My Music Magazine: Final Draft

 

 

 

 

 

Preparing For My Music Magazine: Article

If you ever ran into Derry on the street you wouldn’t even look twice. Without her stage-presence and glamorous outfits she is a regular 18 year old teenager. Her poise and grace certainly allows her to carry herself like a lady. Emily Derry is an extremely talented diamond in the rough, not caring about what anyone thinks or even wants.

 

“I’m not into the whole Hollywood stuff,” she explained, “I’ve actually turned down a few record deals before I got here, when I was looking over the contracts they were asking for my permission to control me - and no one can ever control me.” she declares, with the most casual attitude ever. “Yeah I was scared, of course I was,” she responded as I asked her about how she had the courage to turn down record deals, “I honestly didn’t want anyone but me to have the satisfaction of owning me, no one should ever have that privilege over anyone, it’s just not right.”

 

This level-headed, suburban teen came from no-where. Writing songs from a young age for fun and a way of coping with the challenges of everyday life she faced, as she tells me “I never could fit in to any crowd, I had a few friends, but it was enough. As long as a person is happy, numbers, popularity and material wealth shouldn’t come into it, at any age - let alone as a teenager.”

 

It’s hard to believe that an award winning, global phenomenon such as Derry is so down-to-earth, especially

After signing a £1.7 million record deal, “I still can’t quite believe how it’s happened,” she claims as she makes us both a cup of tea in her very spacious kitchen of her amazing home.

 

Derry was very clear about how she wanted this interview to be a calm and relaxing environment where she feels comfortable and ‘at home’ - where better?

 

As I ask her about her success after turning down so many record deals she excitedly tells me “I know, it was a massive risk saying no the first time, let alone the third time. I still don’t believe I’m actually signed. The record deal I’m signed to asked me about my previous record offers and I told them straight what I didn’t want and why I had said no so many times, it’s important for people to know that it is okay to say no, if it’s not what you want then you shouldn’t settle.”

 

“For an 18 year old you’re very wise aren’t you?” I follow up from that very interesting statement from Emily. “Well I still have fun and enjoy my life, but my professional career will be what takes me through my years after being a teenager. I want to make sure that I don’t just drown myself in financial security yet, I don’t even have access to all of my money, I don’t want to. I’m only 18 years old, what would I do with it? I would rather keep it and use it for my adult life, to create a comfortable lifestyle; after all you never know what tomorrow can bring.”

 

I’m fascinated by this interview and how Derry’s perspective on life is so different to others of her age. “That desperate, I-need-a-man, lonely act is something I definitely don’t want to be a part of. It kind of demolishes the idea of women being independent and I’m not into that at all. I don’t want to promote, sing or sell anything I don’t believe in. I’m not a sell-out!” Her world turn-around from her debut album has been one in the making for a long time. Her father joins us for a brief moment as he calls around her house, “she’s been writing for years, her song collection is crazy! She has a lot of beautiful lyrics up her sleeve and I’m sure they will all make an appearance at some point in her career, she’ll know when it’s time. She’s very smart.” The refreshing confidence her father has in her ability to not only survive in the career controlling industry makes it more understandable on Derry’s lifestyle and her opinions and outlook on life.

 

“My music is very intimate, without exposing a lot. It does take me a long time to write a song that means something to me,” she says as she enters the room carrying a big box stuffed to the brim with paper and music sheets. “I love playing the piano, the guitar and the drums occasionally; it’s why it takes me so long to write, because I’m a musician before I am a singer or performer. I compose every inch of my music, and it’s something I couldn’t be more passionate about, it’s kind of therapeutic.”

 

As Emily opens the stuffed box of secrets she says, “of course I have a more secure form of all of these songs, but I really enjoy the raw reality of writing it myself, the pencil marks, rubbing notes out, changing things a little or entirely. I was definitely born in the wrong era.” I question her on her declaration of the ‘wrong era.’ “Well, I’m very old fashioned with my music, and I will never expose everything. I’m not technology swamped when it comes to my voice and music, it’s me, it’s my style, and it’s real.”

 

It is clear that this superstar knows exactly what she wants and when she wants it. There’s no changing her, and it’s ridiculously refreshing.

 

Preparing For My Music Magazine: Double Page Spread

 

 

Preparing for My Music Magazine: Contents Page Drafts

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout my contents page drafts I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted the layout and design to be. Sticking to my house style of black and white with bold colours I addressed the subheadings and article information in that mannor. My second to last image is the contents page I was going to go for but I felt as though it didn't have good enough music images in relation to the articles shown and I felt as though they came across too fashion like - which even though it can link in with my audience I didn't want it to overshadow the fact that this is a music magazine. I've kept the dramatic 3rd image in the centre of the magazine and added music images around. The 3rd image is symbolising the Lady Gaga article as the cover line mentions 'fashion' and it is an eerie image and is unusual which is what Lady Gaga likes when associating with fashion items, images and concepts.

 

Preparing For My Music Magazine: Cover Page Drafts

 

 

 

Draft 2

Once I had produced my first draft of my Music Magazine Cover Page I then went back to my conventions checklist to make sure I had enough on there. I knew from the beginning to make a good music magazine I would have to follow convention rules and the rules of three regarding columns and grids when it came to the layout.

I started originally without my conventions checklist and included the main parts I already knew from a magazine, I wanted this to be a rough copy and a rough draft to work from. Once I had done that I checked what conventions I already had, which ones needed adding and which ones were an option but I wanted to include in order to make my magazine successful. A lot of my style had to come from the house style I created and specific fonts to tie in the magazine itself. I have chosen a font called American Typewriter which comes with 5 options 'Original,' 'Original Sample,' 'Original Bold,' 'Typewriter Sample' and 'Typewriter Bold.' I decided for my main texts I would use 'Typewriter Bold' and for my cover lines and smaller additional pieces of text I would use 'Original Sample' and 'Original Bold.' I have also made sure that the layout is more effective with uses of white space and image to text cohesion.

I decided to change the colour of 'Derry' and the
Anchorage Line to a striking red as I felt it would
work better in contrast to the black and white image
and background. For my house style I have kept it
black, white, grey, yellow and red as those are the
more eye-catching of the possible colours I could
of used, as it is a music magazine I wanted the image
to speak for itself and the design to compliment the
artists I would be including which is why I kept with
simple colours and striking composition in order for
the magazine to shine in its own brilliance without
having too much artificial accents to it, which I also
thought reflected the music industry as many of the
greatest artists don't use a lot of the up-to-date and
popular voice enhancers as some of the up and coming
stars would.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preparing For My Music Magazine: First Drafts of Cover Page

 

For my front cover of my music magazine I was unsure if I wanted to make it a monochrome image with house style colours added or if I should make it a colourful slightly pop art effect. I edited two different images and decided to make two covers at first to decide which layout I liked the best.

 

I definitely think that my second draft is better, it looks more individual and stands out against the pop type colours I've used for my conventions. Of course as they are just a draft I have a lot to improve on. I think that the colours need to be more linked and fitting within the certain house style, the kickers and cover lines need to be smaller as they take away something from the main feature article, I need to add on some of the advertising conventions such as the 'ear' or the 'competition' line. I definitely will work on those and keep uploading my drafts to show the changes I make to the draft and to show how I get to my final version of my magazine cover.

Preparing For My Music Magazine: Flat Plans

As a part of my music magazine process I knew straight away that the layout and composition of my conventions would be a significant part of my end result. I started out by researching some music magazines and I mainly focused on Billboard, and I took notes on what the positioning of the model was like in comparison to the texts and layout. I then went on to see what body positions look the best so I had an idea for when I went on and did my photoshoot. I decided a slightly right position on the page, following the rule of three in most conventions, would look the best. I then decided to sketch out some of my own flat plans to keep as a base and a starting point to where my music magazine cover would lead to. I have kept the barcode at the very bottom of the page in the right hand corner. I have also kept my kickers and cover lines along the left hand side so that the use of white space and image to text cohesion would be balanced with my main feature article image.

Preparing For My Music Magazine: Photoshoot Edits