My final front cover!

I really like how my final front cover came out like. I think it is very eye catching and really draws the readers in. I had to make sure I was thinking of the audience whilst designing it as the magazine anyway isn't for everyone. My target audience are from ages 14-18, which are into rock music. I've tried to follow the theme correctly which was halloween as it is an October issue. But without making it too much to do with halloween, I had to stick to the rock theme also. The colours I have used indicated this well I think, and have stuck with simple colours like most rock music magazines have done. I found this out within my research. The white font I used was to make the dull colours black and red to stand out more. This also makes the magazine more interesting. Kerrang magazine indicates this well. I only used one image so I don't over crowd the front cover as I don't think the magazine will look as professional if I used more than one image. My weaknesses throughout making this front cover was making sure I stick to the theme, and to think about my target audience. My strengths I feel were my designing, as by being insprired by other rock magazines, I thought I presented the designing well, and thought I had shown that I had really thought about it. I think the graphics (blood) shown this too.

The picture I have chosen for my front cover

This is my favourite picture out of all the ones I have taken. That is why I have used it as my front cover. I think it would be a good front cover because of the way it is taken. I feel it would really draw the reader in and be interesting in reading it. To prove it is a music magazine, I had chosen my model to wear a rolling stones t-shirt.

My favourite pictures I took for the front cover of my magazine!

These are all my favourite pictures I took, and I would like to use them all in my magazine, so I will include them in some way!

Horror Front Covers

I thought I would do some research on actual horror front covers too. This helped me get some ideas on how to present my front cover so that it looks quite horrifying and is really obvious to readers that this issue is for halloween.

Adding blood on a magazine or adding it to a person is a very obvious symbol for horror. Blood has a meaning to it which I see as pain and evil. On halloween devils are red, so I feel this would be a very good mix for my magazine cover.

I love the title of this magazine on the right. I love how it implies a real horror name. And just automatically indicates some sort of horror film! The magazine is for horror films and they have used a really good picture for the front cover. The picture itself is showing what all the films are about which are getting advertised inside the magazine.

My research on rock magazines

I thought these rock magazines were the closest to the halloween theme I have chosen. I think that all rock magazines are quite scary. The reason I think this is because of all of their make-up they wear. They are presented as very dull and wear all dark clothes especially black. I found that the band 'My Chemical Romance' as the front covers have stood out the most to me.

This front cover reminds me quite a lot of halloween. It is the bright red hair and the eye liner on the eyes. It reminds me of vampires dressing up to go trick or treating!

This front cover on the right stood out the most to be, as I find it quite creepy. It reminds me a lot more of halloween because of the colours presented and just the band themselves.

Whilst doing my research, I also figured that to make a front cover have the theme halloween, the picture doesn't have to look scary, as long as the image and presentation of text is obvious that it does have a theme. And that you make sure you follow the theme correcty to prove it. The text used on this front cover is very horror. The colour black is used a lot because it is a bold colour and gives off a scary vibe easily.

Front Cover

For my front cover, I had to do a lot of thinking, My choice was to do a music magazine as I am a big fan of music! I really wanted to make my magazine look quite unique, but personally I feel I am not that good on photoshop as I find it hard to use. I decided the date of my magazine was going to be set in October, and as halloween is of course in October, I tried to follow the theme of halloween to create my front cover. The closest ideas I could get to quite scary, were rock magazines so I done some research!

Dafont

For my magazine, I used dafont which is a website full of different types of fonts. I feel this makes the magazine look more interesting and a lot more creative! The fonts on this website create a very individual effect, so if you would like to be unique, dafont is definitely a good site to use.

Who is the audience of this media text?

This media text is definitely aimed at a younger audience. The reason I think this is because it is mainly ages 14-24. Her music generally does link to those ages to, because they are too young for under ages 14 and too old for over 30's. Beyonce does deliberately want her audience to be a younger age because she likes to be young and 'hip'

Serif and Sans Serif.

Serif is a font that has little detail added to the ends of the letters which gives off a more formal look if needed. The indepentant newspaper uses serif fonts, to make the newspaper look formal and for the audience which are intelligent. This is what it looks like...









Sans Serif is a font not so formal. This is the type of font which is mainly used in magazines. It gives off a more chatty vibe to younger audiences. It has hardly any added features with the font which indicates the informal look. The word Sans is a french word that means 'without' Sans Serif font has no serifs added thats why it is called 'Sans Serif'.
This is what it looks like...

What is Denotation and Connotation?

Denotation is what the audience can visually see. For example, on a magazine page, what is shown for the audience to see if denotation. It is also known as the first level of analysis. The Denotation of something is usually literal. It also involves a hidden meaning which refers to the audience the magazine of media texts are created for.

Connotation is the second level of analysis. It is the emotional or figurative language associated with a word or an object.

For example..

The denotation of this dove is white. Which is just what I can see. And the connotation of the dove is that it means love and peace and it is a symbol for christians.