Photo Shoot Planning

For my photos I have decided that I will have a clear white background, or no background at all. This is because I want to add my own backgrounds of either textures or something related to music that will improve the overall picture. For example my idea for the front cover of my magazine is to use a picture of a wall, and a picture of a person, and cut out the person and place them on the wall.

For the mise en scene of my models I am going to follow current fashions, more specifically for the front cover, jeans, a t shirt (probably black) and a baggy hoody. For other pictures I will probably follow current fashions such as a black coat and jeans or tracksuit. These will have the background cut out and either a gradient or a photo used as the background.

I will be using two lights from opposing directions in order to light my model, and then increase the contrast using a program in order to make the photograph astand out and be more interesting.

Magazine Name Choice

After viewing the following magazine names, The Source, Scratch, Vibe, XXL, Rago, YO!, USGMAG, Bomb, Arize, Rapzilla, Respect, Stealth, Bassline, Grindin, Urb, Sikk, Rime, I've decided to choose the magazine name of "DEFINITION".

This is because the name suggests that the magazine Defines Hip-Hop, and is very distinctive. I believe it will attract attention and relates to Rap.

I have tested some fonts with the magazine name.

Genre Choice

I have decided to choose Hip-Hop as my genre choice, as I believe there is a massive gap in the market for solely rap based magazines. I will further this genre choice by interviewing people who have this kind of interest.

All photos I use will have their backgrounds removed, so the best choice for a background would be something plain. However, I may want to use a background that doesn't have a very large impact and then set the photo as the entirety of the background of a page. This would be following what KERRANG usually do on their double page spreads and what many other magazines do throughout.

After researching typography, I believe that the font Impact would be the best for my titles, due to its versatility when effects are applied to it (in comparison to bleeding cowboys) and it's more modern look.
When looking at the FX normally applied to titles in magazines, I've decided that on my front cover and on some of my other titles, I am going to be using a solid black outline around some text. This not only draws the users eye, but also allows text to stand out from almost any background. I could also apply a small amount of shadow to titles, which would result in less emphasis but would still allow it to stand out more.

My colour scheme will be a black/darker background with light text that has a black outline, and my target audience is 13-18.

Hip Hop Questionnaire Results

I have decided that the my target audience is between the ages of 13-18, so I decided to interview people between those ages that have an interest in hip hop/pop music.

* = One Vote

M/F?:
M**********
F****
Age:
13
14
15*
16********
17***
18**

Favourite Music Magazine:
KERRANG
The Source*******
Q***
Vibe Magazine***
XXL*

Favourite Artist:
Eminem*******
Dr Dre****
Professor Green*
Kanye West*

Darker or Lighter Colour Scheme:
Darker*******
Lighter******

Two Favourite Colours:
Black*******
White**
Red*
Blue*
Yellow**
Green
Pink**
Orange
Purple

More Text or More Pictures:
Text***
Pictures*******

Choose your Favourite Font:
Calibri
Jungle Life*****
Impact***
Bombardier***
Bleeding Cowboys*

I have concluded from these results that I should orientate my magazine towards a male audience, attempt to imitate The Source's style/ideas. I have also concluded that a feature including Eminem or Dr Dre will be popular, and a more dark scheme would also prove popular.  Also red yellow and blue would be a nice text for titles, with the favourite fonts being impact jungle life and bombardier.

Double Page Conclusion

Almost all double page spreads that I have seen have used a photo as the main focus and text as either quite small with lots of information or short paragraphs that try to remain interesting. A house style and colour scheme are consistent with the contents page and the front cover, unless it is a special feature, which will not happen in my magazine.

Sans serif text is always used for the main body as it is much more readable then something like times new roman. Contrasting colours are used for almost all text apart from some of the titles.

Most pictures are either used as the background or the background is removed and a self created background is added.

In conclusion, I believe that for a double page spread to work it needs to be more orientated around pictures rather then text, and a picture with a CGI background is used more often and works better in comparison with font styles.

Contents Page Conclusion

All contents pages have picture inserts, with either a border or without, although a border is placed more often then not. The pictures are used to associate with page numbers and in turn interest the viewer. There are usually three different types of titles in contents covers, the main title at the top, the secondary title which is placed to separate between contents or additional information or text, and the actual titles that describe the contents.

For each page number there is lots of text to describe what’s happening on that page, this is done to keep the viewer interested. It’s usually a summary so the contents page doesn’t get crowded but it still informs the viewer.

All titles are either serif or sans serif and bold so they can be easily distinguished from the informative text, with interesting features applying the magazines colour scheme of red, to ensure that it is seen as different or special.

The contents page, like the main page also seems to have a “main” picture that takes up lots of space on the cover.

My favourite contents page is probably the “DRUMMER” one because it is simple, but also interesting because of the way the page numbers are laid out, the symbols used and the font used. Again I think I would prefer to do something less cluttered then KERRANG with a more Q approach.

Magazine Cover Conclusion

There are several consistent conventions that I am going to imitate in my magazine. Each cover uses a singular colour for related items on the front cover, for example on KERRANG the colour green is used to associate things to do with green day, and for VIBE the colour pink is used to associate things to do with Kanye West.

Titles on the front covers are always bold text that have a high impact on the viewer. This draws attention to the magazine and helps view ability.

All titles seem to use a special effects if there is a chance that they cannot be read properly, for example in KERRANG the text WTF has a black outline and the words GREEN DAY have a shadow effect, but in the magazine VIBE there is no need due to the white background and the soft pastel colours used.

Most photos used on front covers seem to mid shots or close ups, usually with the person facing towards the camera. All photos I’ve looked at on front covers have had the background removed and replaced with either a solid colour or a gradient, which is something I will try to imitate.

My favourite magazine that I’ve seen was SCRATCH, because of it’s simplistic bold sans serif fonts and colours. It clearly manages to get across it’s points without having a almost cluttered effect as seen in KERRANG. I believe the reason SCRATCH is so effect is because of the contrast between the text and the background, with the background being a solid black and the front colours being light yellow, blue and white. Also, the text has a black outline which results in the text having the ability to be seen even when layered above the picture.

Front Cover, Contents and Double Page Spread Analysis

Music Magazine Analysis Media AS