How to export your feature article as a double page from Indesign...

File > Export > Change 'Save as type' to JPEG and choose where you're going to save it

Click 'save'

In the dialogue box click on the 'Range' and type in the page numbers you want to export (e.g. 2-3)

Tick the box that says 'spreads'

Change the quality to 'maximum'

Click 'Export'

Developing your artist

Feature article artist planning

Your music artist will be the subject of your feature article and will be the main image on your front cover. You need to think about this artist carefully- they must fit your magazine’s genre and be the sort of artist that would appeal to your target audience.

Remember our work on publicists and how they 'shape' an image of an artist!

Complete the following steps to design your artist...

1)      Band or solo artist? 2)      Who are they? Profiles of the individual(s). 3)      Why are they doing the interview? (Breakthrough artist, promoting a new album, fresh from rehab... remember: there’s always a reason for an artist to do an interview!) 4)      Appearance: this will help you decide your model(s), costume, make-up and props. Think what ‘look’ would suit their genre of music- it might help you to do a brainstorm of colours, images, styles etc. associated with their genre. 5)      Most magazines use portrait photos taken in a studio, but what ‘location’ shoots could you do to bring out your artist’s personality or image? 6)      Plan your photograph ideas: what do you want them to wear? Do you want any particular type of make-up or just ‘natural’? Locations? Props? Any particular poses/facial expressions?! 7)      For your contents page, you’ll need to mention a few more artists- plan these too! Not as much detail required as for your main artist, but you need to plan them now...

House Style

House Style

house style
noun 

1. All the characteristics, conventions and use of colour and language of a company, institution, website etc that serves to make it distinct from others.

How can you look at a page from Kerrang and identify the magazine it’s from?

What makes a Q article so very ‘Q’?

Introduction:

When designing your magazine, you need to consider how your individual pieces (front cover, contents page and feature) are linked through style. This can be through font, colour, visual features, layout and language. Ultimately, it has to be apparent from your finished product that they belong to the same magazine.

Research:

Look carefully through at least 2 magazines and identify as many features of their house style as you can- these could be lots of small things such as predominance of a certain colour or font, or even the presence of the magazine name beside the page number.

Planning your house style:

For you coursework magazine:

·        Font: will there be a house font you will use for ‘body copy’ (main text of articles) and for other features like the ‘slug’ to maintain consistency? Consider various fonts before making decisions.

·        Colours: what will be the predominant colours of your house style? Three main colours are recommended; how will you use these? You may decide to go for a border or frame around each page, or even consistency of the ‘slug’ design on each page. The design of your masthead will be key in this aspect of your planning.

·        Visual features: What visual features of your magazine will achieve consistency/house style? Some ideas could be to include your magazine’s website on every page; some kind of visual symbol of your magazine (perhaps based on your masthead) appearing on every page; consistency of layout e.g. number of text columns on a page or size of feature article titles; a shadowing or bordering around all images used etc.

Your House Style is completely down to you, but for your coursework you need to be able to explain the features of your house style in detail and justify your decisions, particularly in relation to your target audience.

 

Creating a readership profile

Readership Profiles

Researching and identifying your target audience is a crucial task for any media producer. In magazines, we refer to this as our ‘readership’, which we define with a readership profile.