Lucy's Front Cover

I found the front cover the hardest out of all three of my pages to produce. I thought that it was quite tricky to fill all of the white space and make it look interesting to the audience, in order to convince them to buy the magazine. I really like the picture on my front cover and think that the font that we chose to use for our masthead works really well for a rock magazine. Due to the colours on the clothing of the models it could be quite tricky to find the right colours to use for the text, in order to prevent them from blending in. However, i think that i managed to put the text in the right places in order to make it stand out and be legible. If i was to do my front cover again i would look at moving the text around and experimenting with different sized fonts, as i think that this would give it a more interesting and professional look.

Lucy's Contents Page

I am pleased with how my contents page looked. I really like the overall look of the contents page and the house style that my group chose. I like how we have a large image, of the band that features on our cover, and then other, smaller images of other features within the magazine. I edited the photos using photoshop, mainly using the brightness and contrast and healing tools. This ensured that the photographs were of a high-quality for the magazine. I think that the contents page is interesting to look at and the colour scheme of red, white and black fits with the overall theme of our magazine. I also like the way that we have short sentences under the title and page numbers, explaining what each feature is about. This was a common feature on many contents pages that we looked at whilst doing our research. If i was to improve this i would look at ways of filling the white space in order to make it look more professional and eye-catching.

Lucy's Double Page Spread

I am quite happy with my final double page spread. I really like the picture that i have used as i think that it highlights the closeness of the 'band' something which is reflected in the article. I edited this photo using photo shop, altering the brightness and contrast as the original photo was very dark, due to the lighting used during the photo shoot. I also like the colours used in the photograph. I like the tag line 'Say what?' as this links into the bands name 'he said she said.' I think that they way that this is in black and red helps it to stand out from the rest of the page. Although there is a lot of text in the main article i felt that this was necessary as i needed to fill the white space. There is white space in the middle as i had to be careful not to go down the middle fold line, however i filled this space with quotes from the text which the readers will be able to read at a quick glance. If i was to improve this i would make the picture larger as i think that this would mean there is less white space. I would also look at perhaps using varying fonts in the tag lines and main title as i think that this would look more interesting and add more depth to the page.

Will's Front Cover

Will's contents page

Will's Double Page Spread

Fran's Magazine Article - First Draft

The Mondays are feisty newcomers to the music scene. When they enter the café in south London, their instant appeal hits you like the number 13 bus. Frankie, Lily and Amelia wander in with effortless cool, vintage style and rock attitude. They are shockingly nice for a rock band and I am immediately drawn into their gossiping on who kissed who at the Brit Awards after party. We begin our interview with my remarks on how well they did at the recent Brits, with them winning 3 awards, one for best newcomers. “I know it is incredible. I don’t think we will ever come down from this high.” Lily states with a huge grin on her face. “We really owe it to our fans. They have helped us throughout our journey and for them to reward us with this is amazing”. After receiving every critics praise for their up and coming album ‘Alphabetical Order’ they really are one of the best girl bands in Britain right now. The Mondays unique sound is so popular they are even playing their songs in the café we are sitting in.  “It was crazy how quickly we became stars. One minute I could get on the tube without a single remark, and now wherever I go people ask for my autograph.” Yet, these girls still seem grounded, with all three of them growing up together in Manchester. From a young age they all sang together, and now all at the age of 22, they have become household names. Frankie talks about her mum’s uneasy attitude towards her career choice “When I originally told my mum that I wanted to be a singer, I think she was disappointed. But now she sees what we have become she is immensely proud me.” The band changed their names several times while trying to break into the industry and brought out multiple albums before striking gold with ‘The Mondays’. They were signed quickly to Island Records and suddenly got star status. Amelia, being the leader singer, feels she has pressures to stand up against the great artists that are signed to their record label. “You have people like Rihanna and Jay-Z who are recording in studios next you, and I feel like this a dream, as I feel nowhere near as good as them” But as they have shown, they are as good as any a-list artist. They first single ‘Shear Panic’ went straight to number one, and Frankie, Amelia and Lily’s fan base just grew from there.  Each girl can guitar, with Frankie being the only one who can play the piano. Each member is highly talked about, whether it’s about their beauty, fashion or personalities, all are admired throughout Britain. “If this is only the beginning of our career, we can’t wait to see what’s to come in the future. I don’t think we ever want this feeling to end”.

Will's Magazine Article- First Draft

After recently falling out with the well-known rock band swallow their pride, a Jack stripe is taking his career to the next level.

We get all the facts on his new album and debut UK tour.

Jack was bought up in Hackney. He was a poor attender of school and didn’t receive any GCSE’s. The only thing he felt he succeeded in was playing his guitar. “It was a break from everyday life”

He often felt pressured into doing drugs. After realising his problem with drugs and alcohol he decided that enough was enough and began to turn his life around. “I found music helped take my mind off everyday life”

Jacks career started in 2008 when his rock group got together after being friends for some time. They toured around pubs and bars gaining in popularity and skill. “we were so happy that people excepted us in the music industry”  After 2 years they were spotted and signed by a well-known independent record label Domino who helped them in their quest to become a well-known rock band. The band often had problems “conflict and arguments were common amongst the band stated Jack.” After constant problems the band decided that it would be for the best if they went their separate ways, however this did not put jack of on his conquest to make it big. “The thought of going solo really appealed to Jack. I wanted to try and see how successful I would be.” He already had the advantage that the band was well-known. Since his new career Jack told us that “life has taken a turn for the better” and problems with alcohol are not as bad. He also does small venues in his local area of Hackney in London. Jack is amazed by the positive feedback he gets when seeing his fans and believes that without a one to one basis his career would not be half as good. He wants people to appreciate others for who they are and is trying preventing people having the same problems as him. I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of Jack Stripes in the future and we wish him luck in his new solo career.

Lucy's Magazine Article- First Draft

They’ve just completed their very first UK arena tour, had the biggest selling album of 2011 and are nominated for a whopping 4 Brits. It’s safe to say He said she said are doing pretty well for themselves. Especially considering they all grew up on council estates in north London. As soon as they enter our studio for the exclusive shoot its easy to see why they are so popular. They’re likeable. They all still have their cockney accents, the first thing they do is ask how we are and it’s clear that they’d much rather be in a recording studio than posing this way and that for our camera. That said their naturals; however the minute the cameras turned off, Jessie kicks off her heels and curls up on the sofa. The guys, Ben and Tay soon follow suit and it’s not long before were asking them for all the juicy gossip on the showbiz world. “We don’t do anything remotely cool” Jessie bemoans when we ask her how many showbiz parties the band gets to go to. “We’d all rather stay at home in front of the TV, boring I know but our day-to-day lives have become so crazy it’s nice to have that normality.” So does that mean they won’t be celebrating at next month’s Brits if they manage to bag an award? “Well come on. It’s the Brits. How many North-Londoners do you know that can say they’ve been to the Brit awards? But we don’t expect to win. The people in our categories are amazing, just to be nominated with them is an honour” laughs Ben, flashing us that cheeky smile that makes thousands of teenage girls go weak at the knees. Speaking of Ben, what about those rumours about him dating Pop Princess Amelia James? “Nah, Amelia’s cool but were just friends, when you do a job like ours, you don’t really have time for relationships.” And that’s not really a surprise. After finishing a 32-date UK tour just before Christmas the guys would be forgiven for taking some time off. “There’s no chance of that, we’ve been straight back into the studio to record the second album” divulges Tay.  So are they going to give anything away about the much-anticipated second album? “It’s the same rocky sound as the first one” explains Jessie. “That’s what we do and it’s what the fans like, but there are some softer bits here and there, the tracks really show off our vocals.” So with a new album in the pipeline it looks like 2012 is going to be just as busy as 2011 for the band, especially as they’ve just become the new faces of the ‘Star Dreams Campaign’ a campaign which helps teenagers to reach their full potential. “Star Dreams is an amazing charity, we’ve met some great teenagers who really deserve a shot.” According to Ben, something like this could have really helped the band when they first got together. “If we had something like this when we were just starting out then all the auditioning and rejections might not have happened. Every time they told us no it really made us doubt ourselves, we were so close to giving up before we got our break.” And that break came in the form of music mogul Geoffrey Hind. He spotted the band playing a gig in a Camden pub and signed the guys just a week later. “That was just a whirlwind” explains Tay. “One minute we were gigging just trying to make ends meet and the next thing we know were sat in Geoffrey Hinds office discussing record deals. It really was the stuff of dreams.” And there can be no doubt that they really are living their dreams. They may claim that they don’t think they will win at the Brit awards but I wouldn’t be so sure. With offers for work flying in from all directions you can count on one thing. You’ll be seeing a lot more of He Said She Said in the future.

I found it quite hard to write my article as i had to make it up and had no previous experience in writing articles. Howeverm i did find it quite fun making up band members and stories. I think that my article is a little long and i will prehaps have to cut it down when i put it on to my final double page.

Jordan's Article

Article Mock Up

The Wilting Rose is a new upcoming band that everyone is excited to hear about, band members Georgia and Hannah are very excited to be finally breaking into the industry after three and a half years of work of running small gigs and auditions, and time after time they kept having the door slammed in their face. But after being noticed in the annual competition that is known as “Battle of the Bands” and going through to the final and winning the competition and having the prize of a life changing recording contract with some of the industry’s top producers. Kaleidoscope magazine reporters were lucky enough to have the chance to sit with the girls for fifteen minutes and have a chat about life before the show, during the show and after the show. We asked the duo how each day was like for them before the competition, Hannah replied “We just did what people our age would do, we went to college each day, I had a part time job at the local Chinese waitressing and Georgia had a part time job waitressing at a local café. It was very normal.” Georgia then added “Our lives were not horrible before the competition we did other things like going out with friends, parties, college life we enjoyed it all but we have always wanted this so much more.” During the competition the girls were noticed first due to their thrilling audition piece, performing one of the most well-known rock songs “Don’t Stop Me Now” from the hit musical ‘We Will Rock You’ which got the audience raising the roof when they had finished, after that the pressure was on the girls to always deliver after such a mind blowing audition but that did not pull them back, the girls soared through the rest of the stages and reached the finals within no time at all. With their final song being ‘Autumn Love’ they stole the winning prize by a many number of votes and seized the recording contract of a life time. The day after their victory they described as “dreamlike” “the press, the interviews, the photo-shoots, the publicity was just incredible, there were fans waiting everywhere we went and we just appreciate it so much and it makes us so happy that people appreciate our music and what we do” Says Georgia. We then asked the girls what is next for them, “Well, we have an album on the way but we can’t reveal names of songs or anything like that, but after that we hope to have a very successful future and hopefully you will see us soon!” Overall the girls have a promising future and seemed very professional when we interviewed them which lead us to believe that they will do well within the industry and we will be expecting big things from The Wilted Rose.

Magazine House Style

Will's Double Page Spread Mock Up

I like the way my main image takes up a lot of the double page, it is clear to see what the article is on. the title will be clear and bold to help make it stand out. The main text will small however clear enough to read easily. I want it to be bright and colourful and make sure it catches the audience attention.

Fran's Double Page Spread Mockup

For the double page we wanted to make the image the main focus of the page. The title is also clear to show who we are interviewing and that it catches the audiences eye. The aritle will take up less of the page so people focus more on what the bands looks like. We are also surronding the interview with quotes to make it more proffesional.  

Lucy's Double Page Spread Mock Up

After researching into various double page spreads we have decided that we will have our main image on one page, with our article on another. We will then have text going across the pages in order to link the two together. We will also have small quotes from within the article around the page as we found this was a common feature in many magazines. Although this mock-up looks quite simple and boring when the actual double page spread is made it will hopefully look eye-catching and exciting. We also need to be aware about where the centre line fold will go as it we cant have text going over this line as you would be unable to read it.

Jordan's Double Page Spread Mockup

When putting together my double page spread plan I decided that I wanted it to be very clear and simple and I knew that I could achieve this in one way or another as the article was going to be quite long and would take a lot of space on the page as would the picture and the title and quotes would take up the top of the page.

Will's Contents Page Mock UP

I have researched into contents pages used for rock magazines. I have decided that this is an interesting way of setting out a contents page. I really want it to be eye catching and easy to read.

Lucy's Contents Page Mock Up

I like how this contents mock-up is full and looks exciting and intersting. The font style that we used for 'Kaleidoscope' is called STEAK and i think that this looks really professional and fits in the theme of rock. I like the way that we are using one big image, and then several smaller images. I think that having these smaller images at different angles makes the page look eye-catching. The main feature of the page is the listings and we have decided not to use a 'letter from the editor' as we do not feel that this fits with our overall rock theme.

Fran's Contents Page Mockup

We found a contents page online that we liked, it had many pictures surronding it and so we deided that was the route we had to go down. We liked the idea of using images to show the contents of the pages, and we wanted to make sure that the logo was the main focus of  the page. The main image will also be of the band we are interviewing to show the audience that they are the main focus of our magazine.

Jordan's Contents Page Mockup

When planning for my contents page I wanted to make sure that everything was set out in a clear way and wasn't to crowded on the page, I want them to be clear and if I feel it is too bare I may add more images or more contents listing to lengthen and fill the page.