This is my front cover for my Hip-Hop magazine 'Rhythm'. The person posing 'hard' in my front cover is Thomas Howell. The reason for choosing him was because he's black and represents the black audience which is what Hip-Hop mainly targets. I took quite a few pictures before I decided that this was the one I wanted to use. I had to make sure that it was a close up with eye contact and he looks 'rock solid'. The font is the same throughout the magazine so there is a clean and clear urban narrative running through my magazine, apart from where it says songs reviewed, i chose to keep this normal, so the magazine is taken serious, for recording songs. I also made sure that he was wearing suitable clothing, for example he is wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch 'hoodie' with his hood up. Then i cleverly put the red font inside his hood, so we are actually in his brain. I chose him to have his hood up because of the Hip-Hop superstars, such as; Snoop Dog, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Eminem. The target audience dress like 'D.J Howell' so he's easy to relate to. When researching hip-hop magazines previously I discovered that the font is quite bold, and also is a sans serif font to show that it’s current and up-to-date. The font in other magazines such as 'The Source' and 'Vibe' use gold colour font to show off their richness. This is an example below;
This makes the audience jealous of their lifestyle so the magazine is aspiring young black men to be more involved with hip-hop music. Before choosing my magazine title I was caught up in two minds, ‘Rhythm’ and ‘-Hip-Hop-Bible-’. I went with rhythm because it relates to the beat and slickness of the Hip-Hop music and lifestyle so I believe it is a good title for my magazine.
After finally completing my front cover for ‘Rhythm’ I was very pleased with it and what my family though about it as well. But being it be my own work i needed other opinions so I went round my college finding random people, I asked 2 Hip-Hop fans, boy and girl and 2 other people who are not such big fans of Hip-Hop, again boy and a girl; Hip-Hop fan 1 (Daniel Woods): I find the front cover very interesting because there is so much going on with, D.J Howell and steroids effecting his new career, also Snoop Dog v Kanye West is something that fascinates me. If this magazine was on the shelves in shops I would definitely purchase the product! Hip-Hop fan 2 (Jade Townsend): Being a massive fan of Hip-Hop I appreciate and applaud this piece of work; I love the surroundings of the brick wall, and for once a Hip-Hop magazine which concentrates on the music! Love it! Other music fan (Jake Powell): I Think the layout of the front cover has been very well done. I like when the colour of fonts are the same on the front cover because its easy to understand the story and the messages being put across. I would not buy the magazine personally, just because of my taste in music. Other music fan (Emma Cook): First of all I really like the title chosen ‘Rhythm’. I recognize how it represents the beat in Hip-Hop music. I think the gold colour font is a bit cheesy, but a very good idea.
The feedback i received was brilliant, i got comments that really satisfied me, but my front cover came across quite cheesy, so maybe i could of spent more time on the font and how it linked well with the image. Most of the feedback was very positive, but i still feel i could make it look more professional, by doing this i would start by having gold chains or rings in the font, so it would make DJ.Howell look even richer and much more easily identifiable as an hip-hop artist. However i believe that the magazine title 'Rhythm' puts this message across well.
‘R H Y T H M‘is very similar to magazines such as ‘ The Source and Vibe’ because there target audience is young black men, and they all talk about politics and Hip-Hop lifestyle in greater depth. Also the names of magazines are all short and snappy. However I do believe that if you put all 3 magazines on the shelf that you would recognize certain differences, such as my magazine has a clearer narrative because the font I use such as – ‘Who’s got the juice? Steroids effecting Hip-Hop’ is in red font and then ‘Inside the brain of D.J Howell’ is in red font so the narrative is clear. This will run through the whole magazine.
I believe it would be best to publish my magazine in specialist records shops because you get the people buying the magazine who love the music. This is what my magazine is for, the love of Hip-Hop. Also it would be easily promoted because the magazine is in specialists hands. On the other I feel that ‘R H Y T H M’ would be a success in newsagents because you get all the lads of the streets coming in for snacks and drinks, so it would be a success but not as successful has it would be in a specialist recording shop.
The publisher i have decided to go with is http://www.ipcmedia.com/ because of its success it has had with upcoming magazines. Here is an article which convinced me to chose ICPMedia. It includes the publishers history, awards and much more, I believe my magazine will be in good hands with this publisher. It would benefit my magazine significantly because not only is it one of the market leading distribution business's, 44% of UK adults, men and women read ICPMedia magazines, that's a whopping 26millions adults! So ICPMedia is the best option for my magazine because its a leader in the distribution section and research shows that magazines that come from ICPMedia have been very successful.
When creating my front cover I wasn’t used to InDesign but as I played around with the software I became more confident and learned new techniques to improve my front cover. For example getting new fonts on to the software from http://www.dafont.com/, and also changing the quality of the picture, etc. But however I wanted to have a small rectangular box underneath the title in red and the writing in white. But I couldn’t find out how to do it. Before completing my front cover I did plan but maybe not thoroughly. I could of used the InDesign more so I was more prepared before creating my front cover. I should of spent more time on my flat plans as well so I had a clearer idea of what it should look like. However it did include what I needed which was the most important thing. Overall I am very pleased with my front cover.
