This is a draft for my contents page, I made the contents page on Photoshop instead of using publisher as I am much more familiar with the program I think I will use Photoshop for all my final pieces as I found it much more productive and easier to accomplish the style I wanted, I did it as double page spread with the intention of making it look more it artistic and stylish; but by doing this I only created more work for my self I think using a similar style in my final piece but making in a single page will make the page much stronger as there is a lot of negative unused space at the moment. My favourite part of the contents page is the images at the bottom with the corresponding page numbers I think that part works really well but if I only used a signal page spread there would only be room for about three of the images which could possibly spoil the effect of the images as a series. I am still unsure about the text within the piece, I wanted a text that made the contents page seem quite stylish and smart but I think that the text I used was a little to cliché and made the contents page look like I was tiring to hard to be stylish and sophisticated, I think I will use one simple font throughout because I think it is not so much the style of the font but what the font says that is important.
I wanted the contents page to look quite simplistic and minimalist the way I went about creating this by leaving large areas of negative space, but the problem was instead of the contents page looking simplistic it just looked empty for this reason there will really only be one key feature coming from this draft contents page and that will be the layout of images at the bottom of the page.

This is the draft for my front cover, the image itself is not mine but i wanted to inculed an image so that it would be easier to see what i was trying to acomplish in my magazine. The colour sceame for this magazine front cover is red and bule but it is used very subtly as i didnt want the magazine being full of over exaggerated colours, because i dont want bright colours to atrack the buyers eye i would like it to be the photographs and articals.I really like this layout and there is one thing i would like to change the arrows in the bottom left hand corner i feel look slighlty childish i would like to use somthing else instead of them and i am still unsure about the font and may change that aswell.

After having so much respose from my questionar i have decided to call my magazine Forfront i think this is quite a clever title as it shows that the magazine is at the 'forefront' of the musical wolrd. I want the font for the magazine to be quite simple because, my idea for the magazine is for it to be a monthely instead of weekly, this would give the magazine a much more profesional feel with the photographs being a higer standard. The magazine would not be aimed at people who are just interested in music, i am hoping the magazine can be more rounded posibally with fasion and art aswell as music.

I am trying to decided on my magazines names i have managed to narrow it down to these
few, please could you give me some feedback on the ones you think are the best
:Learn To Soldier
:Modernity
:Late Night Breakfast
:Meat Pie
:We Sound Better
:Forefront
:Pulse
I am also trying to decided on a font to be used on my magazine i have enclosed a few pleased tell me which on you like the most 1 being to top font and 6 being the bottom.

This front cover is from Q magazine a music magazine that is published monthly in the United Kingdom.

Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were appalled by the current music magazines in circulation, Ellen and Hepworth felt these magazines were ignoring a older generation buyers who were buying CD's (at the time still a new technology). Q was first published in 1986, doing its up most to sett itself apart from the other music magazines by having a monthly instead of weekly production this leading to much higher standards of photography and printing. In the early years, the magazine was sub-titled "The modern guide to music and more". Originally it was to be called Cue a reference to the cueing of a record). Reasons, cited in Q's 200th edition, is that a single-letter title would be more prominent on newsstands.

The first thing that is noticeable on this front cover is the large picture of a topless Lily Allen posing with two black leopards, this straight away shows the notability of the magazine as they have been able to persuade a 'A list' pop star to pose topless with dangerous leopards on the front cover for the whole world to see, this could also be seen as a bit of a cheat by the publishers because by putting a scantily clad women on their front cover, this could possible attract all types of different buyer.

Apart from the main striking image there are no other images on the front cover just the headline and a few cover lines, these over lap and under lap the main image for example Lily Allen is placed in front of the Q magazine logo but behind the main headline one of the leopards is in front of the main headline, all these very little touches give the magazine front cover much more depth making it seem like you can look into the front cover instead of it being one flat boring image.The magazine logo is widely recognized because of the way it stands on the front cover there are many reasons why it does; firstly the fact that it is almost a quarter the size of the magazine cover makes it stand out because not many magazine leave so much space for there logo, secondly; it is one of the only red things on the front cover the only other things are three small cover lines and two very small forward slashes this make the logo jump out of the page because it is so bright and large.

I really like the simplistic approach taken by Q magazine as it makes the single image and ares of text stand out much more, i think i will use quite a simple approach in my work.

This double page spread was taken from kerrang magazine and is part of the live section,the band featured are called Avenged Sevenfold a American band who were touring in the UK.

One side and half of the other page of double page spared is made up inertly of images from the live gig, there is one large image of the lead singer in the center of the pages, this image has been used to grab the attention of the readers and fans of the band because he is very recognizable and fans who are just flicking through would see a large image of him and possibly stop to read the article or if looking at the the magazine in a store they may be more likely to buy it. The other smaller images are all of the other band members, this stops all the focus being on the 'front man' of the band, this helps because in many bands fans often have there favorite member and this is not always the lead singer or the 'Front man'.

There is a very small part of the double page spread that has text on it, this is a very small but very detailed gig review, talking about about how Kerrang think the live gig went and also about what they think of the bands recorded work.
There is also a nice section at the bottom asking a member of the band how they think the gig went, i think this is a very nice touch and will consider using this in my magazine.

This contents page is the Christmas special for kerrang magazine, the page has been split in half with one large image on the top and all the other information on the bottom.

The large top image contains just one subject, i believe that the image could be described as having quite a humorous side as one of the members of Behemoth a 'death grime metal core' band is pulling quite a aggressive face illustrating his and the bands attitudes to music but at the same time he is holding a little silver star sat next to a Christmas tree, this is quite funny because when thinking of each thing separately people think of completely different things for example if you asked people what they thought about Christmas they would probably say things like; presents, joy, love, giving etc . But when you ask somebody what they think when you mention heavy metal ( you would have to use a much more basic term in the first place because not many people know about all the different subgeneras) the would often think about men with large beards jumping around sweating. Did kerrang do this to try and show how they can be a serious rock magazine whilst still enjoying Christmas maybe they did this to show to all those stereotyping people out there that a 'heavy metal rocker' looks forward to his visit of Santa just as much as the rest of us. I think the image is very clever because it could been seen as braking down barriers subliminally to all the readers, or it could just be a man sat next to a Christmas tree pulling a funny face. The image also obeys the rule of thirds, a subject framing technique were the photographer splits the image into three columns and places the subject in the left or right column and not in the middle, this is done because images are generally more pleasing to the eye when the subject is not directly in the center.

There are a couple of smaller inserts on the top image the contents title has got small icicles hanging from it this adding a little extra Christmas there are also small page inserts these have been used to show the main features in this weeks magazine, these small inserts are also used to cure the negative space left by the main image.

The bottom and top part of the page are split by a large banner saying KERRANG! THIS WEEK underneath this are columns of information containing all the regulars and new features in this weeks issue, there are a couple of headings with black backgrounds and yellow text, this is often used in most of the kerrang contents pages, repeating the same font and colors in the magazine helps to create a feel of consistency and regularity something that some readers may look for in a magazine.

KERRANG!

Kerrang! was first published on 6 June 1981, edited by Geoff Barton, initially as a one-off supplement in the sounds newspaper devoted to the current New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the rise of other hard rock acts such as AC/DC, who appeared on Kerrang!’s first cover. Original owner United Newspapers sold its music magazines to EMAP in 1991.
During the 1980s and early 1990s the magazine placed many thrash and glam metal acts on the cover 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; for example, Prince was heavily featured around the time of the release of Purple Rain, including a cover, and there are also issues in the 1980s featuring U2 and Big Country. More recently, there are many complaints about Kerrang!'s current emphasis on emo and metalcore music, particularly stemming from the fact that the magazine continually printed issues with My Chemical Romance on the front cover for several weeks, following the release of their album, The Black Parade.EMAP sold its consumer magazine to current owner Bauer Media Group in 2008.

The first thing that really stands out on the front cover to me is the large image taking up most of the front cover, this combined with the main coverline lets you know what the main image is about the band Biffy Clyro.

I think the one that is very clever, is the way that the title for the magazine has been edited around the photo, making the lead singer stand out more because he has been placed infront of the title wereas the other two members are placed behind the title giving the magazine image a feel of depth i think this is a very enginuitive and interesting technigue. With the lead singer wearing a white jumper and the other two members wearing black this make the lead singer stand out even more.

The front cover has a large focus on the band but also has some other headings on the bottom 1/3 of the cove, these show all the other features in the magazine it is good to show this as people who are not necessarily attracted to the main image could like one of the other smaller articles.

Week One
- Analyse front cover of Kerrang
- Analyse contents of Kerrang
- Analyse double page spread of Kerrang

Week Two
- Analyse front cover of Q
- Analyse contents of Q

Week Three
- Analyse front cover of MixMag
- Target audience questionnaire - sort results into a pie chart or graph.

Week Four
- Begin photoshoot

Week Five
- Finish photoshoot
- Edit the photos - remove blemishes / contrast / brightness / saturation

Week Six
- Mock designs of the front cover based on results gathered from research
- Mock designs of the contents page based on results gathered from research

Week Seven
- Mock designs of double page spread based on results gathered from research
- Begin final front cover design

Week Eight and Week Nine
- Complete all final designs: front cover / contents / double page spread

Week Ten
- Check final quality of all designs
- Evaluate final designs
- Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
After analysing several student magazines, such as Ludlow College's "Student ID" magazine and "First Car". I used some features that they used for example I have tilted some of my photos to make them appear more exciting and attention-grabbing.
I think my front cover was quite different as I used the title from The Sunday Time and swapped the ‘unday’ from The Sunday Times and replaced that with ‘tudent’ and added that in graffiti like font making it seem the students have taken The Sunday Times for there own.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
First of all I had to decide on my target age group I went for teens between the ages of 16 and 18 years old. I then tried to engage the age demographic with suitable topics, text and images. For instance, I used photos from college parties knowing students would be more likely to buy the magazine if there was a possibility to see themselves or close friends. I keep the colour scheme very basic using mostly whites and blacks to try and not attracted one sex more than the other.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my student magazine will be second year college students to third year university students, aging between 17-20, and it will be a uni-sex magazine.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My magazine has quite a wide audience, who all need music, parties, art but more seriously advice about carries the future and relationships. I think no nonsense straight forward institution would like to distribute my magazine.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I would like to think my magazine was aimed at the more artistic and musical, the students who take an interest in these types of things outside of college/university when there not forced to. so the way in which I attracted the readers was by using interesting and clever magazine title, all the images I used where taken not just a random parties but student music gigs I thought they would seem more interesting for the readers.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Because I study photography I already had quite a good knowledge about layout ect. If anything I feel the computer programmes we were using where holding me back.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have learnt that research is a very important in designing and creating of a magazine.

This is a contents page from a skateboarding magazine i have added this to my blog to help illustrate the way you can lay out a contents page, the page has no main masthead on it just lots of smaller text about the publishers and writers on the left and side and the features on the right hand side, the only headings on this page are the two on the right explaining what is inside the magazine in my opinion that is all it needs. I really like this lay out with the images separating the two different bodies of information, something i would like to incorporate into my own contents page, but in my own page i would not use a series of images i would use completely different images to help illustrate what was in the magazine.

This is my third and final front cover design, the main image is one i have taken from a gig i had been to a couple of months ago and thought it would work quite well as all the hands seem like they are pointing towards the the grouped images in the side. The side bar is used to show what is inside the magazine i think it works really well as it shows a sneak preview to the rest of the magazine. The masthead of the magazine i think is the best part of the front cover, i have taken The Sunday Time's masthead and took away the letter 'unday' from Sunday and replaced them with 'tudent' so it reads The Student Times i think this works really well because it almost pokes fun and rebels at the serious papers which is quite a student thing to do.

This is my second magazine cover again, like the first i tried to tie it together with a simple color scheme, so i placed a the same text behind the other but changed the color to blue, also i used one main image on the cover with the cover lines getting larger and larger when getting closer to the bottom, i did this to try and make them look like they were coming out of the page. I think this cover and the previous cover are far to basic my next cover design will be a lot more interesting and busy.

First draft of front page

This is my first front cover design it is very basic, with one main image on the whole magazine cover with one red box, this is were the smaller images would go, along with some text.
The main title was made by over laying the same font over its self in different colors i think this is quite effective, i tried to tie the front cover together by giving it a color theme i think this helps all the different parts of the front cover become one.

-name

-age

-gender

-do you read any student magazines?


-what would be a good title for my magazine?


-what kind of articles would you read i.e music ,partys, interviews?


-do you think there is anything missing from current magazines that should be included?


-how much would you be willing to pay for a student magazine?


-what kind of photos would you like to see in a student magazie?

The title of the magazine is called 'First Car' under the main title of the magazine there is a small text saying 'The magazine for young drivers' basically telling you what the magazine is about in one short and easy sentence, this helps the buyer to know if the magazine is for them or not.
The main image is a photo of the four main characters from the hit TV show 'The Inbetweeners' the image is tilted and fills the whole front cover the main reason for this is the fact that they are very well know TV celebrities.
All the characters are making eye contact with the camera, they are all in full body shots apart from the one character who is closer to the camera, showing he may be a larger part in the show or the magazine interview.
The main image has a large banner across it 'The Inbetweeners interview inside' this is also on a tilted angle not as extreme as the photograph, this is in a large bold font with all the letters in block capitals, this shows that the interview will be the main focus of this issue of the magazine.I think this magazine is possible more of a one of magazine for first time drivers because the price of £2.95 and is a little bit too expensive for teenagers, unless they are really interested in this subject.The layout is quite ordered, with many captions and photos in line with each other. The colour scheme is simple with just yellow and white against the dark background. The other images are in smaller boxes at the bottom separated with a black border