1. Sasha-Louise Ajodheea

2. The target audience of my magazine are unsigned artists who have a dream to have a music
career. It is aimed at young adults, mainly interested in R&B and Hip Hop music from any
class or background, promoting diversity.With advice from celebrities, news in the music
industry and opportunities for unsigned artists to be heard, I think my magazine can help to
achieve the dream the readers have.
I believe my colour scheme reflects the genre of music well, the use of dark colours such as
black and grey signify an urban environment where stereotypically R&B/Hip Hop and Rap
music is associated with. I chose to use a font which seemed bold and prominent (Poplar
Std) in order to reflect the characteristics of R&B music; to be powerful and outstanding.

3. I gathered my audience research from a questionnaire created on Zoomerang. The six
questions I used were:
3. Are you male or female?
4. Which age group do you belong to?
5. Which music do you prefer to listen to?
6. Current subscriptions to magazines?
7. What would attract you most to buying a magazine?
8. What is the most you would spend on a music magazine?
Each response to the questionnaire helped me to mould my magazine to the largest
audience possible. I posted the questionnaire on Facebook, Twitter and other social media
sites in order for my target audience, young adults, to be able to take part in my research.

4. 1. 76% Female Therefore, I chose to base my
magazine around 15-21 year old
24% Male males interested in R&B/Hip Hop
2. 76% 15-17 years old packed with captivating stories,
6% 18-20 years old exclusive headlines and freebies for
a price of £2.50
18% Over 21 years old
3. 59% R&B/HipHop
29% Rock/Indie
24% Pop
6% Other- Glam Rock and Heavy Metal
4. 12% has subscriptions
88% hasn’t got subscriptions
5. 35% Image
53% Captivating Stories
12% Freebies
6. 47% £1-£2
47% £3-£4
6% Over £4

5. The whole of the title doesn’t The mid shot shows the
need to be shown due to the outfit of the model and
distinctive house style. The full therefore not only promotes
image then can be shown music, but the fashion and
without being spoilt at the top. culture of music too.
The barcode is placed I like the plain simplicity of
vertically to leave more space just one background colour
for the magazine content. so I chose to use this
feature with my magazine
I like how the red and white
contrasts the dark colours and
i chose to incorporate this into
mine.

6. •My masthead is coloured black to contrast the grey
background. The bold uppercase letters also signify a sense
of importance and individuality. The lines above and below it
are continued throughout the magazine to build a significant
house style.
•The story headline and subheading is positioned on the right
hand third in order to challenge conventions of typical
magazines. Consequently, the magazine must be placed at
the front on the shelf in a shop in order to gain the full
impact of the magazine.
•The banner across the bottom draws attention due to the
use of capitalisation and contrasting white lettering with the
black strip. The word ‘win’ stands by itself to attract the
audience and coax them to want to find out more as not
much info is revealed on how to win Wireless tickets.
•The main selling story is the biggest text feature, using ‘free
transform’ in order for the text to be a specific width which a
normal font size couldn’t achieve. The image supporting the
main story is aptly a contrasting red to the grey and
immediately draws attention to readers.

7. Renaming the contents page I like the collage of images on
to something different other this page, it gives a good insight
than ‘contents’ gives a to who or what features in the
difference to other magazine.
magazines, much like The
Source does. I chose to use The contents list is split into
this technique to challenge different categories which
the conventions of other enables readers to easily
magazines such as Vibe. navigate to pages of interest,
due to the headings.
The line under the heading is
effective as it gives clear
separation and looks very
professional, I chose to
interpret this as my house
style.

8. •I chose images that were relevant to the
‘Featured’ column as these are the main selling
stories. The cover star is clearly marked by a red
circle to show importance and to draw attention.
•I included subscription information as this is what
a lot of magazines from my research do, in order
to not let readers miss out on a single issue.
•I tried to ensure with my images used that they
contrasted the black background so they didn’t
blend in and become insignificant to my contents
page.
•The house style is still continued with the lines
above and below the ‘Contents’

9. With the image taking up one half of Using a quote from the interview
the double page spread, it shows is very effective as it gives a clear
importance and significance to the idea of what the article is about
article. I chose to use this technique and draws attention to the reader.
to apply emphasis to the interviewee.
The contrast between font and
The typography is promoting a bold background also allows the writing
statement to show power and to stand out and therefore I chose
importance. This helped to choose this technique also.
my font to convey the right
connotations behind the font. Again, a mid shot of the
interviewee takes up half of the
The black clothing contrasts the double page spread and I feel this
white background to draw attention is very effective for the article.
to the image and convey it’s
boldness. I chose for my model to
wear contrasting black and white for
this matter.

10. •The white heading and white t-shirt
instantly contrast the dark background
which consequently makes it clear what is
important on the page and deliberately
made to stand out.
•I used small images of the interviewee,
Kayo, in order to show emotion throughout
the interview. This can encourage empathy
and understanding of atmosphere of the
interview.
•I chose the heading to be a quote from
Kayo himself, quotation marked, as I saw
some magazines used this technique. I
found it quite effective so used it as a main
focus of the double page spread.
•The heading continues the house style of
the two lines above and below.

12. Planning: I sketched ideas for my photos in order for me to cnstruct my image shots.
Through experimenting with the camera and working with what I had, my ideas changed but
developed for the better.
Shot distance and Framing/Composition: I used the zoom function on my camera in order
to get the focus of my model yet also the background of the landscape as I thought this
would be a good front cover idea. I then later changed my mind and cut the background out
and replaced it with a block colour in Photoshop. I took over 100 shots and sorted through
all of them to decipher the best shot angles- i used a mid shot image like most other music
magazine.
Colour: I enhanced the colour by adjusting the saturation of the image to make the image
less dull due to bad weather and it contrasted my background much better.
Mise en scene: I ensured my subject wore contrasting colours to the background so it’d be
easier to edit and cut out in Photoshop. I took some shots with proper such as speakers but
then decided that it took the focus from the subject and therefore used stance and
expression as well as colours to portray a theme.

13. I had never used Photoshop before to edit my pictures, so this was new to me and I feel
I’ve learnt alot from scratch with this software.
• I changed the saturation of my image to give my model more of a radiant glow as the
image colour quality wasn’t that great due to the outside weather/lighting conditions.
•I cut out the background using the lasso tool and added a new layer of block grey colour
to replace the background in the image. This tool also allowed my image to overlap over
my masthead.
•I used the crop tool to crop my image to a more appropriate size to work with.
•I selected ‘free transform’ in order to change the dimensions of my images and text to
achieve the size I wanted to fill my magazine space.
•I learnt how do add effects to my pictures such as ‘posterize’, ‘gradients’ and different
patterns. However, i chose not to use these as I wanted my images to be in their normal
form like every other magazine does,

14. The progress from my preliminary task to
my finished product is predominantly
evident, my skills have developed so much.
I’m now able to add backgrounds and
effects, angle my shots for images correctly
and relevantly and also edit and scale my
pictures with accuracy. I’m proud of what I
have been able to produce and achieve
from my coursework!
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15. ‘BACKSTAGE’ follows codes and conventions of other music magazines by including
interviews, freebies and celeb gossip.
The images I used were similar to those I saw in other magazines or musicians and I tried to
copy and recreate this look in order to follow form.
Challenging the codes and conventions of other magazines, the stories headings are on the
right hand third in order for the magazine to have to be stacked at the front of the shelf,
consequently displaying the whole front cover as opposed to them being on the left third.
From my research, freebies was quite a popular selling point. I made sure the freebie was
highlighted as taken note of by contrasting the background colour to attract the readers.
The font is all capitalised, which goes against alot of magazines. This shows importance,
dominance and boldness.

16. ‘Vibe’ magazine is very influential upon ‘BACKSTAGE’ and they are similar in many
ways, due to my ideas being developed from the structure of ‘Vibe’ and it’s conventions.
Founded by Quincy Jones in association with Time Inc, if my magazine was to be
distributed by them, my magazine would be very successful. With Quincy Jones being
very popular, my product would gain publicity and popularity by being promoted by
someone in the music industry. In addition, being approved by and linked to somebody
famous, it gives readers the idea that after gaining acceptance, that the magazine must
be good for a role model like himself to be able to want to read and take an interest in the
magazine.