Prelim Task; Mood Board

This is my mood board. It perfectly suits my intended target audience as it is for the genre of metalcore within the music industry. These are conventions into this genre of music.

Magazine Publishers/Distributors

The main publishers are Bauer Media, IPC Media and Future PLC. These are seen to publish many different magazines, of different genre's, worldwide to the general public. These consist of magazines based on gardening right through to music. Also some of these own the rights to radio stations and music channels that broadcast on a daily basis to the public for example, 4 Music.

Bauer Media
Bauer Media are a part of the Bauer Media Group, Europe's largest privately owned publishing group. Bauer Media joined Bauer Media Group in January 2008. They are a worldwide distributor and publisher and offer over 300 magazines to 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations. Bauer are a UK-Based Multi-Platform company that employ approximately 6,400 people. Over the years they have launched magazines, music channels and radio stations and now own rights to over 80 brand names.  Their sister company is H Bauer, publishers of the UK's biggest TV listings, Take A Break and Bella.

IPC
IPC Media are similar to Bauer as they publish, distribute and own the rights to over 60 iconic brand names of magazines, TV listings and Events. Some of their most famous are NME, Nuts and their Women's Weekly magazines. Almost 2/3'rds of women and over 40% of men, in the UK, are engaged in some form by IPC Media. However, they engage with over 26 million users worldwide.

IPC have 3 publishing divisions called IPC Connect, IPC Inspire and IPC Southbank. IPC Connect is the publisher for IPC's women's magazines such as Now, Chat and Women. They also publish their TV Listings such as, TV Times. IPC Inspire deals with the publishing of IPC's male target audience for example, Mousbreaker website, Nuts and Rugby World. IPC Inspire also publish Country Life and Horse & Hound. Their last division is called IPC Southbank and these publish 'upmarket' women's fashion brands and lifestyle for example, InStyle and Ideal Home.

Future PLC
Future PLC were founded in 1985 on just a £10,000 bank loan. They started publishing just one magazine and now 27 years later produce over 200 specialist multi-media products across magazines, websites, apps and events. They operate in the UK, US and Australia. Future PLC engages with more than 38 million people a month. They are also the UK's number one ecporter and licensor of magazine content. They sell 2.2 million magazines every month and cover 89 countries on all platforms. Their most succesful products include, TechRadar (the UK's number one technology website), T3, MusicRadar and the Official Xbox Magazine.

Music Magazine Contents Page Analysis (2)

As we can the 'Q' logo is in the top left hand corner of the page. This is done purposely as we read from left to right therefore, it is directly in our eyeline. The background of the logo is coloured in red. Red has been scientifically proven to raise the males heartbeat. Also the menu column for the contents on the left hand side of the page is also background coloured in red. Red is usually portrayed as an aggresive and angry colour. This effectively suits this page because the main feature article photograph is of Richard Ashcroft from the band 'The Verve'. It is a very dominant picture and the red is effective because it helps to portray Richard Ashcroft's rock and roll music and lyrics of his era. Richard Ashcroft is seen to be holding his arms in the air like the Angel Of The North. This has a very evangelical style to it and shows his god-like status as a rock and roll artist. 

There is little writing on the page as it's a mens magazine and men are highly likely to just flick through the picture and scan read rather than stop to read every tiny bit of information on the page. Also there is only one column on this page down the left hand side of the page making it directly in our eye-line like the masthead at the top of the page. 

Music Magazine Double Page Spread Analysis (2)

This double page spread is about the band called 'The Vaccines'. As we can see, the picture of the band takes up just under three quarters of both pages. This is so we know who the article is about and also because they do not have much information on the band to go across two pages so they cram it onto one page and put it in really small font to make it seem like there is a lot of information.

The colour scheme to this double page spread is rather interesting as there is use of dark colours and light colours. The overall colour use on this though is neutral colours, like the white and light blue. These contrast with the colours in the picture nicely and attract the eye to the picture rather then the information. Three of the band members are wearing quite dark coloured clothes and the one member at the front is wearing a lightly coloured shirt, perhaps this is to signify importance of each band member.

The title is in block capitals and in black font so it stands out from its background to attract the audiences eye to it so we know who the picture is about. The language and content of the article is highly relative and refers to things in a sense of humour that your average teenager wouldn't understand. This language is more for a sophisticated and educated person who would be classed in todays society as a 'seen kid' or an 'emo'. This is because it refers to things that not many people know alot about, things that also in todays society are classed as 'underground' and not 'mainstream'.

Music Magazine Double Page Analysis

Double Page Spread of 'Asking Alexandria'.

The picture on the mid-bottom left is being used as he is the Vocalist for the band, Asking Alexandria. It's being used because the magazine it's in will be perfectly suited for the audience who will recognise him. Also the Main Title 'Stand Up and Scream' is the name of one of their albums. This could be used to help promote the album to it's intended audience helped along with the picture of the band member to give you an insight on what the album contains. The dark picture in the back ground is the photo used for their album cover, meaning this page is fully connected and relevant to help promote their album as it has the picture and the title right next to each other with a picture of a band member to help show off a bit.  

Also the title it in huge font and white with a 'spray can' effect to help it stand out to the audience, which I think it does quite well. The 'And' in the title is coloured in with Her Majesty's Union Flag as they are from Britain, York in fact. This helps to build a picture of them if someone reads through this magazine and has never bought this magazine before or heard of the band before, helping promote themselves to even the new-comers of this genre of music, metal core.

Layout of this double page spread is simple but affective. This is because the positioning of the picture is directly in our eye-line and the title stands out where it is because the audiences eye is drawn to it. Also the time line at the bottom is a nice feature to have so people can see how long they've been about for and what they've been doing like recording studio albums, touring etc.

Music Magazine Contents Page Analysis

Contents Page from 'Kerrang!' Magazine.

As expected for this genre of music (Rock, Indie, Metal etc) the contents page has use of very dark and neutral colours. The full top half of this page is basically black, this is because the picture of 'Slash' is very dark because of his clothing and his genre of music he is involved in, heavy metal. The picture of 'Slash' stands out because the colour scheme brings him to life and draws him to our eye. Also the font and pictures of the contents on the left hand side is very small so it does not stand out. This means that they are using 'Slash' as their Unique Selling Point (USP). This is because we all know that 'Slash' is a huge figure in the Rock and Roll industry making him the perfect person for this audience reading the magazine.

The bottom half of magazine is mainly white, this could be because of the black at the top of page, black and white contrast very well and give a nice effect on they eye. Also it could be used in a colour code way because the black is all for 'Slash' and the white is covering extra information of what's included in the magazine.

The layout is very simplistic as the information in the top half is on the left hand side because we read from left to right, helping it to stand out. Also along with the whole colour scheme idea I believe that the little sub-titles in yellow are linked to the main title 'CONTENTS' as this is also in yellow font. Also 'THIS WEEK' is wrote in yellow meaning this has a connection as 'Kerrang!' is a weekly magazine.

Analysis/Conventions of a Music Magazine Front Cover

Music magazines usually consist of one main dominant picture on the front cover of a band or artist. This is so our eye is drawn to it so we look at the magazine and try to recognise the artist/band. Also with music magazines I have noticed that the masthead is spread across the top of the music like a banner on a website.

Another convention of a music magazine is that next to the dominant picture there is the main cover line that is always in bold font relevant to the picture. This is usually the name of the band/artist so people who don’t recognise them know who they are.

 

A convention of the content of this sort of magazine is that there are always posters of bands that are featuring in an article in the magazine to help promote themselves. A lot of the time there are always interviews with band members inside about things like how their tours going or how their new studio album is coming along.

Also inside music magazines will be a chart update and album updates. Obviously these charts will depend on the genre of the music magazine. Like we wouldn’t expect to see One Direction at the top of the Heavy Metal charts.

The layout of music magazines is also quite similar with the masthead across the top, one main picture with main cover line across the low middle of the front cover and then the barcode tucked nicely into the bottom right hand corner.

Primary Research Questionnaire Results

These are my results collected from my questionnaire I created for my class-mates to answer.

1)      What colours would you expect to see for a rock/pop punk/ metal magazine?

       Dark (5), Black White Blue, Dark Black,

2)      Would you expect to see very dominant image use of only a few people in this magazine?

       Yes (6)

3)      Would you expect to see a house style?

 Yes (7)

4)      How much would you expect this type of magazine to cost?

        £4 (2), £2-£3 (5),

5)      Would you expect to see more images than text, or not?

        More Images, Equal (6)

6)      How often do you buy music magazines?

        Monthly (3), Don’t/Never (4)

7)      How much would you be willing to pay for a music magazine?

£1 - £3  (1)     £3.01 - £5 (6)      £5.01 - £7 (1)    £7.01+

Research: Genre/Target Audience

I will produce a music magazine on the music genre of metalcore, heavy metal and metal. I will cover most of these genre's in my magazine and I have chose these to write about because I listen to these types of music on a daily basis.

My target audience is, teenagers and young adults, ranging from approximately 14 to 24. 

Prelim Task; Evaluation Of Preliminary Task

Evaluation; Preliminary Task,

First things first, we were given a brief to make a front cover and contents page of a school magazine. I started by doing my own primary research into a school magazine therefore, I got my hands on copies of my school’s magazines and analysed them to see if I would want to use any of those ideas for my magazine. My school magazines have a unique house style consisting of one main photograph across the whole page, masthead at the top and a plug at the bottom of the page making this house style very basic and minimalistic. The contents page for in my school’s magazine is also minimalistic and basic because there are only ever about four bullet points of information hidden away in small font, as it is only a small magazine. After this I started to plan the layouts for my front cover and contents page.

To correctly plan the layout for these I had to learn the correct graphic design symbols for pictures and text etc. So I started a development process and created three sketches of a front cover and three sketches of contents pages. The first one was quite dull however, the other two to follow were improvements of one another. The only I took from my research was the use of one photograph on the front cover as a dominant image that summarises the magazine.

After this development process I went and took pictures with a group of classmates around the school site. Using the rule of thirds we took pictures of literally anything around school. I would then select a photo which I thought would suit my magazine best. Then I chose my favourite layout of front cover and contents page and started to create them in Photoshop CS6. I started by putting my masthead on, then strapline and then cover lines etc. After I’d put all my text on in the layout that I wanted, I imported in the picture I was going to use. I only had to make small amendments to my text to make sure it was in proportion to the picture and that I could read the text clearly.

I kept with a light blue and black colour scheme because these are the main colours of the school with our value posters around school, the website and with uniform. Also I believe they contrast perfectly and give a lovely effect to the target audience and looks appropriate to the magazine, its contents and is sophisticated.

Next time, for improvement, I would have had an idea of a picture in my head so I was better prepared for my layout when it came to Photoshop.