Magazine Update: Contents Page

This is what my contents page looks like so far. All of these pictures were taken by me, at various gigs (Muse at Emirates Stadium, London, Paramore and 30 Seconds to Mars at Cardiff Motorpoint Arena). I  have used the same fonts as I have for the front cover, and used the same colour palette. I added all the cover stories to the contents page.

Magazine Update: Front Cover

Magazine So Far on PhotoPeach

Alternative Rock Music Moodboard

For my Alternative Rock music research, I have created a tumblr account which consists of pictures, gifs, videos and examples of alternative rock music. It is basically a moodboard with its contents representing my genre. 

http://helenbargmann.tumblr.com/

Update: Front Cover

This is my current front cover. I've changed the fonts as well as the colours, masthead and sub-titles, and added in a bar-code and a Reading and Leeds special. 

Contents Page

I want my contents page to look like this NME contents page, as the spacing and images makes it look both professional with some kind of rebellious rocky-nature. The fonts are clean-cut and readable, not over the top but not too boring. The bold numbers make the contents page easy to read and easy to navigate to the specific pages. It is clear which topics are the most important by the sizing of the images. The article with Murph from the Wombats is quite obviously the main article due to its sizing compared to the other, smaller images. 

I also like the idea of the red box in the bottom right hand corner being there to attract the reader's attention towards spending money on the magazine. I might do something similar to this on my contents page, but maybe promoting tickets to a gig or festival competition. 

Double Page Spread research

For my double page spread, I want to do something along the lines of this:

There would be the generic article underneath, as well as a tagline from the interview. As well as this there will also be snapshots of pictures of the band, either live on stage or in the studio, depending on what I write my article on (could be live shows or an upcoming album). 

The Road So Far...

I have begun to design my front cover.

I used a photo of a full band, but instead cropped out the other models so that it would be similar to magazines such as NME, who use frontmen as their main photo occasionally. 

So far, it has been enjoyable trying to create my magazine. I found that the fonts definitely need to be changed into something more interesting, so for that reason I will look through dafont.com to find more appropriate fonts. The generic photoshopped fonts looks really bland, so I will try to find a more exciting font to make my magazine stand out.

I have also changed the name of my magazine. It was originally going to be called 'AMPLIFY', but using inspiration from NME (New Musical Express) I have decided to cut the name so that it looks more professional. The name AMP still relates to the Alternative Rock genre, but I want my magazine to be both connote Alternative Rock but have a professional, NME style to it. NME manage to create a Rock music magazine using very professional fonts, and I really want my magazine to be similar to it. 

I haven't yet added the subtitles, but this will be the next thing I am planning on doing. I am really looking forward to creating my Alternative yet professional rock music magazine.

Photoshoot and New Ideas

After completing another photoshoot, I have decided to re-do my main idea of the general conventional ideas of Alternative Rock magazines. 

Instead of taking photos like Alternative Press does, for example here...

...I have decided to take more photos like Q and NME do, like so...

...with just the individual frontman shot, rather than the whole band.

I'm doing this because I found that with my photos, I was struggling to find a plain background. I tried to find a white wall but the lighting was wrong, and it just made the wall look dull. Here, for example...

Also, the girl on the left stands out too much because she's wearing blue and holding an orange guitar. 
There is also too much shadow, in my opinion, on the wall behind them. So for my next photoshoot I'll make sure the colours are darkened and that the wall behind the model is quite distinctive in showing the contrast between the model and the background, like they have on Q magazine with David Bowie; the pink behind him really helps to bring his features out. 

So, based on this, I will instead take a photo of an individual rather than an entire band. Hopefully this will still show the effect of alternative rock like NME and Q have done.

Alternative Rock Feedback Video

I decided to make a video in iMovie, asking questions based on Alternative Rock for some audience research. These questions included, 'What do you think of when you think of Alternative Rock?', 'What colours do you associate with Alternative Rock?', 'What do you expect to see in an Alternative Rock magazine?', 'What are the stereotypes?' and 'What fashion is associated with Alternative Rock?'.

This is only feedback from females, however I think that the length and detail of their answers were quite helpful towards the female audience.