The document is an evaluation of a student's magazine project called "Krunk Magazine" which aims to emulate an existing hip hop magazine called "Vibe". The student chose black, yellow and white colors for the magazine inspired by "Vibe". The front cover features a hip hop artist and skylines. The contents page also features a hip hop artist and uses the same colors for consistency. A two-page spread uses red, black and white colors and features another hip hop artist. The target audience is ages 11-40 interested in hip hop music.

1. Krunk Magazine Evaluation By Nayib Sufi

2. This is my front cover magazine which is called “Krunk magazine” and I got the inspiration from another hip-hop magazine called vibe which featured an artist named Drake on the front cover as the main image who is a well known artist in the music industry. The main colours of my magazine are black, yellow and white. As you can see, I got the idea from the existing magazine on the right (Vibe) as I thought that the colours are eye-catching and would get the readers attention. I chose these colours because it brings a strong visible contrast. The main image is of an artist called Nelson. The main image relates to the genre of the magazine because the artist is a hip-hop artist. In comparison with existing magazine on the right (Vibe), both the images are covering some of the masthead. I chose to do this because I believe that the image gives and exclusive effect. I chose to put in skylines on my front cover because many other magazine have them and it gives an good effect by making it look more of a magazine. The skyline includes an article about one of the biggest hip-hop label in the music industry. I used blocks of colours on the strap-lines to make the text stand out more and look more exclusive. Also, I was emulating the existing magazine on the right (Vibe) which also used blocks of colours for their strap-lines. The magazine is aimed at people who are interested in hip-hop and rap music and they are aged between 11-40. You can easily tell that its and hip and rap magazine, as the strap-lines have stories of well known rappers such as Eminem. The main images on both magazine are both slightly similar. Both the images are posing in a “bad man” way. The image on my front cover is looking away which makes him look “Thuggish”. Also, both of the artists are posing in a serious way. I took a medium close-up shot to show the facial expression of the artist,.

3. I chose the same colour scheme as my front cover to my contents. I chose to do the same so it would have similarities and it would easier for people to recognise which magazine it comes from by just looking at the colours. The main image on the content page relates to the genre of the magazine because the main image is of a rap/hip-hop artist, who goes by the name of L. Raze. The magazine is aimed at people who are interested in hip-hop or rap music. Also, you can tell from the stories that it is aimed at people from the age of 12-40. Their are stories of rap artist from the age of 16-40, and children today look at these artists as a potential role model. These stories includes artists breaking into the music industry, returning to the industry and maintaining their spot in the industry. The main image would attract the reader because the image is looking straight at the reader which will catch the readers attention. Also, the colours would attract the reader because they are bright and appealing and it would make the reader look at the stories which will give them a more interest to the magazine. I chose this particular font because it stands out and makes the contents page look more professional. Also, it’s the same font as the straplines on the front cover of my magazine. The title “contents” is on millions of other magazine, and to make it stand out further, I put a yellow background strip on the letters “cont”, and put a black background strip on the letters “ents” so it would catch the reader’s eye. The colour yellow causes more eye fatigue than any other colour, therefore making the reader more intrested in the magazine.

4. The colour scheme for this page is black, red and white. I use those colours because I personally think that it would attract the readers attention, with bright and dark colours. Also, I got the idea of using black, white and red from the existing magazine on the right The heading contains slang words such as he word “Darg”. The word “darg refers to people like the word. For instance, some people use “Born 2 Shine Man” whereas here it says “Born To Shine Darg”. Also the colour red that is used on the number 2 makes it more appealing to the audience. I got the idea of turning the number to colour red from the existing magazine on the right. As it has the”&” in the colour red also. The colour of the texts is either black or red so they can dominate over the background, which is white which is a least prominent colour. As you can see the artist in the image is posing with a serious face and looking directly into the camera so it can engage with the reader. It is a young male artist meaning this story is aimed at male audience from the age of 11. as you can see in the text, it clearly states that the artist is a young artist who is in his teenage years roughly around 18-19. A medium shot is taken of the character to show his joy in breaking into the industry. The text has been written in a column which are done in other different magazines. Also, I made the size of the first letter of the text a lot bigger than the other texts as this does not make the text too dull. The text of the subheading are placed on top of each other as it gives an graffiti effect. Also I the idea from the existing magazine on the right, which also has their subheading texts placed on top of each other

5. For my media coursework, we had to design a magazine with a front cover, a contents and a double page spread. We had to design a music magazine and we get to decide what genre we want our magazine to be. I chose to do a hip-hop magazine because there are a lot hip-hop artists that have young people following their music, interviews and videos. The colour scheme of my magazine is black, white and yellow, which came from an existing magazine called Vibe which features a hip-hop artist named Drake. These colours were chosen as they make the magazine look more appealing. On the masthead, the title “KRUNK” usually means turn it up in slang terms and I chose to put the letter “U” in yellow so it doesn’t look to dull and boring but instead catches the readers attention. I also used skyline which follows the convention of a Hip Hop magazine.

6. In the straplines, there are stories that include an all time great artist named “Eminem” who has young audience following his music today. I tried to put as little text as possible so it can make the layout look clear. Also. I used a block of colours behind the text of the straplines. Doing this made my text look more interested and well presented. I used the same colours for my contents page, so that it looks authentic and similar. When looking out the contents, the audience would automatically recognise what magazine its from because of the colours. On my double page spread I used the colours red, black and white which exist in other existing magazine.

7. My media product represents teenagers, adults and a young audience who are into hip hop music. I aimed my project at people from the age of 11-40 because the magazine features artists from the age of 18-40. Mainly I aimed to attract males because many of them today tend to write their own hip hop tracks. However this does not mean that the magazine is only intended at males, but for females too as some today tend to write their own rap lyrics too. I attract these readers by putting well known, hip hop artist and are big sellers in the industry in the magazine. I put a picture of a well known rapper on the front cover who has just been exposed to the US Hip Hop music industry. Also, I put stories and interviews of other popular artist in the straplines. So when readers glance at the magazine they will see stories and interviews of their favourite artist which will make them would want to purchase this magazine.

8. The media institution that I think mite distribute my product are IPC Media, defjam and interscope. I believe that they would distribute my product because these institution are about exposing new, young artists. My magazine is about new upcoming artists and old artists that are still recording good and positive music. Also, IPC Media distributed 350 magazines every year around the world and they are about exposing different talent in the world. Also, the type of clothing that are usually worn in the hip-hop industry are being worn by young teenagers today which are hoodies, baggy jeans and baseball caps. Teenagers today, intend to wear a certain brand like Armani, Nike, Adidas, and many more. Hip-Hop artist today also wear these brands, that is why they have a big influence on teenagers today because they would want to talk, look and dress like them.

9. While making this project, I have learnt that there is a lot of research you need to do to get the right information on different parts in the magazine. Also, I have learned how to make a magazine standout and look more appealing to the audience. I learnt that putting a block of colour behind a text can make it stand out and catch the readers attention. I’ve realised that the smallest things can make a magazine look a lot more appealing by putting lines, boxes, changing colour, text and many more. As you can see I have learnt how to hide certain parts around the image. The image on the left has had its background hidden more clearly. Whereas the image on the right has not had its background cleared as you can see a bit of it by the arm section.

10. Creating this magazine made me learn how to use Photoshop and learn how to hide parts of an image that you don’t want shown. Layers must be added into the image if you want to add different effects to your magazine. In my Preliminary task I was struggling on how to use Photoshop as you can see a few errors in that magazine. But in this magazine you can see that I have improved my knowledge on how to use Photoshop by knowing how to fade pictures, add different colours to text, add many different colours to the background and add gradient effect to them so it can stand out by putting different designed shapes. Also, Planning a hip-hop magazine at an certain audience is crucial and learn that you should always to research on how you would want your magazine to look like.