Brief introduction

For my media cousework i have been asked to create features of a magazine that i have to do completely on my own without any help from anybody else or from uploading any images from the internet. All of the images that i use in my final magazine have to be taken and uploaded by me.
We have been asked to create a front cover of a magazine, a contents page and a double page spread, all in the chosen genre of your magazine.

Planning sketches

This is the sketch of my ideas about the front cover, the contents page and my double page spread feature.

This is the sort of thing that i am trying to capture in my final magazine.

Mood Board

This is my mood board. it covers all the aspects that i am trying to capture in my genre of magazine. I believe that all of these images suit my target audience and these are the things that they will like.

Audience Feedback

I can tell from my audience feed back that they feel that my mood board is suggesting that my magazine will be in the 'indie' genre. I have said initially that i wanted to make an indie magazine and because my audience realize this, i will definitely be using this genre for my magazine.

From the feedback, my audience have suggested that the mood board needs more colour so i will take this into consideration when I am making my final magazine.

I am not yet decided upon if the front cover of my magazine will be black and white or whether it will be in full colour. i believe that if it were in black and white, it will add the effect that i am trying to capture in the whole stlye of my magazine.

Overall Analysis

To conclude my magazine research I have decided that I will use an image that will stand out from the rest of the magazines on the market in my specific genre. I may use the image of a band of of one specific aspect that will link to the genre of my music. The name of my magazine i have not yet decided upon but again it will be short and bold and will have a catchy ring to it. The font style of the masthead will be bold and maybe a different colour to the background. I would do this so my magazine will be eye catching to mu audience and will stand out from the rest.
The colour that i will use on my Background image (main sell) will most probably be black and white. I will do this because i believe that black and white adds an effect that will suit my genre of music. The sort of thing that i am looking to do is to make it have a 'don't care' attitude to make my audience relate to the magazine.
From the feedback i am getting from my mood board, it is clear that people will want to see more colour in my magazine than i was showing on my mood board. I will obviously take this into consideration when i am producing my final magazine. I may choose to do the front cover in black and white and do the rest of the contents page and double page spread in full colour.
The font i am going to use on my final magazine cover i have not yet decided upon but again i want it to match the indie genre i am going for.
So i am trying to keep the magazine as a whole to a minimalistic ideal as i believe this will relate the best to my target audience. i will do this but still maintain a high standard of work with a professional style to It.

The kerrang magazine has always been one of the top indie/rock magazines of its generation.


This magazine is good because it appeals to its audience in the way that it, again has the picture of a band on the front. Though saying this, the magazine is not as thick and does not contain as much information/stories as other magazines in this genre like 'Q' or 'NME'. But it still sells as the best weekly-music magazine on the market.

It still has as much of a professional look about it as much as the others. Though saying this I do believe that the other magazines (Q and NME) have a more 'high quality' feel to them. They also have a lot more information inside the magazines. But this may be to the fact that it is a monthly magazine and kerrang is a weekly magazine.

The use of colour in this magazine has a very dark feel to it as many of the colours are very dark and bland. Even the colours that the band seem to be wearing in the front image seems to be very bland colours. The background of the initial front image is also a dark colour. I believe in a way this is good because it is very simplistic and effective in the way that it gives a feel that suits the magazines genre.

Evaluation

For my product I was asked to create a front cover and a contents page for a magazine. We got to choose everything about the magazine including the name. The name we decided to go for was sketch. this is because we wanted to go for something slightly indie and not mainstream. The font we decided to go for, (for the masthead) was one off the website http://www.dafont.com/ and it was one called '28 weeks later'. The colour of the font is a bright green. We chose this colour because it was the same type of green that we used for the background. I believe that the idea of using one colour throughout the whole magazine will attract the audience because they will find it easier on their eyes.

For the main sell we had to take a photo in a mid close up style. We took a photograph of our friend. We chose this person because we liked his style because it suited the theme of the magazine and he was the type of target audience that we were trying to reach out to.

We decided that for the cover lines we would try to use topics that our target audience would be interested in. We chose to talk about topics such as winter fashion and music. For the music topic we decided that we would do 'Arctic Monkeys'. This is because their type of music that they play is what we would consider the right type of genre that would be suitable for our target audience.



The target audience for our magazine would probably be around the age group of 16-19 year olds. This is because we have been asked to do a college magazine and this is the age catagory that goes to college. The style for our target audience would mainly be of the indie style. We believe that this has a good style that is actually rather neutral so people will not find weird or offensive. Their intrests would probably be in a lot of music and fashion. They would probably like their music so this is why we have incorperated a significant amount of the topic of music in our magazine. We also have chosen to include fashion. This is mainly because we feel that this would encourage the female audience to buy the magazine as we will not be focusing entirely on the male gender.

Title - NME

Genre - again the genre for this magazine is indie. You can tell this from the two characters on the front cover. I know that 'The Last Shadow Puppets' are in the indie genre.

Audience profile - I believe that this magazine will appeal to its audience. This is because the layout of the initial front cover has a good structure to it. It is essential to a music magazine to look busy because then it looks like the buyer has more to read. This will in turn entice the person to buy the magazine.

I can not get a picture of the contents page but i have read it. Again it looks as though it has a professional style to it. The contents page is one of the most important features in the magazine. This is because this is the first page that the reader looks at when they open the magazine. The contents page has to look good and have a good variety of contents because this is what will entice the reader to carry on scanning through the magazine. So it has to look well presented and have some interesting features. The NME magazine has a good, clear layout on its contents.

Looking through the magazine, I can see that all of the pages are filled with stories and information. This shows that the magazine is taken very seriously because the producers have obviously gone to a lot of effort to put the whole of each magazine together.

Each page of the magazine has a glossy feel to it. This also makes it feel as though the magazine has a professional style.

Music Magazine Initial Research

.Title - Q Magazine. They have chosen to use this title because it is short and catchy. The title is also in a very bold style which I believe is an essential for a magazine. It needs to have a bold, clear title and this magazines is probably the best around because it just has one letter as the title and this is an original and inventive idea which has obviously paid off for them.
.Genre - Indie/Rock
.Audience Profile - Male and female (Indie) aged between 16-25 (Hedonists)
.Front cover - The front cover of this magazine would appeal to its audience because more often than not the image on the front cover will be of a band member. The fans of the band will buy the magazine because it will include a exclusive interview or story about them.
Just people who like this type of music would also buy this magazine.
Content - The sort of features that would expect to find in this type of magazine would probably be something like a free CD with the magazine every month. I would also expect to see things like a special story on one of today's top bands. Another thing that I would expect to see inside the magazine, would just be stuff on old and new music. A lot of people who listen to indie music also enjoy the older type of music and bands such as 'Led Zeppelin'. If I were reading a magazine like this then I think I would like to read about older bands making a comeback. If this was included in the magazine I would find it interesting and I would buy it to read that sort of article.
Q do actually do stories on the older generation magazine. I believe that this type of thing reaches out to the older generation and it is quite clever in the way it is done.
Mainly, the type of photographs that are taken to go on the front cover are ones of the band or artist that there is a story on inside the magazine. Other photos are things like things related to a story in the magazine.

Front cover and Contents page

this is the front cover and contents page of our magazine.

Name of magazine:
connotations - students, active, youth, fun, enjoy music, sociable
denotations - i will conote youth and fun by using maybe a rounded font. I will conote sociable by using a suitable image of a student, and could use this image to conote active and enjoys music.

Target audience - 16-19 yrs

Rough sketch of magazine

We have decided to use the colour scheme of:

dark green, black and white.

The image we have decided to use for our magazine cover is of a student who is stood in front of graffiti.

The font will be black with a bright green or white outline. this

will ensure that it will stand out against the background.

college mag

This magazine has an image of a woman on the front cover.

The font on the masthead is a formal font.

The colour on the magazine is simple and mature.

One of the sub headings is about tatoos which suggests a maturity about the students.

Audience Profile

You like a wide range of music
You have of are interested in getting a job
You live in worcester
You are interested in sport
You like buying expensive clothes
You may or may not drive
You are interested in gossip and whats goin on around you
You use sicial networking sites
You have an i-pod and you use your phone frequently