Pitch: Colour Scheme

From doing my research on cover analysis I have decided on what colour scheme I want to used. The colors are:

- Red
- Gold
- White

The inspiration for this comes from the NME cover featuring Tyler the creator. 

Colour theory

Red

Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love.

Red is a very emotionally intense color. It enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure. It has very high visibility, which is why stop signs, stoplights, and fire equipment are usually painted red. In heraldry, red is used to indicate courage. It is a color found in many national flags.

Red brings text and images to the foreground. Use it as an accent color to stimulate people to make quick decisions; it is a perfect color for 'Buy Now' or 'Click Here' buttons on Internet banners and websites. In advertising, red is often used to evoke erotic feelings (red lips, red nails, red-light districts, 'Lady in Red', etc). Red is widely used to indicate danger (high voltage signs, traffic lights). This color is also commonly associated with energy, so you can use it when promoting energy drinks, games, cars, items related to sports and high physical activity.

- Light red represents joy, sexuality, passion, sensitivity, and love.
- Pink signifies romance, love, and friendship. It denotes feminine qualities and passiveness.
- Dark red is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath.
- Brown suggests stability and denotes masculine qualities.
- Reddish-brown is associated with harvest and fall.

Yellow

Yellow is the color of sunshine. It's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.

Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy. Yellow is often associated with food. Bright, pure yellow is an attention getter, which is the reason taxicabs are painted this color. When overused, yellow may have a disturbing effect; it is known that babies cry more in yellow rooms. Yellow is seen before other colors when placed against black; this combination is often used to issue a warning. In heraldry, yellow indicates honor and loyalty. Later the meaning of yellow was connected with cowardice.

Use yellow to evoke pleasant, cheerful feelings. You can choose yellow to promote children's products and items related to leisure. Yellow is very effective for attracting attention, so use it to highlight the most important elements of your design. Men usually perceive yellow as a very lighthearted, 'childish' color, so it is not recommended to use yellow when selling prestigious, expensive products to men – nobody will buy a yellow business suit or a yellow Mercedes. Yellow is an unstable and spontaneous color, so avoid using yellow if you want to suggest stability and safety. Light yellow tends to disappear into white, so it usually needs a dark color to highlight it. Shades of yellow are visually unappealing because they loose cheerfulness and become dingy.

- Dull (dingy) yellow represents caution, decay, sickness, and jealousy.
- Light yellow is associated with intellect, freshness, and joy.

White

White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity. It is considered to be the color of perfection.

White means safety, purity, and cleanliness. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. White can represent a successful beginning. In heraldry, white depicts faith and purity.

In advertising, white is associated with coolness and cleanliness because it's the color of snow. You can use white to suggest simplicity in high-tech products. White is an appropriate color for charitable organizations; angels are usually imagined wearing white clothes. White is associated with hospitals, doctors, and sterility, so you can use white to suggest safety when promoting medical products. White is often associated with low weight, low-fat food, and dairy products.

Cover Analysis #1

To help me understand the main components to a music magazine cover, I analysed one of the inspirations because I would be taking a lot of influence from this cover. 

Masthead

On this text the masthead is partly covered by the main image. We see this with most mainstream magazines. This could be done for an artistic purpose or to make emphasis on the importance of the person photographed on the front. The magazine would have paid 'Tyler the creator' a sum of money in hopes that his face would sell the magazine. So to cover the brand name with him could have been a tactic to sell more magazines. 

NME uses its classic logo for everything it endorses. This makes it easy for existing customers to recognize its content and for new customers to discover them. I will be making a logo for my magazine that will be featured on the front.

House style

The house style of this text is red, gold and white. When someone sees all these colours put together, they might think of royalty. 

As seen in the image above, the main colours featured in the British royal family is red (Male clothing, red wall paint), gold (medals and background artwork) and white (the woman are wearing mostly white). 

In the text tyler the creator is seen wearing a crown which is directly related to the royal family and the queen. So the house style fits the generic conventions of the already established image of what the crown would wear (Queen or King) and what colours are associated to them. 

Plugs

Plugs ( mention a product, event, or establishment publicly in order to promote it ) are essential for magazines in todays market. The front cover main image isn't enough anymore to sell the magazine. Customers want more bang-for-their-buck in 2014 and demand to know what else they will be spending their hard earned cash on. Without good plugs it could ruin the entire magazine and make it not sell. 

This text has highlighted the main plugs in red so it stands out for the potential buyer. This takes any effort out for the reader to search around for more information and get distracted by another, more appealing magazine. 

Competition: music magazines

Competition in the UK

Currently in the UK, their is 78 'mainstream' ( Magazines that sell more than 25,000 copies a month) music magazines. The biggest selling music mag in the UK is 'Mojo', followed by 'Q' then 'Kerrang!' coming in third. The three main magazines I will be looking at though is Mojo, Kerrang! and NME. The reason for Mojo is because its the best selling magazine in the UK and I want to find out how it achieves this success, NME and Kerrang! because these mags have achieved success in the genre I want to do my project on. 

Mojo History

MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title that would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music. MOJO was first published on 15 October 1993; in keeping with its classic rock aesthetic, the first issue had Bob Dylan and John Lennon as its first cover stars. Noted for its in-depth coverage of both popular and cult acts it acted as the inspiration for Blender and Uncut. Many noted music critics have written for it including Charles Shaar Murray, Greil Marcus, Nick Kent and Jon Savage. The launch editor of MOJO was Paul Du Noyer and his successors have included Mat Snow, Paul Trynka and Pat Gilbert.

While some criticise it for its frequent coverage of classic rock acts such as The Beatles and Bob Dylan, it has nevertheless featured many newer and "left-field" acts. It was the first mainstream magazine in the UK to focus on The White Stripes, whom it has covered as zealously as many older acts.

MOJO regularly includes a covermount CD that ties in with a current magazine article or theme. In 2004 it introduced the MojoHonours list, an awards ceremony that is a mixture of readers' and critics' awards.

In early 2010, MOJO was involved in a controversial move by its new parent company, Bauer, via Bauer's attempt to unilaterally impose a new contract on all photographers and writers, taking away their copyright and off-loading liability for libel or copyright infringement from the publisher onto the contributor. Two hundred photographers and writers from MOJO and Bauer's other music magazines, Kerrang! and Q, were reported as refusing to work under the new terms.

Kerrang! History

Kerrang! commenced publication on 6 June 1981 and was edited by Geoff Barton, initially as a one-time supplement in theSounds newspaper, which focused on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal phenomenon and on the rise of other hard rock acts. Angus Young of AC/DC appeared on Kerrang!'s first cover. Launched as a monthly magazine, Kerrang! began to appear on a fortnightly basis later, and in 1987 it went weekly. The original owner was United Newspapers who then sold it to EMAP in 1991.

During the 1980s and early 1990s the magazine placed many thrash and glam metal acts on the cover (like Mötley Crüe, Slayer,Bon Jovi, Metallica, Poison, and Venom) but later discarded them when grunge acts such as Nirvana rose to fame. Readers often criticise the magazine for repeating this process every time a new musical trend becomes popular.

Kerrang!'s popularity rose again with the hiring of editor Paul Rees circa 2000 when the nu metal genre, featuring bands like Limp Bizkit and Slipknot were becoming more popular. Rees went on to edit Q magazine and Ashley Bird took over as editor from 2003 to 2005. However the magazine's sales went quickly into decline in 2003 and Paul Brannigan took over as editor in May 2005.

The term "Thrash Metal" was first referred to in the music press by Kerrang journalist Malcolm Dome while making a reference to the Anthrax song "Metal Thrashing Mad" in issue number 62, page 8 published on 23 February 1984. Prior to this Metallica's James Hetfield referred to their sound as Power Metal.

With the emergence of emo and metalcore, Kerrang! began to heavily feature this musical trend. However, the revamp was not welcomed by all readers and many complaints were received about Kerrang!'s sudden emphasis on emo and metalcore music. Brannigan took the magazine into its most commercially successful period with a record ever ABC for the title of 80,186 copies.

In 2008, EMAP sold its consumer magazine to current owner Bauer Media Group. Brannigan left Kerrang! in 2009 and Nichola Browne was appointed editor. She later stepped down in April 2011. Former NME features editor and GamesMaster deputy editor James McMahon was appointed as editor on 6 June 2011.

NME History

New Musical Express, popularly known by the initialism NME, created by Theodore Ingham, is a British weekly music journalism publication, published since March 1952. It is largely associated with rock, alternative and indie music. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s and 90s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, in 14 November 1952 edition. In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music newspaper. During the period 1972 to 1976, it was particularly associated with gonzo journalism (self-involved reporting), then became closely associated with punk rock through the writings of Julie Burchill, Paul Morley and Tony Parsons.

An online version of NME, NME.com, was launched in 1996. It is now the world's biggest standalone music site, with over 7 million users per month. As of 16 August 2012, the magazine's circulation was measured as 23,924 (declining).

The magazine and website's headquarters are in Southwark, London, England, UK. The magazine's present editor is Mike Williams, who replaced Krissi Murison on 25 June 2012 (as announced on 31 May 2012). NME.com's present editor is Greg Cochrane – previously, the post was held by Luke Lewis, who replaced David Moynihan in March 2011. In 2013, the list of NME's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and the way it was conceived were criticized by the media.

Recreation of Music magazine front cover

The above image is my attempt at recreating a music magazine front cover. My skills in image editing has grown seven fold compared to when I started in AS. For example in the bottom left hand corner, the yellow box is zagged and uneven. This took some creative thinking to pull off. The original box was edited using masks and multiple layers then exported into the main PSD file to create the effect. Another example is the font used. The font used for 'FOO FIGHTERS' didn't have the black outline around it. So to successfully complete the task I had to edit the FX and add drop shadow. The drop shadow is set at 75% with 100% opacity so that the black stands out like on the original. 

Strengths

- I really like the font I used for 'foo fighters' and how I edited it to match the second image.

- The colors and placement of everything is just like the original. 

- All fonts used are very similar to the original. This makes it look interesting.

- The images I sourced are very similar to the original.

Weaknesses

- The main image is too long and it doesn't look right.
- The NME logo doesn't look anything like the original. This is because I couldn't replicate it/didn't have the knowledge on how to do it. 

Conclusion

Overall I think my recreation turned out really good. With only limited knowledge of photoshop I think I done a really good job. This been said, its far from perfect and could be improved. 

Pitch: Target Audience

The target audience for my magazine will be both male and females aged between 16 and 25 years of age. I have chose that age group because 72% of that demographic will be willing to spend their disposable income on magazines and music merchandise. Whereas, people aged 25+, the percentage drops to 23%. 

Second, my magazine will be themed around the rock genre. That includes a number of other genres and ensures that I reach a large amount of interested fans of the genre. Magazines like NME and Kerrang have a similar target audience to mine.

Below is two mood boards to show what my target audience might look like and what music they listen to.

Pitch: Themes

Below I have made a mood board to express what themes I want to use within my magazine. The theme of the magazine will be rock music. That includes:

- Rock music
- Alternative rock
- Pop rock
- Garage rock
- Punk
- Hard Rock

Recreating a billboard

Strengths

- When I was recreating this billboard it was quite simple. Not much skill was needed. I used the wizard wand to cut the macbook and teddy bear out. After that it was simply manipulating the layers so the laptop was on top of the teddy bear.
- The font and color was easy to find and use to recreate the billboard. 

Weaknesses

- The font I choose didn't let me use it in small case. This made the written all in caps and it doesn't match the original billboard.
- On Teds face he has the blue glow of the laptop. i don't know how to create this effect so I simply left it out. 
- The grey written in the box was too small for me to read. So instead of messing it up I left it out of my recreation. 

Conclusion 

Even though the billboard was simple it had some very advanced techniques used to create it. I don't know how to create this and therefore I couldn't complete it 100%. On the flip side, I think my recreation is very similar even with the missing parts. 

Pitch: Inspiration

Introductory Proposal

For my A2 coursework I have choose to do a Regional magazine. The project will be the first four pages. The two other options that I have chosen are:

- Billboard advert
- Radio Advert 

What do I want my magazine to be about?

As the project is a regional magazine I will be covering the north east music scene. The magazine will focus on the rock genre and feature bands and artists involved in this crowd. My plan is to head into Sunderland city center and find some local music events and ask to write a magazine article about them. 

AS Reflection Task

This is my AS coursework. I can see many Strengths and weaknesses with my work.

Strengths 

- My magazine follows the same colour scheme and house style throughout which makes it look professional and original. I used black and white shirt on the front cover to make it match my house style. Also the sunglasses are black to match this colour scheme. The genre I was trying to capture was 'alternative rock' and 'indie rock'. 

- I used 3 fonts throughout the three different pages. I researched other magazines like 'NME' and 'Rollingstones magazine' to see how these mainstream mags use font. In Both, they only use a maximum of 3 different fonts. I done the same and I think it made the pieces look professional and give it a classic look.

Weaknesses

- The layout of my contents page didn't come out as good as I hope it would. I had trouble working out how to lay everything out. I don't like the finished product because its unoriginal and not very creative. I wanted it to be easy to use so the user can find the content he or she wants fast but I feel that the contents page doesn't achieve this goal.

- The images in all three are not consistent in house style. The main image on the front cover is in colour while the double page spread image isn't. 
- The house style is very bland and boring if you don't like that kind of approach. This house style is targeted at a very specific group of people that enjoy that kind of artsy style.