ROCKST R

My Rock Magazine

By Connor McCormack

My research • Kerrang is a very successful widely recognised

magazine UK-based magazine devoted to rock, It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper which was a British music newspaper

• It’s circulation is 43,033 (circulation is the number of copies it distributes, on average, for each issue)

• Music published by Bauer Media Group institution, it publishes many other successful magazines such as Q, Mojo and even heat.

• Worldwide circulations of all of Bauer Media Group’s magazines add up to 38 million magazines a week.

Another magazine • Rocksound is not as successful in

terms of Kerrang however I felt it had its own unique style which interested me, it was launched by the French publisher Editions Freeway in March 1999 and it has a circulation 15,005

The conventions I followedSplashes

Eye catching colour linesImage bleed

Use of barcodes Cover lines

TaglinesOften a pic of artist/celeb

or band(celeb endorsement)

Bold text Busy front

Uniform colour scheme Bright eye-catching

colours Eye catching images

Selling linesMasthead

Advertising earpiece

How I planned my magazine • For my plan decided to look at other magazines first before trying to come

up with a type of structure, I decided to take a look at both magazines and look for things I believed to be effective and apply them to my magazine.

I looked through some examples and highlighted some things which I liked about the magazine, for example the picture boxes, the use of celebrity endorsement even if it is not on the front cover, the earpieces, the strips along the top of the page and the plus word enlarged to draw audience attention, the image on the left is a good mid-shot image which is typical for a magazine cover as well as a close-up image, the pose with his hand draws audience attention effectively as well.

How I would then apply it to my magazine

I quickly made a rough plan on paint to give me a general path to follow with my magazine , it included most of the codes and conventions which will feature in my magazine with some exceptions which I brought in later, I decided that I was going to use red as it is a very clear standing out colour and was used effectively in the other magazines, in this point of the planning I was still deciding on what kind of background I would use.

Planning for contents page• Planning for my contents page was pretty

straight forward compared to my front cover, there was different magazines that I looked at for this and they were all really different , so with the front cover I did the same and simply highlight features which I liked about it , for the kerrang magazine I liked the use of images to show what is in the magazine but for Rocksound I like the way the page info is put into a column, I then came across some picture borders in a section of a rocksound content page which I thought would make my pictures stand out perfectly in my content page unlike the Kerrang magazine where little attention is drawn to each. This is what my end result looked like when I put the 2 together, which my classmates said was effective.

Following the codes and conventions

• Keeping to codes and conventions I saw that most magazines had a subscription box and editors section, so to follow these codes I must make sure that I include these in my product, I must also bring my main story into context such as circled with the image being enlarged from the others to draw audience attention.

planning for double page spread

I looked at 2 different examples each from both magazines, I noticed with a double page spread that there is a quote taken from the interview usually displayed, for the Kerrang magazine (picture on the top) it is used for the main title which I liked the idea of and took it for my magazine, in the example I liked the use of the supers miler that was used as the effect of challenging the reader is displayed clearly. Also the band or persons name is usually displayed as shown with Paramore where it is presented across the page; I also liked the type of text here although I did not think the colour would work with my magazine, I like it because it its rough worn down look which can be very Rock I don’t care attitude which fits a stereotype of Rockers. Image I will use

following the two examples

In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media?

• With my magazine I plan to follow similar codes and conventions that can relate to existing magazines such as Kerrang and Rocksound that I have researched, this means I will include things such as Bold text, Busy front and bright eye catching colours, however I will challenge some forms and conventions by setting out my content page in a way I feel is organised fully yet attracts eye catching attention like Kerrang does I also used a different type of shot for my front cover as I use a mid-shot with an outer glow to highlight its importance, the image I also used is a chocolate box although I did not make it a full on smile as I thought this would not be suitable for my rock magazine.

How does my media product represent particular social groups?

• I plan for my magazine to represent young males between 14-25 who are fans of rock

• I want to show that Rock fans are not all full metal heads and listen to other rock sub genres such as indie rock

• My magazine will represent Rock as being as popular as things such as RNB and Rap.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

• Because of the research I have done for Kerrang I have looked into the institution that publishes them which is Bauer Media Group, because my magazine has similar conventions to that of Kerrang but gives something else to offer I figure that this institution would be interested in distributing my magazine

• Bauer Media's Advertising Production Department aims to provide advertisers with a consistently exceptional level of service, so there whole institution is basically revolved around advertisement in magazines, I would think that my magazine could offer unique space in terms of Rock advertisements.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• As my genre for this magazine is Indie Rock I will make the target audience for my rock magazine white middle class rebellious teens between the ages of 14-25 who are looking for some kind of output, the gender would be male by the use of colours as non are feminine at all. The type of music I will be representing is indie-rock as heavy metal is more screaming and destroying everything as given in most stereotypes, indie Rock will be identified more by the bands I will have on my magazine such as linkin park, foo fighters and three days grace, it can also be identified by the type of outfit that my model is wearing, with the shirt and tie, with the leather jacket to make it known that it is still rock

• Another reason why I targeted teens are mainly targeted is because they are at the age where they are more disruptive and ignore higher authority such as parents, the crazy rock lifestyle that my magazine contains would be the kind that they would like to live which is seen through these magazines.

How did I attract/address your audience?

• I will attract my audience by using bright red colours like red that stand for the anger and passion in Rock and make the text stand out to grab the eyes of potential customers for it, I will make the genre recognisable from a distance so if would be in a shop people can tell straight away the genre that it is.

Shots used for front coverThis was my initial first shot that I took for my front cover, I made my rocker use a hand sign because it makes the image more interesting and the hand sign symbolises Rock there background was removed so I could place it on my magazine, problems I had with this image however was the quality as it was only 5 mega pixies

I then changed my picture to have an upgraded quality; I kept the basic pose the same however apart from it is mirrored

Shots for content page

With the content page I wanted to put the main shot into highlight by putting the red frame around it, the first shot that I used was however to stretched and did not go well with the whole magazine look, I also but a glow around the rocker as I did for my front cover as well.

This was the final image that was used it’s a better overall quality and it also has the updated colour scheme.

For the double page

For my double page spread I used two different shots instead of one because I felt it would make page a little more interesting and not to bland or plain

My first attempt

This is the first final attempt used although to make certain of my product I asked for general feedback, to do this I put it on Facebook not asking if it was good or not but simply for feedback so I could make sure that my magazine was effective

Feedback for front cover

• The colour scheme did not work effectively

• Move the masthead for the hand sign to be more displayed

Feedback for content• A lot more comments

on this as people really liked it and thought it was the best part about my magazine

• Change the colour scheme as the blue does not work

• Some basic spelling mistakes at bottom of page

What I did from feedback

I changed the colours and I think it looks a lot better than it did before, my classmates feedback afterwards also said this change was better

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Considering I had no previous knowledge of InDesign and how I have learnt all these skills needed, I feel as if I have greatly improved sense my first magazine which barely had any codes and conventions in it and way to much whitespace, the content page also had a dramatic change as I learned more codes and conventions and different InDesign skills.Along with that I have also improved with managing the time I have so I can plan and make my product effectively instead of rushing everything at last a last minute.

Front pageI decided to use the Masthead Rockstar for my magazine because it is simple yet effective to identify the genre (that being Rock).My colour scheme involved red and black, as well as white for some texts and other things, I used these colours as red is a very high visibility colour which is why it can be found on thinks such as stop signs, so it means that if my magazine was in a shop its colours could easily garb attention especially on the subheading section “BEST SELLING ROCK MAG TO DATE, I used the slightly reddish orange to bring my main image into context. The black I used mainly as a background as it makes all my other colours stand out more but it also makes the magazine fit the rock genre which I wanted it to do as black and red are typically rock colours. the black and white can also typically be found as normal text writing but I have also used it for my earpieces, the white text on black makes the text a lot more visible then putting it on the red background but it also makes it stand out from the other red sell lines as something else interesting. As for my main image I used, I have my Rocks tar (as I would like to call him) standing in a mid-shot which is what Rock magazines usually tend to do along with close-ups, I have my Rockstar using a chocolate box image as his head is slightly turned and lips are slightly parted, however I challenged this convention as I did not want him grinning towards you as that would not suit the type of genre. I have chosen, another reason I also had a slight purple reddish glow around him to bring him into better focus against the background as well as to outline the importance of him on the magazine. I then put my main headline along him reading “Zack Slasher The next best thing” I put it in bolder text and made it larger so it’s among one of the first things a potential buyer will see.Other things I included where basic magazine codes and conventions like the barcodes and subhead lines, but I also included a sell line about Blink 182 and included their logo for celebrity endorsement as I felt it would effectively target fans of that band and encourage them to buy my magazine.

Content page

For my RockStar content page I put the masthead of the content page in the same text format as the front cover to make it known that this is from the same magazine, I kept to all the same colour scheme as well to also make It well aware that it’s from the same magazine. I have made the magazine style very user friendly as typical magazines usually have the column of the page on the right or left hand side of the page and also into different categories so it can be easier to find what you are looking for, I also noticed that through research that the pictures in the content page don’t have to be placed in order of page numbers and instead can be randomly listed, the reason they do this is because the main focus image (mine being the picture with the number 50 on it) is usually of a double page spread so it will not be in the first couple of pages in the magazine, neither the less they use this image mainly to sell the magazine so they will bring it out more than the others. This is why in my magazine I have brought out my main image of Zack Slasher by making it appear on top then all the others and placing it at the top making it seem like the biggest story in the magazine. Other things I used where stuff like the slogan which was used as a extinction of the heading, my original slogan was music with a punch but I felt that the voice of music would appeal to a wider audience as they will follow the hypodermic needle syringe theory as people will feel that they need to follow the best latest magazine. Other things I used included the 5 stars along the column of the content page, two reasons I did this where to fill in the white space and as a slight pun relating to the title of the magazine, I did the same thing above the masthead to fill in the whitespace, I then followed codes and conventions by adding a subscription option, editors section and magazine website.

Double page spread Looking at some typical double page spread interviews I noticed that the picture is usually a mid-shot although there are some expectations, I also noted there is a section of the text made in bold and used as a headline for the story, there is usually a main section of this text that is made bigger to catch audience’s attention before anything else, I decided that for my text to I should make it the same style that was used for my front cover Masthead and content page to fit in with the style of the magazine.With the main picture I positioned it to the left hand side of the page and made it a super-smiler type of photo with his head slightly back, I used this to challenge the reader and also because I felt this type of image was suited for the content page as he is giving a very weird look at the audience.

• From this I have learnt how to get rid of any background that my image contains on Photoshop and effectively put it in InDesign among a magazine background

• I have learnt in InDesign you can lock different layers so they are not effected when editing your magazine, InDesign has helped me a lot because without it I would not of been able to create my magazine

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Thank you for watching my presentation