Investigating my Music Magazine

This is the cover of issue 1296 of Kerrang! magazine, which is aimed at an audience who listen to rock/metal bands. The magazine's masthead is in a font that is made to look cracked, this links to the idea of onomatopoeia that 'Kerrang!' sounds like a distorted electric guitar or the crashing sound of a symbol, thus connoting again the style of music the magazine is based on. Although the subjects are covering the masthead, fans will still be able to identify that this is a Kerrang! magazine because the white font stands out against the blue background.

The main image is spread across the cover to show that this is the main article inside - if the band are unknown to the audience, the cover line is an anchorage. The image gives the reader a sense of fun, although none of the band members are smiling. Yet, there is not a dark or dangerous feel to the cover, instead there is one of curiosity. The member with his mouth open appears to be the frontman as he is crouched down and in front of the other members. The mode of address would probably appeal to other young bands.

What I like about the magazine is the colour scheme because it is appealing to the reader's eye: black, white, yellow and blue was used very effectively as it gives the front cover a house style. The colour blue connotes depth and masculinity which highlights that rock songs are usually quite deep and emotional. The chosen fonts are not serious and give the connotations of writing on chalkboards which highlights the fact that a lot of rock musicians are 'high-school dropouts.' The banner is used to catch the reader's attention - the alliteration of "Guitar God" is appropriate for this magazine as it creates a harsh and jarring sound, therefore creating a discordant, chilling effect which causes the reader to think about rock music. "Get Ready" gives the reader excitement and draws the reader into wanting to know more. "Plus!" has the same effect. The magazine cover also informs he reader that there are posters available inside which induces the reader to buy the magazine. Overall, the front cover has a very appealing layout.

 

Once again, a house style is shown on the contents page by the use of colour themes and layout with images in the top half and articles featured on the bottom half.

 

Each article on the contents page is separated into sections for ease of the reader. Page numbers are found on the left hand side of each article headline, and underneath a few of these is extra information in a lighter font so it does not draw too much attention.  The contents page has a lot of white space which is key in magazine design as it balances out all the colours and content on your page, therefore giving the reader a greater accessibility and an improved reading experience.

 

There is also information about subscribing for the magazine - this has a much bolder colour scheme, which contrasts with the rest of the contents page, thus creating more attention. The editor is also featured on the contents page which provides a personal element for the magazine.

 

 

The article has been separated into two columns to keep within the house style of a typical article. Also, it creates a better spacing, giving the reader an improved read. The heading used is a pull quote, which is very eye-catching because of its bold font and block red and white colour. The pull quote also brings great visual power as it breaks up long blocks of text and attracts the reader. The effect of pull-quotes depend on their attractiveness, both visual and textual.

 

The images used in the article are black and white, rather than in colour which would have been too distracting. It can be hard to focus on the article when there is too much colour. The images have an aesthetic, artistic look that is hard to produce in colour. The use of the black and white photos could suggest that the band have a profound history, giving the reader a nostalgic feeling. Predominantly, the article is monotone but red has been included as well to highlight the passion that's sometimes forgotten about in rock music.

 

There is a fair amount of blank space on the pages to draw the reader's attention to the image and text. 'My Chemical Romance" is in bold text to show importance whereas the rest of the text is in a regular format to make it easily legible. It also creates an anchorage as to who the article is talking about if the reader does not know.

David Carson

David Carson is a graphic designer, who is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun, in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known. In particular, his widely imitated aesthetic defined the so-called "grunge typography" era.

Carson was born on September 8, 1955 in Corpus Christi, Texas. He attended San Diego State University, graduating with "Honours and Distinction" a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. Carson's first contact with graphic design was in 1980 at the University of Arizona during a two-week graphics course. And his first art direction was in 1984, when he became the art director of Transworld Skateboarding magazine. He remained there until 1988, helping to give the magazine a distinctive look. By the end of his tenure he had started to develop his signature style, using "dirty" type and non-mainstream photographic techniques.

Below you will find a few of my favourites magazine covers he has designed:

 

"He is the most googled graphic designer in history, even surpassing some well known fine artists." - Eye Magazine, London

 

"He significantly influenced a generation to embrace typography as an expressive medium." - Stephen Heller, 2010
 

 

"...He feels the work..there's a strong element of intuition
-- and that fits because sometimes you can't describe
why his work is so beautiful." - Hillman Curtis

 

Graphic Design USA magazine(NYC) listed the "Most influential

graphic designers of the era." David was listed as
one of the top 5 most influential designers, along with
Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, Saul Bass and Massimo Vignelli.

Self constructionism

Everything we have looked at so far suggests that magazines and readers co-exist together - that they are both partaking of a socially constructed reality.

 

The relationship is one of mutual dependence or symbiosis.

 

The magazine's ideology is encoded in all aspects of layout and mode of address.

 

Since its launch in 1995, Top of the Pops has changed enormously in format and content, as it now has demographically shifted to young girls, meaning it contains less music content. Therefore, the magazine now also features fashion, beauty advice, and celebrity gossip.

 

In the magazine cover above, the hegemony -  "leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others" - would be the colour pink. The use of pink makes the magazine much more approachable because it is the official colour for femininity, which represents 'sugar and spice and all things nice.' The magazine's main image is the boy band One Direction, who just about every girl in the world has lusted or lust after. This draws in the reader alone. Another notable point to add is that the image used is a front view image which emphasizes the subject’s confidence, power and prominence in the photograph. It also implies equality because the subjects are male, yet they are featured on a predominantly female magazine. This then leads to the fact that pop culture is rather open as it is the entirety of ideas, perspectives, and attitudes; popular culture is sometimes viewed as 'authentic'.

 

Reflecting on how Top of the Pops magazine doesn't contain as much musical content as it used to, on the above magazine there is a cover line that states "26 Hot Summer Trends." What's significant about this is that in just about every successful magazine I see an article containing a number, for example: "25 ways to stay focused", "60 years of NME". Thus, this suggests that a magazine needs variety to be successful. The use of love hearts on the magazine cover employs a sense of femininity, love, and also unity... which highlights that the reader and the magazine co-exist together.

 

 

 

Kerrang! is a  magazine devoted to rock music, which you can see from the above image. It was launched in 1981 as a one-off supplement, and in the early 2000s it became the best-selling British music newspaper.

 

In the magazine cover above, the predominantly colours used are black and yellow, which makes us thin of the hazard sign, suggesting danger. They also cause the reader to think of anarcho-capitalism and its flag, which is  a political philosophy that advocates self-governed societies based on voluntary institutions. This highlights the fact that the rock music culture is known to be quite rebellious and non-conforming to social norms.

 

 

Also, to highlight rebellion, the subject in the main image is clothed in leather. This reinforces his perseverance - "steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement." Alliteration is used to emphasise that the genre of the magazine is rock; "Hot-as-hell!" and "Drop Dead." The alliteration of "Drop Dead" gives a hard, percussive sound which emphasises the fact that the drums are an important instrument in rock music.

 

The magazine's masthead is in a font that is made to look cracked, this links to the idea of onomatopoeia that 'Kerrang!' sounds like a distorted electric guitar or the crashing sound of a symbol, thus connoting again the style of music the magazine is based on.

 

 

 

The Source is a  full-colour magazine that was founded in 1988, and like the Top of the Pops magazine, music isn't the only feature it covers; as well as hip hop music, it involves politics, sports, and culture. It is the world's longest running rap periodical, being founded as a newsletter in 1988.

 

In the magazine cover displayed above, the predominantly used colours are white, red and black - these colours are seen as basic and primal as they are the first colours that humans really view as important.  Black denotes negative and socially undesirable qualities and things that harm whereas white is a symbol for purity and 'all that is good.' However, red is an ambiguous colour, being somewhere in between black and white. It's universally seen as a sign of both life and aggression.

 

The masthead of The Source  is set across the top of the cover. It is in a large font, making the magazine much more recognisable as it stands out because of its block red colour. The fact that the masthead is in capital bold letters suggests that hip hop artists are also bold and powerful. Overall, the magazine has a clean-cut and minimalist look to it, which will appeal to the public eye.

 

It is significant too that the subject is wearing lots of golden 'bling', which is a stereotype for a hip hop artist. The term 'bling' is intended to evoke the "sound" of light hitting something shiny, especially valuables like gold, platinum, or diamonds.

 

 

The Social Identity Theory

The Social Identity Theory was proposed by Henri Tajfel (1979) - he suggested that the groups that people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.

In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong. We can also increase our self-image by discriminating and holding prejudice views against the out group (the group we don't belong to). For example, the Americans are a bunch of losers!

Therefore, we divided the world into "them" and "us" based through a process of social categorization.

Tajfel and Turner (1979) proposed that there are three mental processes involved in evaluating others as "us" or "them":

1) Categorization. We categorize people in order to understand the social environment. Examples of categories are race, appearance, mods etc.

2) Social Identification. We adopt the identity of the group we have categorized ourselves as belonging to. There will be an emotional significance to your identification with a group, and your self-esteem will become bound up with group membership.

3) Social comparison. We tend to compare our group with other groups, which leads to conflict and competition. 

In the 1960s, rockers and mods fought because they disagreed on quite a lot. Rockers were seen as scruffy and rebellious whereas mods were seen as quite clean-cut and snobbish.

 

 

 

 



Music Genres

Pop. Blues. Jazz. Hip Hop, Rap. Soul. Country. Rock. There are lots of music genres in the musical world, and many of them have a rich history or geographical significance, a cult following or music roots that go far beyond the 20th century.  In my opinion everybody should experiment with more than one genre. If not, I will most definitely judge you. With jazz, pop and rock there are oodles of subgenres:

 

Rock and Pop are probably the two most popular genres of music, below you will find some characteristics of each genre, which show how they are similar and how they differ:

Where did Rock music originate?

It originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the 1950s, and developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and later, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It is heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues, and country music.

 

In terms of instruments, rock has centred on the electric guitar, usually as part of a group joined with drums and the electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time structure using a verse-chorus form. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis - sex, drugs, anger etc. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music, e.g. Elvis Presley. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music. Above all this, the genre has become extremely diverse - which brings us back to the different subgenres. By the late 1960s, a number of distinct music subgenres emerged,  including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, raga rock, and jazz-rock, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock, which was influenced by the countercultural psychedelic scene.

 

Rock music has served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements; leading to major sub-cultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the hippie counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US and to music festivals like Woodstock during the Vietnam War. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity.

 

 



 

 

 

 

School Magazine Contents Page

School Magazine Front Cover

The Four F's of Magazine Design

 

In Magazine Design there are four F's that we should know in order to create a successful magazine; format, formula, frame and function. They are adapted from Stacey King's book titled 'Design That Works: Secrets for Successful Magazine Design'. Other key factors of a successful magazine are Consistency because it should have the same fonts and colours used throughout the magazine and Unity because the magazine should remain as a united field throughout.

Format

This involves design choices that are allowed to be spanned over every issue. These define a magazine's overall appearance and feel. These include the logo, cover lines, size of the magazine, department headers and other things that look the same at each issue.

 

 

Formula

This is a combination of the editorial content in the magazine. The types of article, their length, departments in the front and back of the book all contribute to the formula.

 

 

Frame

The frame is the standard size for outer page margins and gutters. Some magazines use the same margin width through the magazines; others vary the width, using tall top margins for features to set apart the well, for instance. The rule for using margins establishes consistency from issue to issue.

 

 

Function

The function is, quite simply, is the objective. It's what a magazine is trying to achieve and the message it is trying to send.



Preliminary Task Photos

Magazine Plan

Deconstruction of 'Choosing A School' magazine

 

Magazine Terminology

 

I have labelled the school magazine above with some magazine terms. Some are more familiar than others!

 

Textual

Masthead: the title of a newspaper or magazine at the head of the first or editorial page

Kicker: the first sentence or first few words of a story's lead, set in a font size larger than the body text of the story

Deck:  part of the headline which summarises the story

Byline: a journalist's name at the beginning of a story

Pull Quote: selected quote from a story highlighted next to the main text. Often used in interviews

Kerning: adjusting the spacing between (characters) in a piece of text to be printed

 

Puff: an advertisement, especially one exaggerating the value of the goods advertised

Skyline: the outline of a magazine cover

 

The Main Task

Preliminary exercise

Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.