my moodboard

Magazine Name

throughout these festive holidays, i've been trying to come up with a catchy, quick, eye grabbing, tongue rolling title for my magazine, and I think i've finally found one.

To begin with i was completely stuck for ideas, and seriously couldn't think of anything for my magazine title. I did some brainstorming and started to think of things such as musical notes. Therefore, the first name idea that I came up with was 'Treble Clef' I then thought about this, and thought about of the possibilty of also incorporating a picture of a Treble Clef on my cover e.g.

I then continued to think of names, and decided that I didn't like the name Treble Cleff. I then tried to think of musical instruments that i could try and use for my name. I mainly tried to focus on the guitars, and played around with the idea of the 'electric'guitar. I then came up with the name 'bassline' from the idea of the bass guitar. I then thought about this name and asked a few people about what they though of the idea, and a few people said that they thought of dance music when they heard the name, and as this isn't the idea I was aiming for I decided to scrap this name. 

I then thought about the times that I like the music from, I thought about the 80's and what they had and brought musically. I then came up with the name 'Cassette' as they were used a lot from the 70's right through until the late 80's. I believe that this name is catchy, and as it's only a short word people will remember it better. I have therefore decided that this will be my magazine name. I have then also thought about possibly using an image of a cassette on the cover itself.

Audience

After having a good think about who I want my magazine to be aimed at I came up with the following;
My magazine would generally be aimed at people ranging from around 15 right through to the age of about 26, they will be both male and female. I think that this is a good catchment area and they will, at this age, all generally be looking for the same kind of thing from a music magazine. My 'general' reader would be, either male or female, fall within the age range of 15-26 and be 'well' into their music. They want to know who's in, who's out, what the latest bands are, reviews on upcoming albums, lists of gigs happening around them, they want interviews with their favourite bands and also, one of the big points, they want it weekly, and they want it at around £1.49 - £2.49 per edition. Generally, the male side of the audience would be watching films that are Comedy, e.g. Shaun Of The Dead however they would obviously like action films for example James Bond, and also films such as The Godfather. The female audience would be watching films such as Love Actually, Anchorman and also Step Brothers.  I would say that generally the male audience would be shopping at places such as urbanindustry, wellgosh and karmaloop, however on the other hand I would still include shops such as Zara and H&M. For the female audience I would say that they would shop at places such as Topshop, River Island, Zara & Urban Outfitters. I believe that they would be looking pretty similar to the people that I have shown above, these are members of bands that I would want to be associated with my music magazine, Two Door Cinema Club, Bombay Bicycle and, below, Orlando Weeks, the lead singer from The Maccabees.

Another Example Of How I Would
Expect The Male Audience To Dress

Therefore, this is what I will aim to give them. My audience will be both boys and girls, ensuring I get everyone's interests accomodated for. The magazine will be for the people at school who are into their music, want to know find out more about things they don't know anything about, and also people who attend gigs often, and want to find out info' that they can't find anywhere else - fan's questions answered by their favourite bands.

Ideas

I've looked at various music magazines now, from the same music genre right through a totally different music genre. I feel that out of everything, I love the look of the front cover of 'complex' especially this particular front cover. They have their traditional masthead which is clean, crisp and fresh. They then also just have one main picture with not a lot really going on in it.

I also really love Raygun and the way they did this particular Radiohead cover. I think it looks really good with all of the different shades of blue they've incorporated, and it looks really good. Despite this I really do like Complex's cover featuring Kanye West. I like this idea as it makes everything stand out on the page and I feel just generally makes it look better than if there's a lot going on in the cover.

Colour Schemes

Colour Schemes

fonts

i've been looking tonight through various websites trying to decide on fonts for my music magazine. From this i've concluded that I want quite a bold style, with nothing to fancy. I also like the idea of using handwriting style fonts, as I feel these look good and provide an alternative style to make my magazine different.

I think if I was to actually follow through with the idea of using the handwriting, I quite like the above font.

For my main masthead I want something a lot bolder and a lot more simple, here's a few fonts that i've found that I like the look of, 

I quite like the 'Helverica Neue Condensed Bold' as it's different to Helvetica, and yet it's not to bold and it's still very simple. I do however like the look of Futura Condensed Medium. Carring on the idea of Futura here's a picture of the plain basic font itself.

Although seeming quite boring here, once you've seen this font on the front of a magazine cover, I feel that it looks really good. Although it is basic, it's also got something different about it, and I really like it.

NME Analysis

NME Magazine Analysis

Questionnaire

i did a questionnaire, where i had 11 questions that all were to do with my research into what people within my age group of 15-26 would want from a magazine and what they currently already like about magazines...

1. What's your favourite music genre?
Meg - ''Indie' music or 80's'
Sam - 'Generally all, house and stuff'
Dan - 'Alternative Indie - all sorts'
Max - 'Alternative Indie - Post Punk'
Sophie 'Mixed, generally all'

2. Would you want a magazine weekly or monthly?
Meg - Monthly
Sam - Monthly
Dan - Monthly
Max - Monthly
Sophie - Monthly

3. How much would you be prepared to spend on a monthly magazine?
Meg - £2.50
Sam - £4
Dan - £4
Max - £4
Sophie £3

4. Name 3 of your favourite artists -
Meg - Florence + The Machine, The Jam, The Courteeners
Sam - Rusko, Tubelord, Ice Cube
Dan - The Maccabees, Jay-Z, Foals
Max - The Courteeners, The Maccabees, Blur
Sophie - Snow Patrol, The Kooks, Paloma Faith

5. Where do you shop generally?
Meg - Topshop, Dollymix Vintage
Sam - Urbanindustry
Dan - Wellgosh
Max - Levi's Shop
Sophie - Topshop, Urban Outfitters

6. What are two of your favourite films?
Meg - Jaws, Jurassic Park
Sam - Back To The Future, Rushmore
Dan - Home Alone, Troy
Max - Quadrophenia, Kevin & Perry Go Large
Sophie - Pretty Woman, The Notebook

7. Do you currently buy a music magazine? If so, please state which
Meg - NME
Sam - No
Dan - No
Max - NME or Q
Sophie - No

8. Name a celebrity you like
Meg - Florence Welch
Sam - Nick Cage
Dan - Pharrel Williams
Max - Liam Fray
Sophie - Fearne Cotton

9. Do you like the current trend of the red, black + white colour scheme, that magazines such as NME + Q currently use?
Meg - Yes, it looks professional but could maybe do with a change now
Sam - Yes
Dan - Yes, it's basic but professional
Max - Yes, it's good
Sophie, Yes, it's pretty good

10. What's your favourite music magazine?
Meg - NME
Sam - NME
Dan - NME
Max - NME
Sophie - NME

11. Do you download music of the internet or do you buy the CD?
Meg - Download
Sam - Download
Dan - Download, purchase some CD's
Max - Both, purchase CD's for the culture side
Sophie - Both

From these questions i gathered lots of information that I will take forward for my magazine, as these are the opinions of people whom fall into my target age group for the magazine, therefore if the magazine is how they want it to be, they should be the people to purchase it.

From the questionnaire I found out,

• The most liked music genre is 'Indie/Alternative'
• People want a monthly magazine
• People generally don't want to spend more than £4 on a magazine
• Popular artists are, The Courteeners & The Maccabees
• Males tend to shop in Wellgosh & Urbanindustry. Females like TopShop and Urban Outfitters.
• There isn't really a trend in favourite films, these is most likely due to there being so many, and people having such different tastes.
• Some people do already buy music magazines that are within my taget age, and it's generally NME magazine.
• Everyone I asked said their favourite music magazine was NME
• There wasn't any trend in favourite celebritites however, there are so many I didn't expect there to be.
• People like the current Red, Black and White Colour Scheme, however want a slight change perhaps.
• 3/5 people said they downloaded their music ahead of buying CD's

a picture of part of my magazine

Q Analysis

Q analyisis

Kerrang Analysis

Kerrang Analysis

Pre Production Continued...

Now, after completing my magazine cover, i have discovered elements of photoshop, that before, I didn't know how to use, or what they even were. I did however find Photoshop very frustrating to work with as a beginner, as I was unsure about most things to do with it, but now I feel more comfortable with it and as if I could use it again.I learnt how to use the magnetic lasso tool, the idea behind the layering system, and how to manage and create them, and also the magic wand. I still think I do need to keep working with photoshop a lot of if I do want to improve my skills on it, but hopefully that'll come with the more I use it. I don't think this as it stands looks as if it would be sold in a shop, so there's a lot I need to get to grips with to try and make the appearance of it better. 

I really struggled to produce something anywhere near the standard of Ray-Gun, with both time and knowledge of skills lacking badly. I feel for my first attempt it was a decent attempt, and hope to produce a lot better in future.

Here's the outcome of my preliminary task...

Pre Production...

To begin with, we were given a brief of what we had to do for our preliminary task, our brief was the following -  using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.

To begin with, I looked at some other amgazine covers for some inspiration, these included Ray Gun Cover , NME mag' cover, to really give us a decent idea of what to do we also looked at last year's year 12 final magazine covers, to give us some further ideas. After we did all this, we needed to make a name, that was school related for our mag'. After a few ideas I decided to call my magazine 'Lane' as he's a sports teacher at our school who gets along with the majority of students. Once i'd decided the name, I also decided to have Mr Lane himself as my cover star, and to include an exclusive interview with him.

I then had to decide what colour theme i'd have, I decided to use, light and dark blue, and the white. These also tie in with the school colours and furthermore I had to also take into consideration of the colour of Mr Lane's clothing.

Here are the magazines i've listed above...

I particularly like this one as it's incorporated the magazine 

name and also the name of the cover band - 

Radiohead.

This is just this weeks NME magazine

I believe both of these magazines would be picked up by similar people to myself in the shops, as the both look appealing, and are music magazines.