24/11/11 and 27/11/11

24/11/11
In todays lesson I reconsidered my front cover image. After consultation, I recognised that it did not look traditional enough of an indie magazine as the image was too bright to follow typical conventions. Not only this but it was decided that 'Lilly Howard' - who features on the cover - looked to typically pretty rather than indie. It is important to get the image right because my magazine is aimed to attract both genders and I therefore have to swap the image from being pretty and girly, to cooler and more rocky. There is a very similar image to the one I previously liked, but she is not smiling as much and her hair covers a larger proportion of her face which was decided to give a much more messy/indie-rock type of look. I will now edit this image to make it more appropriate to suit the genre of music magazine I am aiming for.

27/11/11

Today I have have completely re-done my front cover to suit the style more appropriately - not only did I change the image on it, but I altered the colour scheme for a darker, more sophisticated style. The magazine also looked too cluttered for this style as a magazine full of text and information is much more common on magazines for a young teen audience that wants gossip etc. I am very happy with the final. I have also edited my double-page spread which is also now nearly complete.

Music Industry

Here is a presentation about the current state of the music industry, and what factors are emerging to help the world of music back on its feet. 

Lesson 23/11/11

This is the work I have been able to do today. I have signed up for a mind-map website called 'MindJet' which allows you to produce your ideas on a spreadsheet to be able to clearly decide on a topic for my DPS. I also joined a podcast website called 'SoundCloud' which enables you to record and upload sounds to your blog.  

Double Page Spread Example

This is an analysis of a double-page spread featuring Florence and The Machine. The article has been very helpful in deciding how to choose the layout for my own double-page spread using different features and typical characteristics of a DPS. 

My Double Page Spread

Lilly Howard is a brand new emerging artist. I want my audience to envy her because of her new life as she can barely go anywhere without being noticed anymore. She is 22 and not used to all the attention; I feel as though this feature about her could relate to the target audience as she came from being a normal girl to a well-known artist in such a short time. 
The magazines discourse is going to be very simple. It will avoid using complex words so the magazine has the potential to widen its range of audience. Simplifying long words will make the magazine appeal to more ages as younger people will be able to understand and follow the story of Lilly Howard. Simple language will not only be used for the double-page spread, but also for the front cover and the contents page. It is true that the way you speak language reflects your perception on the world, and therefore people judge you for it; their first impression will be based on the way you speak. It is for this reason that there will be key words and phrases which will identify a particular audience; between 14 and 25. This is the key age for people who read music magazines and will therefore have a higher chance of success. The gender audience of 'TUNE' is not specified; but depending on who is featuring in the weekly issue, there may be more of one gender than the other each time. For example, boys probably won't want to read about the detailed life of Pixie Lott and what films she enjoys, but girls may not want to read about what Alex Turner's tactics are to get girls. 

Planning a DPS has to be focused on in two different aspects; 
1) The positioning of the reader and subject (the main back story of the article and its purpose)
2) Patterns of word choice which will reinforce the subject-reader relationship


The positioning of my reader-subject relationship is explained in more detail in the "Intertextuality" paragraph on my blog. The patterns of word choice is shown below in the sample of the lexical cohesion that are the kinds of words that will be used in my magazine. 


Indie  -  Rock 'n' Roll  -  Influence/Inspiration  -  Festivals  -  Relationships  -  Personal Life  -  Tour  -  Style  -  Individuality  -  Quirky  -  Confident  -  Laughing 


These key words and phrases will feature in my article to reinforce the relationship between the readers and the magazine. It will help to define a specific audience by seeing who is interested in reading the article, which my focus group will give feed back on. 

Semantic Field

INDIE ALTERNATIVE


Cool
Chilled
Individual
Messy
Scruffy
Films
Quirky
Cider
Confident
Funny
Food
Wine
Festivals

Intertextuality

What is my artist, Lilly Howard, influenced by?


Lilly Howard is a quirky, individual and funny girl as well as a talented, young, well-known artist. This means that she is still a person even though the other half of her life is lived in the public eye. She is still influenced, encouraged and touched by everyday things, despite that readers automatically dispose of her human side and see her as only a celebrity. 
Lilly enjoys watching "Russell Howard's Good News" every Thursday as she describes him as being "the most beautiful and hilarious man" she has ever laid eyes on. She admits through an interview that she copies some of his jokes and pretends that they are her own, even though she is "rubbish at telling them". She is impacted by the lyrics of every Coldplay song that Chris Martin has written, and tells us that she believes his words in a song are 100% true to every kind of situation people find themselves in, and tells us her favourite Coldplay song of all time is "What If" but has recently been threatened by "Up With The Birds" from their new album "Mylo Xyloto". She has always dreamed of many film ideas but says that as much as she wants to make the films, her love for singing overcomes the ambition of being a script-writer. 


The level of detail I will write about Lilly Howard in the DPS is important to show readers that information and level of intimacy about her that is hard to establish when most media forms focus on their life in the lime-light rather than their personal habits and experiences. This more personal approach to her life is my unique selling point because it is much harder to discover who celebrities really are when the majority of articles are about their career. This way, readers can establish who they are inspired by, what they do and what they enjoy in every day life.