Final Design - MACHINE Double Page Spread

The above image is my final double-page spread design for my MACHINE magazine that focuses on the genre of metal. I took design inspiration from my previous analysis' of double-page spreads from the existing magazine industry.

Bibliography:
City Scene

The above image is a screenshot taken from within Photoshop CS2 - the software package I utilised in order to produce the work. As you can see, I have made as much 'behind the scenes' material visible as possible.

Final Design - MACHINE Front Cover

The above image is my final front cover design for my MACHINE magazine that focuses on the genre of metal. I decided to include such bold elements as the Future Publishing logo and slogan "The United Kingdom's Best Selling Metal Magazine" to make the overall production feel much more 'real', and also to further display how typical mainstream magazines use wordplay to grab the attention of their target audience.

I used valuable information gained from analysing front covers from Metal Hammer and Kerrang! magazines to accurately gauge what my target audience is looking for when it comes to aesthetic and language qualities within the realm of magazine publishing.

Other than Soulfly and In Flames, I created all of the band titles myself; this was not only a creative process that was fun to engage in but a hyperbolic play on what I believe to be typical metal band names that get churned out of the music industry. I let the photograph of choice (of which I took myself) dictate the colour scheme - which is evidently shades of red, brown, black and white. I manipulated the stock image of the cityscape to follow the scheme, likewise.

One minor change to be noted is the shortening of the magazine name; instead of "The Machine" I decided to make it as minimalist as possible. This not only gives me as a designer more room to fill one word in with, but as a reader it will much more memorable due to it's decisiveness.

Bibliography:
City scene (background)
Future Publishing logo
Barcode image
Image of Tickets
The above list details the source location of images I manipulated in order to achieve the final design; as is evident I moved as far away as possible from relying on stock images - not created by myself - to serve as the focal point of the design, and therefore made the cover 'my own' creation.

The above image is a screenshot taken from within Photoshop CS2 - the software package I utilised in order to produce the work. As you can see, I have expanded the Layers tab to show as much 'behind the scenes' material as possible; noting the speciality language regarding magazine design such as "Masthead", "Banner" and "Headline".

Band Photography - Soilborne at the Abbey Cathedral

Note: I uploaded the above photographs to my Photobucket account, as due to the large file size the process would be a lot quicker than waiting for Blogger to upload it straight from my PC.

Magazine Analysis - 'Metal Hammer' Double Page Spread

The above image is my first double page spread analysis taken from Metal Hammer. Clicking the thumbnail will enlarge the image.

Mood Board - Metal & Magazines

Mood boards are primarily created to develop design concepts and to communicate to others the direction in which the project is heading. Applying this to my coursework; the above mood board I produced visually displays the type of clothes, photo shoot dynamics and general feel that I will be attempting to mimic with my own creation. I used elements of magazine covers to converge the two topics of metal bands and magazines. Click the above thumbnail to maximize the image.

What I have taken from this mood board:

• Dark coloured clothing is typically worn by band members
• Long hair is a lot more common than short (although this is not normally orchestrated)
• Apathetic or aggressive expressions are typically worn by band members
• Although most camera angles have been used for metal band photos, the most dominate one featured in my mood board is a simple mid-shot.

Magazine Analysis - 'Metal Hammer' Front Page

This is my first analysis of a magazine front cover - Metal Hammer. Clicking the thumbnail above will maximise the image.

Chosen Genre: Metal

I have decided to choose metal as the genre to base my magazine on. This is because I have several friends who attend Deyes High that are actually in their own metal band. I can use the cameras supplied by the school to take the original images required.

The following are typical photos you would see of a metal band: