Drafts of Music Magazine Front Cover

Draft 1                    

The first draft of my magazine is very basic with just the cover photo and the title that i will use. I picked this photo over my other 200 because it shows all three members of the band in a perfect position, it's edgy enough and is portrait so fits the magazine. I wasn't looking at the font just at this time. The title is BASE and I have spread it out over the entire width of the magazine, I believe that this looks better as it is a four letter word. 'BASE' does need to be moved down a bit though as it is too close to the top of the magazine.

Draft 2

Draft two is the same as draft one apart from the title. I changed the font to Silom because it has a young feel to it but is still bold which is what you need for a magazine. It is still the width of the page but I have moved it down now, I don't know if it's staying black yet. I would like to move the letters a and s of the title behind the heads of the two standing band members so it isn't over their faces but I do not know how to do that yet. I have also added a bar-code, date, price and issue date to it.

Draft 3

Draft three is the same as two but the masthead is behind my models. It was difficult for me to do this and it could not be done on Indesign so I had to work with Photoshop. To do this I firstly loaded the original photo without any writing on it into Photoshop then using the eraser tool I rubbed out around the heads of the two standing girls. I followed the outline of their hair down to their shoulders then from there out in a strait line to the edges of the picture then just keep on erasing the background behind their heads keeping in the lines that I did first. Then you save this image. Then you load the original back into Photoshop and copy the masthead onto it and save. Finally I layered the edited photo from the start that I erased back onto the the background over the text. Now I have a title behind their heads. I had to also adjust the blackness of the text so it was darker.  

Draft 4

Now my background is done I can start adding on the features. My main cover line is to the right of the page in a bold, thin, red text; it stands out more and doesn't clash with the masthead. I also created the plug in the top left hand corner. To do this I had to make three circles two the same size and one slightly bigger. The bigger one I made white and lowered the opacity then on one of the smaller ones I gave it a black out line but filled it with white and turned the opacity down then last of all with the final circle I made it clear and added the text. I tilted it a little to the left to finish it off.

Draft 4

I've filled the cover more with some smaller cover lines to the left and a pull quote underneath the main cover line. The pull quote says "We burned down our house" I don't know why I wrote this but it just came to me when I thought what do my friends (the band) like, they like fire. So it's a bit random but I needed a quote that suited them and had a rock-star edge. I layered the text on a black rectangle and turned the opacity down so you can see the background this makes it stand out more. I have three small cover lines to the right. The band title is in a large font, white and in bold whereas below them is the story in a smaller font and in red. Above all of them is a white plus sign to say what is extra in the magazine. I still do not feel like it is done.

This is my final cover I have kept it the same as before but I have highlighted the writing in the bottom left corner. I did this by making a black box the same size as the writing that will go into it, I coloured it black then layered it behind the writing. I wanted to still be able to see the photo behind it so had to adjust the opacity to make it a bit see-through just like the pull quote. I chose to have every other line black because they are the little descriptions whereas the lines above them are the bands. I think this has finished the front cover nicely and I am very happy with it.

I had planned to call my magazine BASS but when I typed the title onto the cover I spelt it BASE accidently, I didn't notice until after I had done the Photoshoping and by then it was too late to change it back so I have left it. Now I can say that it is a play on words. I could say that BASE magazine is the magazine at the base of all music life and it is upon that that everything else stands. Luckily though I noticed after that BASS is already a magazine so I could not have that name anyway.  

Planning for front cover

Photography Shoot Plan

Proposal 

I am aiming my magazine at teenagers aged 15-19 of both sexes that listen to alternative music. It is not a pop magazine. The magazine will mostly be filled with articles so interviews with music artists, up coming events, new artists with a larger story about the cover musician. Then to help fill it up there will be adverts, reviews style inspirations and a main story from that month. I do not have many ideas for cover lines but I know whatever it is I will have to include it into the article about them inside. I would like it to be quite different, interesting and a bit confusing to get people intrigued and wanting to read more. I don't want it to be big, it will be a short pull quote to keep it simple. The title I have chosen is BASS I wanted a short title to fill the top width of the page so it is short, snappy and straight to the point. I picked BASS as the title because it is in every piece of music. There is always a baseline.It is also my favourite part of a piece of music because it is the backbone of the song and can always be heard. So I thought it suited the tone of the magazine. I rejected SOUND and KEYS from being titles as I did not think that they were professional enough or as strong as BASS. The font will have to be bold and black to suit the name BASS which is quite heavy. I haven't looked at fonts yet but it will not be a flicky curly one; that does not suit the alternative genre, I want it to be simple, bold and cool. It will be a monthly magazine and will adapt the style at certain points of the year to the major holidays such as Christmas, new year and Halloween. There will be a larger issue in the summer filled with information on festivals, gigs and the places to be. This will suit my target age range. I intend to have an on location photo on the front with the artists in some sort of position together. To get this I will take the band out to a location and take lots of photos. Then the best one I will use for the cover. My magazine will be a simple A4 size.

Research Evaluation

All of my research has shown me that alternative magazines like to be different and apart from everyone else whether that's by being dark and heavy like Kerrang! or extremely polished like Q. They have to come across bold, strong and cool and to do that they get the top celebrities of that genre like oasis for instance. All magazines seem to run along the same lines with a picture, masthead at the top, colour scheme, and lots of cover-lines surrounding it. So to make an alternative style magazine should be quite easy, you just follow the basic guidelines and just change the colours, font and pictures.

Initial Ideas

Flat Plan

Additional research for my chosen target audience

The genre I picked is alternative/rock. My target audience is males and females of ages roughly 12 to 30. Children get in to music at an early age and some turn to it for emotional support with most believing that this genre has more feeling and is more truthful than other genres like pop for instance. Music artists in the rock/alternative group usually write there own lyrics and speak truthfully about deep feelings that other artists may not think to do. This causes the listeners to trust them and then grow up with them till they get older where they still probably listen to them but do not buy the magazine. They already have a music taste when they are older so know what they like and where to find new sounds whereas the younger generation are still being molded. Both girls and boys listen to this type of music as in any genre. This genre has a lot of stigma with it and stereotyping. The viewers tend to all stick together and wear similar things. This tends to be a lot of black, band t shirts, denim and plaid shirts. But they can literally wear anything they want but the stereotype is what I have described. Kerrang has kept to these stereotypes by using a bold, black title with a cracked glass effect whereas NME and Q magazines have kept it a bit more simple and genre neutral with a red, white and black colour theme. For my magazine i will use the simplicity of Q but a bit more of the stereotype of Kerrang.

Questionnaire
I will only be asking people aged 15 to 19 because this is the target audience that I wrote in my proposal. They will be alternative style people like punk, indie, mod etc as this is specific to my magazine. I asked 30 people. 

Would you class yourself as alternative (you don’t follow the norms)?

YES      NO

Do you buy a music magazine?

YES      NO

Do you want your magazine to be alternative?

YES      NO

What is your price limit on a magazine?

£1        £2        £3       £4        £5        £6

Why do you read music magazines?

ARTICLES         PICTURES        INTERVIEWS    COMPETITIONS           MERCHANDISE           FREE STUFF POSTERS             NEWS     FASHION ALBUM/ GIG      REVIEWS        INFO ON GIGS/ ALBUMS/ NEW ARTISTS

Do you want it to follow a lot of the traditional conventions of a magazine?

YES      NO

Do you prefer simple magazines or hectic/cluttered magazines?

SIMPLE             HECTIC

Do you want the cover image to be center stage or do you think the cover lines are more important?

IMAGE             COVER LINES

Do you prefer one colour theme running throughout the magazine?          

YES       NO

Do lines help separate and section off?

YES      NO

Are large photos better?

YES       NO

Lots of small text?

YES      NO

 Pull quotes from the article?

YES      NO

On location shot or in the studio?

LOCATION        STUDIO

Multiple artists from different alternative genres mentioned?

YES            NO

Question number	Yes	No
1	22	8
2	20	10
3	18	12
6	14	16
9	26	4
10	30	0
11	15	15
12	21	9
13	25	5
15	27	3

Additional Research and Planning- Target audience

OK! is a gossip magazine for woman in their 20's
upwards. You know what the mag is about with
the title straight away.

Target Audience Group for magazine titles

All of these titles are of music magazines. Targeted at the
 music fans, both boys and girls aged teen and above. They
are all quite obscure. 

Vogue is a fashion magazine. For woman aged late teens to
30's that love all things fashion. It is simple and timeless
just like vogue.

More! is a fashion and gossip magazine for young
teenage girls. 

Nuts is a lads mag for men of all ages. 

Car and driver's target audience is the older male
generation that love cars. The title isn't fancy and trying
to pick up more customers as it is a specific target audience so the
customers purposely went to to buy it. 

Music Magazine research and planning

Q Music Magazine Front Cover

• Bold Masthead- 1 letter with a block red background and a line of writing beneath it. 

•  Close up photo of a music celebrity's head. 

•  Main cover-line is large letters at the bottom. 

•  Plain background/ no fuss 

•  Small cover lines surrounding the main image 

•  Plug/ Puff in top right corner 

•  Large plus sign to the right of Liam's eye with more celebrities names underneath stating that there are lots more inside. 

•  The main cover-line is a pun of Liam's band Beady eye. 

• Majority of cover-lines are to the left.

 Q Music Magazine Contents

• Contents masthead covers the top of the page with the theme colour and the title of the magazine.
• Articles in the left third and picture in the right third covering most of the page.
• Sub heading 'Features' is in the theme colour red.
• 2nd best article is mentioned first with a small picture and then a paragraph about in in red.
• Page numbers are in a bold black.
• Minor headings are also in bold black with an underline of red.
• A small paragraph about what the article involves is then underneath.
• All very straight and ordered within one rectangle.
• The photo is from above and to the side giving a different view of Liam's head.
• Theme colours of red, black and white carried through.
• Page numbers are in bold so you can go straight to it.
• No editors note.
• Doesn't follow normal conventions; it is simple but stylish. 

Q Double page Spread

• Red, white, black brought through still.
• One side is for the article and the other is for the photo shoot.
• Small quote at the top of the page but in bold so you are interested to see the context from which it came. 
• A large red letter fills the article page (it is the first letter of the article) but is is transparent enough so you can still read the rest.
• Article is in three straight columns aligned to the left.
• 
  
• The start of a new paragraph is signified with the beginning letter larger and in bold.
• Magazine name is small in the bottom left with the page number and issue date next to it.
• The photo on the opposite side is a striking image of the musician in question. It takes the whole page.
• To the right of them is a quote from the interview with a red rectangular block above it.
• Beady eye, the bands name, is in the top right hand corner. 
• Double page spread is conventionally the big/main interview of the main feature article. 

Prezi of conventions 

These are screen shots from a prezi that I created for the research and planning section. This prezi details the conventions of my chosen genre of music magazine. This screen shot is of the whole prezi, I used a record player as the image because it was the closest thing prezi had to music.

This slide is full of magazine titles that I think are relevant to my genre, they include MOJO, Billboard, Kerrang!, Classic Rock and Spin. They are 'alternative' music magazines that wouldn't be classed as the norm.

These are the typical conventions of a music magazine.

This is how I would incorporate what I have learnt about alternative music magazines into my own music magazine.

Music Magazine Genres

  

 

KERRANG! : Sounds like an instrument, it is different. 

SPIN : Sounds like spinning a record/ CD, or spinning on the dance floor.

NME : Stands for the New Musical Express 

Classic Rock : Is strait to the point we know what is it.

Billboard : Like the band/ singer is on billboard and really famous

Top of the Pops : Strait to the point, the classic name of a famous TV show

XXL : Suggesting that the magazine is extra large and knows more.

Target Audience

An essay of representations of Punks, skinheads and alternatives

Our society is run by a group of people (Bourgeois) who create a set of ideologies that we then have to live by. These ideologies include how we look, speak, act, work etc. They seek to control us by manipulating us to think that this is what we want. The majority of us do not even notice this happening and go along with societies norms but they’re a handful of us that do not appreciate being moulded into what someone else thinks is right. We are the rebels, drop out’s, druggies and a waste of space according to society. Our culture doesn’t like people who are different otherwise we would not have these rules to follow. The media creates these ideologies and uses different media sources like music, TV and film to perpetuate them. This has caused most people to be extremely close-minded; they do not think for themselves. Because the only views they have are the ones forced upon them by society they believe that everyone who goes against those views are wrong. Most of the time when we question why we are ‘wrong’ they do not have anything to say other than because it is not right. That is obviously not a strong argument but they have been brainwashed by society though the media since they were a baby so of course the idea is going to be strong and it won’t just disappear because we said so. People on the streets will look, stare and shout at us to tell us that we look weird, gay or worse. They will automatically assume that we are all rude, angry, loud people that do drugs, get drunk, live of the government and have no education, but this is not the case. It is just a stereotype. Punks are mostly represented in the media within TV shows, music videos and films. They always look the same and the look is greatly exaggerated further perpetuating the ideology. But it is the personality that is the most exaggerated because that is what scares people more. If we scare them then they will not want alternative people around and will hopefully stamp them out all on their own. That is what society hops will happen. All of this though is if they are actually represented in the media, most of the time they’re not even there. People forget about them and don’t class that group as part of our society. They do not include us in anything and so we have to go and create our own places to go. It starts of small like at school where you just need somewhere to hang out because the ‘popular’ kids won’t let you sit with them cause your hair is different. But then when you become an adult it gets worse because it stops you from getting jobs. The media starts to say that we are not professional enough and don’t have the right work ethic so they don’t hire us. Or if we have tattoos the employer can say no because their clients will not want to do business with someone that looks so disruptive. All of this is ridiculous. We are exactly the same as everyone else we just like different music and clothes. The media will not stop with these ideologies as they have been going for decades and they are already engraved into societies minds. We will have to teach every new generation to be different and to think for themselves for any affect to happen. For now though we will have to stick with our separate magazine and music genres because people of today will not accept them. 

In marketing and advertising target audience is a specific group of people within the target market at which a product is aimed at.

PUNK Stereotype

Its typically a guy with a coloured mohican, boots and a patched leather jacket. Sadly, many punks that are into street use use the medias image as a representation. They try and stay away from societies norm by shopping in charity shops and making their own clothes. You have the other side of punk which is more modern and along the lines of This is England where they wear polo shirts, braces, jeans, bomber jackets, big boots E.G. DR Martens. They tend to shave their head. 

I don't believe this, it's just the medias representation.

HEAVY   METAL Stereotype 

Heavy metal fans mostly wear

• black
• studs
• band t shirts 
• denim
• band patches over their clothing 
• they start young
• plaid shirts  

They don't shop in commercial shops but in charity shops and little one off boutiques. They buy patches and badges and sew them on to their hats, jeans, jackets and anything else. Metal horns are a big part of their look.

POP Stereotype

The pop stereotype is

• copying 
• whats in shops
• young
• girly
• artist (singer) merchandise
• what is in fashion

At festivals it is genuinely a uniform of shorts, wellies with socks, girly tops, hoodies, crotchet and lots of flowers. People who like pop don't have a main style they just wear what they like in the shops but this means that most of them end up looking the same. At pop concerts you see fans dressing like the singer or how they think the singer will like them. For example these fans below are at a Justin Beiber concert so are dressed in his signature purple hoodie with purple hair bows and face paint.