1.
During the research and planning stage of this project I took various stylemodels (i-D, Wonderland and Dazed & Confused in particular) and looked attheir conventions, page layouts and graphology. To achieve a similar finalproduct to the style models I looked at I mainly focused of the genre of mymagazine (indie/alternative) and the type of audience I would aim it at (maleand females 16-24). i-D magazine in particular, was a huge inspiration for thestyle and graphology of my front cover, researching and analysing their boldand unusual covers inspired me, the lack of cover lines and detail on thecovers let the strong images they use speak for themselves, this wassomething I kept in mind when taking my images for my magazine andresearching photographers and their style that I wanted to incorporate wasimportant at this stage, as was getting the ‘right’ image for my front cover inorder to achieve the same conventions as i-D magazine. The decision to usei-D magazine’s issue tag line e.g. ‘The back to the future issue’ and ‘The pickme up issue’ was a decision made when producing my final front cover, I feltthe page was lacking a certain suitably vague tag line which would reallybrand my magazine and what it would include. I feel using the tag line ‘Theinfluential issue’ fitted my magazine and the band cover stars (Influxx)perfectly and helped me to emulate i-D’s style successfully. Looking at ELLEmagazine and the difference between their subscriber and general releasecovers also helped me to do more research into minimalist and simplisticmagazine conventions that I felt fit my magazine best. Researching stylishmagazine covers such as Esquire, Dazed & Confused, Wonderland, V andNumero that challenged to conventions of a normal magazine cover alsogave me lots of inspiration on how I would incorporate the popularminimalistic style they so eloquently use. Using an example of a minimalisticDPS in Wonderland magazine helped me in presenting the double pagespread in my magazine and the particular graphology/layout that I intendedto use which would precisely emulate my genre and style of the band(Influxx) best.

2.
Researching photographers had a huge impact on the way my final magazinelooked. Terry Richardson’s work in particular helped me create somethingsimilar to a real media product. Looking at the cover he shot of Rihanna forthe Rolling Stone magazine and how he had incorporated the ‘golden spiral’rule to capture an eye catching and flawless image of the cover star and wassomething I kept in mind when taking and choosing the images to but put inmy magazine as it was important to me to keep an aesthetically pleasinglooking throughout in order to be cohesive and create a ‘real’ media productfor my intended audience, genre (indie/alternative) and band (Influxx).Looking at Richardson’s and Vauthier’s style of photography (theircamerawork, framing and lighting) was a huge influence on the success of mypictures and lead me to really think about the framing and lighting I would usebefore even starting to shoot my images. This also led onto planning thecostume and props that I would use within my shoot, producing a blog post onthe fashion and costume that I wanted to dress my cover stars in helped me toplan the success of the shoot and reflect the genre and style of mymagazine/band really well.Although I challenged the normal conventions of a busy cover page, mymasthead is conventional of real magazines; it is the largest piece of text onthe page, the first thing a customer would see if it would be placed of a shopshelf, it is easy to read and most importantly it is bold and clear. My choice oftitle ‘DWNLD’ (read as ‘download’) also reflects my magazine. Inspiration forthe title of my magazine was taken from the band ’Sbtrkt’ (subtract) and I feelit really represents the music industry today as most must is streamed onlineand downloaded from software such as iTunes, SoundCloud and Spotify. Usinga slanted ‘electronica’ font for my masthead (Innovation font) also helped toreflect the genre of my magazine and the bands/artists that it will feature.Black and white became the official colour scheme I used throughout, this wasmatched alongside the costume I dressed the band featured in my magazineand the simplistic/minimalistic conventions taken from style models. The starkcontrast of the black on the white against the bold images used within mymagazine also helped to make the colour scheme work really well and helpedme to create a cohesive magazine style across my front cover, contents anddouble page spread.

3.
Deciding to challenge the convention of havingdifferent artists featuring on my contents page(the same as my front cover and double pagespread) was made after taking some shots of adifferent artist (Jessie Rose) to feature on thecontents page. After taking these shots andplacing the image on the contents page I came tothe realisation that it did not conform to theparticular ‘minimalistic’ and ‘simplistic’ layoutthat I was aiming for. The image of the new artiststood out on the page too much and started toalter the overall simple layout of the page, afterdiscussion and feedback from my peers I decidednot to add an image of another artist on thecontents page and in its place I put a ‘Records Ofthe Month’ column and an ‘Albums Of the Month’column. This decision to challenge the normalconvention and forms of a real media product issomething I am happy with, I think having themain, bold image of ‘Influxx’ at the top of thepage works really well in creating a successfulmedia product, with a modern day edge thatchallenges some forms and conventions ofoutstanding media products; giving the magazineits own USP.