Reflection
Today I will be discussing my foundation portfolio project, which is a rock magazine named Distortion. The reason why I chose this genre for my magazine has to do with the fact that I am a singer in the band Fluorescent Adolescents, who is featured on the cover of my magazine. I wanted to create my magazine about something that I was passionate about and the first thing that came to mind was my band. So here is my cover, table of contents and my double page spread.The name DISTORTION came to me at band practice one day. I had been debating for a while what I wanted my title to be. I had come up with names like Sound Waves and Vibes but I didn’t like how it wasn’t clear what the magazine genre was. Then at practice, my guitarist Gabe was messing around with his soundboard and told me how much he loved how his guitar sounded with distortion. In music, the guitarist can use a soundboard to turn on the distortion of a guitar in order to make their music sound heavier and more powerful. Distortion on a guitar is a sound most associated with rock music which is why I thought it worked as an effective title for the magazine.
I utilized genre conventions when designing the front cover of my magazine. First off, the image that I used of my band is a mid shot. Most magazines use mid shots or close-ups of the artists in order to showcase the artists prominently. I originally wanted to go with a full shot that I had taken of the band, but it didn’t follow conventions so ended up switching to the image I have now.
My cover challenges many stereotypes about what the typical rock band should look like.
It was important to me that my magazine showcase diversity within the band and Fluorescent Adolescents were the perfect fit. The members of the band come from various background but they all come together to do something that they all enjoy doing. The diversity of my band challenged conventions because most artists and band don’t have such a wide range of members from multiple backgrounds and cultures. Having a diverse band on my cover is important to my magazine because the artists represent different groups of people who are united for their love of playing music. Through the images, DISTORTION targets multiple ethnic groups within my young adult target audience.
DISTORTION engages the audience with its various images. My cover image of the band establishes a connection with the reader through direct eye contact with the camera. Along with the enticing cover photo, I added more artistic photos such as the image on the table of contents page in order to attract the reader. Some of the artistic photos of the band included in the double page spread, such as this one, were taken by my friends at the Hit Music Studio. They gave me permission to use two of their photos for my magazine. I was important to me to have a wide variety of photos in my magazine in order to keep the reader’s attention as they read the entire magazine.
I also put my cover lines in multiple colors so that they would pop out at the reader and attract their attention. I crowded the front cover with cover lines because most other rock magazines tend to fill their space with cover lines as well. In order to make the coverlines, images, and background of the magazine look cohesive, I tried to stick with a color scheme of dark red, white, black and grey. By following this color scheme, certain images that don’t follow this theme create discordance and therefore attract the eye of the reader. Hence why using a color theme helps to engage the audience throughout my entire work.
I wanted to take a moment to explain why I included an advertisement next to my table on content instead of making it a double page spread. While I was researching about magazines, I discovered how important advertisements are to a magazine. As a consumer, I barely notice them and flip to the next page when I see an ad, but for a magazine, these ads are a major source of revenue. I wanted to make my magazine as authentic as possible and I noticed that most rock magazines limited their content to one page in order to leave room for an advertisement. Including ads is important, while it may not be seen that way from the consumer’s perspective, ads are a fundamental part of creating a magazine.
My production skills developed immensely throughout the last few weeks. Creating this magazine taught me a lot about the various steps that publishers must go through before they can create a magazine. Initially, I thought that anyone could throw a magazine together. All they have to do is take a few pictures for the cover, design a table of content and write up an article, but I realize now there is much more thought that goes into that process. Before I could figure out what pictures I wanted to take and what I wanted my article to be about, I had to design and plan my table of content first because it served as a roadmap to figure out where I was going with my magazine. Once I made that, I was able to better plan out the article I wanted to write and therefore the pictures that I needed to take.
I also had to research different rock magazines and specific subjects reader’s look for in these kinds of magazines. I learned a lot about genre conventions that are used in a rock magazine. Things that I thought were minute, unnecessary details, like the font used throughout the issue, ended up being the factor that made my magazine look polished and cohesive.
Another way my production skills developed was through using Joomag. I had never heard of nor used Joomag in my life. I will say, it was a little frustrating at first because I couldn’t figure out how to do anything. However, after watching a few instructional videos, I was able to figure out how to navigate my way through the software. I actually love Joomag now because I was able to edit my magazine down to the finest detail, such as deciding the spacing between letter in my coverlines.
Before this project, I would have said that I was pretty technologically savvy but as the weeks went on, I realized I was only proficient in certain software. Being introduced to completely new apps such as Joomag, really threw me for a loop and I quickly had to learn how to use the software given to me in order to get my magazine started. I integrated technologies by using different software to make my magazine. I used Joomag to layout and design my magazine. For my photos, I edited them using Pixlr and Befunky software to change the tints and cropping the photos. I also used various hardware or laptops throughout the process because I would work on the project both at school and at home.
Overall, creating this magazine taught me so much about marketing and graphic design. I can honestly say that I have a newfound respect for those who make a career out of creating and designing magazines. I really enjoyed making DISTORTION
