Finished Ancillary Tasks

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Creating the Magazine

After finalising the 'The Martini Shot' masthead, it needed a logo, which I designed in Adobe Illustrator and imported into Photoshop. The small martini glass looked a little plain, so I inserted a coloured background, which can be seen in the image below as a polygon. At this stage the puffs had not been completed, as all the text is white and not finished.

Following this, I finished the actual writing of the puffs and attempted to add some depth to the cover by playing the colours of text.

This continued as I changed the sizing and colours of the puffs themselves. However I was still aware that the cover was lacking in some ways, with an empty space below the masthead and no fine details yet inserted.

I thus set about adding the key elements such as barcode, pricing, issue number, and the like. I also added a set of marketing slogans to the bottom of the image and inserted a fourth puff line, in order to better distribute the space on the cover. The word three was changed to a larger and bolder 3, to ensure that the headline maintained its visual strength in the face of the newly input 'Film Festival Special' that fills the formerly problematic empty space towards the top of the cover.

Below is the final cover design for my magazine, which has been tidied up in terms of alignment of text. The other major difference is the removal of the 3D effect, which looked effective onscreen, but did not come through in the printed version, as it caused the cover to look like the result of a printing error. I am pleased with this final look regardless, as what the cover loses in stylistic quality, it gains in sharpness and boldness.

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Influences on the Magazine Cover

The above mood board is a good representation of the ideas that I initially wanted to encapsulate in my magazine cover. The ideas of the 3D images did not come across in the physical copy that we printed, and looked blurred or poorly printed. Thus, the effect that I had applied was rejected in favour of a bolder, clearer image, which fits with the 'Sight & Sound' influences of directors staring intently and disarmingly into the camera. This, and the 3-in-1 idea of the directors has been successful in the cover, to the extent that the 3D effect was in fact superfluous and could be sacrificed in the name of stronger imagery.

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The Martini Shot

Above is a working masthead for my magazine, The Martini Shot. This particular design does not quite work, as changing the final T into a martini glass and O into an olive has made it look like the magazine is called The Martini Shoy.

As far as the name goes, the last shot of a filming day is called the Martini shot, as the next shot of the day will be in a Martini glass. This is something of an inside joke in the industry, and thus denotes the magazine as one for people who take cinema and filmmaking seriously, but also want to have fun and enjoy it. The strap line 'THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE FOR QUALITY CINEMA' shows the subject of the magazine more clearly than the title, and thus makes the magazine a little more accessible. As I am sure all this makes clear, I intend to produce a magazine cover that is firmly in the vein of Sight and Sound.

CM

Little White Lies: Institutional Analysis

The publisher of the magazine Little White Lies is TCOLondon. This is a company which specialises in slightly off the wall, individual and quirky takes on stories which would not usually get views, or angles on films which are not usually assessed. The very branding of the website (www.TCOLondon.com) as shown below differentiates itself from other forms of media by defining itself as a breed, something which is lifelike and ever evolving. From work in skateboarding, phone companies, games consoles, and sponsoring YouTubers, their list of partners ranges from Grolsch to Audi. This shows where the inspiration for Little White Lies comes from, as well as why the company decided to back such an out-there product. Even within their distribution, with Little White Lies originality being an online-only magazine, they establish themselves against the norm and through this use of technology cater to a specific audience.

This audience is that of 18-30 year olds who are either young professionals in or students of media. They must have significant disposable income because of the monthly subscription of £3.95 for a product which, looking past its potential as a collectable and art, provides less than a week of entertainment. This suggests than that like Empire and Sight&Sound, that the demographic for the company is ABC1 and massively involved with South East London promotions. This is done in the Barbican, BFI and Picturehouse cinemas' and film festivals which caters to the sort of indie film buff audience with disposable income. The benefits of this are found within independent and cult cinema fans who would rather discuss films as an art form rather than just passive entertainment. The magazine caters to independent critics and in depth interviews with cast, directors and producers in order to help their readers form opinions upon the films they cover. 

The magazine, along with others' of its type, use mosaic geodemographics in order to establish the type of person their product is going to cater towards. An audience segmentation can be found below. This shows that the majority of the audience is found within London based Hipsters which falls under the magazines demographic of Group O buyers, standing for Urban Intelligence that 'Mostly consists of young and well educated people who are open to new ideas and influences'. It also caters to audiences such as Group E, young people who have gone through higher education and can be liberal of idea, and have access to disposable income. It caters to this audience through claiming to be about truth which connotes authenticity. Because of this, the more niche audiences of Arthouse film fans and Aspiring filmmakers are also catered towards, while more mainstream film fans and design students are left to read magazines like Empire and Total Film.

The purpose of the magazine fits with the publisher's slightly independent style of reporting. Even from the weight of the paper the magazine feels like a substantial product, filling a gap in the market for collectors items concerning film, which is then corroborated through the hand drawn/graphically modified artistic style of the covers (Of which they employ independent designers) and the typography of the front cover. The choice of film is also essential as to its purpose, and in turn the sorts of audience which are going to read it. Taking up yet another niche gap in the market, focusing on films such as "Black Swan" and "Let The Right One In", they decipher films which are not only in between the mainstream and indie genre but also those which are going to obtain a cult following. Due to this, in combination with the subtle yet aesthetically pleasing cover which screams that the magazine producers know their movies, the magazines' purpose is to fill a gap in the market between Empire's mainstream coverage and Sight & Sound's more individual movie coverage through an artistic and bold cover, substantial page thickness and quality which would leave you wanting to show your collection off to your friends. 

JL

Sight & Sound: Institutional Analysis

Sight & Sound: Cosmopolis

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Little White Lies: Attack the Block

JL

Empire: The Bourne Legacy

This is a piece of analysis on one of 'Empire Magazines' front covers completed using the Photoshop software on the Mac: 

MT