Photographs that I took for my front cover

I took around 60 photographs of my friend posing in different ways, wearing different clothes. I asked her to model for my front cover as I felt that she is aestheticly pleasing. This is important as, as she is on the front cover, it will draw peoples attention to her and make them interested and look. I felt that she had the right sort of style and look that I was going for- quite quirky, arty and fashionable. She has also had experience of modelling so was naturally good at pulling poses for the camera.

The look I was trying to acheive in my photos, was quite a fun, colourful, fashionable and loud vibe.

Also as my magazine is primarily aimed at a female audience, I feel it was vital to have styled her in a specific way to appeal to a female audience, as females sterotypically are attracted to clothes and beauty.

However, I do understand that my magazine would now also possibly appeal to a male audience. I feel this because the photographs are aimed to create an impression as they are quite dramatic colours and poses. There is also alot of flesh showing which could be classed as quite provocative.

I chose clothes that had bright colours or where of the "indie" style. A generic feature of this is clashing colours, or very bright fluorecent colours. I wanted the outfits to look quite quirky and mis-matched to give the "individul" style. I feel by presenting the "star" in this way will appeal to the audience I am trying to target. For example people who like "indie" fashion will be interested in "indie" music.

I also looked to indie electro stars for inspiration on how they posed in pictures and also how they dressed. For example pictures of Lily Allen, Little Boots and La Roux. I feel this is evident in my work by the use of the image of the whole body and not just a generic shot of the face.

I decided to use the prop of a microphone in my pictures to create a music feel. When I was doing my research on pictures of music stars, they where often featured with a musical instrument. This links in very well as promoting my magazine as a music magazine and not a fashion magazine.

INDIE MAGAZINE

I decided to look at "INDIE" magazine. This magazine really caught my eye, which I think is very important for magazines, as when they are put next to many different magazines they need to stand out. This particular magazine challenges the generic look of magazines as there is no text around the outside of the main image explaining what is in the issue. I think this could work well as it makes the magazine seem even more intriguing as the consumer would actually have to pick the magazine up and have a quick flick through before buying. This also could have a disadvantage as they wouldn't know what the magazine featured, so could be mislead. However, as the image is the main focal point, it is important that this captures the eye, as it should promote the magazine in the right way. Below the masthead however, there is a sub title that states "The Independant Style Magazine", the word Style is very important here as style can be related to may things, including music and fashion. Especially as the magazine is named "INDIE"

Again, like "NYLON" magazine, the front cover of "INDIE" magazine is also kept simple. Even more simple than NYLON infact due to lack of text.

I think the use of colour is also effective on this magazine. The background is kept plain, but the colours that are used on the magazine are linked to the colours of the clothing that the model is wearing. So they compliment each other which looks good. There is use of contrast which makes the magazines look visually attractive and eye catching. For example, a darker image paired with a lighter more pastel background. Or a black and white image on a black, or white background also looks very striking.

Indie/Electro Pop

I decided to gather a few photographs of the sort of artists I am looking to feature in my magazine. These artists fall into the catorgory of "Indie/Electro Pop".














From looking at these few images of the larger, more well known artists of the genre, I have found that they are quite creative to look at, which I like and find inspirational. The images convey quite a quirky fashionable feel which is quite arty. The images capture quite a simple feel, and quite alot of the time just feature the artist, or artists and their instrument. Another thing that I notice about images that are used is the bright use of colour, or the use of black and white.
The background is kept clear so this automatically makes the picture seem very simple, i like the simplicity as it focuses the attention onto the artist. The Focus point of alot of the pictures is the musical instrument. In the above pictures a keyboard is featured quite often, this is typical of the genre as keyboards are often used to get the right sound for the genre. However they are also seen as being "retro" wich is also a current trend that is quite popular at the minute, not only within music, but again, also in fashion.
These pictures have inspired me to think about the ways in which I would like to feature the cover artist on my own music magazine. I would like to draw on the fact that the imagery is kept very simple. There is use of bright colour, but contrasting maybe with a black and white image. And that the instrument is a main part of the photograph.



"Indie" culture/sterotype

The clothes that are worn could be described as "indie" which links in with fashion, but also comes hand in hand with the musical genre. For example, people who listen to the "indie" genre of music are usually expected to be labelled as "indie" themselves.

Sterotypically, people who are labelled, or label themselves as "Indie" dress in a certain way and listen to "Indie" music, and do social activities such as go to gigs, enjoy band music and are often described to be festival goers.

The age range of people that are put under this catorgory is generally younger teens, from about age 15 right through to mid 20's.

Indie has become quite popular in the last few years, as celebrities in the media are often described as being indie, due to the way they dress, the social activities they take part in, the music they listen to, and even their sense of humour.
The celebrities have been described as "Young London". As they generally live and work in London, wear typically "British" fashion clothes, and hang out in the trendiest clubs in London.
The sort of female stars that conform are the likes of Alexa Chung, Pixie Geldof, Peaches Geldof,Kelly Osbourne, Daisy Lowe, Agyness Deyn, Kate Moss.

Many of the younger fans of these people, who look up to and admire the ways in which these stars dress will be interested in the same sort of lifestyles. For example the music and the fashion.
I think it is important to realise that my magazine will feature an unsigned act, which will not be well known so it is crucial to advertise and promote the artist to the right audience.
I feel by styling the artist in a particular way, and dressing them in the sort of clothes that would appeal to the audience of this type of music and fashion scene, I will therfore attract the right audience towards the style of my magazine.

Research,

Year 12 Media Coursework.

The brief for my coursework is to create a music magazine front cover with a contents page and also a double page spread using all original images and text.

I started looking at different music magazines with already a faint idea of what I wanted my final product to be like. I understand that there are many different types of music, and many sub types of music, for example there are larger genres such as rock, but then genres underneath this such as rock pop. Different music magazines usually have a slant on a type of music to appeal to people who enjoy that type of music, who will then, therefore also most likley enjoy the sub genres. In recent years "indie" music has gone from a transition from being a sub genre of rock, to a large music genre of its own. So now indie has its sub genres.
I am particularly interested in smaller, less well know acts that are of the indie/electro genre. So I would like to focus my magazine on these sort of artists.


I am particularly interested in "Indie" music. It was once a sub genre below Rock, but has now become a genre in itself due to many bands and artists being labeled indie. I am also interested in this genre as it has increasingly become more popular with events and fashion. For example music festivals have become alot more popular with this type of music, and the artists are very closely linked to fashion trends.



So to further my research on this, I looked into the sort of magazines that promote this kind of music. I found the following;



This is the front cover of NME. NME is a British music magazine which in its early days was very closely linked to Punk Rock, but through the years has widened itself and it now features a veriety of artists and genres which are all related closely to the Rock Genre. And particularly features British acts.

All of the NME magazines follow a similar patturn in the ways in which they are presented. The masthead is always in the left hand corner, which is unique as for a lot of magazines the masthead fills the top of the page. It is large and bold, and is in the vibrant colour of red. This way it can be seen above other magazines and it stands out to the eye. The colour red also gives connotations of strength which could be linked to the heaviness of the "rockier" music that the magazine supports. The magazine looks asif it is aimed more so at teenagers interested in the "indie" scene. I think this as the boys in the band featured "The Automatic" are quite young, (early 20's) this is the sort of age range the magazine will be aimed at, but also a slightly younger audience who would look up to them.

The front cover always has a solo artist or a band on it. The picture always has a feature interview which follows this, and this will be the main article within the issue. This is often done when a band are starting to get big, or realeasing a new album and deals are often made with record companies to do this as a way of promotion. This way it attracts fans of the coverstar or stars but could also give them a new fanbase by appealing to the sterotype that have bought other issues of the magazine. The picture of the band or artist in a way depicts their style and gives the reader an insight to personality. The bands name is edited so it is in front of the band in big bold letters so it is readable. The colour yellow is also a strong colour, giving the magazine quite a male vibe, but could easily be read by women. Another feature that brings me to this sterotype is the fact that the band featured are all male.

Around the edge of the page, other bands are mentioned. This is also a selling point to the magazine as people will see the featured artists and want to read about them. But as the font is smaller, this surrgests that the articles wont be as large as the main one. The magazine is evidently a music magazine as the main focus is on bands.



This is the front cover of quite a recent "Q" magazine. It is different from the NME cover as before. This cover seems more grown up in the fact that there is less going on and its seems to be a little simpler, as the one before seemed pretty loud. This looks like it is aimed at an older audience as the bands featured are "older" sort of bands, such as U2, which would probably be aimed at 20-30 year olds. The front cover also surrgests that it is aimed at a male audience as the colour scheme is mainly masculine colours, for example strong colours like red,blue and grey. Another element that leads me to believed this is aimed at men is that the cover star (Lily Allen) is pictured topless surrounded by two panthers. Her name is featured across the centre of the page and above it it states, "sexy beast". The genre of music it is promoting will be very well known bands that have possibly been around for a good few years, for example the ones featured are Oasis, U2 and The Stone Roses, which are all well known bands from the genre of "Rock". However the cover star (Lily Allen) is still quite young at the age of 22, and fits more into the "Pop" genre. The layout of the magazine is well known, with the trademark "Q" in the red box in the top left hand corner.

I know that I wanted to create a magazine based on Indie Music, but slanted towards the genre of "Electro Pop" which is quite new on the music scene. It comes from the genre of Electronica, and originates from New wave, Synth pop, pop music, disco,new rave, Kautrock and post punk. There are many new musicians that come under this catorgory, they include La Roux, Ladytron, Lady Hawke, Hot Chip, The Ting Tings, Little Boots, New Young Pony Club, Frankmusik and many more. Below are some pictures of these artists, to brainstorm their styles;