Evaluation Activity 1 Draft

Evaluation Activity 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of music magazines)

In the creation of my magazine, i have been highly influenced by the layout and overall look of magazines from the 80s. Some really caught my eye, such as Smash Hits, The Face and SPIN magazines. They all have similar style to what i wanted to achieve in the making of my own issue and so i have taken a lot of inspiration from those. I have also taken a lot of inspiration from far more modern, indie magazines, such as BEAT and CLASH, who both have a very sleek, minimalistic style, that i wanted to adopt for my pages.

The masthead of my magazine is highly inspired by the masthead of BEAT magazine, where the word ’BEAT’ half overlaps onto the front cover image and is half on the border. I loved this as i thought it looked really unique and stood out to me. So, i took this idea and adapted it slightly to fit my magazine. As my aim was to make my front cover appear 80s themed, i decided to put borders on it, as this was a recurring theme with a lot of music magazines back then, especially on Smash Hits magazines. Because i took this approach to making my cover it meant i had the title sit in the middle of two of my borders rather than a picture and border like BEAT but i really like the result. I think it looks really cool and unique and would personally catch my eye if i was to see it on shop shelves. I used the font [font] for the masthead as i thought it looked really nice when big as a title and it’s very bold. I also think it has an older look about it, which i really wanted for my 80s themed magazine. I followed the go-to look of most indie/alternative magazines of today with the big, dominating masthead as i felt it was the most effective when it comes to catching the consumer's eye. I was originally going to go for a black masthead as i thought it would stand out more and go with my theme. However, i found that actually white stood out a lot better as a lot of the other colours used on my cover are quite dark and so the contrast is really nice. Although, making the masthead white didn’t look quite right at first as there was no other white on the page. So i added a white border to my image on the front which i found actually helped the image to stand out too. My magazine name is ‘virtuoso’, which can  a person highly skilled in music. I thought it sounds really nice and looks good too. Plus it obviously links with the whole music theme of my magazine.

The whole layout of my magazine is quite minimalistic in the sense that i use the same 4-5 fonts throughout and everything is in boxes. I liked this as it means my pages appear neat and organised rather than cluttered. On my front over, i decided to place my image in a box with a border also. I got this idea from several 80s magazines i looked at, like Smash Hits magazine. They often would have a couple of coloured boxes surrounding their front cover image and so i tried to incorporate this into my own. For my contents page i was very much inspired by other contents pages from more modern indie magazines such as CLASH and the whole layout of theirs. I really liked how simplistic they look and how everything is very clear so readers can easily navigate themselves around the magazine to the pages they want to read. I also looked at Mojo contents pages and i really liked the continuous theme of their where they have the picture of the big featured artist, the big title and then the ‘features’ and ‘cover story’ sections every time. If you look at my draft contents page you can see i attempted to recreate this look myself but unfortunately i wasn’t madly keen on it and so i adopted a very different look instead. I went for a layout where i have a big image of my big featured artist on the top of the page with a big title saying ‘contents’ and then put all of the page information in columns below. I felt this was a very clear layout and is something i would want to see as a reader because the big image of the artist suggests that there is a big section on them and i can read below and be easily navigated to this section. On my double page spread i knew i wanted to split it into two halves. I also knew i wanted to include lots of photos as i really enjoy photography. I originally looked at a NME article on James Bay and was fascinated by the layout of that. i was highly inspired by that article as a whole actually. I took tons of photos of my model Finlay Quinlan for my magazine and decided to make a collage of them on the right of my double page spread because i liked so many of them.

My magazine may be 80s themed but it also features new, upcoming bands and artists who are inspired by that time period rather as well as the big alternative bands and artists from back then. This applies to my front cover artist, who i made up called ‘Mickey Who’. He was very much inspired by a real life upcoming artist whose fashion choices are very much influenced by 80s fashion. This is Declan Mckenna (on the right) and he is pretty much exactly how i imagine my artist, Mickey Who, to be like. For the costume in both of the two shoots i did i dressed my model in the same outfit consisting of an oversized, 80s shirt with black trousers and doc marten shoes. I did this because i wanted it to look as though ‘Virtuoso’ magazine had got ‘Mickey Who’ to take photos in two different locations in one day. I tried to style Finlay’s hair in a style to Declan Mckenna’s and so we swept it to the side and ruffled it up a bit to give it a more rebellious look. For props, my article was about vinyl and which records are my artist's favourite and so i decided to include real vinyl and a record player in my shoot. I used my red and black, crosley record player and several different 80s-90s records and a couple of CDs and got Finlay to pose with the in lots of different, casual positions.

When framing my images i took a lot of inspiration from an NME shoot done with James Bay. my whole article was highly influenced by that interview and so when taking my photos i made sure i kept their work in mind. I angled the camera at an equal level to my artist as i wanted the whole shoot to seem very casual; have a friendly feel to it, as if they were candid shots. I also decided to do the photos for the double page spread and contents page in a very casual environment, rather than studio. To achieve this feel and so i chose my bedroom. I have a brick wall and wooden floor and felt this went really nicely it the 'indie 80s' theme i had researched for all my coursework. I feel as though the brown colours of the brick wall and wooden floor really add warmth and comfort to the photos. I didn't really like the look of the artificial studio lights much for the article photos but i thought it would work well with the front cover image as there was already quite a lot going on with all of the borders i used and the big masthead. I wanted an image that would stand out but wouldn't clash or look too busy and so the white studio background worked nicely. I turned a couple of my light boxes off to create a more grey look to go with the colour scheme too. For the at home photos, i pulled my window blind to the top to let all of the natural light into my room. We took the photos at sunset too and so the lighting was really warm and shadowy, which is exactly what i wanted.

My chosen genre was alternative, however, more so alternative music from the 80s - a lot of indie-rock. I based my magazine around bands such as The Stone Roses, The Cure and The Jesus and Mary Chain. I tried to make this evident but placing some artists, that would be featured throughout, at the bottom of the page. I also conveyed my theme through my artist's, (Mickey Who) style. I instructed my model Finlay to wear an oversized 80s, looking shirt, rolled up trousers and doc martens to create that indie retro look. He is represented as an alternative singer through this style but also, they way he is posed. I positioned him in a way wear you can you can see his indie, quirky style through the way he is standing and looking to the side with a shy yet cheeky smile. I feel as though this gave a nice first impression of my artist and is an insight into the fun, alternative, solo artist i wanted to portray him as.

For my colour scheme i decided to choose black, white, red and greys. Black, white and red are the classic go-to colours when it comes to creating a magazine as they stand out so well. originally, i wanted to stray away from the usual and was going to go for a forest green, peach and grey colour scheme, which was very cool but quirky. I liked it but felt that it didn't really stand out too well and the colours didn't complement my model's hair colour too well. So, i tried some other options and found red, black and white is popular for a good reason and would be my best bet. I also tried using some grey to switch it up a bit and to tie in my artist's outfit and overall I'm really happy with how it turned out.