Analysis of an exsisting Music Magazine: "Vibe"

In the front cover for this magazine, the colours are very bright and vibrant. They connote a life of cash and expensive material things. Lil’ Wayne, the main image in the picture is standing on a Thrown which shows that he feels that he rules, most probably the music industry. His top half is well dressed, almost like a young American college student. His laces are undone, connoting raggedness about him and his tattoo that cover the whole of his lower leg connote his type of lifestyle. On Lil’ Wayne, there is high-key lighting on his forehead and his knee showing a light and humour filled community.
The words “Lil WAYNE” next to the centre image, tell us that the person in the centre image is in fact, Lil’ Wayne. The colour scheme is mostly, Blue, yellow, white and orange. This colour scheme gives the magazine a theme of royalty as the centre image also consists of a thrown. In the past ‘Lil’ Wayne has often referred himself as the King of Hip-Hop and R’n’B so by Vibe magazine giving his the thrown conforms to his idea of being the king.
Also the fact that he isn’t seated but is standing on what is considered as being a very valuable and respected seat in authority, also conforms to the idea that he feels that he has the moral high-ground to do whatever he likes.
The title of the magazine is in one of the most noticeable things but is in the background. The title is not directly on the top of the magazine but is lower down and is behind our centre-images head.
The “V” on vibe seems to have a medallion hanging from it stating that Vibe is the “Hottest” magazine. This makes the magazine for appealing to an audience as it has been recognised for being a good magazine. The name of the magazine almost seems to be pushing down on Lil’ Wayne’s head as he is bending his head lower down. This could be used to connote that Lil’ Wayne wants to be the centre of attention and that the name also wants to be the centre of attention.
The colour of the title stands out and makes the front cover appealing to the audience. ‘VIBE’ magazine has been recognised for its knowledge of Hip-Hop and R’n’B music so, this magazine would be directed to people that have a love for that kind of genre of music.
Around the side are the stories of which are going to be included in the magazine. Most of these stories appear to be about other rappers and other Hip-Hop and R’n’B artists. All the font on the page seems to be the same but only written in different sizes. The more important factors are written in big bolder writing and the small writing is the smaller and not so important

Introduction.

This is now the beginning of my music magazine task. I will update my blog with new work and I will update and add pieces of work in progress giving you, the examiner an insight into my production steps.

I will also post developments of work and post stages of my work in process to show the production stages.

Evaluation.

Evaluation:
In my magazine, I tried to make it look as professional and expensive as possible, by conforming to the idea of a convention magazine. All the magazines in which I have looked at have a mast head that is at the top of the magazine. This is a typical feature of a magazine so; I decided that I would also do this as this makes the magazine look professional.
I also noted that most magazines have barcodes on them, usually on the left hand corner or sometimes even on the back but because I felt that my mast-head had something missing so I decided to place in on the side of my title. This is unusual for a magazine but considering I had no space in the bottom left hand corner, I decided to place it in a more convenient place for me. This also broke a convention of the past as usually, barcodes are situated in the bottom left hand corner so this change was good.
Another convention, in which I conformed to, was placing most of my text onto one side of the magazine. I decided to do this because I felt that it made the magazine look more professional and organised. By putting the text and topics in which were going to be discussed in the magazine onto ONE side, I felt that it was a more tidy way of doing things.
Usually, text does not overlap on the cover person’s face but because I had to go by the guidelines of having only one person on the shot, I felt that by placing text over the other person’s face would make the person irrelevant. I didn’t want to crop the photo because I felt that having two people in it would make the photo look as if it is in a friendly community.

By having two people in the shot shows that they are in a homely and friendly environment. The fact that both of the people were Asian doesn’t necessarily mean that they have their own specific cliques. It shows friendship and reassurance that people any race and any ethnicity can come to the college. It also shows that if you feel comfortable being within a certain social group, you can be accepted into that group with no problems at all. I followed a key convention of other magazines by making the two girls look happy. I wanted to depict a friendly and fun environment.
I didn’t make the girls dress in any particular way. By doing this, I feel that I showed the diversity of clothing and free will to wear what you want (as long as it is acceptable) to college.
By placing my text in different fonts and colours, I felt that this would catch the audience’s attention and would hopefully make someone want to pick it up. I used subtle and calm colours so that it isn’t too striking but, I also used some eye-catching elements. I put the title in bold and gave it a white shadow. By doing this, I feel that it makes the title a bit more attractive. I decided to use Standard English for my magazine because I felt that by using slang, it would limit the audience of the magazine to people who speak slang. This is not what I wanted to do, I wanted my magazine to appeal to everyone so bearing that in mind, I decided to use Standard English.
The girl in the photo with the blue scarf is dressed in an ordinary manner. She is wearing clothes in which anyone could wear. She has a white t-shirt on with what seems to be a heart on it, which a grey unzipped hoodie and a blue scarf. In college, you are bound to see many other people with the same dress sense and you will probably see someone wearing similar clothing. I feel that this depicts that students can wear what they want. Also, the student’s hair is not so neat. I did this deliberately to show that however you look, you can still join the college community and that people are not singled out because of the way they dress. It shows free-spirit and also shows that other students needn’t be conscious of the way they look.

Contents

This is my contents page. I didn't want to put photos it because I felt I would go against the typical conventions of a contents page.

Final front cover piece.

This is my final front cover piece. I feel that it looks better and can now appeal to more people both females and males. Making the colours and texts different from the other pieces of text on the front cover reminded me of how a real magazine would look. I looked at a real magazine front cover and tried to base my work around that.

My first draft for my front cover.

This was my first draft for my magazine front cover.
I used several texts and colours to try and catch the readers attention. I also thought that the fonts were too bright and distracting so I have decided that in the next one, I will make the colours more subtle and calm so that it is eye catchy but yet, not too distracting.

My photo for front cover.

This is image that I have decided to use for my front cover. I feel that it depicts a college environment and the girls look happy which also shows that they are comfortable with their surroundings.