My Music Magazine

Photographs
For my front cover, I have decided to use quite a large image, so it looks dominant on the front page and therefore it will attract the readers. The image along side being rather a large scaled image, will be a close up shot allowing the reader to feel engaged with the artist. I will allign my image to the right hand side of the magazine so that there is a focus point on the cover and then the dominant text relating to the artists will be to the left of the image and in line. This will allow the text to stand out and make it easier for the reader to find out who the artist is if they don't know already.
For my contents page, i will include one image to represent the one other story inside the magazine to give the reader a taste of the contents. This will also attract the readers to the more interesting articles as images draw the attention of the eye more than text does.
For my middle article i will include one main picture along side the article. After researching other music magazine articles and the images included in these, I have noticed that there are a number of images from various places and images of the artists not just in the photo shoot, but from music gigs, paparrazi photographs etc. I decided to go against this conventional layout of photographs and just included one dominant image as I didn't want my images to over rule my main text.
Fonts
Choosing fonts for my magazine was a rather difficuilt task. I had to take into consideration the genre of music the magazine was promoting, and the readers, in terms of gender and target audience. I had to be sure that the font I chose clearly represented a music magazine and the genre of RnB/Pop/Indie. I looked at dafont.com for a font that I thought would fit my magazine perfectly. I decided on boogie nights as this didn't look too masculine but represented the magazine genre really well. For the subheadings, I chose a very simple font as looking at my research for magazien front covers, I noticed that the subheadings are very simple and plain so the reader can cleealry read them as they are of course much smaller that main headings. I used these two fonts continuously throughtout the conents page and middle article to create a sense of consistency.
Colour Scheme
I decided to use the same colour scheme as I did in my pliminary task as I feel the colours stood but also allowed the image to stand out and therefore were a great success. The blue and yellow although aren't altogther related to feminimity, look fresh, bright, contrast well and are attractive. They are also a combination that I hadn't seen on any other magazine and so I felt that my choice of colour was original for my magazine. I also added black to my colour palette as I felt that although the blue and yellow contrasted well together there was too much white space. I used the black as a background colour on my front cover.

Preliminary Task

For my preliminary task, I was to design the front page of a magazine for either a school or a college. I took photographs of my friend looking 'bored' so that my main cover article 'bored with revision" would relate well to my image. I added other text advertising other features of the magazine and created a main heading for my magazine "Marys High."

As you can see below, is my front cover and layout for a contents page. 

I am pleased the the outcome of my magazine cover, it looks like the magazines that I have previously researched and the colours contrast well, the text is in proportion and the fonts that i have used were carefully selected by relating well to the image and magazine type. 

However when creating my actual magazine cover for my music magazine, i will be sure to include more text and features to make the magazine look busy and attractive. 

Double Page Spread Article Research and anaylsis

For the double page spread that I am to create, I am going to study music journalism to find out what definate skills are required. I will look at the blend in features on my artist of quotation, paraphrase and journalistic prose.
When researching music magazine double page spread articles, I noticed that all magazines approach them differently. NME's articles are worded very differently to Q magazine and so when creating my double page spread, I too need to be unique and word my article differently from the magazines that already exist in order for my article to interest readers and not only draw the readers in, but keep them interested and inticed the whole way through the article.

Contents Page Analysis

As I have to also design a contents page to include in my magazine, I decided to research and analyse the contents page in current music magazines. Below are a couple of images of contents pages from the music magazines Q and NME.

They are both very different with the Q contents page much more simple with an image being the most dominant part of the page whereas the actual contents is minimal and simple. This allows the reader to firstly look at the image then focus their attention onto the contents text, which stands out and makes it easier for the reader to read and find the page they are looking for much more quickly. I particularly like this design as it is very simple with the contents clearly standing out due to the one image in the background. All the information needed in on the page without any complicated design or irrelevant text. This contents page is a positive inspiration for the creation of my own contents page.

NME's contents page is much more detailed and complex than Q's contents page.

The actual contents of the magazine have been separated under different headings which does make it easier to navigate and find the particular page that the reader is looking to read.

Down the left had side of the contents page is a "band index which helps the reader find a specific band inside of the magazine. However this looks complicated and the white background looks unattractive to read and monotamous.

Stories that can be found on the cover are navigated by a small red arrow which makes it easier and quicker for the reader to find the story.

Inbetween the two content is columns are two pictures with a small story underneath, this is a taster to give the reader and idea of what the rest of the magazine will be like. However this does not make the page a strict contents page. Although, adding the story makes the page more interesting and fills the large gap between thr two colums. The fact that a astory was used about Oasis, makes the story more appealing as they will be recognised amonst the British audience. If the story wasn't there then the writing would go against the the common conventions of NME.

Thisa contents page is very busy with different sized fonts and colours but it also has a sensible layout with headings and sub headings,allowing it to be easier to find certain pages.

Contents Page Research

The role of a contents page is basically self explanatory, it lists the contents of the magazine and what the magazine contains. This page is usually the first page the reader will come across and so it needs to be attractive, therefore the rest of the magazine will automatically become appealing to the reader.
As the contents page determines whether the magazine is what the reader is looking for, the most popular and important parts of the magazine should stand out to ensure more sales and attract more readers.

Further Magazine Analysis

Above, I have analysed the front cover of a Rolling Stone magazine which also gave me a clear idea of what I am to include in my magazine. 

Magazine Analysis

When looking at the magazines that I had researched, I noticed that despite the variation in headings, sub headings, fonts, colouring and imagery, the layouts are all very simular. They all have the magazine name in big bold letters at the very top of the magazine, a dominant image and headings with subheadings to reveal what else the magazine has to offer inside.
Magazines have also changed over time to adapt to modernization. As my music magazine represents modern music, I feel that my magazine has to connotate this and so I looked at magazine adaptation over time to get a feel for a modern style magazine.
Below is a transformation of music magazine "SMASH HITS" from 1987 to more recent times.



Looking at the two magazines there is a clear change in logo, colours, graphics, imagaery, layout etc.The logo is much more 'pop' looking with the colours bright and attractive. It also has an attractive font type that looks modern, therefore going well with the magazine. The logo also lowers the age of an appropriate audience as it looks appealing to a much younger audience than the older version of the magazine.
The layout and contents of the cover are a lot busier than the older version creating more excitement and a higher attractive factor about the magazine. There is a bright background but only slight sections of it can be seen as the images, texts and vector images are only allowing small bits of the background to be seen.

The reason that the newer version of this magazine looks more like a pop magazine, is due to the bright colours, the busyness of the cover and the use of vector, more graphic images.