Masthead Font Idea's and Colours

Flat Plans.

I originally modeled my contents page from the pop magazine We Love Pop. There was something very appealing about having a large amount of pictures on the contents page. I stuck with this to an extent, but upon putting the contents page together, I realized that it didn’t look right or go with the genre to mimic what i had seen from We Love Pop. So although I did stick with the idea of having a lot of pictures on my contents page, I had to do some rearranging. However I stuck to the foundation. So everything on my flat plan was on my final contents.

I think I can say that I successfully stuck to my original ideas for my front cover. I went with the "hidden artist" that was on the Eminem edition of Rolling stone, but at the same time, had all the information on the cover that We Love Pop had. I didn’t take anything away from my original plan, but I did do some adding to it. I added banners, and strips of colour to create a more modern magazine look. Again I did give myself a job to do, as I didn’t really think of the effects that would go on my front cover. So it wasn’t that designing the cover took a long time, It was the editing effects.

As for the double page spread I can say it changed a lot from the flat plan. I wanted to have my featured artist in the middle, but having spoken to a lot of other people, I realised it would not be a good idea as my artist would be in the fold of the magazine. I also wanted my artist holding his own pull quote, but after creating the cover and the contents, I felt that it didn’t take the magazine in the same direction that the cover and contents was taking it. Other than that, I didn’t really have too many ideas for my double page spread, because it was the last thing I worked on, I just played on where the cover and contents was already going.

Cover Model.

After what feels like an age of deliberating, I have finally decided that I am going to model the front cover of my magazine on the WE LOVE POP Cher Lloyd Edition, and Rolling Stone the Eminem Cover. I have chosen these two for many reasons.

I believe that the We Love Pop magazine has a very good, clear layout, and can be distinguished with its use of colours. The Master Head is very recognisable, and continues as a logo throughout the magazine, a factor that I wish to implement into my magazine. I am not crazy about the colour scheme of this magazine for my own cover. This is purely because the word "Underground" itself is quite a dark word, and because this is the genre of my magazine, I am not sure that light, bright, pastel colours, would give the effect that I desire for my magazine. Because We Love Pop is such a new magazine; I found that they put a lot of the inside content information on the cover, almost sell the magazine to the buyer before it is sold. This is something Rolling Stone doesn’t do because it is already an established magazine in its own right. I believe that I will also have to put a similar amount of inside content on the cover as We Love Pop because my magazine will also be a new one, and I feel that with any new magazine, readers need to be sold before they buy it.

I chose this particular cover of Rolling stone because I like the darkness and seriousness behind it. In this picture Eminem does not show his entire face, but he is instantly recognisable. I am aware that pulling this off with a magazine that is designed for underground artists would be more difficult because whatever artist that is on the front of my magazine would not be instantly recognised. However I have concluded that not showing the whole face of my artist, of shooting him/her at an angle, could be used as a tool to get consumers to want to look inside to find out who the artist is. Being partly hidden is also a continuous convention with underground artists. They are usually hidden behind sunglasses, hats ect. This also made me think about what my artist on the cover would be wearing. Eminem is a hip hop artist, the hoodie has for many years been associated with this genre of music. Just like underground music has its own almost representitive label. I will be ensuring that my cover artist will be wearing OBEY.  As mentioned earlier, Rolling stone magazine has very minimal information about what is in the magazine on their front cover. I like this, but do not feel that it’s something I would be able to implement into my magazine.

Semiotics- XXL Magazine

• Semiotics used here, Ludacris is seen holding a video camera in the same way a gun would be held
• The "gun" represents a lot within the hip hop genre, violence, anger etc.
• By Playing on the image of Ludcris holding a video camera the way a gun would be held, it goes against the conventions that you would expect to go along with a hip hop artist on the front of a magazine. 
• Going with the theme of the gun, the article title is called "Ludacris will shoot your a$$-Rapper turnt actor"
• The word shoot, and the image fit together, but in different ways to what would be expected from a hip hop artist. 
• XXL magazine has used Semiotics, and playing on words to portray a rapper "shooting" very unconventionally.