles). In addition there are: Ideal Home; and Marketforce, the UK's leading magazine distribution business.

IPC’s first, somewhat, Printed Media was The Field launched in 1853 and within a year became the largest newspaper in Europe, with 24 pages. It had its own correspondent throughout the Crimean War and its November 18, 1854 issue ran a series of personal narratives of those who took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade.

It launched more Magazines since then, like Country Life, Horse & Hound, Shooting Times, Yachting World, Amateur Gardening, Cycling Weekly, Amateur Photographer and The Railway Magazine.

During the start of the, 20^th Century, More Magazines were released, such as Yachting Monthly, Cage Birds and Motor Boat.

However, Introduced, Women Magazine, such as the Womans Weekly & Woman’s Own.

Woman’s Own was mainly used to build up Morale during the Second World War by Behalf of the Government. While at the same time had covers, which are regarded as pieces of Art, today.

During the 1960’s, Newnes, Fleetway and Odhams got together to form the, IPC.

During this decade, they mainly published sports magazines.

For the 1970’s, IPC was a Global Corporation, releasing such Magazines such as, Aeroplane Monthly, Sporting Gun and SuperBike.

In the 1980’s; IPC announces the formation of European Magazines Ltd., a joint venture company with Groupe Marie Claire to launch the UK edition of the international title in 1988.

IPC embarks upon the biggest sales campaign in its history, spearheaded by 21 of its top editors – the first ad features 'Four of Britain's Most Influential People' – the editors of its women's weeklies.

In the 1990’s…NME becomes the first major UK music title to get its own internet site – nme.com – destined to go on to become Europe's most popular music website.

However, IPC Magazines is sold to Cinven for £860m in 1998, one of the largest management buyouts in UK history.

New millennium, new name – IPC Magazines is renamed IPC Media in 2000, a new identity to go hand-in-hand with a strategy based on being a brand-centric business.

In October 2001, Time Inc. acquires IPC Media for £1.15bn– the biggest magazine deal ever seen in the UK and the biggest transatlantic media deal of our time.

IPC Media develops new digital media brands such as housetohome, goodtoknow and shooting uk.

In January 2010, IPC Media restructured around three key audience groups: men, mass-market women and up-market women.

In October 2010, IPC Media has sold its tenth magazine in little over a fortnight as part of its plan to offload a number of its smaller titles.

Aeroplane, MiniWorld, Ships Monthly and Park and Holiday Caravan were bought by Kent and Cambridge-based Kelsey Publishing - which the previous week had acquired another IPC title: Cage and Aviary Bird – while Dennis Publishing bought IPC’s Web User magazine.

What Types Of Magazines And Target Audience Has IPC Been Associated With Over The Years?

IPC has had a load of Magazine types over the Years and do target for a wide range of audience.

There is…

Mass Market Women…

Up Market Class…

And: Young Men.

These can Range from Adventurous or Sport for Up market Men, Television Guides for Mass Market Women or Fashion, Celebrity or Business for Up Marker Women, the ones of Younger age, do have something in common…

Why Might IPC Be An Appropriate Publisher For A New Music Magazine?

IPC have been known to produce, quite a selection of Music Magazines.

Titles like “NME” or “Uncut” may sound familiar to a certain type of audience…

If another Music Magazine was released, The existing Audience would be able to pick up this, considering their history with IPC Music.

What Sorts Of Genre Of Music/Types Of Magazine Might They Be Likely To Publish?

Basing by what I have seen on a Magazine site, Which IPC publish, The type of Music available would probably, most likely be of Modern Tastes of Music. With such Genre’s as; Rock, RNB & Rap. However there are some occasions of talking on Older Musicians, such as Tom Jones.

Why Might Alternative Publishers Like Bauer Be Appropriate?

Bauer is the type of Publisher you would see on almost every Street Store.

They are known to publish such items as, “Take A Break”, “Bella” and even with another case of Publishing all the Travel Puzzle Books.

So, This Publisher would be good, as it would offer them more variety to their Current Audience, to which is pretty large, along with being able to sell it at a cheaper price.

Photoshop Tutorial - Tool Uses and Basics

For the opening of the course, we are going to need to use Adobe Photoshop, in order to edit our Magazine Covers together.

Here we have a basic tutorial (Created by Montagical of Youtube) in starting up on Photoshop.

Magazine Covers Comparison

For the first piece of work, I had to do we compare "magazine covers" between this, Lady Gaga & The Game.

Magazine Cover Comparison

Within the “Vanity Fair” Magazine cover, it seems that Vanity is the reign.

Upon the front of it, present Lady Gaga in a dark leather suit, posing down to at the reader.

The rule of Thirds comes into account mainly around her chin area, before her head comes in, this can attract a Male Audience, to which may be feeling Vanity whilst eyeing the cover.

The Text, itself is that of in an almost straight line, to which the Photo treats like it is present, as Gaga seems to look as though she is resting her shoulder on top of the text below her.

The background is that of a low grey key colour most likely to make the Black Leather Jacket, Gaga is wearing stand out.

Within “The Source” we have an image of the rapper  “The Game”

On the, ‘The Source’ cover, the Rule of Third comes, showing to his face,  (with the Camera Face to Face with him as well) his eyes screwed up tight. This is the first thing we see up first, however as we look at the image more, we realize that the reason he is posing like that, is due to him holding a Gun to his chin. This can be linked to the theme of his Article, titled “Suicide Is Not An Option”.

The colour upon the cover his mainly a grey or dark style for the grey alley wall behind the Black Rapper, however this allows the text to stand out, showing the details of the Magazine in a shade of Red.

In Both covers, the person’s head covers up a part of the magazine titles. This is possibly to show the main aim of the cover. Both Images seem to be in a face-to-face angle with them, to give a feeling as if they’re reaching out.

They differ from each other with the Shade of colours surrounding them, whilst ‘Vanity’ has a grey texture to it; ‘ The Source’ stands out with the large bold, red text.

In ‘Vanity’,  Gaga’s position is that she fits upon the entire cover, positioned in an angle to shape like a Triangle, leaning to the right, which gives a good space for the text to be place, to the left.

In ‘The Source’, Game is positioned from the shoulders up, within the center of the Cover. Having the Text, print around him.