Deconstruction - Under The Radar

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From this magazine, these are the things that I have taken away and will apply to my own magazine:

> The lighting must be strong in my photoshoot to highlight the models face

> I like the way that natural, untamed hair looks - this combined with eye contact can make for a strong personal/intimate feel. I will use this on at least one of my images.

> I will avoid overusing subimages on my front cover and may end up using none at all - this would appeal to the older portion of my target audience

> The contents page is very simple which puts the focus onto the articles but this looks quite boring. I want my contents page to focus on functionality and not be overly decorated so that it doesn't distract from what it's meant to do but I do not want it to look as dull as this one does. This problem could be fixed through use of color

>  The image overlaps the page slightly which makes it eye-catching because it dominates the page. My image will be likely to slightly overlap - which will be useful in creating visual interest - but I must be careful that the crease down the center is not on the models face, or it could look off.

> My article will also be formatted into columns

Manuscript under cut

BACKGROUND:

Under The Radar is an American magazine first founded by a married couple in 2001 that describes itself as ‘the solution to music pollution.’ They are a magazine with a focus on ‘opinion and commentary of the Indie music scene.’

FRONT PAGE:

The front page is designed to attract a potential buyer’s attention and makes them want to read the magazine. If the cover doesn’t look appealing, the customer may not bother looking at the magazine.

Lighting: The rainbow lighting is the first thing to stand out on this front cover – and stand out it does. It makes this image so colourful and vibrant that it stands out visually even amongst other colourful and highly saturated magazines. This is the objective of a magazine. Indie magazines, especially those that promote newer and upcoming artists, do not have the advantage of pop magazines in which they can stick a well-known celebrity on the cover and have everyone recognise them so they much compensate in which ways they can. The most prominent colour here is red, which is a powerful colour associated with danger in nature. Animals instinctively notice it and we instinctively notice it. The secondary is green, which is coincidentally also associated with danger in nature.

In nature, rainbows are noted for their beauty. It’s associated with a lot of things in religion. The Bifrost, to the Norse, the end of the great flood in the bible, and a lot more. They are generally considered to be good omens and tell of good things to come (aside from in Amazonian culture.) If this magazine were aiming for an obscure angle, this rainbow could foretell good content on the way – or it could, more likely, have been done to make the magazine stand out visually.

Central image:  I don’t know who the woman on the front of the magazine is. She is heavily obscured by the lighting, which makes her look rather ambiguous. It somewhat obscures some facial colouring and it would obscure any light makeup colours if she was wearing them. Her face as a whole is somewhat obscured. This creates intrigue and mystery. Though I would usually avoid this on a magazine front cover, the bright colours from the rainbow may draw a person in and then, as they have already noticed the magazine, they may want to look inside and see who the woman is.

Her hair is left to be quite big, wild, and curly and natural. This natural state combined with the eye contact we’re getting from the model gives the front cover a kind of intimate, personal feel.

Secondary images and coverlines: There are no secondary images on this front cover – which suggests an older audience. Younger audiences tend to be drawn in by a lot of images, favouring that to excessive text. There is very little in way of describing the articles inside, instead there is only the artists names. There is some hint to the contents of the articles in phrases such as ‘Becoming Annie Clark’ but that doesn’t give a lot away. This is an indication of a younger audience who are only looking out for bands that they may recognise. Lack of images and lack of article description even each other out. This suggests that the magazine T.A is a mix of older people and younger people. Phrases such as ‘free songs’ plays incentive into why people may want to read the magazine; it’s an offer designed to tempt people into picking up the magazine.

Font: The title font is used in every edition for brand recognition. It is quite a straight, formal font. Meanwhile, the font that is written in outside of the title is rounder and slightly less formal. It’s also a lot bolder. This suggests that the magazine has changed since it first started – perhaps they had more serious content to begin with and then shifted to less serious articles, perhaps this says that this is generally a more formal magazine but this edition has less serious articles. It may have been done for contrast to create visual interest.

ALTERNATE FRONT PAGE:

Under The Radar is sometimes quite politically driven and has very political covers. This edition was called ‘the protest issue’ on their website and it addresses gender equality – which has always been a problem in the music industry. This is quite interesting and something that not a lot of magazines would do. I won’t do a full deconstruction of the cover but this is an excellent example of props and of powerwords. ‘Radical’ is a buzzword in political discourse, ‘empathy’ can pull forth a strong emotional reaction; ‘gender equality’ is a topic with a lot of discussion surrounding it. This magazine, though it will incite hate and disagreement as any political stance has, will also incite a lot of attention.

CONTENTS PAGE:

The content page is, obviously, there mainly to direct readers to each article and, if possible, to hype up articles in the process. They may also push for a reader to subscribe to the magazine.

Layout: The layout on this page is very simplistic and exists only to point reader in direction to the article. On this page, you aren’t supposed to linger. Because it’s such a clean, plain look, it has quite a modern feel to it. There is a lot of content with each issues as it only prints 5 times a year, thus to make itself notable it must be able to boast a fair amount of subjects. The contents are spaced out in a way that is clear to read, very neat - thus making it visually attractive -  and functional.

Colour: The colour scheme echoes the simplicity of the layout. Black text upon a white background is very easy to read – which shows us that this page was created for functionality and readability and that was placed at higher importance that originality or aesthetics. There is a sprinkling of blue, which stands out amongst the other white and black text and gives the page a more modern look.

Photos: The photos range in shots as there is one mid-shot and two close-ups. They appear to be of the artists featured inside the magazine. One thing that stands out is that they don’t appear to be taken in a studio and they all seem to be taken outside. When this is done, it’s usually to get a more exciting background – rather than just a plain block colour. It does mean that lighting cannot be controlled and has to be changed artificially afterwards. However, the backgrounds are not the focus of any of these photos. What I think this achieves instead is a more casual photo. This is furthered by the semi-casual costumes worn by the models. Although the man on the left is wearing a fairly bright - and therefore not quite casual in the sense of being plain – it would not be out of place on an average street. The women in the centre is not wearing any make-up, thus making her seem casual and relaxed. The facial expressions are also quite relaxed with either empty expressions or a hint of a smile.

ARTICLE:

The articles comprise the magazine. The one I chose to look at was an interview with The Vaccines.  

Writing:  The heading is at the left of the page and it is simply the name of the band. The title font is plain and straight. The title doesn’t tell us anything about the article or stand out at all. This tells us that this was not what we were expected to notice first but, rather, the picture was intended to attract our attention. Beneath the title is a very brief introduction with the key name highlighted in blue so that we pay special attention to it. As all the colours are faded, this works well. The blue stands out. This also comes into play with the pull quote. Usually, articles have more pull quotes,; however, this only has the one. That highlights the importance of the one that there is. The use of a pull quote draws in attention to grab the reader’s eyes. This is also done when the first letter of the paragraph is enlarged.

Photo: The image is large and overlaps the page, taking up the entirety of one page and a section of the other. It’s very eye-catching because of how much of the DPS it takes up. Also, all of the members are staring directly at the camera, which is quite personal and also aids in attracting attention. It’s faded in colour and has had a filter applied during editing. This colouring can appear to be dull if it’s not compensated for with the colour in the rest of the article however it can work well if it’s done right. This effect has connotations with older cameras that couldn’t capture colour as easily as modern cameras can, making this picture feel as if it were taken in the past. The band is actually relatively new and was only formed in 2010. Despite this, a faded filter gives them a sense of age which would make them seem more established in the music industry, as if they were already a classic. It also fits in with their genre as it is quite grunge – a style associated with Indie music and Indie rock.

Layout:  The text has been assigned to two columns. With the photo taking up 1/3 of the left page, the columns are confined to 2/3 and are therefore slightly on the thinner side. The text has been split into two columns and further into paragraphs within these columns so that reading the text seems like less of a daunting task – as it would be with one large chunk of text. It’s also worth noting that there’s little on the page other than the photo, the title, and the text. There are no subimages or such, which makes the page look mature but also somewhat empty. To combat this, shapes such as rectangles, squares, and lines have been scattered across the page in decoration, which helps fill the page up.