Comparing Magazine Covers

As you can see both of the magazine covers use the same cover star, Drake, and as both of these magazines have two very different target audiences and different genres, they both use Drake because he can be viewed as both a pop star and a rapper. It is all about perspective, whether you view him as either an artist of pop or hip-hop.
The way Drake is positioned is reflected by the genre of the music magazine, for example, on the Vibe cover he is wearing a hat that is off-centred and has a posture that promotes him as a person who is more of a rebel and wont conform to societies rules, which is what hip-hop and rap is all about, expression and rebelling. Whereas on the cover of Billboard, which is more of a pop culture magazine, has a close up of him and shows him more in a plain way without any accessories, this is because they want their audience to see him as a less threatening idol than the way he is portrayed on Vibe.

Music Magazine Cover

The cover for this particular magazine seems to be very traditional in the way it is laid out. For example the main image is in the centre, it is quite large and partially covers the masthead, the subheadings are also placed on either side of the image, this is common for music magazines. I quite like this because this idea of keeping with tradition contrast well with Eminem as he is seen as quite a rebel who doesn't follow the norms of society.

This conveys the genre as hip-hop and rap is meant to be quite rebellious and different so this contrasts with the layout well and the use of Eminem as the centre image represents all that is rebellious and outgoing about the culture and genre of rap.

In my design i would like to use the traditional layout because i feel like it works the best and is the most visually appealing to my audience. However this may change as I do more and more research.

School Magazine Cover

 

Music Genres - Grime

 

Grime is a genre of music that emerged in East London in the early 2000s. It is primarily a development of UK garage and jungle and can represent growing up on the streets of poorer London. Prominent artists that stylized this genre include JME, Ghetts, Kano, Lethal Bizzle, Skepta, and Wiley. In the last decade or so it has blown up across the country, and it is starting to get the rest of the world hooked on the unusual beats, fashion, beefs, and attitudes.

 

 

One of the most popular groups in grime, and one of the main reasons why it has gone so global in recent years, is Boy Better Know, or BBK as they can be known as. The group includes such artists as Skepta, JME, Wiley, Frisco, Jammer and DJ Maximum. They have played shows all over the country, like Wireless in London, Reading Festival, Red Bull Culture Clash and will soon be doing a tour in America. They have been influential in the Grime movement and continue to gain popularity as time goes on.

 

There are many sub genres of grime, and freestyle is seen as one of the most entertaining for the listeners due to its unpredictability, catchy instrumentals, and deep lyrics. Fire in the booth is a segment on Radio One Extra with Charlie Sloth where artists from all over the country come and try to conquer what is to considered by many grime artists and fans to be a real challenging task. Artists who have tried their hand include, Wretch 32, Tinie Tempah, Chip, Stormzy and many more.



 

Grime is an expressive form of music, I think that is obvious already, some artists use it as an outlet to express their rough upbringing, or to send a message and get their own points of view across. One artist who captures this a lot is Akala, in many of his songs he speaks about black inequality, racism and slavery, he uses many of his own experiences from his childhood to make the message more effective. His Fire in The Booth talks about the history of black racism and how we can fight against it, he is one of the many artists who have a deeper meaning in their songs. So when people say grime is useless and too loud and violent, we can say there is much more to it than first seems. 



Denotation and Connotation

 

 

Task Overview

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.

Main Task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as a group task, each member of the group to produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style) Maximum four members to a group. 

Definitions

Banner - an advertisement or a heading appearing on a website.
Masthead - the title of a newspaper or magazine at the head of the first page.
Kicker - the first sentence or first few words of a story's lead, usually in a larger font size.
Deck - part of the headline which summerisies the story.
Byline - the writers name at the start of a story.