Artist Profile

Band  - In Bloom
Member - Emma Smith
Vocalist in a band that play heavy fast punky music, he takes inspiration from bands such as Nirvana, Arctic Monkeys and Young Guns. The band are very casual and like to enjoy the music they play, while not caring too much about themselves and not taking it too seriously they also like to produce the best music they possibly can, giving their fans 'what they deserve'. The 3 guys and girl have been playing in the guitarists' garage since they were 15, slowly improving their skills and co-ordination. Their biggest music succes so far comes with their show at the Reading and Leeds festivals in the summer, playing the second stage didnt guarantee a crowd, but word spread fast of the new band and suddenly the tent was filled with eager eyes and ears. They wear torn, scruffy (yet smart) clothes, giving off a casual feel and look like the average young rockers but with an edge. The lead singer, Emma, is rather shy at first glance but in her live shows she lets loose with the power of her voice and her ability to put on a good show.

Pitch

This is the pitch I presented to my class.

Typical Customer Profile

MY typical reader profile is Liam. Liam is a 17 year old boy who loves a wide range of music, but more specifically he makes rock and garage rock his priority. He lives in Leicester, England and loves to gain information on the newest and craziest bands around, this is why he buys magazines like RockSound and Kerrang! He prefers musicians that dont care about their image or the way they are viewed, they just want to focus on their music and make it to the best of their ability. Liam also takes a stand against mainstream artists who dont write their own music, who use computers to get their voice more desirable. This is why my magazine is a typical style for Liam as it will focus on 'guitar bands'. That are out of the 'mainstream'. He takes influence in his style through the casual and messy look his favourite artists produce, with such bands as Turbowolf, Young Guns and Arctic Monkeys. He is a regular reader of magazines and if one particularly interests him he will subscribe to the magazine.

Pitch Evaluation

I presented my pitch to my class and I believe it went really well, my class gave me some feedback and I shall reflect on that now. I was encouraged to make my genre very specific to the casual, garage rock I am doing for my magazine. This means i will need photographs of 'rockstars' lying around effortlessely, not really focusing on the reader. I was encouraged to make the clothing fir this style, with potentially ripped jeans, long hair and baggy t shirts or jumpers. More feedback from my class came around a question about Typography. I have learnt from my classes feedback that my fonts must be very messy and unorganised, but also stand out to a degree that it will catch the eye of a reader. This will fit in with the garage-style I am looking to achieve. My next mark of feedback was through the colour palette, my original idea i displayed to the class was BLACK WHITE PURPLE. But after some thoughts from my pitch I have been experimenting with different colours that will give my magazine a more unique feel. Such as adding in light browns to displaty the laid back attitude of my magaazine. This could also be complemented well by potentially bright colours like blue's or green's. This would make it contrast and stand out. The final bit of feedback was to do with my double page spread. I have been encouraged to put a picture of a whole band, maybe 3 or 4 people lying around in a very casual garage or just a messy room. With objects lying around, these props can be cans, magazines, musical instruments (guitars, microphones, drumsticks, or the drum kit itself.) However i must keep this messy image away from any text to avoid confusion, as text can be quite difficult to read when it is accompanied by a background that is full of a lot of objects. My name 'Garage' may also have to be reviewed as it may not be specific enough, I also want to experiment more because I want it to stand out, names that are creative will be a much better idea for a magazine of the style I am going for.

Pitch

Pitch ideas

 Different title ideas
-Bloodflowers
-GARAGE
-RockOut!

 Colour Palettes: White, Grey, Stone/ Light Brown
Black, White, Green, Light Blue

 Ideas for content layout - I will have a mid shot that fills up the whole page of a single person, this will then be covered by text in the gaps in the image (down the side etc)

 Ideas for your doulble page spread article - interview of band or single artist, casual picture in the background

 Who will be on your front cover? - style, costume etc and why - This will be one solo artist, a boy with really casual clothes in a garagee-ey setting. this fits in with the style and overall look of my magazine.

Contents Analysis

Q Mag Contents

Cover Analysis

Q Mag cover

Fonts

Typography Research

Magazine Audience

Kerrang Audience

Double Page

Double Page Spread ANALYSIS

Front Cover

Kerrang Cover

NME Contents Analysis

NME Contents

NME Cover Analysis

nme cover

Preliminary Evaluation

A) I used mainly mainstream magazines for influence for my preliminary magazine. These include copies of the music magazines NME and KERRANG! NME in particular use a big bold main coverline that also spans the full width of the page, i followed this technique with my main article 'Cyber Bulliyng'. I also took hints from these magazines about the banner at the bottom of my page displaying advertisements that could persuade a reader to buy my magazine. The contents page also took inspiration, I followed a familiar layout usede by NME of where a main image is centred followed by smaller images around it, this is useful as it makes it easier for the reader to focus on each article/image.

B) I have learnt many skills throughout my production of the magazine, including the use of cutting out an image on Photoshop Elements, this is what I used to produce the main image on my cover, it allowed me to alter the background colour and give me a plain background so the attention was focused on the image. I also developed layering skills throughout my project, this means i could drop images and text into different layers, this gives my magazine a lot more depth and makes it overall aesthetically pleasing.

C) I definately felt my front cover was successful, i tried to create a cover that displayed sadness through the topic but was also bright and attractive so a reader would be attracted to it. I believe this was achieved through my correct decision of the layout, as the girl is leaning forward i put the image to the right giving the impression she is almost leaning out of the page. If it were on the opposite side it may of looked odd and unbalanced. I belive my photography worked well in the magazine as they had good brightness and were the correct angles and distance (mid-shots). Finally my time management was very good as i met the targets set and completed my project to the given date.

D) Improvements i would have made are with the contents page, i could of used a big main image as the whole pages backgrounded like a lot of magazines do, this gives a good effect. Also on my front cover I could of tried blending the colours together better, i feel the colour sheme was too bright and contrasting, to improve and would use a more simple colour scheme, this would allow me to blend the images and texts together in a much better-looking way. I believ doing this preliminary work has showed me what it takes to create a top magazine and i now know what I need to do to achieve this.

Prelim Magazine