Album Cover Inspiration

After analysing a few album covers, I decided on a theme that would inspire me as far as colour scheme, photo & font for my own album cover. I have narrowed my choice down to the photos in the slideshow below & I will be aiming to create an album cover very similar to these.

Album Cover Research

Location For Photoshoot

Behind-The-Scenes Video Inspiration

This video is my inspiration for the photoshoot of my magazine. It features my inspired artist, genre & the crossover feature of having a skateboarding rapper. I aim to shoot my photos in the same way as above in terms of the skatepark location, the clothing & the poses which feature the artist on his skateboard as well as posing with it.

Photoshoot Plan

Following my pitch, I have used an online comic maker called Pixton to create a comic based on my ideas for my magazine. The plan goes as follows:

1) Front Cover 
2) Contents Page
3) Double Page Spread 1
4) Double Page Spread 2
5) Album Cover

Target Audience Sample

After discussing my target audience in my pitch, I have made this Prezi.

Note: Please set autoplay to 20 seconds & wait for the Prezi to play.

Music Magazine Pitch

Market Research

Market Research

Note: The colours changed when uploading the powerpoint, the sentence on Slide 2 says 'to find out what my audience would expect/want to see in my magazine'.

Masthead Font Styles Part 2

Since my post yesterday, I've decided that I want the style of my magazine to be related to school as it will fit perfectly with my target audience. Yesterday, I was looking at typical graffiti Hip-Hop fonts, however, I felt that it would have a negative effect on the quality of my magazine & that It would look less realistic as the Hip-Hop magazines I looked at had bold fonts that stood out & were easy to read. After some thought, I decided to go back to Dafonts.com to look at American high school-type fonts.

Masthead Font Styles

To begin the process of choosing the font of the masthead for my magazine, I looked at Dafont.com as it has hundreds of fonts available to download for personal use. I looked at a wide range of different fonts which I thought stood out as typical Hip-Hop fonts. I am still undecided on which font I will use.

Inspiration: T.I. & Lil' Wayne - Wit' Me

This music video is the main inspiration for my music magazine, in terms of the costume and location. This is because the video is set in Miami and the clothing worn by the artists are popular skateboard brands 'Thrasher' & 'Trukfit', both of which will be part of my main costume choice. The costumes are made up of bright colours to attract the audience to them & add to the 'summer' feel, introduced during the opening scenes where the red sports car is racing under the bright blue sky.

Lookbook: Location

As my magazine's genre is hip-hop, I decided early on that the location will be a place associated with the music & the theme of the magazine. Several hip-hop artists have relocated to Miami, Florida due to the tropical climate, million dollar houses and the thriving nightlife the city is famous for. Because of this, I decided to use Miami as the backdrop for my magazine as I was fortunate enough to visit the city & take many photos that I can use for my magazine. I also chose Miami because one of the themes of my magazine is preparing for summer & I decided that the featured artist will be living in Miami & will talk about the city in his interview.

Lookbook: Costume

The main inspiration for my costume is the American hip-hop artist Lil' Wayne, due to his unique, iconic character & well-respected presence in the music industry. The photos above show how how he transitioned through the years from a hardcore, street gangster rapper into a skateboarder & music mogul. I will be using both these styles to create one of my own for the featured artist of my music magazine.

Mood Board For Music Magazine

Initial Ideas

Magazine Research - XXL

XXL

Magazine Research - The Source

 The Source

Magazine Research - We Love Pop

We Love Pop

Preliminary Task: School Magazine

For my preliminary task, I had to 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, I had to produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate tmy grasp of Photoshop.

I took several photos featuring a range of shots including medium close-up, two shot & over-the-shoulder and these can be seen in the gallery below.

Front Cover of School Magazine

 

For my front cover, I chose a medium close-up as this was required to complete the task. Another reason was because the short distance between the subject and the camera enable the viewer to see the student's facial expression of concentration. I also chose it because there was lots of empty space which made it easier to add text.

 

 Contents Page of School Magazine

 

For my contents page, I chose an over-the-shoulder shot as it shows the school library and a book which sets the scene, as well as the student being the main subject of the photo. This helps to construct an almost point-of-view from the student's perspective too.

Photoshop Work: Nature Magazine

On Tuesday, I had a Photoshop tutorial. I was taught how to use the layers to produce an image which has text as well as other images added on top. Today, I used the Horizontal Type tool to make my 'Nature Boy' title as well as my subtitles & I also used the inner & outer glow effects to make specific areas stand out to the reader. This was particulary effective as I offered a free pack of berries which can be seen in the background & I wanted the reader to be attracted to this freebie. I learned how to use the Free Transorfamtion tool to include a barcode from the internet to make my magazine cover look real.

Foundation Production

Preliminary Exercise

• 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 mock-up if the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.

Main Task

• Produce the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.

Note: All images and text must be original and produced by the candidate. Minimum of four images per candidate.

Welcome

Hello,

Welcome to my AS Media Studies Blog. To find work, please refer to the tabs above.

Thank You