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.