Contents page research into vibe magazine (research)

Class work Photo review ( Drafting and Planning)

• Deserted warehouse                            

  • Buisness/ Professional characters           

• Mysterious setting amongst audience , die to low-key lighting/ dark lighting          

• Man at the front on your right is the main character ; man next to him on the second left is this partner in crime           

 • Man at the back has authority and may be the leader leaving the dirty work to the two younger men                                      

 • Females positions shows she has a role , her costume and expressions suggests shes may not be playing the innocent female role                                              

  •  Low-angle shot suggests they're all a powerful team     

This class work has influenced me on deciding how  photos could be taken of my artists, and how  they can be visually represented.

 

Friday Project (Drafting & Planning)

                                                               
My Friday project included a Cover page and contents page of artist Nas. It is Based on the two articles on the release of one his great albums(I AM NAS).


  Front Cover

This is why the main cover-line is titled "Nas paints a new album", musicians are regarded as artists.I have edited is album artwork into a paintbrush layout because this makes it look like it was actually painted and links to the edit to the main cover-line


Contents page 

The Contents Page has a heading "I am Nas" which is the artist's album title, it is written in a gold colour to represent power; which is why Nas went for the pharoah/Gold in is album artwork.                
 If i could i would change Nas to a more appropriate colour other than Greyscale; maybe Gold.

Rap City magazine cover draft (Drafting and Planning)

Here a preview of my magazine cover page. I definitely want to keep the blueish theme which links the masthead with the background colour; Besides i wanted my magazine to attract a male audience and the blue theme makes that possible. Part of attracting consumers to a magazine is teasing them with both catchy and jaw dropping articles and also letting certain articles stand out in colour or font; i did all of this. An example is "5amtez lets in on 5 LITTLE secrets" notice how a s for Samtez is replaced by a 5 to link to the 5 little secrets; also "little" is in caps to make you dealt whether the secrets are really little and uninteresting div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">

Magazine Questionnaire Analysis (Target Audience)

Magazine Questionnaire(Research into target audience)

Here is a questionnaire on music magazines.I will review the results and tell you what they mean

Featured Artists (Drafting and Planning)

Below is an example of Different types of artist featured in my magazine and their styles; including catchphrases which most Hip-hop Artists have. I do a post which goes into more detail of a particular artist

My Masthead (Drafting, Planning and Organisation)

This is one of two ideas I want my masthead to look like, firstly I added a graffiti type of font , one many choices as you can see probably from a previous post of below:

I then proceeded with the following font because it links mostly to my genre of music and its background. Graffiti is highly influenced by Hip-Hop and come from the same family. I wanted to go one further however so I added a spray-can and city theme to my masthead, I did this on paint.net, then placed it on Word giving it the ‘cut out’ artistic affect and now I’m deciding on what colour goes best ;preferably blue.Below also includes the masthead before and after including city art to.

 Adding these affects link the name and theme of my magazine

Featured Artists (Drafting & Planning)

Name : Maxwell  Samtez a.k.a Marst Samtez
Album : Totally Authoritative II (Second Album)
From: San Diego,California
Samtez will suit my magazine contents in style and features, his dress style will pretty casual; not flashy like  some Hip-Hop artists


Name: Ashley Young A.K.A Yung'a'h
Album : Rudeboy Ting
catchphrase: Yeah!YeahYeah
From: Birmingham UK
Ashley is your more hyper sort of artist, his style will be more sophisticated.

Group: Sendemto ("Send them two")
Album : Sendemto (first album)
catchphrase: Holla
from: Chicago,IL
Young Hip-Hop rap group your typical Hip-Hop group in dress sense and style

Name: Damio Williams (DJ Prophet)
Mixtape: Damio Chapter 1
Catchphrase: Thats Bad
from: Atlanta,GA

DJ's are common in Hip-Hop they don't really publish albums but makes for some, they'll probably make mixtapes (underground album) full of beats for fans to enjoy freely.

Name: Justin Freeman
Album: Just-in Time
Catchphrase: Wooom!
From: London UK

Justin Freeman will be a singer which are fairly common in Hip-Hop and links it with its partner category R'n'B , Sharply and Smartly Dressed Artist and always keeps his style at 100%.

These fictional Artists are from influence from real life artists/DJ (Disc Jockey) like Justin Timberlake,Charlie Sloth, Fekky, Squeeks etc. All music artists in general have their own different styles and never exactly the same even though their are some stereotypical ways of categorizing some artists, still it was necessary for me to experiment different styles by creating to different Hip-Hop characters.

Contents page plan (Drafting & Planning)

Potential Magazine mastheads (Drafting and Planning)

Here is a few samples of what i would like my masthead for my magazine (Rap City) to contain. I have generally gone for a graffiti font for my samples because graffiti and rap are cousins. In other words they influence one another and was part of the birth of Hip-Hop as i state this in my "Birth Of Hip-Hop post. I want to add a city theme as part of my masthead to link with its title

My XXL Magazine Edit (Drafting and Planning)

Here is an magazine cover i have put togather, xxl is an original magazine. I have tried to keep within the formatting that XXL use in many ways including sticking to the Masthead and Coverlines Colours

A short Magazine cover page review (Research)

Whitley Castle Photo 2 (Organisation)

Birth of Hip-Hop 9(Research)

Hip-Hops birth started in South Bronx New York, DJs (Disc Jockeys) would plug their sound systems into street lamps and party both on the streets and parks.This was mainly an African-American and Hispanic thing and occurred mainly in the summer , Once the music started playing; which would be in the early afternoons, crowds will gradually increase too Hundreds/Thousands. In the winter times the party would be indoors at junior high schools or community centers and from then on became a big movement.

DJ Kool Herc is considered the father of hip-hop ,originally born in Jamaica he emigrated with family members to Bronx, New York as a 12 year old and regularly played music mixing one genre with another usually using hard funk, rock, and records with Latin percussion, which formed the basis of hip hop music . While growing up in Jamaica, he was inspired from the sound systems of neighborhood parties called dancehalls, and the accompanying speech of their DJ's, known as toasting.

Kevin Donovan better known as Afrika Bambaataa had a major role in the early development of Hip-Hop this was by releasing a lot of popular electro tracks in its early days this then went on to be accompanied by looping and rapping, Hip-hop became a big movement in urban and suburban communities.

Tony Tone, a member of the Cold Crush Brothers, noted that "hip hop saved a lot of lives". Hip hop culture became a way of dealing with the hardships of life as minorities within America, and an outlet to deal with violence and gang culture.MC Kid Lucky mentions that "people used to break-dance against each other instead of fighting".

Cultures involved in Hip-Hop include: Beat-boxing( a vocal percussion),                                                       Break-dancing(acrobatic dancing), Rapping(rhyming a sentence in a unique flow), Disc Jockeying(creating/mixing beats)and also Graffiti (artistic expressions).

Hip-hop then had major record labels that promote its signed artists on to the market with music videos and albums; Modern Major Hip-Hop labels include Def Jam Recordings ,Bad-Boy, Cash Money Records and Interscope.Records.Influencial figures include: DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Master Flash, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, P-Diddy, Dr Dre, Snoop-Dogg, Shug Knight, Birdman, Jay-Z and Eminem to name a few.                                                                                                                                         There were also popular groups over years including Public Enemy, N.W.A, Maybach Music, G-Unit, Wu-Tang-Klan and The furious 5.

DJ Kool Herc (Left)Afrika Bambaataa (right)

Self Assessment On Code & Conventions Edit

I have justified my decisions on my on my blog,i believe my decisions are understandable as well,however there is always room for improvement and i could have added more detail on to why i made certain decisions. For example a heading says "Buck gone Wild!" which is like a pun because Buck Wild alone is someone going absolutely crazy, whereas this man name is Buck and he has gone wild;i didn't make this clear. I could have also added more reasoningas to why i choose a certain colour, certain font and certain topic . I may have done a few points as to why i choose a certain element but i need to add a few more points. In future assessments i will add more detail in my descriptions but i do believe my annotations are generally good , i just need justify my reasoning more.

Whitley Castle Photo 1 (Organisation)

Questionnaire Analysis (Target Audience)

Don't watch me, watch SBTV ( Research)

SBTV is a music broadcasting site started by Jamal Edwards as a teenager, simply by recording videos of locals. The small known channel grew and grew and still growing even with over 100m youtube channel views. SBTV even has exculsive videos of mainstream artist worldwide. The channel has mixture of Rap and Soul music you can find rap on its F64 link and soul on its A64 link but; Don't watch me watch SBTV(smokey barz television) , www.sbtv.co.uk/

Code & Conventions Edit 3 (Drafting and Planning)

My Third code and convention edit involved an artist named Bjork. Her pose; covering the bottom half of her face. Little fraction of her hair covering a small percentage of her face,combined with the low-key lighting made Bjork look some what mysterious but also shy which makes her look sweet/innocence. The simple main heading i put adds to the mystery but in a halo like shape,adds to the sweet/innonent nature i'm trying to give the artist. This is persuasive Typography because how can she be both mysterious and sweet? + the red and black colouring makes the magazine look as if it disagrees with the sweet part. You can find out inside, the answer you want to know and with the bold and bright 99p sign this brags that the magazine is not expensive so it is easy to find out about why she is mysterious but sweet looking. "Suscipous interview with MTV award winner" is what the magazine quotes in in a cover line, plain and basic quote but it relates to the characters picture and doesn't give away too much like an exclusive quote in the interview so alot of things are mysterious. The footer includes "Buck gone wild!" there is no attached name to who Buck is , (maybe he/she is a household name?) and "MTV awards review". The magazine is selfish in that it puts " Buck gone wild!" in the same colouring as the main headline with only the exclamation mark in yellow and the red footer it is inside doesn't help. But then the magazine is not the glamourous type , thats why i've done this. It does help Bjork though its like the magazine is spoiling her or it is a Bjork special.

Magazine Code and Coventions Edit 2 (Drafting and Planning)

For my second Code and Convention edit i had too name and Categorise this music band that i don't recognise. I decided to put them in the Indie catergory and name them IndiliO in a strange font you don't associate with music but after all the main heading is "Selfmade", so they don't stick to what others will do which relates them to the font, however you could look at it in another way because Indie-Rock bands have this thing for not changing to suit popular trends. The Footer Header on the bottom of page includes exclusive content inside the magazine , i put it at the bottom to make the main heading and cover stars feel more special than they really are , adding a footer header can be persuasive in a mysterious way, like it is kind of hiding something , as for IndiliO its making the magazine look like a special edition dedicating everything to them. The Magazines Masthead almost says Mindilio which adds to the dedication I decided to put the band in the indie catergory because of their unique style. All black and shades from one and the female in a colourful dress , being complete opposite to her all back male colleges. Most of the colours from the magazine link to main cover line however Harry Noble( made up artist)is in complete different font and colour this makes him have his part in being specially treated by the magazine because his topic stands out. "Whats a hipster?" in an arrow pointing to the edge of magazine teases those who don't have a clue, the magazine is telling you that you can learn something from it by opening up and purchasing. The price is in a small font in the bottom right of the page the colour matches the barcode , its not important to brag a price unless its on special offer and it distracts with the issue number so you don't get to distracted by the price.

Magazine Codes and Conventions Edit 1 (Drafting and Planning)

This was orginally a Plain Magazine of just Drake as the Main cover star. I have edited it, adding codes and conventions including the main headings linked to main cover star quoting "Music is my sister". Not only does it stand out as main heading but the quote is interesting and should make viewers want to read into why he says this. I have placed the heading next to his shoulder this shows the magazines respect to Drake espically as he covers the Magazines very own Masthead , but then i've put content over Drake however this is in corner areas that don't interest viewers + it won't stand out overwise and readers should have moved on from Drake when they read the other coverlines I have also added exclusive content featured inside, with teasing coverlines to make the reader want to read into the magazine even more , also with small images that visually tell you that they are featured. They are big enough artists to be noticed with a picture and Snoop Lions Artical links tremendously to his coverline heading. Another Heading i've added stands out in a bubble , i've decided to add this because all content being in the same colour and font gets boring and stands out less. Some of the font i have chosen to keep red , this keeps things traditional because the Masthead is red which would likely be apart of the magazines image

Vibes Typography (Research)

Here is my review of some typography from Vibes magazine featuring Christina Aguilera has their cover star. As you can see there are 6 similar prints of the magazine cover, the difference is the font. I put in order (1 being the best)which font is best suited to the typography. I've explained why i have choosen 1 as the best and why i've choose 6 as the worst with captions attached to the print.

Paint.Net Sample (Organisation)

This Picture is a quick sample in practice of using Paint.Net. 

Paint.Net can be complicated at first but once you get used to it , its amazing. 

It required layers so although the NME masthead and Trent Reznor are on the same page it was bought on two different layers at first to create whole page, if you try Paint.Net you will understand more of what i mean.

Magazine Front Cover Components (Research)

I have labelled all components of a magazine front cover featuring 50Cent on the cover of XXL (the Hip-Hop magazine). I choose to label this magazine because i want my own Magazine that i start to make , to be on Hip-Hop. 50Cent is big figure in not just Hip-Hop alone.

School Magazine sample (Drafting and planning)

School Magazine My idea for my school magazine is to have a bold red and black masthead these colours are associated with the school uniform and crest. I will have a few cover lines make consumers want to read into the magazine rather on look on the outside. I will also have Cover star credit.

Rap City(Drafting&planning)

My Music Genre magazine name will be called Rap City. I want the Masthead look city themed; linking it to its name. How I do this? I’m not sure yet but I will figure something out I wanted a city themed background as well as masthead, not does this also link to the name but you rarely get countryside rappers; Hip-Hop Rap comes from the inner city.

Got The Vibe (research)

I have choose the vibe containing rapper T.I on the front cover with a overly wide smile, with a sub-heading saying "T.I has the last laugh" . This makes me and other readers think "Last laugh over what?". The positive mood on the front cover containing a smile, a sub-heading and a bright background is also key as it may change your mood into a positive one aswell,and want to read more;does it?

Picture cropping ( drafting and planning)

Thanks for viewing my blogspot. I've uploaded this picture which i have practised my cropping and masthead , this is in preparation for my magazine that i will soon start work on

History in the making!

Mr Foster has finally landed on blogger! Happy? i be will be giving updates on my AS Media progress. To be continued.....