Pop Music Magazine Deconstruction

Here is a Glogster post which shows the deconstruction of a 'Top of the Pops' music magazine. I have talked about how the different features of a magazine have an effect on the reader and how they all work together to make it eye-catching. I talked the different fonts used, the range of colours, the angle of gaze, the effect of the masthead, the model on the front cover and what she wears and lastly, how puff words and cover lines attract readers.

Typography Visual Moodboard

Here is a mood board of all the types of mastheads used in a variety of music magazines. The conventions which I was able to visualise were that three basic colours, black, red and white, have been used consistently. I also saw that mastheads linked with rock music were plain black and the serif in these mastheads were exaggerated a lot. Whereas, the mastheads for pop magazines were far more eye-catching, although serif was not exaggerated. Many of these fonts have been manipulated for example most of the mastheads related to the pop genre are big in size and kind of imitate a bubble or the image of a bubble 'popping'. They are also full of colour to catch the target audiences' attention. However, mastheads linked to the genres of R&B, Indie e.t.c are usually a plain colour like black and are bold. Most rock music magazines on the other hand, have shadows behind them and are usually bold and underlined. The mastheads linked to rock or heavy metal music have the serif exaggerated in most places whereas other fonts don't. This way I was able to see the conventions and I can use these in my own magazine. I could look at more pop music magazine mastheads to give me an idea of what kind of masthead I will need to construct to attract my audience.

Research Rationale

Here is a prezi outlining my chosen genre and the types of research methods I will conduct to get both qualitative and quantitative data. In this prezi, I have outlined my target audience, the steps of how I will conduct my research and the resources I will need to carry out this research.

Intro to Production Brief and Initial Ideas

I have been set a brief which is to create the front cover, contents page and double page spread of a music magazine. When I was first set this brief, I had many ideas going through my mind because I wasn't sure what genre my music magazine would be based upon. I do feel a little confident towards this brief as I have had experience with Photoshop during my preliminary task which was to create the front cover and contents page of a college magazine. However, I do feel quite nervous because my deadline is quite short and I will need to work hard to achieve the target. In the past, I enjoyed blogging about everything I did but I don't think I did enough of it and now I will need to change this as I will need to blog about every other change I make to my music magazine. Also, I don't read many music magazines so I am not quite familiar with the conventions of a specific music magazine. I have decided to make a Pop music magazine as that is the genre of music I usually listen to on a daily basis. I also like listening to R&B and Hip-Hop but I will stick to Pop because I am most familiar with this. I would've liked to challenge myself and create something new but I don't have much time and I am most comfortable with the Pop genre. I may need to spend my free time testing the other features on Photoshop and getting used to them so that when I come to the actual production work, I won't be confused and this way, time won't be wasted. One thing that worries me a lot is time management because my time management skills are quite poor. To overcome this problem, I will need to get used to some of the new features on Photoshop that I may be needing so that I can use them in my production work. I will also need to read more music magazines, in this case Pop, so that I can visualise different masthead fonts and the conventions needed to meet the specifications of the genre. I may choose to subvert from these conventions to make my magazine unique but I will conform to some of the basic conventions such as the font colours and the types of images used. Overall, I feel quite confident towards this brief and look forward to making a pop music magazine of my own.