Pitch

Overall, the pitch went well because I found out what I needed to do in order to improve my magazine, particularly the focus of it and the actual style. Before my pitch, I had an idea in my head of what I wanted my magazine to look like, however having to actually explain it to people I found possible faults with it it and so I realised I needed to make a few changes. For example, I need to choose my clothes very selectively to fit my genre and to make them appealing for a magazine cover. After my pitch, I have changed my views on my colour palette, simply because the colours I chose didn't work on the magazine. However I have used variations of this original palette. I plan to stick to my ideas for the contents page by testing them out in the mock ups I will be producing. The big thing I found I needed to think about was how to make it appeal to a female audience as opposed to a more male one, because I felt that there aren't any magazines of this genre that are aimed at girls. So this is the main thing I will consider after my pitch because it I need to make sure I am targeting the right audience with my magazine.

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.

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.

Magazine Inspiration