The genre of my Music Magazine

The genre of my music magazine is going to be focused on Hip-Hop/Rap.
Some history of Hip Hop:
Hip Hop/Rap first started in the 1970's and spread along thee main are of the south Bronx, New York. Years later it spread along the whole of New York, DJ Kool Herc is credited as being highly influential in the pioneering stage of hip hop music
An example magazine of this is 'Vibe' magazine which is also a R&B/Hip-Hop magazine. The reason I have chosen to do this genre of music is because i enjoy listening to this type of music and i spend most of the day listening to music from artists such as these listed below.
Some example of Rap/Hip-Hop artists are:

Kanye West

is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, film director, entrepreneur, and fashion designer. West first gained prominence as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records; he achieved recognition for his work on rapper Jay-Z's The Blueprint (2001), as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson. His style of production originally used high-pitched vocal samples from soul songs incorporated with his own drums and instruments. He later broadened his influences to include 1970s R&B and later became big in the Hip Hop and Rap scene.

Drake -

 who records under the mononym Drake, is a Canadian rapper, songwriter, and actor. He was born in Toronto, Ontario. He first garnered recognition for his role as Jimmy Brooks on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. He later rose to prominence as a rapper, releasing several mixtapes like Room for Improvement before signing to Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment in June 2009.

Kendrick Lamar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF8aaTu2kg0












known simply as Kendrick Lamar, is an American hip hoprecording artist from Compton, California. In 2004, Lamar signed to the Carson-based indie record label Top Dawg Entertainment and in 2012, Lamar and the label signed a joint venture deal with Aftermath and Interscope Records. Lamar is also a member of West Coast hip hop supergroup Black Hippy, alongside his label-mates and fellow California-based rappers Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock, and Ab-Soul.

Wiz Khalifa - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX6K7waag5Q

better known by the stage name Wiz Khalifa, is an American rapperand singer-songwriter. He released his debut album, Show and Prove, in 2006, and signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2007. His Eurodance-influenced single, "Say Yeah", received urban radio airplay, charting on the Rhythmic Top 40 andHot Rap Tracks charts in 2008.

Khalifa parted with Warner Bros. and released his second album, Deal or No Deal, in November 2009. He released the mixtape Kush and Orange Juice as a free download in April 2010; he then signed with Atlantic Records. He is also well known for his debut single for Atlantic, "Black and Yellow", which peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. His debut album for the label, Rolling Papers, was released on March 29, 2011. He followed that album with O.N.I.F.C. on December 4, 2012 which was backed by the singles "Work Hard, Play Hard" and "Remember You".

Lupe Fiasco - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GQjYPWDcmg
















 better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco, is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. He rose to fame in 2006 following the success of his debut album, Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor. He also performs as the frontman of rock band Japanese Cartoon under his real name. As an entrepreneur, Fiasco is the chief executive officer of 1st and 15th Entertainment.

Raised in Chicago, Fiasco developed an interest in hip hop after initially disliking the genre for its use of vulgarity and misogyny. After adopting the name Lupe Fiasco and recording songs in his father's basement, 19-year-old Fiasco joined a group called Da Pak. The group disbanded shortly after its inception, and Fiasco soon met rapper Jay-Z who helped him sign a record deal with Atlantic Records. In September 2006, Fiasco released his debut album Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor on the label, which received three Grammy nominations.

Childish Gambino - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG35R8F2j8k













After several self-released albums and mixtapes, Glover signed to Glassnote Records in 2011 as Childish Gambino. He released Camp on Glassnote on November 15, 2011. His second studio album, Because the Internet, was released on December 10, 2013.

Hoodie Allen - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYhC8IdXP94





















Steven Adam Markowitz better known by his stage name Hoodie Allen, is an independent American rapper.
In July 2011, Hoodie released his third mixtape, Leap Year. It reached 250,000 SoundCloud plays in its first week of release. On the title for his mixtape, Hoodie explained it is "basically just talks to the leap of faith I took this year leaving everything else behind to be an artist.

Jake Miller - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FgqY_x56fE

Jacob Harris "Jake" Miller (born November 28, 1992) is an American rapper and songwriter from Weston, Florida. He is signed to Warner Bros. Records.^[1] On November 5, 2013, Miller released his debut album Us Against Them, which was promoted with a national concert tour.

Us Against Them debuted at #1 on the iTunes charts. On May 7, 2014, Miller was labeled as the #1 'Artist To Watch' by Fox Weekly, predicting Miller will be a huge artist by mid-2015. In 2014, Miller was also placed on MTV's Artist To Watch column.

Chiddy Bang - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uavNUg0tRgw














Chidera Anamege, better known by his stage name Chiddy Bang is an American hip hop recording artist. Prior to their break up, Chiddy Bang was an American pop-rap group consisting of Chidera "Chiddy" Anamege & Noah "Xaphoon Jones" Beresin. The duo was introduced through former band member Zachary Sewall in late 2008 while they were studying at Drexel University, in Noah's hometown of Philadelphia, PA. Their sound is based on the fusion of hip hop 

Tyler the Creator - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbZidsgMfw





















Tyler Gregory Okonma , better known by his stage name Tyler, The Creator, is an Americanrapper and record producer from California. Born in Ladera Heights, he rose to prominence as the leader and co-founder of the alternative hip hop collective Odd Future, and has rapped on and produced songs for nearly every Odd Future release. Okonma also creates all the artwork for the group's releases and said in an interview with radio presenter DJ Semtex, that he designs all the group's clothing and other merchandise as well. After releasing his debut album Goblin under XL Recordings, in April 2011, he signed a joint venture deal for him and his label Odd Future Records, with RED Distribution and Sony Music Entertainment. Following that he released his second studio albumWolf, which was met with generally positive reviews and debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 selling 90,000 copies in its first week.

Music Magazine Brief

Brief- To design a front cover, contents page and a double page spread for a music magazine.

Evaluation of my College Magazine

 

Evaluation Questions

What have you learnt from completing this task?

From completing this task I have learnt how to use Photoshop. This was my first real task on Photoshop. By using Photoshop I learnt how to use the ‘scale’ tool so that I can keep my images at the same scale but still reduce the size of the image. As well as edit images on Photoshop with the ‘Lasso’ tool, I also learnt how to add text to the image, meaning that I could add titles; captions, headlines and also add my story titles.

As well as using Photoshop for the first time I also learnt how to use a Blog for the very first time. I set up my blog for the first time at the start of this task. I learnt how to make a new post on my blog.
Aside from learning new technology I also learnt new terminology related to media. For example I learnt the meanings for a number of words, such as; connotation, convention, header, footer and I also learnt the importance of semiotics in advertisements in order to show what the true meaning of an advertisement is.

 

How have you used technology?

I used a lot of new technology including some camera’s to take HD photos so that I could get the best image I possibly could with the resources I had. I also used Photoshop to edit the images I took; this was so that I could keep what I wanted in the image and took out background images as well as alter the colour, brightness and contrast of the image.

When I used PowerPoint for my Contents mock up i also used it to create a mood board. The reason I used PowerPoint to create my Mood board is because it is simple to use and effective. On my mood board I got images of the 3G-football pitch available at Wyke as well as some images of football, rugby pitch & rugby ball, iPhone and social media. This is to show what could go in my magazine, as it is what students are interested in. The reason I used Photoshop is because it is a program, which allows you to edit images as well as add stuff to the image to create a whole new image. To cut out things in the background of my original image I used the ‘lasso’ tool so that I could carefully cut around the things I wanted to keep in the image and get rid of the rest in the background which wasn’t needed. The reason for using HD cameras was to get the best picture I possibly could so that it was clear and also made sure the image was not blurry and legible to use. The images were saved to the SD card in the camera.  I had to use a card reader to get the images from the SD card to get them onto the computer so that I could find the best image to use for my magazine.

 

What conventions have you used and why?

On the front cover of my magazine I used the main image of a student, this is so that it is easy for the reader to recognize that it is for a college magazine, due to the student also been on the college site. As well as this I also used story titles on the front cover of the magazine, yet again making it easier for the reader to know what is inside and something for them to expect to be in the magazine. For example a main title I used for the front cover is ‘Highest National Pass Rate 97.5%’. This easy to know that it is to do with education as it is related to courses and the percent of students that passed their courses. The main convention I used which stood out the most was the title of my magazine ‘The Student Life’ gives it straight away that the magazine is about what it’s like been a student.

 

What would you change if you were to do this task again?

Personally I would change the image I took, I would get the person top stand up and have a positive look whilst stood in-front of the Wyke college sign. This will give the reader an obvious sign that it is a college magazine. I would change the lay-out of my college magazine as I will have more skill use of Photoshop, due to this been my first time using it I was not able to do some of the advanced tools on Photoshop. I would also change the name of my magazine as I feel the title I gave it wasn’t very creative.

That is all I would change if I were to do the task again.

Final Front Cover

Digital Drafts- Contents Page Plan and Colour Scheme

This is a mock up of my contents page and a colour scheme.

Next to the story title there will be the page number of what page that story is on.

This is so that the reader can go straight to the story they want to read rather than searching for it themselves.

Possible magazine names

5 Magazine names that i could use:

1. The Student Life
2. College!
3. College Sport
4. Sport!
5. Life as a Student

Semiotics/Signifiers example

The red background shows romance and passion, suggesting that the reason for this is the hair gel he is using.

The women is standing very seductively and is looking at him to show that she finds him attractive due to this hair product.

You can ‘score’ with any women if you have this specific product. ' with the high precision styling you can score the perfect hit.'

The slogan in the advertising is 'Style. Attract. Play' relates to actually styling your hair to attract girls. Due to the camera being behind him, it is as if you are one of the 'lads' and he is turning to you giving the impression that ' Look at this I'm going to pull'

Denotation - in the image it says 'you can score the perfect hit' literally as the man is about to win the game if he pots the black ball.

Connotation - The connotation of the word 'score' as he as about to score with the black ball and with the girl he is intending to 'pull'.

Photographs I've taken

High angle

Medium close up

Item framed to the right

Image framed to the right

Long shot

Low angle

Digital Draft- Front cover Plan

How my magazine will look.

The layout of my front cover

I will add a navy blue to the outside of the text boxes.

Mood Board

Things students are interested in, which could go in my magazine:
Football
Rugby
Tennis
American Football
Movies
Latest Technology
Social Media

Introduction to Photoshop

Photoshop Introduction task

In my first time using photoshop-

I created a photoshop with 4 different images, including; A bear, an astronaut, the eiffel tower and sand dunes, these went on to different layers from each other. This meant that i could still edit the images whilst they were put together on one image in photoshop. I could now lasso the images and place them together on one image. 

To change the size of the image i used the scaling tool, whilst using this tool i held the 'shift' key allowing the image to change size but keep the same scale. This kept it realistic and didn't change the height of width of the image itself.

Saving a file- To save the file i went to the top left corner to click 'file'>'Save as'

I could then chose what i wanted to call the file and where i wanted to save the file. This saved it as a 'PSD' which is a photoshop file. This meant when i opened it again i could still edit the images as they were on different layers, where'as when i saved it as a JPEG it flattened the image, meaning they are all on one layer and i can move the full thing together instead of it being separate.

Existing college magaazine covers

The images of the american football players gives the impression that the magazine is specifficaly going to be about sport.
The magazine will mainly focus on American Football. The title 'Big East' suggests that the college is in the east of america. The blue kit represents the calmness of the team when they're on the ball. They can handle situations well and still be calm andnot pannic on the ball. Whereas the black kit represents the power of the team and how powerful the college is.

 



The 'praying hands' signifies the magazine could be quite controversial. The colour blue also represents confidence and faith and the man on the front cover is smiling so he is confident about the magazine and its contents. His stance is relaxed and in a religous manor showing how important the magazine is to read. It's like he is showing the magazine is sacred. 

The yellow title shows the joy and happiness of the magazine. The man smiling on the cover is also expressing the joy in the magazine by smiling and showing the magazine is positive. Due to yellow been used alot it suggests that the magazine is a feel good magazine and show the positives of going to college and how much it can be enjoyed. 

 

Brief- To design a college magazine front cover and mock up contents page.