R&B/Hip Hop

R&B/Hip Hop

SpinMedia is a digital publisher concentrated in the US which owns many genres of music similar to mine, such as Pop and Hip Hop websites including Spin, Buzznet, Idolator Stereogum and VIBE. I think that SpinMedia would be a good organisation to publish my music magazine as they fixate on the artist who is being featured and their music and they would include some behind the scenes interviews too give their readers an insight of the artist’s life, which is classed as their unique selling point.

The genre I have decided my music magazine is R&B/Hip Hop, the main reason why I chose this type is because I personally listen to a lot of R&B music and I thought it would be easier to research information about their magazines. A majority of R&B target audience are16 to late 30’s; this could be because of the explicit lyrics in some of the songs. It is usually females that are attracted to R&B music because female R&B artists stereotypically make songs about being in love or heartbroken – this is something that will appeal greatly to teenage girls and young adults. The fast paced R&B songs will also involve a lot of fashion and the synergy of music and fashion is something that will also attract females and some men because if they are into that sort of music they are usually also interested in fashion.

The target audience of R&B males is majorly made up of females because they are portrayed in a very sexual way, through their nudity and lyrics. Females will find this appealing because usually they will also be physically attracted to the male artists. However some males will be attracted to the jewelry, women with minimum clothing and wealth in these videos. These teenagers are also usually from a black background because R&B comes from soul which would be something a majority of the young adults parents would have listened to.

 

My Colour Choice

My Colour Choice

The colours that I chose to include in my magazines colour scheme are Black, Red and Grey. The reason I chose black and grey was because black originally goes with every colour and I wanted to use the grey as a fade colour. I then colour red, since it’s a powerful colour and can be seen easily by the audience.

Red is associated with energy, power, passion and determination. Red is used for danger signs and the color can be found in national flags which show power. From most Google Images I saw that red and black are some of the main colors in any Hip Hop music magazine, so I could use red for the masthead or the sub-headings for the pages, as it eye catching and will attract the reader to buy the magazine.

Black is associated with seriousness, power and mystery. Black is a mysterious color, it sometimes also has a negative connotation. Black is a good contrasting color, as it contrasts with any color. If the color is combined with orange and red, it gives of an aggressive feel. This color is stereotypically used in Rap magazine. I can use black for the back- ground as it contrasts well and also the fonts and the images will stand out from the page.

 

My Intial Ideas

                                             MY INITIAL IDEAS

Brainstorm Ideas

FIRST IDEAS

When it was time to come up with my magazine idea, I didn’t know which I would like and would suit me. So to make it easier, I decided to brainstorm some ideas of the price, paper type as well as genre of music. I found that this made it easier for me to shorten down my options.

Typography

TYPOGRAPHY

Since I don’t know much about typography, I decided to a blog about it to get an understanding of the basics. Later on I’ll be able to another blog based on what i have learnt from my research later on. 
There are several term that I researched that can be used to describe and categories fonts. All of these terms describe parts of a font that give the eye visual ideas to decoding the letters while reading.

v  Serifs are the flicks at the end of the letters

v  X-height refers to the height of the main body of the lowercase letters

v  The baseline is a line where the bottom of the main body of each letter rests

v  Ascenders are the parts of the letter that rise above the x-height

v  Weight if the thickness of the line in the font

v  be described which most fonts can be placed:

Sans Serif In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that doesn’t have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. In print, sans-serif fonts are more typically used for headlines than for body text. Sans-serif fonts have become the most popular type of body text on-screen, especially online.

Serifs In typography, serifs have strokes/flicks on the end. A typeface that has serifs is called a serif typeface. A typeface without serifs is called sans-serif, from the French sans, meaning “without”.

The Colour Wheel

                                                        THE COLOUR WHEEL

A colour circle consists of red, yellow and blue. 1666. Since 1666 artists have studied and designed numerous variations of the circle.

There are also categories of colours based on the colour wheel. There are the main 3-part colour wheels.

 

 

 

 

In the 1^st group which are called the Primary Colours: Red, yellow and blue in theory primary colours are known for not being able mixed or formed by any combination of other colours with each other.

The second group are called the Secondary Colours: Green, orange and purple mixing these colours together will eventually allow you to make the primary colours.
The last group is called the Tertiary Colours: Yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green & yellow-green, these are the colours are formed from mixing any of the primary colours with any of the.
In visual experiences, harmony is something that is pleasing to the eye. It engages the reader and it creates an inner sense of order. When something is not harmonious, it's either boring or chaotic in the reader’s eye. When creating a magazine front cover the colours have to link with each other otherwise it’ll look so bland that the viewer’s attention will not be engaged. Colour harmony delivers visual interest and a sense of order.

Complementary colours are any two colours which are directly opposite each other, such as red and green and red-purple and yellow-green. As seen from the picture below, there are several shades of yellow-green in the leaves and several shades of red-purple. These opposing colours create maximum contrast and maximum stability

 

 

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VIBE

                                                             

VIBE

As you can tell from the front cover, contents page and double page spread the first magazine I chose to analyse is a music based magazine. The genre of music that this magazine advertises is mainly Hip Hop and Rap, this magazine caught my eye as I it is promoting music genre that I do like.

The front cover is colourful with a 3 coloured scheme of pink, blue and a grey background, this shows its simplicity of the magazine but the celebrities picture makes it so powerful. The contents page has the same typography of the front covers showing the magazine’s consistency and makes it look more professional. It also has a picture of its featured celebrity, therefore if the front cover wasn’t enough to grab the reader’s attention then the contents page hopefully should. The picture of Kanye West is also in the Zed area, so when the readers are flipping through the pages Kanye’s pictures should be seen. The double page spread in any magazine is supposed to stand out; therefore the typography and colour scheme on these 2 pages are completely different. The main picture spreads across both of the pages with the body text starting with a drop cap. I like how the magazine was able to use the celebrity’s music title and merge it into the background as

The front cover has a colour scheme of hot pink, blue and black, this give the idea that VIBE magazine is for all ages, as well as all genres of music. The typography fonts of the front page are all in Sans-serif and bold capitals attracting more attention as the readers would think that it will be important. Double page spreads primary aim are to sell a feature, which should work together with the front cover and the contents page to represent art the pages are meant to flow together Since the double page spread are usually containing the magazine’s interview with a celebrity, the typeface are always Serif and bold. This makes the double page spread stage out and stay in the readers mind the most. The layout of VIBE’s magazine is simple with the text all connected to each other, without making the readers look all over the pages for the next paragraph. I found out that is this is a good technique as the readers aren’t disrupted during their reading causing them to change the page instead of finishing as well as the title.