2. DEVELOPING AND CHALLENGING CONVENTIONS
•My magazine front cover is conventional and
follows in the way that I have used simple fonts
that can be found on other magazines as my
masthead was plain and very bold, yet simple, I
used this to make the magazine look sleek but
bold. This was inspired by ‘Billboard magazine
which uses a simple yet noticeable mast head.
However I have chosen for a more minimalist
approach compared to some of the magazines in
the same genre, I chose to have only a few
headings and articles displayed on the front page
as I wanted the reader to only get a snippet of what
might be in the magazine and want to buy it
because of that.
•I decided to use different shapes around my
headings and features to make it look different and
interesting instead of using using block colours as I
did not want it to look too bold.
3. DEVELOPING AND CHALLENGING CONVENTIONS
•My contents was inspired by the layout of 'Q'
magazines as I thought it was very simple yet it still
looked interesting and different.
•Like with my front cover I wanted my contents
page to be very minimalistic and simple, so I used
the same font as my mast head which was clean
and bold, and left the top half of the page very
plain.
•Instead of having all the features etc in a long list
on the page I decided to use pictures that would be
included in the rest of the magazine so that if the
reader is interested in the picture they can easily
find it along with the article.
•I wanted some sections that would be regular
within the magazine, so I made a section that I
could list the features in down the side.
4. REPRESENTATION
•My magazine represents a range of ages but mainly teens
to young adults, as the artists mentioned on the cover such
as Bastille are a relatively new, young band that have a
large fan base made up of young people. They also
represent the type of music fans that appreciate different
and alternative music.
•The magazine is aimed at all genders and the use of blue,
black and white colours I used are gender neutral.
Although the magazine cover may appeal towards females
as the cover artist is a young girl but the artists used will
attract all genders.
•The cover artist represents young adults that are
interested in alternative/indie music she is casually
dressed holding a guitar, this reflects the music genre of
the magazine which is generally played with a guitar. I
dressed her in quite a girly yet simple and different dress
so she would appeal to the female audience but not scare
away the male or less feminine readers of the magazine.
5. REPRESENTATION
•With my double page spread the picture I used was a simple shot of a young adult
looking in to the distance, I feel as though this picture is represents the genre of
indie/alternative music as its quite a mysterious picture as the person has his hood up and
it looks different as I imagine the readers of my magazine may be.
•I used a deep purple for some of the text and border as I felt like the colours
complimented the picture and it was a colour I hadn't seen used in many other
magazines.
6. INSTITUTIONS
•ICP media publishing house may distribute my magazine as it has similarities to the
genre of music in 'NME' magazine, although instead of the magazine being indie rock
like NME, my magazine is more indie alternative which will appeal to a slightly different
audience.
•I would have my magazine be released monthly rather than weekly like NME as this
means that the reader would not have to be paying for the magazine every week as I
know that my audience is young people who may not be able to pay the price every
week. It also means suspense will be built for the readers as they are waiting to see
what new content it will include.
•My magazine will be available through social media websites such as Twitter, Tumblr
and Instagram. This will allow the readers to keep up with the magazine and have a
taste of what kind of content will be in the next issues.
•Infinity will have its own website which will have information which doesn't make it in
to the magazine such as a page where the readers can talk about what music and
content they will like to see in upcoming issues. As well as information on new bands
and music that we are recommending that the viewers listen to and may like.
7. TARGET AUDIENCE
•The target audience of my magazine is older teenagers to young adults,
both male and female as the genre of indie alternative music is mostly
listened to buy the age group of 16-24 year olds. Not only that but I think
that the is the age group that are the most likely to actually buy a magazine
as the younger generation care more about keeping up with their favourite
music and artists.
•Although my magazine is gender neutral, I feel as though it will probably
attract a more female audience than males, due to the nature of 'fan girls'
who will go out of their way to see anything that their favourite band/artist is
in.
8. ATTRACTING AN AUDIENCE
•To attract an audience, I have used 'Bastille' an
indie alternative band that is very popular within
the music industry at the moment on my front
cover. I have also used a young and attractive
female model who would appeal to males and
female readers.
•The promise of 'Free signed posters inside' will
hopefully attract an audience as usually the type
of people who buy music magazines are likely
to have posters and picture up in their room, so
this should entice them.
•The headings on the front of the magazine give
enough information to get the reader interested
but are vague enough to make the reader want
to buy the magazine to see the whole thing. For
example 'Frank turner talks new album, his
journey to fame and getting 100 death threats a
day', the reader will see thing and wonder why
he got 100 death threats a day.
•
9. TECHNOLOGIES
•Before starting my magazine, I was taught about the different camera shots used in media and
magazines, and I found that the best one for a magazine was either a mid shot, or a close up. I
decided to go with a mid shot, that way I could fit in a guitar that my model was holding.
•Throughout the process of creating my magazine, I had to use software that I had never used before
such as Photoshop. The process using Photoshop was very alien to me and at first I had great
difficulty doing the simplest of things on it for example I struggled at first even changing the brightness
and colours of my picture, but eventually I got there. I managed to complete the whole of the front
page on Photoshop, this included me being able to change the image in many ways, I changed my
models hair length, parting, colouring and bits of her clothing to give her more of a cover girl look.
•Before vs After •For my double page
spread and contents
page, I used Publisher
as I was already
comfortable with using,
and I also knew that I
was going to have
much more text on
them and that
publisher had a wider
range of fonts to
choose from.
•
10. SKILL IMPROVEMENT
Looking back on my preliminary task, I feel as though I have made
a lot of improvements since then.
I made my school magazine front cover on publisher, the picture I
used was very bad quality, with a bad filter on it.
The font I used for my masthead was very basic and did not really
stand out on the page, I learned from this and made sure that my
actual magazine had a very bold font for the mast head.
The only colour on my magazine was the pink from the shirt with
the rest of the fonts black, this did not make any of the headings on
the page stand out and would not appeal to an audience of any
kind. From a distance, you can barely even read the headings on
my preliminary front cover, I made sure that the colours and fonts
on my new magazine cover were stood out off the pages, I used
different methods to do this, such as colouring behind the headings
in different shapes.
When I was creating my newest magazine, I had studied the layout
of other magazines to get an idea of what works best and how I
could make it look as professional as possible. I found that I did not
need to do my front cover on publisher and that Photoshop worked
much better for getting pictures on.
