Inspiration...

After planning what sort of magazine I wanted to create, I decided to do a little research into magazines. Seeing as my magazine is going to be a merge of different music genres, I need to find a common ground that will draw in lovers of all sorts. For this, I decided to gather together a range of magazines...

 

 

By doing this I learnt that a common theme between them all is that they all use common colours of black, blue, yellow, red and pink. All bright colours. Though these may change issue to issue, using some sort of colour in it does not. Settling on blue, yellow, white and black as my house style. Another theme between them all is that they use bold fonts and a lot of the time do not show the whole magazine name; things that I am thinking about taking into my magazine.

 

Because my target audience is 16-24 year olds who enjoy things a little different, social networking and such, I decided to look into other places for inspiration and ideas. YouTube, FaceBook and MySpace. A common theme they all shared was advertising, easily accessible gossip and celebrity pages. It is clear that young peole like to feel that they have a say and can some how get involved, whether it be their opinion or being able to connect with celebs. This is something that I would want to be able to advertise as a unique selling point for my magazine. 

Planning for Music Magazine!

The music magazine that I am going to be creating is called Forward. It is a magazine on a wide range of music genres, but focusses rather more on the new and upcoming artists over the mainstream artists. Due to this, I decided that I wanted my magazine to be called something to do with the fact that this is a magazine dedicated to the future. So, I came up with a few different names which included; Forward, Out It!, Advance. For now, I have settled on Forward as it is catchy, when questionning the target audience they liked it and thought that it was good because it described the magazines contents.

The target audience for this magazine will be teenagers and young adults of the ages of around 16-21. These will be people who prefer to listen to unique, different and quircky music as well as things that are just not too mainstream. It will cover a large variaty of music genres so though not a need, they will most likely be people who listen to a range of music.

Forward will be a monthly magazine so that people have time to enjoy the information on new artists before another issue is printed. As it is aimed at youth-YA, it will be priced at £2.99. Affordable and the artists featured inside are not hugely famous.

Because of the fact that the magazine covers a wide range of music, the house style would have to be something that could suit a variaty of artists and articles. For this I dcided on Electric Blue, Yellow, White and Black. Black and white because they portray the clean and neat feel of the magazine but also they could be used to fit in with the theme at hand. I also chose Electric blue as it reflects the fun and youth of the magazine, and will stand out against the white background of the magazine. I decided to add a little touch of yellow to the house style because though it is a fun and calming colour, it will really make the magazine pop and can make certain things on the page stand out, or make the magazine itself stand out from others.

When planning the images that I would use for the magazine I decided to do research. The main feature of the magazine is a new boy band who; they will be the double page spread feature also. The band is a Folk/Indie band and therefore their images would be natural. For every issue of the magazine, the front cover has a white background behind the main feature. In this case the band will be standing in a V-like shape wearing clothing such as denim, checked shits, leather jackets, ect. The position can be seen on the cover of the Kerrang! magazine below, with Bring Me The Horizon front cover.

 

Another artist featured in my magazine will be a female duo of two well-known teenage girls. They will be seen small on the front cover in a medium shot. As they are of the rock genre, these girls will be seen in dark and urban locations. For the front cover it will be somewhere like an alley or carpark, at night. They will also be a main feature on the contents page with a very short Q&A . This will be a long shot of the girls in a rock pose, no background. They girls will also be seen on the double page spread, giving their opinion on the Band. This will be a birdseye view of the girls laying down, hair fanned out around them in a field at night; a close up-medium shot of the girls. This will also be their CD cover, but will be seen with edits.

 

When selling the magazine, it will promoted with offers such as free band sweatband of this months main feature, competition to win Apple Vouchers and festival tickets.

 

The thing that makes this magazine different to all others is the fact that they offer news on the underdogs. Singers, artists and musicians who are starting small. They could be YouTube sensations or a local artist, but it is all about bringing forward the next big thing.

 

Preliminary Task: Contents Final

Preliminary Task : Front Cover Final

Preliminary Task: Contents Page

The contents page of my preliminary task of a school magazine carries through the simplicity of the front cover as well as the colour theme. With everything having its place and in next sections it is an easy read and a great introduction to the magazine.
I have included a message from the head teacher to link it to where you would usually find the note from the editor linking it back to the traditional magazine.
-there are a range of photos I have used: a group shot of students at a long shot, a medium close up of head teacher, a medium close up of a student working, a long shot of students studying, a long shot of students on the field.
-the contents column is on the right hand side and is lay out straight so it is simple and easy to read and find the page that you are looking for.

Preliminary Task Draft: Front Cover

Here is the design of my front cover for the Preliminary Task of a school magazine. Both creating this I looked at school prospectuses and magazines online and in person to see what was the common theme throughout. By looking at these I decided to make the front cover of my school magazine as simple but stylish. Possible. As it is aimed at students aged 16-18 and their families I needed to make it something that would appeal them. I used the schools colours of red, yellow and black as the scheme for the magazine.
-graphics include the schools logo and barcode
-photos will include the close up of 'head girl' and a group of actors
-a variety of texts and text boxes will be used

Studying magazine contents page...

When analysing the contents page of the music magazine we looked at everything that had been put onto the page. This includes graphics, text, themes, images and composition, as well as relating it back to the TAPE analysis that we did for the front cover of the magazine.

 

The layout of the page is very simple, with everything in its place. It is shown in a very generic style with nothing that you would not expect to see on the contents page of a music magazine. A list of pages down the right with a little more information on the page so that readers can decide if they want to go to that page or not. The face that they show the page number in red is so that it stands out against the white page and black and yellow page titles. On the page there is also a huge competition that is clearly a main article as it takes up most of the page and is also mentioned on the front cover. By repeating this it is reminding the reader to enter. The picture linked with this article shows a silhouette with the lable 'this could be you!'. This makes the audience think that there is actually a possibility of winning and therefore are encouraged further to enter.

The contents page also shows a message wrote and signed by the magazines editior. This makes the whole magazine much more personal and is a stereotypical feature that you expect to see.

 

I like the fact that this is a very clear and clean page and this is something that I will make sure that this something I use in my magazines contents page. It is easily read and everything has it's page.

TAPE Analysis

In groups we looked at a cover page and contents page to a music magazine, ours was KERRANG! When looking at these we used TAPE analysis. This meant we looked at the type of magazine it was, who it's audience was, the purpose and it's effectiveness.

By looking at this it helped us to think about the things that we should include in the magazines that we will be designing and making and things that maybe I personally don't think is a good idea. When looking at this magazine I liked the idea of the column on the left showing what is going to be in the magazine, but I think it looks a little busy so wouldn't put as much on the page. 

The Brief

Perliminary Exercise; Produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photogrph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropiately laid out text and a masthead. Additionally, candidates must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the programme.

Main Task; Produce the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.

All images and text must be original
Minimum of four images per candidates.