3. RWD Magazine
RWD Magazine is a British based magazine which features Music, Style,
Sport, Gaming, Film, Technology, News, interviews and charts on Hip
Hop, Grime, Dubstep, RnB, UK Garage, Drum and Bass and U.S house
music, however the main feature of this magazine is Grime.
This magazine mainly features music and the genres listed above.
RWD Magazine became a well known name in UK underground urban
music circles in mid to late 2003. This coincided with the rise of a new
urban music genre, which later became popularly referred to as Grime.
4. Front Cover
Skepta is a popular feature of this music genre (grime),
therefore he is recognisable and popular to the audience,
and viewers will spot him clearly on this front page because
he is covering most of the page.
The colour red is the most eye-catching and stand out colour,
as its also first on the colour spectrum. Also the colour red
has the connotations of anger and danger, which is the mood
of many of Skepta’s songs and the mood of many Grime
songs.
Nicki Minaj is also a very popular artist, so her name is in red
as well to make it stand out more, so more people will read
it, and the name is on its own on the page, making it look
more like a heading, which most people will read.
The rest of the artists that feature in this magazine are
written all together in white against a blue background, this
makes it stand out, however as these artists aren’t as
popular, they are placed together, making them not stand
out as much, but still making them noticeable.
The font used on this front page is very basic, as the
audience are mainly teenagers and this font is mostly
targeted towards younger people.
5. Website
• This is the website for the RWD Magazine.
• It is structured very well, as most of the audience will be younger viewers,
therefore it is easier for them to find and access the content they are looking for.
• The colours used are very basic with mainly black background with white writing
over the top, which makes it very clear to read. There is also the colour red which
is the most stand out colour, which covers the headlines of the different
categories of content, making them stand out even more to help the viewers find
what they are looking for. Only basic colours like black and white are used
because it portrays the mood of Grime music, as it’s not very joyful music,
therefore the colours aren’t bright colours, such as yellow or pink.
• Predominantly males are the audience for RWD, therefore more masculine
colours such as black and red are used, rather than a pink or yellow, which are
more associated as feminine colours.
• Throughout the whole magazine and website only basics fonts are used, again
because the main audience are younger people and it makes it easier to read and
use the website.
• Images of certain artists are main features of this home page on the RWD website,
because some people know artists by their face and not their name and it’s easier
to find them when you can see a big, clear picture next to the name as well.
• Again only simple things are used, for example the shapes used around text and
images are simple shapes, such as squares or circles, again so the website is clear
and easily readable and not over complicating, with many different shapes.
• Most of the writing, especially the headlines are short and to the point, making
them clear and easy to read quickly.
6. VIBE Magazine
Vibe is an American music and entertainment magazine founded by producer Quincy
Jones.
The publication predominantly features R&B and hip hop music artists, actors and other
entertainers and the magazine's target demographic is predominantly young, urban
followers of hip hop culture.
According to ‘Vibe.com’ HipHop is the most popular music genre since 2017, however this
source isn’t vry reliable as they are promoting HipHop music in their magazine.
Quincy Jones launched Vibe in 1993, in partnership with Time Inc. Originally, the
publication had been called Volume before co-founding editor, Scott Poulson-Bryant gave
it the name Vibe. Though hip hop mogul Russell Simmons was rumoured to be an initial
partner, publisher Len Burnett revealed in a March 2007 interview that Simmons clashed
with editor-in-chief Jonathan Van Meter. Miller Publishing bought Vibe in 1996.
In June 2009 the publication production shut down, however Quincy Jones wanted to
keep it alive online and private equity investment fund InterMedia Partners bought Vibe
Magazine and was kept alive online.
In 2013 Vibe Magazine along with other Vibe productions was sold to Spin for an
undisclosed amount.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_(magazine)
7. Front Cover
Eminem is the main feature of this front cover and he is a very popular
artist, therefore he will make people want to the read the magazine if
Eminem will be featuring in it. Eminem covers most of the page,
therefore he is easily noticeable for a viewer.
The colour scheme is black and red and these two colours have a nice
appearance together and red is the most stand out, so it will catch the
viewers eyes. Also these colours are seen as more masculine colours,
and as Vibe’s audience is more male than female they are trying to
reach out to males more.
The more popular artists on the front cover are made to stand out more
than the rest, or example Eminem is the biggest name on the page as is
in the most stand out colour (red) and Lil Wayne, Kanye West, Jay-Z and
T.I are also quite popular artists, therefore their names are bigger than
the other (less popular) artists, to make people want to read it if they
see that their favourite artist will be featuring in the magazine.
The font used is very basic, as it is mainly aimed at teenagers, so they
have made it easier for them to read, and they’ve made it look more
informal as more people rom a younger generation are more likely to
read it if they know it’s an easy read, with no complicating vocabulary or
formal fonts and writing.
8. Double Page Spread
As soon as you see this double page spread, the firs thing you notice are
the big pictures on both pages and because the images are so big it makes
it seem there isn’t a lot of text, making people more willing to read it. Also
both images are clear to see who the artist is, showing people I they
glance/look at it that the article is about Drake and because Drake is a
very popular artist, more people are going to read it.
The text in the top left is in the colour red which is the most stand out
colour and it is bigger and more bold compared to the rest of the article,
meaning this is the first thing people will read and it is an entertaining
quote from Drake which is in the article but the reader doesn’t know
where, therefore if they want to know what it is about they are going to
have to read it.
Apart from one of the pictures and the text in the top left, the only
colours used are black and white, this could be done for a number of
reasons, such as these colours are more associated with males and more
males read Vibe magazine, the colours are very simple making it easy to
read, with original black writing on a white background.
The fonts used are also very simple making people more willing to read it
as they know it will not be a hard task and they won’t be struggling to
understand what the font says. The simple font also makes it look
informal, making people like the actual text will be informal, making
people from a younger generation more likely to read the article.
9. Website
The website mainly uses the same colour scheme as its
magazine, which is black and white, again which makes
it simple an easy to read.
The headings are very clear at the top of the page
making it easy for people to find what they are looking
for. The headings are slightly bigger and more bold
then the usual text, making them more noticeable.
Popular news stories about HipHop and R&B music
genres are also shown on the first page of the website
covering almost half of the page, with the heading of
the news article being larger and bolder than the rest
of the text so people will see it.
The second picture shows the website page when you
scroll down, and there are different articles of stories
from the HipHop and R&B genres. These articles are
structured very well, with a picture next to each story,
so you know who the article is about, and next to the
picture there is the headline of the articles which is
large and bold, therefore this will be what the viewer
reads before the actual article. Also there is a small
part of the article below the headline to give a brief
representation of what the article will be like and what
it will contain.
10. Rolling Stones Magazine
Rolling Stone is an American biweekly magazine that focuses on popular
culture. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner, who is
still the magazine's publisher, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It
was first known for its musical coverage and for political reporting
by Hunter S. Thompson. In the 1990s, the magazine shifted focus to a
younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film
actors, and popular music. To get it off the ground, Wenner borrowed
$7,500 from his own family and from the parents of his soon-to-be wife,
Jane Schindelheim. The first issue carried a cover date of November 9,
1967, and was in newspaper format with a lead article on the Monterey
Pop Festival. The cover price was 25¢ (equivalent to $1.83 in 2016).
11. Front Cover
The first thing you see when looking at this magazine is a large image of
a popular artist (that features in the magazine) that is displayed on the
front cover, which makes people want to read it, as they want to know
what the story of a very popular artist, in this case Kendrick Lamar, is
about.
The colour used in the title is red, which is very eye-catching and well-
known as the Rolling Stone’s logo, using the same font and style as well.
The font used for headlines on the front cover for stories that will be
featuring in the magazines is very basic making it easy to read,
especially considering that this magazines audience are mainly
teenagers.
The colour of these headlines are white against a black background
(against the image) which makes the headlines very clear and
understandable and quite noticeable as two opposite colours are used
with each other.
The headlines displayed here are headlines that would be most popular,
for example Donald Trump’s name is mentioned and he is very well-
known, so people will be willing to read it to find out what the story is
about and El Chapo’s name is mentioned who is also well-known,
making people want to read it.
12. Double Page Spread
As soon as you see this double page spread you see a large picture
covering a full page of a popular artist (Tupac), making people more
willing to read it as this artist is liked by many people. This size of this
picture makes the double page spread have an equal image to text
ratio, making it seem like there isn’t a lot of text, meaning more
people will be willing to read it, if there isn’t a lot.
On the image on the left there is a quote in bold, white writing
against a dark background, making the quote stand out. The quote is
from the text on the second page and it an unexplained quote making
people want to know what the context of the quote is, however it
doesn’t say where the quote it, meaning people would have to read
the whole text to find out where the quote is.
The structure of the text is useful, as it is in different
sections/paragraphs, making it easier to read as the reader can read
one section at a time, and not get bored by reading a big block of
text.
The colour and font is very useful for the reader, with black writing
over a white background, making it very clear and the font is very
basic making it look informal, along with the actual text being
informal, which most teenagers would prefer to read, as it is not a
difficult task and is a relaxing read.
13. Website
This main home page of the Rolling Stone website has
many images to go with the text, making it look more
interesting and easy for the viewers to find their artists and
celebrities.
This website is well structured with main headings at the
top to give people an easy way to find what they are
looking for and to show everything that the website
contains. There is a picture with most of the headlines for
the news stories, which is what people see before reading
the headlines.
The colour red is used a lot here, as it stands out to the
viewer, ,making them look at the things in red first. The
other colours used for text are black against a white
background, which is simple and easy to read.
The font used is very simple and easy to read, meaning
more people are going to read it.
In my opinion I think that there are a lot of information and
images packed very closely on the same page, which
doesn’t make it difficult to find what you looking for,
however I don’t think it has a very good appearance and it
looks a bit tacky.
14. Summary
From researching RWD, Vibe and Rolling Stone magazines and websites,
I have found that they all have a lot in common, with the colour red
being a main feature in all the magazines and websites, the text is
almost always black with a white background or white with a black
background and the font and size of the text is made to make it easy to
read, as well as the way they are all written using informal language,
which most people from a younger generation prefers and this is useful
to me as these productions and I both have the same target audience.
15. Bibliography
anon. (2017). RWD Magazine. Available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RWD_Magazine . Last accessed 8th Jan 2018.
anon. (2018). RWD Magazine. Available: http://rwdmag.com/ . Last
accessed 9th Jan 2018.
anon. (2017). Vibe (magazine). Available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_(magazine) . Last accessed 9th Jan 2018.
anon. (2018). Vibe. Available: https://www.vibe.com/. Last accessed 10th
Jan 2018.
anon. (2018). Rolling Stone. Available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone. Last accessed 10th Jan 2018.
anon. (2018). Rolling Stone. Available: https://www.rollingstone.com/. Last
accessed 11th Jan 2018.
16. Proposal
Working Title: GrimeHop
Audience: My audience will be mainly teenagers, as this is the age range that listens to Grime and HipHop music genres the most and their generation will relate to the music more
compared to people from older generations. Mostly males listen to these music genres, as the artists in these genres produce songs to aim mainly at males, therefore that’s the
gender I will be aiming at rather than females. I am not aiming specifically at one social group, however more people from a lower class would read this magazine, due to it not
being online and more people from this social status would listen to Grime and HipHop, and again more people from a lower class social group would be able to relate to the
information, stories and music, however the percentages of which social group listens to these music genres are very close.
Rationale: On my first production this year for the advertisement of Irn-Bru I used Photoshop to produce a print advert for Irn-Bru, which allowed me to experiment with the
Photoshop and the tools used, meaning now I am more experienced in using Photoshop and will be able to produce things quicker and with more detail on Photoshop. I have also
used Photoshop when making experiments and when practising in the spare time within my productions, where I watched YouTube tutorials on using specific tools, what they do
and how I can use them, again meaning I have more experience and techniques to use when producing my magazine project.
Project Concept: I am producing a magazine and a website on a certain topic of my choice and I have chosen to have the topic as music, focusing on Grime and HipHop music
genres, with stories and information on artists, their songs, and the genres in general. I will be producing a magazine cover and double page spread using Photoshop and I will be
using InDesign to produce a website to go with my magazine. I will be doing research on different magazines that are similar to my idea I have chosen. I will be choosing three
different magazines and analysing them on PowerPoint, by using various websites to find out information about the magazines background, including its producers and how the
productions of the magazines got to where there are now. I will then choose a front cover image of the magazines and analyse them, discussing what they use to reach out to their
target audience and how they make their magazines eye-catching, popular and why people would want to read them. I will then choose a double page spread from the magazines
and discuss the same factors I talked about for the front cover of the magazine and how the text etc. is structured. I will then talk about the websites to the magazines and how they
are produced to make people want to use them. Finally I will create a summary to show what I could use in my magazine and website that is a main feature of the professional
productions.
Production Techniques: I will be using a high quality Canon camera provided by the College for the photography, when I’m taking pictures for my magazine. I have not decided yet,
however if I wanted to I could use a green screen to get a background of my choice, although I usually prefer to take legitimate pictures, with real pictures. After taking pictures I
will edit them to how I want for my magazine on a software called Photoshop, which I am slightly experienced in so it won’t be very difficult, however I will still need to learn a few
new tools and techniques within Photoshop. To make my website I will be using a software called InDesign and I have never used this software before, therefore I will be
inexperienced in using it and will have to watch some tutorials on how to use it.
Evaluation: To evaluate my work I will get feedback from different people to get their opinions on my magazine and website and talk about what improvements I could have made
if I had more time to produce it. I will also discuss the things I did well within my productions and if I enjoyed making my magazine and website.
17. Front Cover
This is my front cover practice design I made using
Photoshop. I used a colour scheme on this cover
page, which was mainly black and white with red for
the masthead and some headings, as red is the most
eye catching colour and black and white have a nice
appearance together and my audience is mainly male
and they tend to like the colours black, white and red.
The image is too small for a magazine cover as I
wanted to cover the whole page with a main image,
therefore there is a space between the main image
and the title of the magazine, which lowers the rating
of the appearance. Also I didn’t have enough time to
finish this piece, therefore if I had more time then I
would have most likely filled this space with headings
or quotes from the magazine. Other than these
negative points I am pleased with the rest of the front
cover and the structure/layout of it.
18. Double Page Spread
This is my double page spread practice
design I made using Indesign. I made the
article about Jaykae. To get the picture
covering the whole left page I saved an
image from Google and cropped it to fit the
needed size using Photoshop, then placed it
onto Indesign. I used Lorem Ipsum for the
text and I enlarged the first letter in the
article to make it look professional. I think
that the close-up image of the artist
covering the whole left page makes the
article look good as there is an even
proportion of images to text. An
improvement on this double page spread
could be putting an image of Jaykae in the
middle of the text in the middle box and
have the text around the image, using ‘wrap
text’, however I attempted to do this but
could not do it, as it wasn’t working.
19. Website
This is my website practice design I made
using Wix. I looked at the website for the
magazine Vibe and used ideas from there
in my design, for example a bit of the
layout and having a story on the main
home page with a picture next to it that is
related to the story. I am pleased with the
outcome of this design and its structure,
which makes it look good and makes it
easy for information to be found. If I had
more time I would add more headings for
different stories and change the
background to an image associated with
Grime or Hip Hop. I also would have
changed the colours, mainly the picture of
the Grime artist Santan Dave, to black and
white so it relates to the front cover
design of my magazine.
20. Idea generation
Large image of an artist, covering most of the front cover: Post Malone,
Santan Dave, Stormzy, Kendrick Lamar, Skepta, Chip, Wretch 32. These
are options for the main picture on the front cover with most likely two
other artists on the cover on a much smaller scale, behind the main
artist’s picture.
The title will be red, with a plain and bold font, in large letters at the top
of the screen.
The background behind the title and images will be plain white (no
background), with black text to go against it, however text that is over
the images will be white, to make it more stand out.
22. Front Cover Flat Plan
TITLE
MAIN IMAGE
FEATURES IN
THE
MAGAZINE
FEATURES IN
THE
MAGAZINE
FEATURES IN
THE
MAGAZINE
SECONDARY
IMAGE
SECONDARY
IMAGE
23. Double Page Spread Flat Plan
IMAGE RELEVANT TO THE TEXT ON THE
OTHER PAGE
TEXT
TEXT
TEXT
TEXTIMAGE
QUOTE FROM
TEXT
QUOTE FROM
TEXT
MAIN HEADING OF ARTICLE
24. Website Flat Plan
TITLE OF PRODUCTION
HEADINGS (HOME, NEWS ETC.)
SOCIAL MEDIA
LINKS
IMAGE RELEVANT TO
TEXT
TEXT RELEVANT TO
IMAGE
HEADING TO TEXT
25. Style Sheet
Fonts:
Masthead – Aku & Kamu –
Headlines – Lugos –
Body text – Coolvetica –
Colours:
Masthead –
Body text – black/white
Headlines –
c72e2e c72e2e ffffff
26. Website Plan
Home News MusicContact
Social media links
Top charts Grime
albums/tracksGrime
Most popular
stories, pictures,
headings
Hip Hop Top charts Hip Hop
albums/tracks
27. Copy
JayKae
Grime artist Jaykae talked about how his music career within Grime/Hip Hop started and on his evolution from his rap
battle clashes within his area to becoming a growing world-known artist.
As all of his listeners know he is from Birmingham, Small Heath as he shows with pride through his music, especially in
his summer anthem ‘Birmingham’ in a collaboration with another Birmingham raised artist Lotto Boyzz. Not only was
this song a hit but it displayed pure unity from both musicians.
An interview with Jaykae revealed his background, “I started around ’07, just clashing bare in the park, with childhood
insults and banter but I wanted to know where music actually comes from and where its produced, in the studio, so I just
took it from there”. He describes how he started his career with rap battling his neighbourhood youths in the local park
but wanted to progress it further by taking his talent to a legitimate music studio and see how his music could be
produced.
He also explains how he reached the London audience which was a big step up. The grime artist says “YouTube really
helped” as he uploaded his musical talent onto YouTube for the world to see in his early stages of his career and this
gained him many more viewers. This increase in followers and viewers allowed him to feature on Lord Of The Mics
twice, which again gave him a huge boost in his audience, although Jaykae is still a rapidly growing yet fairly small artist,
compared to the very popular Skepta, Stormzy and Kendrick Lamar for example, however many say that 2018 is the year
for Jaykae and he will receive his well-deserved attention from the world.
Jaykae’s life wasn’t all that easy in the meantime, he exclaims that he went through major bumps in his career and life,
with his best friends passing away, which influenced him to drinking an excessive amount (along with many other
mourners for Jaykae’s friends death), in his mourning stage which ended up with a huge fight amongst these mourners,
resulting in many of them being sent to jail, which the artist describes as “a huge downwards spiral”.
After his time spent in jail the rapper only progressed from there, after also missing his chance to be nominated for the
MOBO awards due to being in jail.
Jaykae released an album in 2013 called ‘a Bite To Eat’ and an album in 2014 called ‘Froggy’ however these albums
weren’t well known or popular. On his return two years later he released his single ‘Toothache’. The rapper gained more
exposure when he made a guest appearance at one of grime heavyweight Stormzy’s gigs in 2017 and ‘Toothache’ went
on to appear in an episode of the 50 Cent-produced crime-drama series ‘Power’ the same year. 2017 also saw the
release of Jaykae’s debut full-length ‘Where Have You Been?’ which featured the track ‘Every Country’, produced by the
London-based, very popular grime artist and producer Skepta. This popular album also featured his most popular tracks
‘Pull Up’, ‘Headache’, ‘Toothache’ ‘Knock Door Run’ and ‘Moscow’.
As said earlier this rapper is rapidly growing and becoming very popular in the grime music genre with all of his singles
and album on Spotify and all the other music platforms with around 480,000 monthly listeners.
28. Front Cover Final
This is my progression of my
front cover for my magazine.
As you can see I kept the main
image the same throughout
and the colour scheme stayed
the same as well. On the
second picture you can see
some of the text is slanted
however I later decided to
keep all the text straight after
looking at more professional
products as they all had their
text straight. I also changed
the colour of the text on the
right to all red and the text on
the left to alternating from
red to white. You can also see
I changed the size of the
barcode as it was too big and
aligned everything on each
side to make it look more
neat.
29. Website Final
https://thomas-
haase.wixsite.com
/mysite
This is my progression of my website on Wix. The two pictures in the first
column are screenshots from the home page and as you can see I changed
the festival names and dates and added two videos as a sample of the
website’s content, for example top charts songs etc. The three pictures in
the second column are screenshots from the news page and I added
different stories, for example new albums and artists’ tour dates, and linked
them to sites where they can get this information or album, for example I
linked an album to the album on Spotify. The next column is of screenshots
from the music page, where I listed the top 20 songs from the grime and hip
hop genre and added the top 2 videos at the side from each genre, where
you can play it on screen straight away. I then used my own photography on
albums I created and gave a little description about them. In the final
column there are screenshots of the contact page where the viewer is able
to send emails and all the contact information is listed.
30. Double Page Spread Final
This is my progression of my double page spread and I mainly followed my idea from my
practice design. As you can see I have kept the same image and size throughout. In the second
image you can see I changed the title name, the size and font, as I think it fits better with my
magazine and target audience. I also added an image in the middle of the text and had the
text surrounding the second image of the artist. Finally on the third image I changed the
colour of my title as it fits better with the colour scheme on my front cover. I also changed the
background colour and the text colour as I think the appearance of this is better however it
may now be harder to read the text, however when printed it will be larger and easier to read.
