Welcome to my blog, hope you will enjoy it! 

Front cover 

Front cover construction

The first element of my magazine needs to address, who my target audience are going to be, I wanted to create an indie magazine that was unisex for the young adult market, ages between 16 to 25. Although ethnisity has a role within indie music I didn't want to aim at any ethnicity group, the indie music scene doesn't have a cultural ethnicity group, the lines are blurred but indie music is poorly represented by the black Asian community. Not because they are being excluded but rather than culturally these ethnic groups prefer more urban music. With this in mind my Music magazine will follow the conventions of indie music magazines and aim at white young adults who are independently stylized.

I arrived at the name Soft because I felt this was strong word etheticlly, well balanced and it has a delicate feeling which I wanted my  magazine to reflect.

The main reason for chosing indie as a genre apart from my own personal music tast was because there are so many possibilities within an Indie magazine. There is no limits for what you can do - and I really like that.

Indie music is independently styled and the magazine can be more like a piece of art work rathe rather than an explosion of information like the pop genre. I can be very creative with the colour, model and fonts. 

Photography is one of my strenghs and the indie genre lets me show this aspect in the best light.

Here are my first sketch to my Indie Music Magazine:

This is what I have done until now. The masthead is now in the top in the left side, but I also tried to put it just around where his hands is but after feedback from other students I preferred it higher which tends to follow conventions of other indie magazines. So now it is in the top with the blue background and the T is just touching the outline of his face so it is easier to see. It is important for me that the masthead is easy to see.

Fonts 

To my Music Magazine I have researched different fonts, I like the first one best - I think it will fit well to my magazine as well as the tile of the magazine "Soft". I like it because it is simple, have beautiful shapes and is easy to read.

Courier New font was also a possibility but not on a magazine masthead, I think it is to simple and a bit boring it also has harder lines which works against the title.

I don't like cooper black at all, I think it is to thick and I don't like the F in the font - and the F in my masthead is important.

I don't like Lithos pro regular either, here is it the S I don't like and I think it's annoying that the font is in capital letters.

I have played a bit around with the colours, I know my main cover image will be mainly dark blue - I think yellow/orange colour will be good together with the blue, Blue and orange are complementary Colours so it will automaticly get more attention.

Here I have tried more fonts with different colours in the fill and the lines on the real cover image that I want to use, so I can see how the colours work together on the cover image.

Step by step

I have used Photoshop to put everything together. In the first screen shot I have put all the strapline boxeswere I want them to be. I chosed a grey colour to the main- and straplines, because I like the grey together with the yellow/orange masthead, his skin colour and the blue/dark blue. Now I need to edit the picture on photoshop so it is easier to read my font.

I have edited the picture, I have used the burn tool around his hair and a bit in his face and hands. But haven't done it how I would like it to be, it is too messy around his head.

I wanted to try something different and I just learned how to use the brush tool, so I used the blue colour to put around him and then chosed write colour as the font. I think the results are affective but I really like the colours from the original picture better, so I will go with that.

I went back to my original picture and I have started to write my straplines. I am happy for content  written and think the balance of text to picture is successful, but think I need a little more information. I need to make sure the ratio between art and functionality

The change I then made on this one is adding more text on the right side and under the little picture solving functioanality issues. I've used the burn tool on his hands and on the right side where the text is, so the font is more pronoced . I made my masthead bigger, changed the straplines colour adjusting the light and put a little picture in the top of the right side of my magazine.

This one is my final cover front, the only thing I have change here is put the little picture under the text instead of over.

I am pleased with how it ended up and esthetically feel it is well balanced, photography is a major part which I wanted because I feel this is the sort of product indie music followers will like to be seen with, it will become part of their fashion statement. 

  

Content page

Contents page construction
Ideas to my contents page 

The first thing I have to decide is which image I have to use and how I will use it. With this in mind I must not forget my target audience or my chosen genre. artistic independent style still needs to be the main  objective while not losing functionality.

I have looked at different contents pages, to get some inspiration. These are all indie magazines, I wanted to make sure I stayed with the conventions of the style of the indie genre.
When looking at he magazines I felt they lacked the style I wanted to achieve, I would like to do my contents page a bit more simple and graphically romantic, I feel this incorporates the indie genre. That's what I really like when looking at a magazine, so I  will try my best to pursue it. 

These photographs are all my own images, I feel they have a good balance of style and indie culture.
My only problem being which one I use as my main mise-en-scene . I will have to see which picture is able to take text the best with out compromising style.

I have had a lot of ideas how my contents page should look like.
This one was the first. I never finished it, because I thought it looked a bit boring and empty, I wasn't doing my images justice.

The second one is successful I think the image is stunning and I don't want the functionality of a content page I think I will use this picture on my double page spread. So I stared a new one again.

This one is the worst one  I have done, don't like the colours, boxes and the picture together, I will have to try again.. 

I kept using a large picture that covered the whole content page, but I realized when I looked in indie magazines that they used more small pictures and a lot of text.   

After I found out that I probably should use some small pictures rather than one large picture, I think it is achieving by outcomes for my target audience.
This is the final contents page idea, my problem of which image to use is solved without compromising the style, but I still have to work on it.

Grey vs. white? White, it must be!

I've changed it a bit. I have put an orange/red box around the second picture on the left side and changed the text, because there were some misspelled. I have found that the language barrier hard.

Here I have just put a box behind the second picture on the right side to fit with my other box on the other side, but I should make it thinner on the right box.  

I have changed the box around the second picture on the right side I have done it more thin and darker. I like it much more now!

I think I am done and I'm very satisfied with the way it turned out. I wanted to make sure I didn't drop in standard from the front cover to the contents page, I think this was achieved.

My double spread page

Double page spread process

This is the picture I want to use on my double page spread as I have already mentioned when doing my contents page.

Then I used the burn tool, to make it more dark. But I don't like the end result, it is too dark.

I have still used the burn tool, but not that much. Only on their faces and a bit on their clothes. I have also used the blur tool on their faces and in the background.

I wanted to see how it would look if I took the right side of the background over to the left side. So maybe it would be easier to see the font. I was not sure yet which one I liked the best.

My font will be "didot", like my front cover maskhead and my content page. I am not sure which colour would be best yet.

I have chosen the one with the two models in the right side, so this is the one I will work on. Now I just need to find a title and to finish writing the interview .

I was thinking the title maybe could be "Single by Couple."

I've decided that I will use "Single by Couple" as the title.

It's a bit hard to see the the black text, so I decided to make it white instead and grey in the top.

The written part 

This is really happening! Oh land has revealed that she and 

Ea$y have really put their feud behind them because they have been 

in the recording studio, making some beautiful music together.

Oh land, just dropped a major musical bomb shell during her 

early morning interview. She has revealed to Soft magazine that they both decided it would be a fantastic idea to record some new music together! 

Apparently, after their disagreements earlier this year, Oh land (24 years) and Ea$y (27 years), promised that the first of their new music tracks will be available for download, early next month. There are of course rumours about whether the couple are meeting just to make music... But who knows if this is the start of something new?  

Oh land was keen to tell all of Soft magazine's readers that three of her new tracks from her imminent album 'Early Doors', will feature Ea$y. She denies diluting indie music and states that although Ea$y produces main-stream pop rap, she has always been interested in cross-over musical collaborations.

Soft magazine were keen to tell both musicians that they welcome the news and can't wait to see them together of the festival circuit this summer. 

I'm almost finished, I'm happy about how the colour, text and main image turned out together.

I found out that I should make a 1 cm space, so when assembling the two pages they would fit and I have made a line to separate the pages. 

This is my final double page spread.