Paramore 'Rock Sound' Cover Analysis

First Cover

Second Cover

Here are two covers from the magazine ‘Rock Sound’. They are both of the band Paramore. Both of the images used are very similar in composition as the lead, Hayley Williams, is positioned in the middle with the rest of the band surrounding her. The colours used are very different one has very bright and vibrant colours, which creates a fun, hyper, pop-punk mood to the cover. However the colours in the second cover are more neutral and this is also reflects in the more sedate cover image.

The layout of both magazines is very similar because the masthead it situated at the top of the page and the image is situated along the intersection of the top and middle thirds. The faces of all the band members, in the first cover, are roughly in one section and on the second cover their eyes are all along the same line.

When using a picture of a band, magazines are more likely to use this layout because if they were to try and put all the cover lines down one side the cover will look very one sided so they tend to put all the cover lines toward the bottom of the cover, which is shown in both of the covers above. Although both of the covers above have placed the main cover line around the middle: with the faces of the band.  This helps draw attention to the cover line because the eyes are drawn to the middle third of the magazine cover. And by placing the eyelevel of the band depicted along the top line of the section the attention of the reader is draw to that first.

The first of the two magazine covers is cluttered with a lot of smaller images and cover lines, which also helps suggest the busy/ hyper feeling that the cover has. However it detracts the attention from the main image. The second cover is plainer and the typeface used is generally smaller than that of the first, which reflects the reserved feel of the cover. Although the colour used for the text is more vibrant which contrast with the general feeling of the cover which helps draw the reader’s attention to read the magazine. Also the only other image on the second is the logo of the Reading and Leeds festivals. This focuses the attention on the main image.

Reflection on front cover and contents page

After completing the preliminary task i found it to be quite successful.
I feel that i have followed the points featured in my proposal well however the colour scheme i wanted to use on the contents doesn't correspond to the colour scheme i actually used. However i the colours i used work better than the colours i stated in the proposal because they are brighter therefore drawing the reader in.
Also the images used on the contents page are linked because the feature different parts of the college (the library and the college shop) but they aren't very clear where they are. If i was to re-do the contents page i would probably make the photos clearer.


After taking my photos i imported them into photoshop. By doing this i was able to edit the brightness, contrast and saturation. i did this because the colours in the photos were all a bit dull but by turning up the saturation they became more vibrant.
i was also able to turn the saturation of the background photo on my contents page. this made the photo almost black and white, enabling me to put text over the top.

Next i imported the photo i wanted to use for the front cover into Illustrator. I did this because i wanted to create a masthead that had a gradient and after mucking around with the indesign software i found the easiest way to do this was to create the individual letters in illustrator and colour them differently to each other. After i did this i found that the letters needed a border to make them bold enough to read so i increased the stroke size until i could read the text.


The last step was to arrange everything in Indesign. i found Indesign very easy to use and it was also really easy to create guidelines which helped me arrange my cover in a way that was similar to other magazines. Also i found it easy when creating objects because you can click on the object and use it as a text box which means the text will be at the same angle at the object. this was really helpful at times but it was also a hinderance when you wanted the text going the opposite way. i combatted this issue by just creating a text box over the top of the object and angling it a different way.

Final Cover and Contents page

Front Cover

Contents page

Illustrator

After selecting and editing my photo i imported it into Illustrator and inserted a Masthead.
i chose illustrator to do this because you can separate each letter from each other and move them around as individual objects. you can also edit the colour and style of each individual letter.
This is how it looked after i had done this...

Photos for Student mag cover

We were let out of class to take photos ready to edit and use of our student mag covers.

Here is the photo i chose to use and also the edited version, the rest can be found on my Flikr account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/56455014@N03/
To edit my images i imported them to Photoshop. in which i adjusted the brightness, contrast and saturation of the images. 

Proposal for student magazine

After learning the basics of how to construct a successful magazine cover we then wrote a proposal describing how we wanted our student magazine cover to look.
This is my proposal...

I am aiming my magazine to new students to the college (eg first years or transferring students from other colleges or sixth forms). This is because my magazine will be a guide to Southdowns College showing new places to go during your time there.

Ideas for cover lines- College food guide, fancy a coffee, where do you go?

College clothing you can live without, 10 essential items of clothing.

Need a laptop? Laptop buying guide.

Title ideas- College Life: as a first idea for the title of my college magazine I thought It was pretty generic so I started experimenting with alliteration and decided that “Surviving Southdowns, the beginners guide” is more catchy and would draw people in to my magazine.

Surviving Southdowns – here I have tried the typeface ‘Block Stencil’ although It works well as a striking typeface it isn’t very ledgeable.

Surviving Southdowns – going along he military theme I have tried ‘impact’ this typeface works very well as it is ledgeable and also striking.

The tagline that accompanies the title to my magazine is ‘the beginners guide’. I have chosen this as it links with my target audience.

I hope to use an image of 1 or 2 students positioned in a mid-shot. I will get a couple of my fellow students to pose for this image.

This magazine will be published yearly at the beginning of the autumn term. It will also be in the format of A5. I have chosen to do this because it will then look more like a student handbook. It will also be easier to carry around as some students choose to have a small bag and store most things in their locker.

The contents page will use a similar colour scheme to the college of blue/green/white. I will use images linking to the main articles in the magazine. Also it will feature images of places in and around college.

Analysis of Lady Gaga's 'Vanity Fair' cover and The game's 'The Source' cover

For this task we analysed 2 magazine covers. We looked at the use of: the Rule of Thirds, Lines and Angles and also Focal points.

Rule of Thirds- The Vanity Fair cover clearly uses the rule of thirds as Lady gaga is clearly placed along the right intersection of the image.

Lines and Angles- the cover lines are cleverly placed along the lines of her body which draws you to them. Also her arms are both angled toward her face, which draws your attention to it.

Focal points- the main focal point of this image is her face/hair as they contrast to the background.

Rule of Thirds- the image is placed in the centre third of the page with his eyes and jaw line along the horizontal lines. This draws your attention to these points

Lines and Angles- the photograph has been taken on a level with the main subject. Also the gun is pointing up which makes your eyes scan up and down along that line because it is level with his facial features.

Focal points- the main focal point is the game’s face.

By doing this we learned about how the the rule of third is used to draw attention to the magazine. we also leaned how by taking the photo from a certain angle (high angle/low angle) creates a certain feel to the cover.

IPC case study

We then researched into a company called IPC.

Pinpointing exactly how far IPC's roots stretch back into the midst of  publishing history is a complicated business. The International Publishing Corporation Ltd was formed in 1963 following the merger of the UK's three leading magazine publishers – George Newnes, Odhams Press and Fleetway Publications – who came together with the Mirror Group to form the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). And IPC Magazines was created five years later, in 1968. But those three original magazine businesses each had their own illustrious history, having been established in 1881, 1890 and 1880 respectively, with a number of the titles they launched in the late 19th Century still being published today under the IPC umbrella. And when The Field, launched in 1853, joined the IPC stable in 1994 following the acquisition of Harmsworth Magazines, it saw our family tree reach back even further.

IPC Media produces over 85 iconic media brands, with their print brands alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men – almost 27 million UK adults – while their online brands collectively reach 20 million users every month.

Their print brands include: NME, Look, Women and Home, Country Life, TVTimes, Marie Claire and Nuts.

Over the years IPC has also gained titles from rivalin publishing groups such as: Ideal Homes and Women’s Own.

Their current portfolio of titles are : 

25 Beautiful Homes, Amateur Gardening, Amateur Photographer, Angler's Mail, Beautiful Kitchens, Caravan, Chat, Chat - It's Fate, Chat Passion, Classic Boat, Country Homes & Interiors, Country Life, Cycle Sport, Cycling Active, Cycling Weekly, Decanter, essentials, European Boatbuilder, Eventing, Golf Monthly, goodtoknow, goodtoknow Recipes, Hair, Hi-Fi News, Homes & Gardens, Horse, Horse & Hound, Housetohome, IBI, Ideal Home, InStyle, Livingetc, Loaded, Look, Marie Claire, Motor Boat & Yachting, Motor, Boats Monthly, Motor Caravan, Mountain Bike Rider (MBR), Mousebreaker, NME, Now, Nuts, Pick Me Up, Practical Boat Owner, Prediction, Racecar Engineering, Rugby World, Shooting Times & Country Magazine, Shootinguk, Soaplife, Sporting Gun, SuperBike Magazine, Superyacht Business, SuperYacht World, The Field, The Railway Magazine, The Shooting Gazette, TrustedReviews, TV & Satellite Week, TV easy, TVTimes, Uncut, VolksWorld, Wallpaper*, Wedding, Wedding Flowers, What Digital Camera, What's on TV, Woman, woman&home, Woman’s Own, Woman’s Weekly, World Soccer, Yachting Monthly, Yachting World and YBW.com

IPC has been associated with various target audiences and types of magazine over the years. They have been associated to magazine types such as Men’s lifestyle, sport, teenage and women’s weeklies. And by having their name associated with various different types of magazines they have also been associated with various different audiences.

  

IPC would be an appropriate publisher for a new music magazine because they only have 2 magazines already associated to them, NME and uncut, therefore would be open to publishing another.

These magazines are of the ‘indie’ genre however they are both targeting different audiences. Therefore they may be open to publishing a music magazine with a different music genre (eg Metal, Dance, R’n’B). They also might be open to publishing a magazine targeting a wider audence.

Bauer Publishing may also be appropriate for publishing a new music magazine because they also have a very specific magazine demographic when it comes to music magazines, as they are labelled ‘Men’s Entertainment’. So they may be interested in publishing a magazine targeted at women.

We did this to broaden our understanding of publishing companies.

The Basics

As one of the first pieces of work we did in class, we chose a magazine cover and deconstructed it for specific features that are included when making a magazine cover.
We also analysed the colours, language and typefaces used on the cover.
We did this to gain a basic understanding of how and why things are layed out the way they are, and what they mean.