Thursday, 6 January 2011



Contents page




Layout

I think the layout for this issue is pretty good. The different categories have been blocked and put in different colours. If you look closely, the font size is different for the headings and the headin 'music videos' isnt bold like the others. The headings have been given a picture respective of their subject, a man wearing jewelry, a music video and a trendy guy. Also the not so important things such as tv showings and quizes have been made smaller and put at the bottom of the page as they are not the main seling point of the magazine.

Colour

Depending on the colour of the background depends to the colour of the font, if the background is white, the font is black and vice versa. The pictures themself have alot of colour in the and really make the page stand out. If you take away the pictures then it is simply blac, white and grey which is retty dull.

Pictures

There are alot of pictures on this contents page and the pictures correspond with the title they are under. There are even a few random faces in there to make it seem funny. The pictures add life to the otherwise very dull and boring page.

Double Page Spread




Font


The main things that the writer wants people to read are obviously the ones in bold and in a different colour. Quotes such as 'i know its a grind process' this is a quote from the interview with Nelly and its a point that the author wants the audience to see first hoping that they would read on. Also the sub-heading are larger than the interview font and one is a different colour. I think this font is used to show some street details as it is what the audience is into.

Pictures

There are three pictures on thes DPS. One is a posed picture, one is a live one and one is used as a background image. The posed picture is used to fill up one side of the DPS. The live picture shows Nelly singing on stage and the background picture is a vinyl record and has a similarity with music.

Layout

The layout is pretty straight forward, one page is dominated by one image and the other page is dominated mostly by text with on picture and one quote. I think this is about as straight forward as the layout for a double page spread can get.

Saturday, 1 January 2011

A day in the life of my reader

Wakes up at roughly 10 am and spend the first hour of the day in his room getting ready. He takes off his baggy T-shirt and throws it on the floor next to his washing basket. gets out of bed and doesnt make it, he walks over to the wardrobe and selects the top he is wearing depending on what he is doing today. Named label if he is meeting up with his mates, handme downs if he is staying inside. Then selects a pair of jeans and underwear. Throws all of his clothes on the bed and turns on games console. Selects team deathmatch on call of duty:black ops and plays until he gets hungry, usually about half an hour to 45 mins later.
Walks downstairs in trackie bottoms and nothing else. Gets a bowl of cheerios or frosties and adds blue milk and puts it in microwave. Grabs can of coke from fridge and gets a spoon and puts them both on the table. He gets the cereal and starts shoveling it in. Before he takes another breath its finished. Once he has finished with his cereal, he throw the dirty bowl in the sink and walk back upstairs and jumps stright into the shower. He has a quick shower and rushes in drying himself. He quickly puts his clothes on and spends most of his time doing his hair.
Asks his mum for money and gets enough for travel and food. Walks to the train station listening to eminem, lil wayne and rihanna on his i-pod. When he gets to the train station, he walks straight past the ticket machine and hops onto the first train into town. He might be texting a few of his mates to meet him up there so they can chill in town. Once he is in town the first thing he does is buy himself a coke. He then meets up with his mates in the park and they all suggest what they do for the day. They have decided to go shoing and eat lunch, then go back home to play the playstation.
They go into a few shops, looking for girls to get numbers, but buy nothing. They go into shos such as street talk, nike, natterjacks, tkmaxx, game etc. Once all they desired shops have been visited, they go out for lunch to either subway, burgerking or mcdonalds. They spend the majority of their time in mcdonalds talking rather than eating their big macs and drinking their cokes. Once they have finished eating, they then walk back to the station and split up there all planning on playing playstation and discussing when they're next going to meet up.
Again, ignoring the ticket machine, he gets on the train and goes home. Once he is home, he explains to his mum about his day and then goes upstairs and throws his jacket and jumper down on the bed and plays playstation for a few hours. Once he gets bored or hungry, whichever comes first, he then turns it off, says goodbye to his mates and goes downstairs for dinner infront of the tv. Spagetti bolognese on the menu tonight and its home cooked by his mother. he grabs another coke from the fridge and falls onto the sofa infront of the tv. He flicks through all the sport channels, music channel, sitcoms and movies before deciding he wants to watch dont mess with the zohan. He slowly eats his dinner whilst watching the film.
Once the film is over, he puts his dirty dishes in the sink and goes upstairs to brush his teeth and get into his trackies and top. Once he is dressed into them, has to make a decision. Does he get some of his homework done, does he get an early night or does he play playstation long into the night? Sleep it is, the homework can be done tomorrow.

Moodboard

The images I have selected to be in my mood board were chosen because they are either artists in the hip hop industry, or they are thing that are associated with either hip hop or the typical reader of my magazine. So things like hot girls in bikini's, basketball, drugs, cars, trainers etc are all associated with my audience.

Masthead Analysis

Masthead
The masthead for 'XXL' is designed to stand out. the Large white font stands out well on the red background. The colour red is used to try and accomidate with the acceptable colours for that type of genre or interests in the audience. You would not expect the colour yellow, green, pink etc on there because those colours are mainly used for a different audience.
This masthead has influenced my idea because I want my masthead to stand out. when someone is looking throught the magazine section of the store, my magazine will stand out therefore catching peoples eyes.

Front cover analysis continued

Demographics
By analysing the front cover of 'XXL' magazine I can have a guess at what type of person and lifestyle the typical audience is/has. I think the person would generally be black male between the ages of roughly 15- 25. The person would not be likely to live in a multi-million pound house, they would probably be living in a council house or low priced flat/semi-detatched house. They would try to find bargains for labelled street styled clothes such as Ecko, Nike, Adidas etc.
Fact File on Competitors
XXL
Name: XXL
Frequency: Monthly and Bimonthly
Price: £4.99
Circulation: 209,459
Owned by: Harris Publications
Strapline: Hip Hop on a higher level
Vibe
Name: Vibe
Frequency: Quarterly
Price: £9.95
Circulation: 800,000
Owned by: InterMedia Partners
Strapline: Redifining Hip Hop
The reason why I consider 'XXL' and 'VIBE' to be my main competitors is because they are the two biggest selling hip hop magazine names. There is no points in designing a magazine if you do not wish for it to be a success. Together they have a circulation of over 1 million which is big. However, if you think of the frequency of theirs compared to mine then I think that my monthly should be a bigger success than a bi-monthly and a quarterly.