Double Page Spread Analysis

Double Page Spread

I analysed three different double page spreads so that I have a range of different music magazines with different music artists featured in them, each suited to different genres. It is important that I carried out this activity before I started producing my magazine so that I can get a real interpretation of what real life music magazines are usually like and what features they typically hold. Also I am now able to understand what the differences are between different genres of music magazines, for example a rock genre magazine will usually publish photos of the band featured in the magazine looking disruptive or as if they are causing trouble in some way; like the first double page spread I analysed, rather than images of them posing or looking innocent; like the third double page spread I analysed. This can help me decide on what kind of genre I want my magazine to be and how I can highlight the genre and make it clear who it appeals to.

Contents Page Analysis - Monday 24th & Friday 28th

Contents Page Analysis
In Monday's and Friday's lesson I continued analysing aspects of magazines as I moved on to contents pages to find what the key features are that a magazine includes and how these are laid out in a contents. I researched this to gather information that I can use to make my own magazine, to ensure that mine matches real life music magazines, looking more believable and professional.

Friday 21st September

Last lesson me, Clare, Alfie and Amy took a different approach to analysis of front covers of music magazines and decided to make a video. This involved me filming the three of them verbally analysing several magazine front covers that we had printed off on A3 sheets as preparation. In the video, colours, fonts, images, mastheads etc. were discussed amongst our group.

This magazine front cover by NME has given me inspiration for what I might want my magazine to look like. The blend of colours and arty fonts make this cover stand out from many others and the image is bold and intense, which is what I'd like mine to look like.

Magazine Front Cover Analysis

Alfie, Clare, Amy and I chose to take a different and more interesting approach to our analysis of magazine front covers and that rather than typing up all our analysis' we would video ourselves discussing about front covers one by one.

Analysis of Magazine Front Covers - Friday 14th September

Last lesson I analysed some real magazine front covers from the past, of professional magazines that you would find in the shops. This helped me to create a more professional looking magazine by analysing exactly what details a real magazine contains so I can apply these to my own music magazine when it comes to creating it, and what distinguishes a good magazine from a bad one.

Name Ideas

In Monday's lesson, I began to come up with some ideas for my magazine's name, as you can see in my Name Ideas post below. I found this quite difficult as I didn't want to go with something too typical of music magazines as I wanted mine to be unique in some way. So in order to come up with some ideas I started a spider diagram of ideas, with 'Music' in the middle and everything that I associate with it around the centre. From this, the first idea I wanted to stick with was 'Boombox', but I later decided against this when I came up with 'Jam', as I preferred a shorter name to a longer one. After much thought, I decided on 'Z magazine' after looking at previous existing magazines such as Q. I believe a one-letter magazine name is effective and memorable.

Monday, 10th September - Preliminary Task

My Front Cover and Contents Page - Preliminary Task

This is my completed preliminary task magazine. Although it is rushed, I am somewhat happy with it, although I feel my work will be at a much higher level when we move on to our actual magazines, as I can spend more time taking photos suitable for my magazine, and adding many more features to my contents page. I also look forward to spending more time on designing and planning the music magazine so I can spend time on minor details which I get picky about.

Friday 7th September

Today, in lesson I was challenged to create a magazine front cover and contents page in just two lessons, in order to compare this in the future with our music magazine that we will produce. The whole point of the comparison is to see the difference between when a piece of work is unplanned and rushed, and when I have the time to plan and improve, how much better it could be. As a group we only had around half an hour to shoot some photos for our magazines in groups, so me, Alfie, Clare and Amy chose to borrow props and outfits from the drama department to make our photo shoot a little more interesting. After taking a load of photos in silly outfits we realised we had no suitable stories to match them for a school magazine, and so we had to rapidly think on the spot of headlines we could put on our front pages. I found this difficult as when I planned my film magazine at GCSE it took me a long time to think of and decide on headlines and stories to feature, and I of course plan to do the same with my A-level music magazine. I also found it challenging to have to just get on with making it rather than thinking about every little detail, because I’m incredibly picky with size, colour, and placing of things on Photoshop. I got as far as almost finishing my front cover by the end of the lesson, to be finished off next lesson.