Photoshopping

As you can see below this is the image im using for my front cover. I wanted to make my standout a bit more from the background. I did this by using the rectangular marquee tool and selecting around my model. I then cliked enhance> brightness/contrast and turning the contrast up and the brightness down a bit.

(Click to enlarge images)

Magazine Distribution - My decision

Upon looking at different publishers i have decided i would want IPC media to publish my magazine. IPC is a small UK based publishing company and i feel this would be better to start off with rather than Bauer who is large and across seas. IPC's main focus is magazines whereas Bauer also produce radio, television and online and i think to go for such a big company straight away would be a risk as it might not sell well. Also IPC does not produce a dance magazine so i think it could focus on my magazine more.

I looked at two other dance magazine publishers. However both of these were small company's with their dance magazine being their main focus. Development hell only produces two magazines monthly one of which is mixmag, the bestselling dance music magazine in the UK and so i feel they would be more interested in that magazine as they create it and its the bestseller.

DJ Mag Ltd would be a good company as the publishers also produce Music Industry Manual (MIM) which is the main contacts directory for the dance music industry and so they have good experience of this section of the market however DJ Magazine is their only magazine and again i feel they will be more focused on this.

Magazine Distribution - Part 2

In class we looked mainy at Bauer and IPC as you can see below. However although they both publish music magazines none of them published dance music magazines, so i thoguht ti would be a good idea to look at the publishers of the two main dance music magazines who i would be competing against, DJ Mag and Mixmag.

DJ magazine was published by future publishing alongside 11 puzzle titles. However future publishing announced the sale of these titles and so DJ magazine was snapped up by the publishers of Music Industry Manual Ltd (MIM), the main contacts directory for the dance music industry. James Robertson and Martin Carvell, the founders of MIM have formed a stand alone company DJ Mag Ltd, to publish the magazine. DJ Mag is aimed at dance music fans and professional DJs. The title recorded a year on year drop of sales by 6.4%. According to mediaweek.co.uk (http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/604568/Future-streamlines-sale-DJ-puzzle-titles/) James Robertson, who will be the magazines publisher has said he wanted to attract younger readers in the 15 to 30-year-old bracket and is planning more sponsorship of tours and club nights, as well as expanding its presence online at www.djmag.com. DJ Magazine is published fortnightly

Mixmag is published by a small publishing company called Development Hell.

http://www.developmenthell.co.uk/

Development hell is an independent media company based in Islington, London. They currently publish two monthly magazines, mixmag and The Word along with their websites.

They have just acquired DontStayIn.com, the worlds biggest clubbing social network and have provided consultancy for some of Britain’s biggest publishers such as Dennis, Future and IPC and were hired by Paul McCartney to produce the souvenir magazine for his 2002 World Tour.

Magazine Distribution

Today in class we discussed two different magazine publishers, IPC and Bauer and what magazines they produce.

IPC Media is one of the UK's leading consumer magazine publisher. Almost two in every three women read an IPC magazine and over 44% of men. Thats almost 26 million adults in the UK. IPC has 80 magazines. They have a print and digital portfolio. One of their digital propeties is NME.com, the third largest commercial music website in the UK. IPC also owns other magazines such as Marie Claire, LOOK, Now, Nuts, Loaded and world soccer. It focuses on five core markets - TV, women, men's lifestyle & entertainment, home & garden and leisure . Many of its magazines are well know household names.

IPC would be a good publisher to go with because it has only three music magazines, none of which are dance. This means my magazine would not be competing against many others.

Bauer is the largest privately owned publisher in europe, publishing in Germany, France, Spain, Portugl and of course the UK. Bauer is a worldwide publishing empire, publishing 282 magazines in 15 different countries with a staff number of 6,600 and an annual turnover of €1.79 billion. Over 26 million adults read a Bauer title, 11 million of which are women. Approximately 9 Bauer titles are sold every second in the UK. Bauer publications are in print, online on television and radio. Bauer own KissFm, MagicFm, FHM Magazine and in 1996 they acquired the music television channel, The Box.

Research - Pt 2

I felt i should look at some more magazines before continuing with my magazine. This time i decided to not look at just dance magazines. I'd looked art dance magazines before, this time i looked at NME - New Musical Express. Whilst this magazine is predominantly and indie/rock magazine it does stray into other areas, hence the title New Musical Express. Dance acts such as the prodigy have featured on their front cover so i knew it would would be a good magazine to look at. I liked what i saw and felt that the look of some of their front covers was the look of what i was going for. One or two small images on features within the magazine but it was mainly the main feature and that's i wanted my magazine cover to be. As you can see below i have inserted some images of NME:

I looked on google images and also the NME magazine website itself:

http://www.nme-magazine.com/

http://images.google.co.uk/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=nme+magazine+2009&sa=N&start=0&ndsp=21

Front Cover

I have finally decided upon which photo i am going to use for my front cover. It was a toss up between two different photos. The first one (pictured below) seemed a good picture to use. I thought it looked fun. However i didn't like the background. Behind my models right shoulder you can see a group of people who was walking towards us and the window fronts and advertisements that are typical of a Town centre. I dint like this, and i so i attempted to cut out the model and the car and use it against a coloured or patterned background. This proved more difficult than i thought it would of been. The cutting out was easy however as there are leads from the machine and the bottom corner is cut off it didn't look right once cut out. Also once against a plain background it looked very obviously cut and pasted. This made the front cover look unprofessional and too simple and boring for my liking. My whole vision for my front cover was the image to be bold and eye catching and i didn't feel this picture gave me that.

(click to enlarge image)

I felt out of all my images this was really the perfect one for my front cover. The other picture had a warmer feel to it but i realised that to make it bold and stand out a warm look wouldn't work. The happy look didn't work. It needed to look cold as this would give me more room to play with text and colours. I had already played around with this image before, using it to stick to my original idea for my layout. It was because i was trying to stick to this layout that at first this image didn't work. But i realised that my layout plan wasn't right and wouldn't give the effect i was looking for. Once id got rid of that layout plan out of my head i felt more creative and felt i could and have made a better front cover than originally planned. There are some faults with the image, such as in the right hand corner next to the steps you can see what i imagine is a plastic carrier bag on the gravel. At first i tried to correct this by doing some image replacement. I did this by using the rectangular marquee tool to select the gravel above it, i then copied the selection via a new layer. This gave me a piece of gravel to place over the top of the plastic bag. This did work well and it looked like it was naturally like that. However upon thinking about the image more i felt the gravel and the wall and the lights from the parking lot beside it introduced those warm tones into the picture again and this is what i didn't want. So i scrapped the idea of correcting the fault and just cropped the image so that it only included my model and the stairs. I am now very pleased with this. The stairs are silver/grey metal and my model is wearing a black jacket with dark jeans, so it really contrasted against the stairs and made him stand out more. This was the look i was going for. At first i wasn't sure as it was a cold evening he had to wear a jacket and i at first felt it didn't work very well. However upon thinking about it more i prefer it this way. You can see his neon green t-shirt poking through and i feel it gives the look that this bold and contrasting and cold looking but i feel the poking through of the green is still bringing that fun, dance element through. I also had to do some red eye correction on the model, but i shall go through this in more detail on my next post.

(click to enlarge)

Photoshoot - Review

Overall im happy with my photos. They all look really good and i have picked the ones i am going to use for my magazine. One problem i found was that the camera kept taking blurry pictures. I realised later that because as it was night time it was rather cold and cold temperatures can effect the quality of the pictures taken and the battery life. I also expreienced this, having to change the batteries 3 times! It was a good job that i went prepared with more batteries. Other than this it went well. As you can see below here are some of the images i did not use:

(Click image to enlarge)

These are four images im will not be using. This is because they are either blurry or too dark. If i was too do this again i tihnk it would be a good idea to take the camera manual along with me as it tells you what the best settings for which situation are.

Photoshoot

I am going to do my photo shoot for the main article of my magazine. I am going to use my friend who actually produces music. I felt this would be a good idea as he has just been signed to a record label and i feel it would give a real and truthful feel to it all. He also makes music on the dance side so it is perfect for my magazine. I have decided to do the shoot at night and in the town centre. This is because at night the town has some really good places with some good lighting effects, there will also be less people around, making the shots less messy.

I have told my model to wear bright clothes and we picked out a neon green t-shirt with jeans and black and neon green trainers, very dance feel colours. As it will be at night he will have to wear a jacket/coat in most shots but it will give a more street and real feel to it. I haven't really thought about particular locations where i definitely want to take pictures, i have a few ideas of where might be good spots and i think we will go there and take a few test shots to get a feel of it. I like the thought of roaming around trying to find a good location as i think a good location will really grab you.

Magazine Name

I have decided to call my magazine acid. It is a term that is well known to the dance culture, with many oldskool tracks sampling a vocal piece singing "aciiiiiiiiiiiiid". The smiley face which fronted the rave scene back in the early 90's was also know as the acid smiley face as acid house was a genre of music which this smiley represented. I sat down with a friend and discussed my name ideas with them. This helped because as i would tell them my idea they would use it in a sentence to see which name really clicked and had the better impact. My other name ideas included names such as: Bassline, SO(strictly oldskool), Strobe and Mix. In then end Acid felt best to me.

Magazine Plan

I have decided to make my magazine a dance magazine. I have chosen this genre as this i looked at a dance magazine in lesson and also dance music is my favourite so i think i will be able to produce a magazine that targets the audience as i know what other people will want to see.

Plan

On my front cover i plan to advertise at least 3 small stories with smaller images and one main image with a large image taking up most of the front cover.

I am going to use bold headings with bright colours, my front cover will also include a bar code, a date, a price and an issue number. The main picture should be bold and stand out.

For my contents i plan to use at least 3 pictures, one of which will be a picture of the "editor" alongside an editors note. I will use symbols next to the story's that are on the front cover to indicate this. the magazine itself should have a bright fresh look.

For the double page spread i plan to use at least four images, one of which will be a large image spreading over the two pages. It will have a bold heading with a paragraph or two of information about the artist and then a question and answer piece with the artist. The double page spread will also feature a CD plug of the artists album/EP.

For the magazine in general i MUST remember to use the same fonts throughout with the same styled headings to maintain a house style and make the magazine recognisable.

Magzine Plan

(Click to enlarge images)

As You Can see here is my drawn up plan for my magazine. I think this will work well. However i am aware that as i begin to create my product i may feel that the plan does not work quite as well and so i am prepared that my magazine may not end up looking like this.

Magazine research

As research for my magazine I've looked at mix mag, as it targets the same audience I'm looking to target, Clubbers in their late teens to early 20's and Dj's or people who are inters ted in how the music is made. All the covers are bright and stand out, i especially like the cover with moby and the "20 years of acid house" cover, as i think they really stand out and they give the effect that I'm hoping i can get my magazine to give. I have not yet decided on a name for my magazine but I'm going to read some dance magazines and use a term that is common to the audiences of theses type of magazines, such as "rave" for example.