Monday, 12 March 2012

Contents Page (First Draft)


I have designed a first draft of my contents page and this is what it looks like. As you can see, the background is a full picture. I chose this because when I got my questionnaire results back, I found out that people prefer big pictures. At the bottom right of the page I have included my logo which is a picture of stage lights, which I will include in every page. This makes my magazine different from other magazines, and therefore readers will start to recognise the symbol and become familiar with it.
However, when it comes to getting assessed by the class I shall be making improvements, so that people like it and to make it look more advertising.

Front Cover (Final)


As you can tell, I have made some huge adjustments to my front cover. This is because I wasn't too happy with the original. I changed my main image from myself to an actual famous singer, as I appeared quite dark in the shot. Also, the singer's war paint on his body and his long black hair help to promote my genre as well. I have also added two extra side-photos to help show what is expected to come in the magazine. I have kept the coverlines the same, however I have adjusted their position on the page to what I feel is a new, appropriate place for them to fit in with the main image.

Front Cover (First Draft)


I have designed my Front Cover, and this is my first draft. I chose fonts that stood out from the background such as reds, and blacks on top of the whites. I also gave a lot of the text a background outer glow, to again make it stand out and to give at a good effect. The background image was originally very dark as the sun was bright which casted a shadow on me, so I had to adjust the brightness. However, I still look quite dark. I can get away with this though because my music magazine is all about metal where people are stereotypically dark, therefore it works out well.

Sunday, 11 March 2012

Napster and Spotify

Napster and Spotify

Napster is the name given to two music online services. An 18-year-old called Shaun Fanning, with the help of his uncle and friends, founded it. When it was originally founded, it was set up as a file sharing service that allowed you to share audio files, in an MP3 format. The company that originally ran Napster ran into legal difficulties, and so was eventually acquired by Roxio. Napster was relaunched as a legitimate service with royalties paid to the major music companies, and it became an online music store in its second incarnation, when it merged with Rhapsody on 1st December 2011.
 

Spotify is a music streaming service that offers streaming of selective music from some major and independent record labels including ‘The Big 4’: UMG, Sony, EMI and Warner Music Group. It got founded in 2006 and launched in October 2008, and has over 10 million users, over 2.5 million of who are paying customers. You can choose to have a six-month free trail period if you have a facebook account, where you can listen to an unlimited amount of music. After this has run out, the music gets limited to 10 hours per month. You can then have an ‘unlimited’ subscription which removes adverts and the time limit, and you can also have a ‘premium’ account which lets you have other features such as offline access and access to a mobile app.