The Rolling Stone magazine was founded in 1967 in San Francisco. It was originally known for its music and political coverage but shifted focus in the 1990s to attract a younger audience interested in pop culture like television and films. The magazine has maintained a consistent style over the years with celebrity images or photos featured prominently on the cover and a classic rock font for the masthead. Inside articles have a clean layout with spaced out text that interacts well with accompanying images. The magazine's website also has a basic design that clearly presents content and links to allow easy navigation for users.

1. Magazine and Print
Tom Batty

2. Research
 Rolling Stones: is a biweekly magazine that focuses on popular
culture. The magazine was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann
Wenner and who is still the editor of the magazine today with Ralph J.
Gleason who is a music critic. First the magazine was known for its
music and political coverage. In 1990s, the magazine shifted its focus
to a younger readership interested in youth oriented television shows,
film, actors and popular music. In recent years recent years, it has
kept to its traditional mix of content.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Stone

3. Front cover
Rolling stones magazine has kept the same style of look for the
front cover throughout its years of being published. The header of
the magazine is varied by either having it covered by an image of a
famous celebrity relating to the topic. Or they sometimes have the
main image behind the main header. I feel the reason why they
cover up the title sometimes is because they expect people to know
exactly which magazine it is because of how famous the label is.
The magazines masthead is always the colour red and the same
style font. To me the font is a classic rock star Hollywood style look
which keeps to the fame and music topics they mention inside the
magazine. The cover lines of the magazine are always placed
around the edges in bold plain white writing. The style of font to
me again is something you would see in big film promoting lights
down Hollywood. I think it stand out because the contrasts of
colours makes it pop out by having a darker background. Although
the style of writing is a plain look, the magazine want to get the
message across that they have been around longer then most other
magazines and sticking to their traditional style. With this
magazines and most others I feel like they make sure to keep stuff
to do with stars not as important as the main topic by making it
smaller text or image but then its still in plain sight and spotted
easily.

4. Double page spread
The double page spread of the rolling stones have an
interesting layout. For each celebrity they speak
about will have their own unique design of the page
around them. The musician I have sampled is
rapper/hip hop artist A$AP Rocky. The design of the of
the double page spread is based of one of his albums
that was brand new when this was written. This layout
I would say is very plain and a very clean look and I
think its very well done. On the left hand side of the
double layout there is a big blank space with nothing
there. What works well about it is that it helps us the
reader focus on the rest of the text and imaging
because if that space was filled with text then the
rest of the page wouldn’t stand out well. Another nice
feature that I like is on the right hand side of the
double spread. The text is all evenly spaced out and
the text is interactive with the image above and the
image is sliced into columns matching the text. From
having a plain page this feature gives more finesse
and makes the whole thing together look very
professional.

5. Website
For the Rolling stones website I feel is a very good
website in terms of the content like links to social
media links and has a very good layout and you can
see everything very clearly. I feel like the layout of
the website is again basic and the magazine are
keeping to their old style designs. With having a
plain website helps you focus on the actually content
which they want us to read. The website itself does
give a lot of information in different areas of big
industries and each link is another article you can
read. The stories on the website are good up to date
stories that people want to hear about. The main
stories are clearly placed in the middle of the
website and then at the side the side news it again
nicely placed on the side labelled. Then going along
top and right hand side there is adverts that
surprisingly fit well with the website. The website
has a bar along the top giving you a wide range of
choice on what you can read about.
https://www.rollingstone.com/hip-hop

6. Research 2
 New Musical Express (NME) is a British music journalism magazine published since
1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, in the edition of 14
November 1952. In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music newspaper.
During the period 1972 to 1976, it was particularly associated with gonzo
journalism, then became closely associated with punk rock through the writings
of Julie Burchill, Paul Morley and Tony Parsons. It started as a music newspaper,
and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s and 1990s,
changing from newsprint in 1998.
 An online version of NME, NME.com, was launched in 1996. It became the world's
biggest standalone music site, with over seven million users per month. With
newsstand sales falling across the UK magazine sector, the magazine's paid
circulation in the first half of 2014 was 15,830. In 2013, the list of NME's The 500
Greatest Albums of All Time and the way it was conceived was criticized by the
media.
 NME magazine was relaunched in September 2015 as a nationally distributed free
publication. The first circulation figures published in February 2016 of 307, 217
copies per week were the highest in the brand's history, beating the previous best
of 306,881, recorded in 1964 at the height of the Beatles' fame.
 NME's headquarters are in Southwark, London, England. The brand's editor-in-
chief is Mike Williams, who replaced Krissi Murison in 2012.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NME

7. Front cover
The NME magazine has the same kind of look or idea as the
rolling stones, in the way that they always have the main
topical celebrity as the main and only image covering the
front page. Again the masthead of the magazine is in red
which is the eye catching colour and that’s why a lot of
magazines use a red masthead. In the top right the cover lines
are nicely edited curing around the head of Kendrick which
gives off a good effect and helps the text fit in better. The
cover lines are nice and big with bold righting which helps you
read the front page in a certain order, the order would be the
masthead, the massive image of the celebrity and then the
cover lines conveniently placed for you to read. The font of
the magazine style is all very modern and keeping along with
same style of other new competing magazines. What I think is
a clever is with the stars add on is even though its tucked
away in the bottom left corner they have highlighted their
names in red which makes you pay just as much attention to
them because they're also celebrities. Another meaning I
think is saying that there is more news and information than
just one celebrity.

8. Double Spread
The double spread of this issue in the NME magazine
again straight away makes me think if how basic it
is. But that’s just on first impressions and I feel that
the magazine is sticking to the modern style and
layout. The colour scheme again suits the celebrity
and helps make the layout looks good. Mark Ronson
himself I know always dresses smartly just like he is
pictured on the double spread, so the masthead is
smarty placed around the man himself giving the
page a border and some design. With the text the
magazine have kept a classic feel of righting when
adding the huge capital letters which I feel fits in
the with the whole layout and the columns are all
neatly placed in the right bottom corner giving off a
square look towards the page.

9. Website
The NME website I think has a very good layout and this
makes everything look very smart and professional. The
colour scheme is the same as the double spread which is
very simple and plain but that’s not what the Magazine
company want you to focus on it’s the stories that they
have written about. Because it’s a simple design you can
see all the tools clearly and the masthead in the top left
with a bold font and effect. You can also see the drop
down boxes going across the top telling you what they can
have a read about with a search box in the top right if you
need to find anything specific. For their top news topic
they have that spread across the whole of the page so its
again the first thing you see and seems it’s the breaking
news they want you to read that first. Below that are the
other stories big stories or recently updated ones that
they would say are the more important for us the readers
to view. What I like is they clearly label when the story
was published with the date which helps us know the
newest up o date news. By the side of the stories are
some adds that are nicely placed so they don’t get in the
way and don’t interrupt your reading or researching.
http://www.nme.com/

10. Research 3
 XXL is an American hip hop magazine, published by Town square Media,
founded in 1997.
 In August 1997, Harris Publications released the first issue of XXL. It featured
rappers Jay-Z and Master P on a double cover. In December 2006, XXL took
over the struggling hip hop producer and DJ magazine Scratch (another
publication owned by Harris Publications), re-branding it as XXL Presents
Scratch Magazine. However Scratch shut down less than a year later in
September 2007.
 Other titles with limited runs have been launched under the XXL brand,
including Hip-Hop Soul, Eye Candy and Shade45. XXL has released many other
special projects including tour programs, mixtapes and exclusive
DVDs. XXL also maintains a popular website, which provides daily hip hop
news, original content and content from the magazine.
 In 2014, Town square Media acquired XXL, King and Antenna from Harris
Publications.
 On October 14, 2014, Town square announced it would continue print
publication of XXL. In December 2014 the company reported that the
magazine would be published on a quarterly basis.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XXL_(magazine)

11. Front cover
From researching and talking about magazine covers I have
began to notice that especially with music magazines is
that they always place the celebrity smack bang in the
middle covering all the front cover. Depending on which
celebrity they have on the front cover they will have a
slight difference in colour scheme. The colour scheme on
this front cover work very well and the contrast work fine.
Again the masthead is the classic red and white eye
catching title. Like NME they have the cover lines of the
trap rapper Travis Scott in bold righting clearly indicating
who he is and what the main issue is of this certain edition.
For the most of the front cover the same font has been
used and all of it seems to be in bold righting which helps
them stand out more, even though they're in black and
white. With the cover lines and stuff on stars they're placed
in a sensible place on both sides of Travis Scott's faces
where they will get just as much attention as him even
though that’s not the main story. Similar to the rolling
stones cover the artist or celebrity is covering up part of
the masthead giving off the impression that the magazine
to them is so well known that you only really to show off
the ‘XX’ and not the ‘L’.

12. Double Spread
For the double spread I had trouble finding one when
searching because the results in images were all links to
peoples work not actually mentioning if it was from the XXL
magazine but eventually I managed to find one. The
problem I have thought of here is that the magazine should
maybe place the masthead of their name in the magazine in
the top corners. But again this isn’t really a huge issue but
it was a set back when trying to complete my work. When it
comes down to the design and layout of the double page
spread, I would say its good and it works well. It all looks
very clean and professional and having one page dedicated
to the celebrity they're talking about can work well by that
it doesn’t interfere with your reading on the other page.
The article is kept to quite a serious feel and the colour
scheme is plain and this probably indicates that the topic is
an intense one. You actually see the same colour scheme
like this in most magazines simply because its easy to read
and if it’s a serious read then people maybe done want
pretty colours and pictures. The masthead is in just a simple
bold font which gets the message across and having it stand
out more then the other texts helps you give an idea of
what you're about to read. The layout of the text is very
neat in columns and sticks to the old classic style of writing
which might have been done because of the rapper they're
talking about. I say this because the magazine are talking
about 50 cent and he has been around for a while now and
is due that classic style of writing.

13. Website
For a website I think that a lot of the layout seems
very cramped but they have made it work and styled
it in clean look. Like any website it has the masthead
in clear sight and that it has kept the same style of
masthead as they do on the magazine. Then it has all
the trop down boxes with all the options on what you
can look at and read about. Another good feature of
this website is you can clearly find and use in the top
right, the search bar and the three different types of
social media. Having social media links can really
Help advertise and get the magazine and information
out into the world. Also people will probably already
follow them on these platforms which will give them
up to date new articles. Even though everything
seems very cramped and all the stories are together,
I feel that you can still understand and navigate from
each story and find what you may be looking for. The
one down side I would say to this website is the
advertising is very annoying and are in the way.
http://www.xxlmag.com/

14. Proposal
 The name of my magazine and website is: Mind-set 0100
 My target audience for my magazine is young adults and above. Its hard to fix a certain age because
hip/hop as a whole has such a big community and in that community is such a wide range of age. I want
my magazine to be aimed towards all genders because again the community is so big and there are all
kinds of genders involved in the community. The social status’ I want to attract are middle class and the
upper class. Stereotypically magazines appeal more to the upper class and all the glamourous things in
life but its hard for me to stick to one specific social class because HIP/HOP has always been seen in the
eye of the public as a lower class subject/movement. So I want my magazine to appeal to all people.
When it comes down to psychographic types, the people I would like to read and attract to my magazine
are firstly an achiever and I say an achiever because in the Hip/Hop scene being successful and rich is the
thing to do that’s what a lot of the community think. That money means everything and some producers
have that drive to keep making money and moving into the business side of things. Even though there is
more to being famous and in the music industry that shouldn’t matter but it’s a massive part of the
Hip/Hop scene, I would also want to appeal to the emulator and a wanna be. I feel like my end product
will appeal to my selected people and target audience because I have a decent knowledge on my
magazine idea. I will add in the most popular elements that appeal to them and doing that will get their
attention.

16. Bibliography
 . (2012). Rolling Stone issue 1172. San Francisco : Jann Wenner. 1
 . (2015). NME . London: Time inc. 1.
 . (2016). XXL . Connecticut : Town Square Media . 1.
 ANON. (unknown). XXL home page . Available: http://www.xxlmag.com/ . Last accessed 12th January
2018 .
 ANON. (unknown). NME home page . Available: http://www.nme.com/. Last accessed 12th January 2018 .
 ANON. (unknown). Rolling stones Hip/Hop. Available: https://www.rollingstone.com/hip-hop. Last
accessed 12th January 2018 .

17. Front cover
These two designs are a before and after examples of what I would like my magazine
cover to look like. Before making changes looking back I see that my first design is kind of
messy and doesn’t really look that clean and professional. Nothing was really in line with
each other and this prevented it looking appealing to the general public. But by getting
rid of the negative things and changing the design a bit now had made it look more
professional and clean. I have a polaroid look to my magazine so for a final touch I added
on the bottom layer the texture of a polaroid photo. It adds a bit more to the magazine
and it actually works well because you can notice it too much that it ruins the cover.

18. Double Page Spread
This is a my first attempt at my double page spread and hopefully is a start to what I would like my
layout to be like. The idea is to make to page layout look different and to make the text and images
mix together a unique style of a double page spread.

19. Website
This is my first attempt and a design for what my website will look like. There
isn’t a lot on the website yet but I really like the whole layout. Below is what my
home page currently looks like and further along I'm going to improve my website
making it look more professional. Also for a home page I feel like that’s too much
information and that needs more pages that you navigate to.

20. Mind map

21. Flat plan ( front cover)
IMAGE
MAST HEAD
Bar
code
TEXT
TEXT

22. Flat plan (double page spread)
MASTHEAD
IMAGE
TEXT
TEXT
TEXT
IMAGE
TEXT
TEXT
TEXT

23. Flat Plan (website)
MAST HEAD
NAV BAR
MAIN TOPIC
TEXT TEXT TEXT

24. Style sheet
MASTHEAD: Agency FB
HEADLINES: silom
BODY TEXT: myriad pro

25. Background
 The Flatbush Zombies are an American Hip/Hop group from a place called Flatbush in
Brooklyn, hence why they have called themselves the Flatbush Zombies. The Zombies
first formed in 2010 and the three members are Meechy Darko, Zombie juice and
finally Erick Arc Elliot.
 The group have known each other and have been friends since grade school, they all
were born and raised in Flatbush. All three are of Jamaican decent and quickly found
out that they had some of the same similarities as in bonding over watching Dragon
Ball Z and other Japanese anime. They also loved watching Wrestling and loved
watching Zombie horror films. As they got a bit older Erick Arc Elliot was mixing and
making his own music, then he asked Meechy and Juice to start rapping over his beats
and that’s what gave birth to the group you see today.
 The Zombies are very in touch with and proud to be from the east coast and are part
of a movement called ‘Beast Coast' with their fellow Brooklyn based rap groups The
Underachievers and Pro Era. Being from the east coast means that they have
collaborated with a lot of artists from the east coast, big names such as RZA, A$AP
mob and Action Bronson.

26. Album
 3001: A Laced Odyssey is the groups first and only album. The group first started the
album in 2014 and then released it on march 11th 2016. The album was released through
their own record label Glorious Dead Recordings. The album has a total of 12 songs with a
total time 60:51 and the album itself had a very good response from a wide range of
critics. The album sold 28,000 copies within its first week of release and was debuting at
the number 10 spot on the US Billboard 200.
 I would personally recommend a listen to this album because I have personally seen them
perform live and I would say they are one of the best live performances I have seen. I
would also recommend keeping a watch out for the groups future projects.

27. Q&A
The word “Brooklyn” conjures up images of all types of styles such as gold fronts, bubble coats and designer clothes. New comers, the
Flatbush Zombies managed to incorporate all these before mentioned Brooklyn traits into their music and its accompanying visuals while
injecting some of their own brand of rap.
Though it would be easy to judge the trio as gimmicky, you can always tell the group friends organically form group with a specific
sound/style. Here’s What Meechy Darko, Zombie juice and Erick Arc Elliott had to say.
What in the hell is a thug Waffle ?
Meechy Darko: It was mad early when we were recording the track. And we were all hungry. We had been talking about Tupac, so I think
that’s where the “Thug” part derived from.
Zombie Juice: Yeah then Erick said something about pancakes and we were going with that name, because it 4 a.m. and we were high and
hungry. And that was that.
Meechy Darko: But you can make it whatever you want it to mean. People think too hard into about it. We smoke weed and eat waffles.
That’s it.
Judging from how you guys interact, you have been friends for a long time.
Meechy Darko: Absolutely. About 95% of our relationship is outside of music. If I lost my vocal chords today we would still be hanging out.
Zombie Juice: It just works better because we already have that chemistry. Plus when we critique one another it doesn’t come off like “
You’re Horrible” Erick will tell me to say something a little different and I’ll take his advice.
You guys have gotten pretty high up the ladder, considering you’ve only been an officially a group for a short time.
Meechy Darko: Well it’s not like we aren’t children of hip-hop. Even though we just recently formed the group we were still heavily
influenced by rap.
I used to right rhymes just to wright rhymes about what I do way back before I even thought of being, a real rapper. From the outside
looking in, it may seem like we struck with one song. But we’ve just been holding onto our music, not letting it get out too much.
From this short Q&A I hope this has given everyone a better look on the group and a bit more of how they think and what they’re really
about.

28. Home
Main Articles
Top 50 Hip/Hop
tracks out now
New music and
up on coming
artist
artists name
and popular
hits
Flatbush
Zombies
Updated
knowledge on
the charts
Some
explanation of
them
Links to the
music
Contacts
Email and social
media

29. Final Front cover

30. Final website (home page)

31. Main article page

32. Top 50 tracks page

35. New artist/song page

36. Contact page

37. Final Double page spread

38. Evaluation- Front cover
 Comparing my initial plans with my intentions, looking back on my first design for a front cover reminded me that it was a
real struggle to get started and just put something together randomly. I personally feel that it didn’t look good and it was just
messy. After going back and looking at my research and help from Ben I slowly began to form a proper image of what I wanted
my front cover to look like. With a lot of little changes I finally created something I liked which was different from your own
typical Front cover. At the start I did struggle to get the proper mind frame for this type of work. But after that I managed to
work well and get on with my work. From my research and inspirations towards my front cover I looked at Rolling Stones, NME
and XXL. All of these magazines and other magazines have roughly the same layout so I went off the style of having an image
of the person who is in the main article large on the front. Even though I got my inspiration from those magazines I didn’t
want to just be the same as all the other big names. So that’s a made my own style of front cover that I don’t think I have
seen anywhere else.
 When finally comparing my test cover to my final front cover I would say that it has improved massively. On my final design
everything is more suited and refined then my first design. I made sure all the text and images were all in line and looked
smart. I also thought because of the image I had selected for the front cover was mainly dark, I tinted the hue/saturation of
my own added background image to give it that dark look. I then thought I would have mainly red text because of how well
they contrast and stand out clearly. I made my front cover using Photoshop and used some basic tools to create my front
cover but thinking on my reflection of my product I maybe could have stretched my skills a little further. I simply only used
the text tool to type up the text I wanted. The fonts I chose for the front cover I personally felt really suited the style I was
going for in the sense that it fits my own image of the hip-hop scene. Then I messed around with correcting the sizes of my
images to help fit correctly. I messed around with multiple images to finally get the correct look I was going for, which was an
almost polaroid look. Like I mentioned before I also messed around with hue/ saturation of my own image I took, I felt that
the image itself was way to distracting and didn’t help you focus on the text or other imaging on my front cover. So by
changing the images saturation it really helped my front cover final form into the product I wanted. With the text I made
each words into a different layer and copy so I could adjust a word if needed. When it comes down to the effectiveness of my
final product, I feel that it does do the job as a good stand out front cover. But I feel that because I went for a different style
of front cover people may not like it or even might not associate it with a magazine. When it comes down to possible
improvement's, personally I love how it has come out but maybe I could have been more creative with the layout and the
colour scheme.
 When it comes to on things I have learnt, I would say mainly a different view on how I can designs other things and all the
different factors that go into a good clever design.

39. Evaluation-Website
 Comparing my initial plans with my intentions, looking back at my first design and my final design I have noticed
again both designs haven't changed massively through the process. Again I feel with this first tester layout it has
just been thrown together but I did like the style of what I was going for at the time. So I tried in make an even
better version by adding more things to the website. I kept on looking back at my research and actually doing
even more research to try and make my website look the part. After all of that and gaining relevant information
for my website it all came together. Again I added my own little style to the typical music website but I kept the
same style of information cramping all the information together just giving out the main headlines. But that’s just
for the main page, for the other pages I added in information in detail of what the pages were about.
 When finally comparing my first design with my final design again just like with my front cover I would say it has
been a massive improvement. I improved the content and the layout to make it looks smarter. I also changed the
title and the navigation bar so it didn’t look all cramped and messy. Having them above one another also helps
them all fit in with the rest of the layout. With the background of the first design was mainly like the streets,
which I thought would be a very good link with the raw image of how hip-hop began. So then I took it to myself to
go get some images of my own of some side streets to give off that feel. I personally really think it fits in well.
When it came down to making my website I used the site Wix. Wix is a website to help people set up their own
business sites and when using it you can pick multiple templates and a wide range of editing to make your perfect
website. For me I kept the same template for my final piece just because I really liked how everything was
positioned and how I could edit my certain template. I used the text tools again which I feel is just as big as
having images for your website. I felt for the mast head of my website I would take a feature of most websites
and just highlight the title to make it stand out first. Then when it came down to my home page information, I
just added in the most relevant and important information. When doing this people don’t want loads of writing
they want some description then an image explaining the rest. But then for the other pages I added that’s where
people go onto to read so for that I placed less images but again not loads of writing that would make people
bored. For all the other pages, I made sure to try and keep to the same style of looking smart and looked good
with the template layout. To do this I used the tool of colouring and making the background of where the
information would be placed almost a shady see through look, which I thought gave a well fitting look to my
website. Then after that I added in some smart clip art images and then a dotted red line which helped further
my website in such small detail, which helped refine. Thinking about how effective my website it compared to a
real website I think it needs still some further development. I say this because I just get the feeling that its
lacking some factors and information that would make it a proper website, but I guess if given more time to
develop then maybe that could’ve happened.
 When it comes down to things I have learnt was again a good knowledge on how to approach and design an
effective website.

40. Evaluation- double page spread
 Comparing my initial with my intentions, looking back again at my first design I noticed that there
hasn’t been a major change compared to my final design. Throughout all my evaluations and this
one I feel that instead of changing my practice designs drastically I just improved them massively. I
feel that I could have made a little bit of a better test design for my double page spread. But I
would say that a lot of factors had come together which then made me just fling something
together. The factors were all those days we had off away from college making me have less time on
my work during some weeks. The other factor was, just like my front page design I really didn’t
know how to attempt to make a decent double page spread but after the weeks went on I began to
use my research to help me improve my ideas. When finishing my double page spread I thought in a
way less is more for a double page spread. In my eyes I went for a none typical layout that you
typically find in other magazines. To me I love the colour scheme I used worked really well and gave
the retro look I was going for. I shuffled the text up more and all in line, which made it look smarter
on both pages. To finish the double page spread I added a decent sized image group which again to
my fit the best for the layout I was going for. Also where each image is placed is relevant to the
information on each page.
 when comparing both designs I would say that my final design has massively improved. It wasn’t
hard to improve the design but I feel like with all the information I added and all the other factors I
added its been a really good improvement. The colour scheme I felt just fit perfectly with the
Flatbush Zombies and the style of the magazine in general. To create my final double page spread I
used In-Design. This was my first time when it came to actually using In-Design and at the start I
found it hard to get the hang of but eventually I managed to understand how it all worked. I used
the guide lines to help me placing my text and images so everything was in line and looked
professional. The only tools I used were the text tool and colour fill. I used the colour fill for the
background on the first page. Again I chose that font for the title because I felt that it fits in with
my whole images of the magazine and the group. When thinking on how effective my double page
spread is, I would say that it works well and I could personally see it in a magazine. When comparing
it to another double page spread then in some ways it’s the same because of the classic three
column text layout, but the only thing I would say is different to most music based double page
spreads is that they normally have an image covering the first page then have most of the text on
the second page.
 When thinking of improvement's I could do to my double page spread, I think of how I could have
been more adventurous with my designs. I did have an original idea that I got inspiration form my
research is to make the text and image merge into sections giving of a cool effect. But apart from
that I'm reasonably happy with my final design.