For my final exam product, I will be creating a magazine which I have started production of. The magazine will display all my bets images in a typical fashion/music/arts magazine format and I have taken inspiration from exiting titles such as i-D, Dazed and PUSH. Below is a specification of my magazine and how I want it to feel/look and its narrative, concept and design.
how you want your magazine to look and feel
I want my magazine to look professional and quite minimalist in its design features. It will have a clear and simple layout and sequencing with both a combination of images and text, the text being question and answers from my discussion with each model. Both images and text will coincide with each other and work as a pair to bring the whole magazine together. The magazine will consist of full bleed pages that complement other smaller images and text and I want it to be colourful and vibrant as well as quite bold which will be achieved through colours of text boxes, page backgrounds and actual photos. However, it minimalism will also hopefully present a more subtle tone.
format, size and orientation
the orientation of my magazine will be portrait as this is the best effective for the orientation of my actual images and will allow my images to be presented in the largest format and this is quite important to me considering I have used a 50mm lens for the whole project and this has allowed em to capture intricate and crisp which can be emphasised through large full bleed prints on portrait.
design and layout
the design of my magazine is quite simple as already pressed. The front and back cover show the most design features as it has lots f text and although this is the same inside the magazine, the font and back covers is what you see first and so I have made this as effective as possible. The layout will be made up of around 6 pages for each ‘character’ and throughout these 6 pages, there will be a sequence of images and text in between. I want to keep the layout very self-explanatory and logical to follow and so that readers can choose a page at random and read from any point in the magazine as their own accord – it doesn’t have to be read from start to finish because it is divided into sections.
rhythm and sequencing
the rhythm and sequencing of my book will be white basic and as I have already stated, the book will divided into each ‘character’ and for each character, I will present 6 images and these will be in any order, however, if there are two images that are deliberately meant to go together as a diptych then this will be evident and I have trued to place Lucy as the only female in the middle of the magazine to maintain this notion of a male’s gaze.
structure and architecture
I will range my photos from full page photos without a border to maybe one or two double page spreads and lots of smaller images that take up half a page and the rest will be text. As well, I may find that the effect of overlapping an image on top of another may work well. I have briefly stated a layout I aim to follow for the magazine in a previous blog post and I am sticking to this so far.
narrative
the narrative follows what may look like a quite free and muddled narrative at first glance but this is because the message I want to show is quite subtle. It is obvious that the magazine is focused on males, males behaviour and male fashion and how a boys look and persona can impact on the people around him. I want to try and get across a typical boys boisterous and mischievous persona but show this as an underlying theme in which a more vulnerable and timid character may be seen primarily. I will explore through my questions, the reason for the what the models dress and their opinions on how boys are supposed to develop in adolescence when there are inevitable reassures on them and how expression through fashion can help this. Like my previous project, All My Love, this project still addresses quite tender subjects that do not get spoken about often. As well, it is a collaborative project that requires huge input from my subjects to provide meaning and context. I use the portraits and faces I have been capturing in this project to tell a story about boys and their nature as they develop from boys to men.
title
the title of my magazine is Boys Will Be Boys. I have named it this because I find it very fitting and as well, it is quite catchy and memorable because of it is already a known phrase that was used much more a few decades ago than it is now. Boys Will Be Boys is a phrase that was often used my mums in the 70s/80s/90s when their boys had been misbehaving my doing something mischievous or naughty and all they can say is ‘boys will be boys’ because boys have this stereotype that ahs developed over several decades of being quite mischievous through their adventurous natures when young. It is a title that I think fits the message I am trying to portray.
images and text
there will be both images and text in my magazine and they will coincide with each other to create meaning. The images come form the shoots I have carried out over the exam process an the text comes from the answers that each model has provided me with as responses to the questions I asked them.
colour and black and white (or a mix)
my magazine will be a mix of colour and black and white photographs but there will be more colour than black and white and when I have used black and white images, the contrasts and shadows are not harsh and instead, the image are made up of light grey tones and light blacks.
paper and ink
the magazine I will be suing form the Blurb/BookWright options is called ‘premium’. This has a high-end look from a semi-gloss cover and vibrant printing on matte, velvet-finish paper. Premium magazines also have a heavier cover (216 GSM) for protection. The paper inside is 118 GSM.