Statement of Intent (Front Cover)

• By Tesfah Watkins-Scott

WHAT is the name of your music magazine and WHY?

My chosen title is Reggae Beats because just from reading the masthead you will no what type of music genre the magazine will be about. Also, with this specific title its not too long or too short so I can add some nice visual effects to it. Furthermore, I have chosen this title because I would not like a title that is too complicated to read or pronounce for novice readers therefore, I feel that ‘Reggae Beats’ would suit the audience more because it is pretty straight forward and informs the audience what type of magazine and what genre of music the magazine will be about. Furthermore, for the design purposes I feel this particular name will suit well because it has the combination of two words so it will allow whatever design I pick to look much more adventurous and unique compared to using just one word which will look quite boring. Also, through the use of two words I can use more than one colour for the masthead which will allow this area to stand out on the front cover and also link in well with the actual colour scheme of the whole Reggae magazine which will appeal to the reader automatically because, it will allow the magazine to look organised and thought through.

WHAT will your music magazine be about and WHY?

My Reggae music magazine will be mainly about the different types of artists from all over that create Reggae Music. But also I have decided to expand the actual stories that will be included in the magazine. For instance I have decided that I am going to add an article about Notting hill Carnival 2012 which is quite different from the theme of the magazine being about music. However, I have linked this particular article with some sort of competition to be able to create your own Reggae piece of music and whoever wins gets their particular song to be played at the actual Notting Hill Carnival 2012 in August. Also, I have added two main artists for my magazine which will contain an article about their upcoming rise to success in the Reggae music industry which will include an interview also. Moreover, I am going to add on the contents page that on a specific page of the magazine their will be a few word searches and puzzles and games like this so that the magazine will also appeal to the younger generation and will not just be aimed at people who are of middle age and above.

DESCRIBE the design of the title? (Colour: What colour you are going to use, how you intend to place the masthead, layout and fonts you are hoping to use?)

For the design of my title I am going to use a font that looks similar to fonts that I have seen on reggae magazine front covers that I have analysed. This is because, the mastheads that have been used I feel instantly appeal to the target audience not only from the colour but also from the way the font has been designed. The type of font I feel has to look quite tropical in a way so that it looks as if it is part of the Caribbean islands. For example if the particular font had slight cracks in specific areas of the letters, it would allow the font to look much more free and would symbolise the nice rocky environment that is presented in the countries where reggae was developed. Furthermore, the colours I wish to use for my masthead will be red yellow (gold) and green. The reasons for this is that these specific colours are actually linked with the Caribbean and African culture and music. To the target audience these colours would instantly tell them that the magazine is something to do with the Caribbean or Africa. These colours also symbolise peace and harmony towards the conventional target audience which is another reason why I would like to use these specific colours. However, one problem with these colours for the masthead is that I don’t feel as if 3 colours will look appealing just for 1 section of the magazine because it may make the masthead look quite busy and rushed, so I have though about using only 2 of the colours for the masthead.

WHAT will be the dominant image on your magazine cover? WHY will you be using this image(s)?

The dominant image on my front cover will be a photograph of my dad playing a musical instrument. The reason I have chosen this particular type of image is because, the model I will be using (my dad) is actually a big fan of Reggae music and he also has the conventional clothes that reggae musicians would where when playing there instruments. I feel that this type of image will explain to the reader as soon as they see the magazine that the magazine will be about reggae music due to the props I will be using for the Mise-en-Scene such as the guitar and his ‘Rasta Hat’ which also involves the colours red gold and green which will be the main colour scheme that I will be using for the whole magazine so I feel the image will work very well. The prop that I have used for my main image is of a guitar which is a musical instrument which has been used by many different Reggae Musicians such as ‘Bob Marley’. This will allow my image to link in well with the specific genre of music and will also link in if I decide to use a cover line which links my model and another reggae musician from the past. Furthermore the medium longshot that I have used to take this specific photograph didn’t really emphasise the way the instrument is being played by my model, so in Photoshop I cropped the image so that the image was still a medium longshot but because the image is quite big u can see the facial expressions of my model which presents him to be quite peaceful and concentrating on the music which links in with this particular genre of music.

WILL your target audience find your front image appealing? WHY OR WHY NOT?

I think that my target audience will find my main image very appealing for many reasons. Firstly, The image that I will be taking will actually look as if my model is really playing the guitar because, I am going to make him/her look down at the prop as if they are really concentrating on playing instead of the conventional technique of getting the main image to look directly at the audience. Secondly, The clothes that I will make my model wear will involve the three main colours in the reggae culture which is red, gold and green. This will allow the reader to notice that the artist on the front is actually a reggae musician which will also co-inside with the masthead which will tell the audience directly about my main image. Also, when the image is taken the background would not be appropriate for the genre of music so I will crop the background of the image out using the magic eraser tool and then I will place the image in the top right hand side of my front cover. This will allow the red, yellow and green background I am going to use to also link with the coloured clothes my model will be wearing for the image. Furthermore, due to the size of my image it allows the target audience to see the facial expressions of my model whilst playing the guitar which will present the image to represent the genre of music because my model seems quite peaceful and looks like he’s concentrating on the chords of the musical instrument like a normal reggae musician.

WHO is the potential target audience for your magazine? HOW do you know?

My target audience for my particular Reggae music magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread will be quite a secluded audience. This is because the specific genre that is the objective of the whole magazine is the reggae music genre. Reggae originated from the Caribbean which was mainly populated by African American people. However, today the reggae genre has become a worldwide type of music and involves many different races in the world. For example the reggae group called Ub40 who were actually a Caucasian group made the famous reggae song 'Red Red Wine'. This shows me that the audience for my reggae magazine actually links with a wide variety of the public because reggae music is so popular. Furthermore, for my particular magazine reggae music magazine I'm going to make my target audience be quite modern, so ages between around 45+, even though I am going to involve a bit of slang and youthful phrases into the cover lines, and the main body of the double page spread. Although, the ethnicity of my music magazine I feel will be a wide range because all types of races such as Asian and white could have been brought up in quite Urban areas where they are used to using and understanding the slang terminology. Also, I thought about making my target audience quite broad and wide however, I have now changed my mind and feel that my target audience can appeal to different ethnicity’s but the main target will be black Caribbean and African people because I feel that this specific audience will be the most interested in this particular genre of music. The reason that I have chosen this particular age group is because some of the articles that I will include in my double page spread and cover lines for my front cover and contents page will include old Reggae artists such as ‘Bob Marley’ and so forth which will therefore allow this particular target audience to relate to my magazine because these particular musicians were around when Reggae was their main genre of music in their time.

HOW many different fonts (style, colour and size) will you be using for your front cover? Will your target audience find these appealing? WHY OR WHY NOT? The image above is of a downloadable font

called 'SQUARE ROUGH' from the website dafont.com. This particular font has gained my interest to be a part of my reggae magazine project for quite a few reasons. The shape of the font is quite irregular but unique which caught my attention straight away. To me I felt that this type of font could be used for my masthead on my magazine front cover due to the quite straight and jagged lines which make it look quite sharp and pointy like rocks on the ground. However, looking back on my research I found that most reggae magazines that have been produced have used fonts that are quite roundly shaped and less square which I have taken into account.

Now the font above is a font also from dafont.com called 'ROCKS' and I feel it would suit my magazine very well. However, I don't think that this kind of font would be quite effective for my masthead of my magazine, but I feel that the font would work very well if it was to be associated with the cover lines of my magazine. Compared to the other font that I have analysed above the shape of this font is not as straight and sharp instead the shape is quite rounded and curved like the letters used for my analysed reggae magazine front covers. Furthermore, when looking at this particular font it makes me think about palm trees and tropical islands due to the way the letters look when typed, which would directly link to the theme and genre of my music magazine. Another asset of this font is that the letters when typed are very bold and thick which will allow the cover lines to stand out just as much as the main image especially with the colour scheme that I will be using for the cover lines.

The screen print above is of another font I have decided to think about using for the masthead of my reggae music magazine. I have decided to think about using this font because during my research I realised that most of the reggae magazine's I have analysed use fonts that are quite rugged and rounded. Therefore when I saw the font above I felt that it would link right in with the reggae theme of the magazine. Also, visually I feel the font is quite adventurous due to the slight cracks and breaks in the letters which give the target audience the feel of actually being a part of the Caribbean islands and the reggae culture.