I decided that my house style should adopt a rough, grunge feel to relate to the grunge/indie/rock music genre and the audience it would be aimed towards ("...15-24 year olds with a 60:40 male/female split..." according to my research of a very similar existing popular music magazine). I wanted to keep the house style fairly consistent throughout, with slight variations in the general layout of the pages features and maybe slight differences within the colour scheme etc. to emphasise certain additions. These variations are evident in the comparison between contents and front page. I also wanted my magazine to reflect the design of a typical professional high quality magazine and so, where applicable, attempted to link advertised features, say, on the front page, to those listed in the contents.
I chose to make my double page spread a full exclusive interview for a popular band. Due to the layout I created, there wasn't much room for text; the spread was dominated by a background image of the band and so I didn't want to obscure any views of the band members with text or captions. Because of this, I then created an additional A4 page to go with the double page spread for the main interview. Obviously, the layout of this additional page had to mirror that of the double, including font sizes, types, colours and relevant images and graphics and so on.
Magazines such as Kerrang!, NME, Q Magazine and Mojo all influenced my design and because of this, I think my magazine follows a lot of the typical rock-music magazines and also other general music-related forms of media. For example, I chose to make my magazine a special edition, dedicated to one particular band. This gave me the opportunity to demonstrate how an average music magazine might approach this. I emphasised the features which were associated with the band in question quite radically on the front page and within the contents section but also created other features which were quite generic and simple to balance out the magazine content and subsequently the subject of the graphics I used. The idea was to try to project the band as much as possible without taking focus away from my product as a typical music magazine.
In terms of representation, I think I achieved what I was aiming for. I looked at a previous of Kerrang! to get a feel for the target audience and related social groups of my product. Specifically, within the interview pages I encorporated key quotes into the layout, which the reader's attention would immeditaely jump to before reading the text through. I took adavantage of this by making the quotes from the band members sound rebellious or controversial.
Like most rock bands, the image of the members is normally based heavily on the style of music and so the representation of social groups related to rock music would associate themselves with rebellion and mischief. This is reflected within my magazine quite well with the roughed up graphics and grungy style.During the creation of my product, I have extended my own personal knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and its abilities as a professional imaging program. I did not incur any major problems, however, I did have some trouble with the printing process due to the translation of colour. Generally, colours seen on the screen that I had chosen and what were being printed were minutely different and as a result, it was sometimes hard to read certain texts etc. I did correct the problem by choosing lighter shades or changing the colours completely that would still fit the colour scheme. Moreover, on the interview pages and contents page, I attempted to incorporate a translucent text box background to some of the text columns so that they could be a read a little easier over background graphics and images. Unfortunately, the printer had trouble processing such effects and in some cases it was a more difficult to read the text. I amended the problem as best i could with the printers I was able to use.
In comparison to my preliminary print task, I have developed my skills and understanding of digital imaging immensley. Some of my old techniques from the prelim are evident in my final product but to a much higher standard, in my opinion. In particular, the organisation and manipulation of layers to create backdrops, such as the crumpled paper effect I created on the front page and contents. I acquired some feedback from a number of peers to see what impression my final product gives:
"I think, graphically, the magazine is very good. I love how the general style of the magazine reflects the genre of music it is promoting. I think it would seem very attractive to the target audience it is created for..."
Hannah Stanton
"The layout is really interesting. There is a lot happening on each page so it seems immediately attractive. I particularly like the grunge paper effects on the interview and contents pages. They seem pretty realistic and I'd imagine it would draw attention from a reader straight away. I'd buy it!"
Adam Mawdsley
Overall, I am very happy with the outcome of my magazine design. If I had been given more time, I would probably be able to improve my design in some areas. For example, I used primarily existing high quality images from my own archives for this project which, whilst they seem to fit rather well within the magazine, may seem a little varied. I, personally, don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, in my case, given the unique style I have tried to portray in my product; however a different genre of magazine, such as fashion or clothing for instance, might require a consistent sequence of photographs shot on location to be a little better fit for the purpose.