Inspirations from other magazines

Mast heads and text colouring

This mood board shows some of the other magazines from my chosen genres, they have a variety of different text colours and styles that have inspired me in what I want to do.

Developing ideas mind map

This mind map shows my ideas for my music magazine and what i will need for my photos. It also shows colour schemes and content.

Aims and introductions

Aims and introductions

The target audience for my magazine will be teenagers of both genders, from the age of 14-25 due to the content and layout suiting that range. This is also due to my questionnaire showing that the majority of people were in this category. For the overall look of my magazine I want it to stand out from existing magazines. To do this I am going to have a picture for my background with a music artist. The artist will be dressed in smart casual clothing so that it gives a stylish look and a glossy finish. The picture will be edited so that specific parts of the page stand out more and have more lighting so they look brighter. The magazine will be a mixture of genres due to the audience on my questionnaires being divided. The text will be legible because I want it to still have a neat look and be easy to read. Due to the target audience of my magazine starting from 14 the magazine will be affordable and under £3.

The inspiration for my magazine came from the fact that there is not very many dance/drum and bass magazine to look at. So I want to create a magazine that fits both these gaps and is for a wide audience. MixMag was a particular help more me in creating my idea due to it focusing on dance style music. My magazine will be focusing on the new upcoming artists from these genres. This will affect the amount of viewers for my magazine because more people are interested in the upcoming artists. It will also affect the cover lines because the artists will be well known so will attract a lot more attention. The basis of the magazine that I am making will be to inform people the new music in the genres and to share stories and information of the artists. There are 3 artists that I am focusing on at the moment but yet to decide the final person. This is important because they will be the main cover line and story of the magazine, often the reason the magazine is brought.

I will use lots of images of the main artists and any instruments which are used in the music so that the audience get a general feel for the music. The models that I will use will resemble my genre due to their style and overall appearance. I want the shot to take place somewhere dark with a colourful background and some lights. I want the lighting to be intense so the image will not look very natural. I will try the shot with a few different outfits and backgrounds so I will get the perfect combination. There will be very little white used in my magazine but a lot of black so I can get some shading. The main article for my magazine will be focusing on their life and how they have progressed with their music.

My magazine will have some features of Swiss style for example it will stick to the grid structure and will have some relevance to how it is laid out. The colour scheme will apply the same for front cover and the contents page that will be chosen based on my questionnaire; however for the double page spread will have the main story about my artist on it with the text aligned to the right to create an interesting look. For the front cover the text will be the dominant feature so the picture will be surrounded by the cover lines. For my contents page I am going to have medium sized page numbers and story names with smaller descriptions underneath so the reader knows what it’s about. I will have some smaller picture advertising things and for some of the story’s.

The title for my magazine might be ‘bassed’ due to it being based on drum and bass and dance music. I feel that this title would suit my genre well.

Production schedule

This is my production schedule for the next few days/weeks of what needs to be done to create my music magazine.

potential options-mind map

This mind map shows all of the essential stuff that I will need for my magazine and it has some potential layout ideas on there. Also it has the extra props listed that I need so that I dont forget the little details.

Music genre- Mind map

This mind map shows all the music genres that there are that might intrest me. This is usefull so I can make my desicion what genre to use based on looking at all of them.

Evaluation of research so far

Evaluation of research so far

So far I have looked at a lot of areas of magazines to help me create the perfect set up on mine. The first step I took was doing 5 textual analyses’ for the front cover, contents page and double page spread of different music magazines. This helped me because I could see exactly what different genres there are and how they are all laid out with a mixture of colour schemes. Also I could look at the content more closely and see what language features were used. This is important so that I have interesting content in my magazine and readers will be attracted.

  I used the 2 questionnaires that looked at target audience, layout and content so I could see what exactly the audience was and what they wanted. I also made graphs for all of the questions so I could see exactly what proportion of the audience liked what. The last thing that I have done so far is 2 mood boards featuring front covers and contents pages so that people can see different genres together.