Magazine Name

To come up with a name we have to think of something that represents the magazine being about music as well as the genre. Of course it needs to be original and something appealing to the target audience. I found this especially hard when deciding on a name for an indie magazine as the term 'indie' is rarely used to describe something of your own, such as the magazine. But of course without using this targeting the right audience is difficult. Eventually I have decided to call my name 'LP' with the letters standing for 'Lastest Playing' which I have changed from long playing to fit to my magazine. I think this does link to my genre and fits in to what my magazine is about; the latest new music. Although LPs are not considered particularly modern, what it actually stands for and the contemporary look I am planning for my magazine, should help it to appeal to my target audience.

Fonts

 To help us with our research we were given links to blogs from previous years. On one of these blogs was a link to a website of all different fonts, called dafont.com. Using this and a few fonts from Microsoft Word I created a collection of different fonts that I think will look good for my magazine. I was looking mainly for fonts I could use for the masthead, the main line on each of the three pages, and the fonts that tie in with these that would together go towards my house style. I want a font that would reflect my genre of indie rock, yet was still serious and sophisticated enough to appear in a magazine. I have also been inspired by the fonts used in other magazines in particular esquire, indie and NME. Taking what I have learnt from my analysis, I think using the bolder fonts from above as the masthead, and for the main lines is best as they are the most eye-catching. Also, a lot of these couldn't be used for smaller text simply because it it wouldn't be readable for the audience, as the reader won't read something that has been put in an awkward to read text. So for this i need a simple, clear, classic font that will fit in with the style and appeal to my audience by being aesthetically pleasing and practical.

I really like the informal, handwritten effect this font has.
It think it would fit my target audience well.

I like the faded style of the font, and
how its still readable

I like the bold, simplicity of these fonts.
It keeps the page
sophisticated yet still enticing.

I really like this font as  I think it represents my genre well and
 also is really attention grabbing. Everyone who looks at this page is
 immediately drawn to the words. 

Again, I like the informality of this font as
 well as the simplicity of the masthead.
It is exactly the kind of style I want for mine;
a simple bold mast head and more fun smaller writing

What I like from this cover is the
background writing. I like how its positioned and the large
simple font, that is a bit more formal.
So if at any stage I was aiming to appeal to the older people in my target audience (25 year olds) in a for a particular part, I would use this font.

Audience Profile

Alice is 19 and lives in Manchester. She has taken a gap year after her A-Levels and is working at a small music shop on the outskirts of the town centre. The shop stocks a wide variety of music, in different formats such as Vinyl's, tapes and CD's. She had been going to the shop as a costumer for several years before applying for a job there during her A-Levels. She has a particular interest in bands not widely heard of, yet she also likes the more mainstream artists that fit in to the 'indie' genre. She also has a keen interest in rock and more alternative styles, such as Mumford and Sons and Biffy Clyro. Working in a music shop she prides herself with a wide music knowledge in all genres, but especially the music that veers towards indie rock. She enjoys going to see up and coming bands that advertise in the shop and takes inspiration from their styles. She likes socialising with friends at bars, but is also interested in websites such as facebook and twitter, where she also follows bands she likes, to keep up with the latest news.  She has attended Reading and V festival in the past few years and is going Glastonbury next year. She is keen to make her fashion style reflect her music taste so she shops in high-street shops such as Zara and Urban outfitters, however she often customises these to fit her style and adds in clothes from individual clothes shops she knows that are near where she works. She owns and pair of white allstar converses that she has had for 3 years and wears them most days. They have become a bit worn but she still wears them, preferring them to buying new shoes a lot. She recently convinced her manager to begin stocking music magazines and takes a particular interest in those such as NME and Sentimentalist as these allow her to keep up with new music and the more obscure bands she wants to know more about, yet she can also find out about the more mainstream band she is interested in. She has very often heard of a lot of the bands before they have been signed to a label, but likes that what she considers fantastic music is being recognised by a wider audience and that they are getting the success they deserve. For example, she first heard Arctic monkey's beneath the boardwalk  when she was around 13 and has enjoyed all there music since, whilst their popularity has grown. Although she reads the magazines as she works, she think the price of £3.00 a month is acceptable for costumers, but she would be prepared to pay slightly more if the magazine came out less regularly, but of course featured more. She hopes to go to university in London and to hopefully develop her interest in music. She also has a keen interest in the up and coming music in London as she knows a lot of new bands can be found there. 

Colour Palette

During our preliminary work we were made aware that magazines use a rule of three, particularly with their colour palette. For this reason I have looked at palettes with three colours. All of them include at least one part black, white or grey. This is because I found in my research of magazines that the colour scheme very much revolves around monochrome, particularly the ones I found looked the most aesthetically pleasing. I also found that there was usually one, but sometimes two more vibrant eye catching colours on pages, so I have also taken this into consideration when considering my colour palettes. I plan to choose a colour palette from one of the above to help create my house style for my magazine. For the brighter colour I have concentrated more on red because it is associated with the genre I plan to do of indie rock. However I have also looked at other colours as I would like my magazine to be a bit more individual, whilst still keeping the necessary parts that will make it appealing to my audience. I think that as I fit into my target audience I could personally say that I would be interested in something that maybe didn't follow the colour scheme exactly yet was still familiar to me as an indie rock style music magazine. 

Photographic Influences

Julia Kennedy:

http://juliakennedyphotography.blogspot.com/

A London based fashion photographer who's clients include ASOS, Elle Magazine, The Black Eyed Peas and The Noisettes. I have looked at this fashion photographer for inspiration as I like the style of her photographs. However, realistically I would not be able to create these effects and they aren't music related but I can take inspiration from the colour palettes, style, positioning and general composition of the photographs. I particularly like the picture where the model is wearing a top with the coca cola logo on. I like the pose, styling and camera effect with the background around the model highlighted, creating a shadow effect.

Ami Barwell:

http://www.musicphotographer.co.uk/

A 'Rock'N'Roll' Photographer from Yorkshire, who has been photographing within the music industry for oer 10 years. Clients include Radiohead, Ian Brown, Kings of Leon, Snow Patrol and REM. I like the striking contrast from the black and white effect in the photo and the way shadows fall on to some faces, so this is definitely something that will inspire me when planning and taking my photographs. Being a music photographer and particularly with Rock'N'Roll being close to my genre I will definitely use these as inspiration.

Michael Williams:

http://www.michaelwilliams.co.uk/

Photographer from Manchester, known for portraits of musicians such as Kasabian, Oasis, The Killers, Pixie Lott and La Roux. Also photographs icons from fashion, sport and film. He has photographed for music publications NME and Clash. I like theses phtotographs and how they are quite intense, most likely because of the lighting. I particularly like the spotlight on Pixie Lott and how the the picture fades out.

Moodboard

My mood board is mainly all the visual elements of what I like and what I think I could use as inspiration for my magazine.I have used a wide variety of images, simply because I think each one of them has an aspect that I like and that I think I could use. Of course, some of the photos are unachievable due to me not having access to anyone famous, or the sort of equipment with which these photographs were produced. However I can take inspiration from the style, poses and colour palettes when it comes to planning. I will take a lot of inspiration from this and although all the key details haven't been decided, I have more of an idea as to what looks good and will appeal to my audience. I chose to look at what interests my audience because not only will it help me with the visual aspect, but it will also help me when with the written part, and what features I could include, for example a competition for festival tickets. Mainly this has helped give me a closer idea of what I want to do, especially with the photographs that feature over the three pages. I tried to focus more on pictures of young woman who would appeal to my target audience,so I chose people such as Emma Watson, Daisy Lowe and Ladyhawke. I did this because I have already considered using a girl of my age as the main model and so I thought looking into how young females are generally represented in this style and genre would benefit me most. I have also looked wider than just music magazines as I found that when females are featured in music magazines, there is much more of style concept considered. For this reason I looked into fashion magazines quite a bit. To develop this further, I will start to look more into colour schemes and fonts using this mood board for an inspiration basis.

Kerrang! Magazine Analysis - Double Page Spread

Q Magazine Analysis - Double Page Spread

NME Magazine Analysis - Double Page Spread

Kerrang! Magazine Analysis - Contents Page

Q Magazine Analysis - Contents Page

NME Magazine Analysis - Contents Page

Kerrang! Magazine Analysis - Front Cover

Colour Palette
There are four colours featured on the cover as opposed to the usual rule of three; black, white, yellow and red. The cover is overall very dark, which suggests a darker genre of music, thus allowing us to infer that the genre is rock. White is the predominant colour of writing and it stands out because of the dark nature of the background. Red is used to draw attention to features in the magazine and yellow is used to highlight relevant news, such as the readers’ poll results at the top.

Q Magazine Analysis - Front Cover

• This full body shot of Florence Welch is reflective of the cover lines about how she is one of the few front woman, in competition with a lot of front men; she is shown in a powerful light to reflect her success in a predominantly male role. The hands on hips are ambiguous; they can represent a strong attitude, again being powerful or alternatively they can appeal to her male audience by drawing attention to where men could focus their eyes. Focusing on her face, she best fits Trevor Millum’s seductive pose. Her expression is cool and level as well as self confident; her eyes are directed straight at the camera. This again reflects power as well as being aesthetically pleasing, particularly for men. We see this representation again with what she is wearing. Firstly, she isn’t actually wearing a lot which in itself suggests the look is meant to be sexy and aimed at a male audience. It is very low cut, to again be sexy yet the panelling creates a structure and in essence makes the outfit more masculine, which again shows her power. The outfit reflects her ability to compete with the front men, yet it shows the femininity she brings to her music. Positioning Florence to be towering over famous landmarks that obviously tower humans is again showing her power, but using landmarks from around the world, we could infer that Q magazine is suggesting Florence and the machine to be a worldwide success. 
• The banner at the top has been positioned there to attract attention as this would be seen on a news stand easily, and the offer of 'Free music' would appeal to a reader. The black and white contrast, not only each other but the rest of the cover. This again could be to draw attention to it. 

NME Magazine Analysis - Front Cover

• The main cover line about Mark Ronson tells us that he is reinventing himself; this could explain why he is wearing a blue jacket that differs from the colour scheme; it is a symbolic code to show his change through his style. It also reflects what the magazine represents, bringing the latest news in contemporary music, which is exactly what they are doing with Mark Ronson. Those who are fans of Mark Ronson will find this appealing because they are fans, yet it will also appeal to those who didn't like his previous work because it tells  us he is changing, so it appeals to NME's target audience of 15 -25year olds who, if they are buying this magazine must have a interest in the current music. The cover line is an enigma code as the reader is intrigued as to what the reinvention consists of. 
• The banner at the top of the page widens NME's audience to older people as well as those interested in older music, as well as or instead of contemporary. The clash were an 80's rock band that featured in NME throughout the 80's when they were together, so readers of the magazine since then would appreciate this as well as those interested in 80's music. The fact it is a 'collectors issue' makes it seem more desirable and because they are advertising the 'Free' part in the largest font on the banner, it shows they are trying to show the reader that they are getting two magazines for the price of one.
• The '+' feature across the bottom of the page is a common plug used on magazine covers to show the reader how much content the magazine consists of. Simply giving us the artist's name and no information as to why they are in the magazine is an enigma code that would encourage the reader to buy the edition if they are interested in any of these artists. NME is a trusted magazine and so when they feature artists, a semi literate audience and respected fans of the magazine would trust that there is relevant feature of interest to them about this artist. 

AS Preliminary Magazine Task

Pre-production: We were set the task of creating a school magazine cover and contents page. We were told it had to include a mid shot of someone, a masthead and various cover lines. To start off with we looked at magazines and how they had been put together and then we were left to design our own. I came up with the idea for my magazine after thinking about how although school issues are not particularly interesting to students, other aspects might be. I thought the name would appeal to audiences in an ironic way. Because it's a school magazine, I took the idea of geeks being associated with school as inspiration however the magazine isn’t aimed at a 'geeky' demographic. Here is my final plan of my school magazine:

I chose the title as it seemed appropriate for school; however I felt it would appeal more to students. I initially planned to use a monotone colour scheme as I felt it would link into the concept of the magazine; however I found that this just made it look boring so I chose to add blue to my palette. I based my cover lines around what the magazine was about, something that concentrates mainly on other aspects of school rather than lessons. The main shot of Izzy wearing 'geek' glasses was inspired by the title. It had to be a mid shot of just one person so we were limited with what we could do.

The contents needed to be interesting and contain numerous pictures so I collected different shots of Izzy, involving her reading and other things. I labelled on the mock up the colours I planned to use, I wanted to follow the colour scheme of the front cover and make it eye catching. The contents will contain page references to articles in the magazine and where to find them as well as additional information.

 

 Production: We took photos that we had planned in our mock-ups, and then we imported them to Photoshop and began editing. We then had to cut out these photos and add it onto the base of our magazine. We then proceeded to add a masthead and cover lines according to our mock-ups. I wasn't really sure what fonts I wanted to use, but I knew that I wanted them to be bold and eye catching, also i wanted the fonts to link to the 'geek' aspect of the magazine by keeping the fonts striaght forward and not particularly edgy or interesting. We were allowed 3 different fonts, so for the title I went for a simple obvious font to make it stand out. For the cover lines, I wanted a less bold, but still easily readable font, so I chose a more subtle font, yet kept it simple. For the competition cover line, I used a slightly more interesting font because I thought this would advertise the competition better and be more eye catching to the reader. Although I had originally planned to keep the colour scheme to greys and blacks, I soon realised this would look dull and uninteresting, so instead I chose to link it to the school itself by resembling the school colours. I chose the lighter shades of blue because they matched the colour of Izzy's top, and I chose the darker shades to contrast with this. I found that a white background was the most effective as other colours made it look either too busy or drew attention away from the other aspects. During the production I found the cover shot and some of the contents page pictures were too dark so I adjusted the lighting on it. I also found that I had a lot of additional space on the cover so I had to make my cover lines bigger. Here is my magazine cover and contents page:

Post-Production: At the end of this task I had produced a cover and contents page for a school magazine. I had learnt a lot of skills on how to use Photoshop as well as what a magazine should look like. I have also found how my mock ups needed to be slightly adapted to make the magazine look better and that how although you can plan the mock-ups very carefully it is important to change things that don’t work well when on the computer. However it is very important that you include a lot of detail on your mock-ups as this both saves time and gives you a better idea of what to do. Overall i think the task went reasonably well. Considering my lack of skills and knowledge about how magazines are designed and produced, as a first attempt i think the end results were ok.

Magazine Inspiration