Main: Cover Page 1st Draft

Main: Cover Page 1st Draft

Main: Article for 2 Page-Spread

2 Page Spread Article

   After a slow start at the back end of last year, Skyla has kicked off this year with a bang. Releasing her new album at the beginning of the year ‘At One With Music’ which shows her joint, unmatched passion for Electro/Trance and 80’s pop. Experimenting with EDM is what alot of people do but the golden age of 80’s pop is rarely toyed with, as when it is classic pop songs get butchered. thankfully for the blessed music lovers of this generation that missed such incredible music, Skyla -an EDM prodigy- has stepped out onto the scene. Its rare for a new artist to gain such a huge hype behind them so quickly, her fan base just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Believed to be  one of the reasons why EDM is still a genre that has not just dissipated into screams, same old chords and incredibly similar lyrics.
    Releasing decent songs with only a week or two in-between them is difficult for most artists is next to an impossible task. However, Skyla has gone beyond this not only by sticking to the task that seemed impossible but producing songs that contend for number one spot on top of the charts, currently having the top five positions taken by her songs and the number one only moves down because the next song released somehow tops a perfect EDM track. How long is this going to last? At the current rate with this mad frenzy of songs she'll have the top twenty tracks not just in the UK... but around the world! Pulling of a task that even Mr. Worldwide found impossible, she's took the world by awe considering that only a few month ago she was a DJ in a nightclub in Manchester. 

    She has recently announced that she will be appearing at Electra Festival in March this year. As well as making her appearence at Electra, Skyla has also announced that she will be going on a solo tour (EDM or Nothing) throughout Europe; starting in Manchester England on February 28th, until March 16th where she will finish back in England in London for her grand-finale, some of the other countries she will be preforming in include: Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Portugal.
    As a little teaser for those who love Skyla but can’t quite decide wether or not to buy tickets to go see her live, since she loves her fans so much she has informed us that not only will she be preforming all the songs from her album ‘At One With Music’ as well as a few of the remixes she has done of popular songs that have been floating round over the past year but she will be playing bits of the next fourteen songs that will be on her next album ‘Status = Trance’ such as 'Tranquility', Cloud9', 'Electronic-Satisfaction' and 'Hypnotic' just to name some, which is to be released late April of this year, so don't get left behind by the Skyla Hype Express. Buy your ticket quick before they sell out.
    

Main: 2 Page Spread 1st Draft

Main: Two Page Spread 1st Draft

Main: Contents Page 1st Draft

Main: Contents Page 1st Draft

Main: Cover Page Practice

Main: Cover Page Drafts

Over the course of making my front cover I took my photos three times to get them right, having originally decided on using a female artist then changing my mind and using a male artist as EDM artists and DJ's are mainly male, the first time round I ended up with photos like the following:

           

Trying to use these photos was pretty difficult as they were all so similar to each other, clothe and pose wise, so shortly after beginning to make my front cover seen on 

the right I decided that I needed to retake my photos. not only was it the photos that i decided to redo but the magazine name at the top I felt didn't really fit in or look to pleasing so after looking at some more magazine covers again I saw that they mainly had a logo that was placed in the top left corner, so this is the point that I decided that I would make a logo to put in the top corner. 

To make things a little different I had my model wear two separate costumes in my second set of photos so there was a bigger variety of photos to use, they would be in one costume on the front cover and another on the two page spread,

but again while putting it together, for the front cover I noticed that there was clash in colours that I wanted to 

use for the front cover, since the top he was wearing was orange and blue, there wasn't a large amount of colours that stood out on both of them 

Finally for my final set of photos I decided to go back to my original idea of having a female model for my artist, this time instead of taking my photos as a JPEG i took them as a RAW so when i edited them the quality of the photos didn't deteriorate, using a female model allowed me to play around with make-up a lot more than a male did which allowed me to incorporate the 80's element that I wanted my artist to have:

With these photos I was able to get a very similar look to what I originally wanted:

Main: Model Choices

Main: Model Choices

For my photos I originally wanted a male artist with preferably long hair.  More specifically, a short back and side hair cut with a long top to get the 80's inspired hair style that I wanted.  I was also looking for a build that was healthy and sporty as most of the artist in Electro music production are of a similar build. The model had to be at the younger end of my target age group (15-25 years old) because this also represents most of the artists in EDM genre. Being 17 myself, I looked for someone within my own year that fitted my needs. Unfortunately, there was one characteristic I couldn't find which was the hair cut. Although there were people with the correct hair cut their build was far too different from the one I wanted. I decided to change my model specification and sacrifice the hair cut.  I decided my model choice could also represent EDM artists who have a fairly short top. 

The first  model that I ended up using was a lad in my year named Alex Rowe, I felt that he was the best suited model for the characteristics that I was after.  He is 17, has a sporty build with good physique. This build represents the youthful majority who are involved in many activities and he had the closest haircut as to what I originally wanted. Also the way that he dresses is very similar to the clothing that you see EDM artist wearing. 

After taking my photos of Alex I began to put my pages together. However, a couple of days later, while I was listening to the radio on the way home, a recent EDM artists by the name of 'NERVO', who are a female duet, came on. Then the idea of using a female model hit me.  By using a female model I could get the slim build I was wanting and would be able to get a very similar hair style to the one I originally wanted if I found someone with long hair. 

After thinking it over for a bit I decided that the best decision was to switch my model to a female. Female artists may be uncommon in EDM but in recent years a lot of good DJ's and artists that are female have been making a name for themselves. Contradicting the stereotypical representation of females in EDM as sexually appealing objects. To push the reality out there I thought that the use of a female model would benefit me and be a new move towards promoting EDM across genders. Using an photo of a female model as the main image on my Cover page would be my own contribution to promoting female EDM artists.

The female model I ended up settling for in the end was my younger sister Taryn Dawson. I picked her as my model because she met all the requirements from my original model specification. She is 16 so is still at the younger end of my target audiences age group and hes a sporty buils also. Although she did not have a short back and sides hair cut, by brushing all her hair to one side a very similar style could be replicated. Her fashion sense is also very similar to most of the new female EDM artists. The switch to the female model also allowed me to create a EDM/80's styled make over using bright colours of blusher and eye shadow, which was restricted by with the use of a male model.