Introduction

We have been asked to create a music magazine of our choice for our Media Studies Coursework. The magazine can be how we would like it to be, and we must create our own personal band, which we can use in a photo shoot for a range of pictures within our magazine. We needed to create a Front Cover, the Contents Page and also a Double Page Spead. We also needed to show the things we had researched into, questionnaire and results, flat plans, drafts, and everything else we included in the production of the final copy of our magazine. The beginning process of my magazine starts from the oldest post, and ends on the latest post (excluding this post) which is the evaluation

(Final Draft of Cover)

(Final Draft of Contents Page)

(Final Draft of Double-Page Spread)

I am pleased with the overall outcome of my magazine, although there are possibly a few things I could do to make my magazine more professional, if I was able to have more time creating the magazine I believe I would have had chance to do this, for example, I would of changed the background on my front cover to something instead of the white and black stripes, I would of done this so that my style would not clash with this background, also, I would of used Adobe Photoshop more effectively in cutting out the members of the band to put onto the new background, that is if I had more time or used time more effectively. If I’d of made these modifications I believe that there would be a better outcome of the overall magazine, as it would look more appealing to the audiences, which originally I had targeted as a 16+ audience, I believed this worked well as the stories I had chosen could be related to that of what a 16 year old and above would want to do, such as ‘Top 10 Gigs’ which would allow them to see which gigs would be more appealing to them as this is the time when generally most people would go to gigs and concerts as they will have more spare time than an adult. Although, there are sections to the magazine also which would appeal to the more adult audience such as interviews with band members, and a band biography, these would also tend to appeal to the teenage audience also. I believe I could have done more on my double-page spread, also, as before I would of done this if I had more time/worked more efficiently, I would of added more detailed to the article giving more information to the reader about the band and I would of said more things to make it more interesting, although I am still pleased with the outcome of the double-page spread. However, I am most pleased with the outcome of my contents page, I believe this was the best part that my magazine, I had spent most of my time on the contents, this is where I was losing time for my double-page spread, and also editing the front cover more to make it better, I believe on the contents I have used the colours well, as well as the use of the pictures which I had took, also the pictures I took fitted well with the contents page. Also, I believe that the magazine I have created sticks to the most popular choice of music style as shown by my questionaire, which was indie/rock.

This is my magazine doube-page spread, I had originally tried to base the layout and content of my spread from the two double-page spreads seen earlier by NME although, they are not very similar, however, it is quite similar to the first double-page spread shown with 'The teenagers' as the style seems quite similar. I am quite impressed by the outcome of my double-page spread as it looks well done, although I believe I should of added more information to it, and also some quotes to make it stand out further to the reader, making it more appealing for them to read. However, the bright yellow colour does make parts of this article stand out to the reader, for example the tour dates and also the biography of the band member, this would get the reader interested and drag their attention to these sections getting them interested in the article, which would mean they would want to learn more and read the other sections of the article which do not stand out so much compared to the bright yellow. I have stuck with the house style I have created on this spread followed on from the contents page and also the front cover of my magazine. This, makes the writing easy to read as it is clearly visible from the black background, and also it is visible in contrast to the yellow background, so the reader should have no difficulties reading the article. I have used original images again in correlation to the profile of each band member, each biography section is linked to the picture beneath, meaning that the picture below is the band member that has been talked aabout in the profile. Also, the image above the largest piece of text shows that that section is about both members and not just one of them, Ithink that this is used effectively.

These are two double-page spreads from NME, these are what I've tried to base my double-page spread on.

When it came to finding a font for the masthead of my magazine, I found it quite difficult to do, I wanted to find a font which was not too plain, and I wanted to find one which was also quite large so that it would stand out from the rest of my background, the font I decided to use was called ‘Sumo’, which is where I got my initial idea for my magazine masthead, as the one I had before did not really work. After trying out this font , and other fonts on www.dafont.com I found that this was the most suitable font to choose, although there were many other options which I could of used, however this one stood out to me and I believe it worked out well as it was what I wanted. Another font I was thinking of using was ‘Bin’, however I do not believe this one worked effectively so I chose to stick to the ‘Sumo’ font.







For the inside content of my magazine, I was unsure of what exactly I was looking for, I wanted something which was easily read at a small font, yet also it had to stand out from whatever background I used on that page, I also wanted the text to look good so that the magazine would look more professional. I did not use a website to find what font I wanted to use this time as it took too long to find a suitable font for my masthead, so I used one of the default fonts on Photoshop which I thought was suitable. The font I used was Berlin Sans FB Demi as this was the font I found most effective and stood out from the background, while still being at a small print, I used this font on all pages on the inside of my magazine.

This is the contents page for my music magazine. This, I believe, is the best part of the magazine which I have done, the colours I have used seem to go well with eachother and all the writing is easy to read, also the use of the original pictures which I have took go well with the way the contents page looks, also the contents page seems full of information, with no unnecessaryblank spaces. This would give the reader the impression that the magazine is full of content, making the magazine look like it has alot of information and musical knowledge, giving a positive connotation to the reader. I am pleased how well the purple and yellow worked together on the contents, I believe here it has been used most effectively compared to the cover and double-page spread, also as you can see from my contents you can see that I have took some ideas of the contents from the NME magazine.

When doing my contents page, I did not know what type of layout I should use to present my contents, using http://www.google.co.uk/ I searched a popular magazine to try and see what type of layout they had used, the magazine contents I was looking for was the one for NME. When researching the contents the layout of the contents page appealed to me, so when coming to make my magazine I used a similar layout taken from NME, however I tweaked it a bit to make it my own, and add things which were not added to their layout, and I also chose to remove some features which they had presented on the original contents. One feature which I had added was the 'Charts Top 10!' and also the editorial. Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of my contents, and I believed I had used the structure NME had used well, with several changes, giving it a professional look.

The top image above was my initial idea for my Magazine Front cover, I decided to change most of this as I thought the front cover was not busy enough or eye catching, and did not have any features which would usually be found on the front cover of other magazines, such as NME magazine. One of the features missing was plugs, which I have now added to my newer version of the magazine front cover. Also, I did not think that the central image used was very effective, the background on the picture is not the typical background you would see on magazines or related to the music genre, so again, when it came to making an alternative front cover, I changed this to something different to make it more appealing to the audience, although even with the new cover I though the new version could still be improved further. However, I did like the colour scheme I had chosen to use which was the purple and yellow, which I followed on onto my contents page and onto my double page spread, I did find this eye catching and the colours seemed to go well with each other. The pose I used for the main image was not a very good choice, I had put the camera on a self timer for 30 seconds so we had plenty of time to arrange ourselves I did this so I could include myself in the shot in case I ever needed another quick picture to add in for my magazine, and I had positioned me and the other person leaning on the tree, but it does not seem to work, so when it came to the final cover, I changed the picture, again with myself included and a self time, but this time I made a more effective pose, one you could see on a magazine. The bottom image is my final draft of the magazine front cover, I believe this one is a massive improvement on my rough draft, as it has more conventions, it has the plugs it was lacking, and it looks more professional unlike my draft, the thing I particularly like about this front cover is the colour scheme, which I did take from my draft, I think its eye catching and fits well with the rest of the magazine. I do think however my magazine could still be improved, such as the background of the picture changed again so it fits in more with the magazine, and the content of it.

Before I started my work on the front cover of my front cover I thought it would be best if I researched other popular magazine front covers, I had chosen to research NME as this is one of the most popular choices, I also researched NME for my contents page. As you can see the name of the magazine stands out from the background, so I thought that my name must stand out as much as possible, also there is a banner to go with the name to show what NME stands for and also to make it more appealing to the music audience. For my front cover, I also chose to have a banner as this seemed fitting and looking at other magazines I could see that they also used banners, such as the one shown here, http://www.musebootlegs.com/blog/images/news_rocksound.jpg. I liked the way other plugs also caught my attention, having a blue box round them and making them eye catching for readers, as I liked the idea I thought that it would be best if I did the same to catch my readers attention and get them to focus on my magazine on the shelf other than other competitor magazines, I thought I must make this look professional also, as it is of poor quality it would not attract the readers attention and would not make them want to buy the magazine. Also, when using the idea I thought I must make the two colours chosen (text and background) to match to make it look better and gain their attention.

NME used a strip at the bottom of their page to highlight further what is inside the magazine; I thought it would also be useful to do so, so that the readers can see what else is going into the magazine, also hoping to get more attention from potential buyers as they see something which may appeal to them.

NME magazine is a very popular music magazine, it is sold worldwide. The main image here shows an image of the three band members from ‘Muse’, this is also linked to the main headline ‘Muse’ in which the magazine shows us the main article in bold white text, and a quote from the article. The magazine also has plus along the side and up at the top in order to attract more readers to the magazine in case the main headline does not interest them.
The band members cover part of the magazine name, this shows that the magazine is popular and well known as you do not have to see all of it to know what it is.
The colours used in the writing on the cover are basic red and white, which is used on some tabloid newspapers. The colours make the text stand out, and also they are still easy to read.
The magazine follows the codes and conventions of most magazine front covers, having a headline, a central image, plugs and also the barcode which is needed, however this does not stand out as much as the rest of the text on the front cover or take your eye off the main central image.

Using the information I gained from my questionnaire I thought about what type of magazine I should do, I saw that the most appealing music genre was indie, so I thought I would mainly have indie stories/themes, although since there were some results which showed people liking rock, I thought about adding a small section for that also, hoping that it would gain the magazine more readers.

However, when choosing a magazine they would prefer the results were quite evenly contributed, with Kerrang and NME having close numbers, as Kerrang is a rock magazine and has a rock genre it made me question my decision on the genre of the magazine I should do, so I tried to have a rock/indie genre in one hoping that it would enable me to have a larger audience.
Also, when looking at my results I realised the key target for the cost of my magazine would be around £3-5, to gain the maximum amount of readers possible it was necessary to have an average priced magazine with a lot of content. This was a fairly obvious result, having only one person who was will to pay £5+ for a magazine.

When asked whether the people taking the questionnaire would subscribe there was a larger number of those that wouldn’t, rather than subscribe. So I thought when making the magazine I would have a smaller section advertising subscriptions, but having an offer on it so that it may appeal to more people, gaining more subscriptions for the magazine possibly.

I thought that I would make my magazine target both genders, male and female, as my audience, mainly a 16+ audience as they are most likely to have an income with spare money as they do not have many things to pay for, this would link in well with the price of the magazine as it would allow me to think about how much they could possibly be earning and having a fair price for my target market.

The ‘Pop’ music scene is one of the largest and broadest scenes going, with many bands of the modern era being categorised under ‘Pop’. The pop genre has been around since the 1950’s, mainly aimed at a younger audience rather than the older audience. ‘Pop’ is short for popular, meaning that the bands categorised under ‘Pop’ are high in demand and popular with the specific audience. Pop sub-categorises into many different categories, such as pop/rock, indie/pop and pop/punk, etc. ‘Pop’ bands are commonly stereotyped as having clothes which are currently in fashion, most likely usually designer wear, and also having a hair style which is also in style, these are common factors which make the band popular and appeal to their audience.

These images are pictures of my final college magazine which we had been asked to create. I used an original type of font for my contents page and also on the front cover, these fonts had not been featured on any other magazine that I had seen, I got these fonts from www.dafont.com and the name of the font I used was Angry Blue. I believe that my final front cover was well presented and the image I used I thought was used quite effectively, as it is a good image used and the pose is also well executed. I do believe however that I could have made my contents page better, as it does not look very good in comparison to my front cover. I followed the traditional codes and conventions for the front cover, and also my contents. I stuck to a cohesive house style by using the same font and colour scheme, which added effective and continued the house style which I had created for my magazine.