Contents Final Draft

Final Drafts for Front Cover

Pleaseeee tell me which one you prefer :) Thankss.

Possible Images

I thought that the first image would work well as a front cover at first, but seeing as they're not looking directly at the camera, they're not engaging with the audience, therefore making the public not want to buy the magazine. The fifth and sixth images would work well as a cover as they are looking at the camera and making eye contact with the audience. The sixth image would work better though as there is more room o write around the actual image itself. I really like the last image as this would work for the cover, contents or the double page spread. The penultimate image would work extremely well for the double page spread as I could could put a quote in between their faces. All the other images where they are looking at the floor again would work well on the contents page as the audience would have already bought the magazine and so they don't have to engage with them as much as they do on the front cover.

First Drafts for Front Cover, Contents Page and Double Page Spread

Comment on which drafts you like best pleaseeee :)

Treatment Sheet

Target Readership: I want my audience to be aimed towards teenagers aged from 17 up to people in their mid-twenties. My magazine will mostly be read by people that can either play their own instrument, are interested in the latest gigs, or are just generally interested in the genre of music that will be advertised in my magazine. The type of person that may not read my magazine would be the type of teen or young adult that may only like one genre of music. This would be a problem because my magazine will have different types of genres and if one genre dominated the whole magazine, it would probably result in less sales than a magazine with a variety would.

Form and Style: My magazine will be an A4 sized magazine which will contain new music, gigs, upcoming artists, interviews and reviews of albums and singles. On the cover, I will use bands with a similar style and age or bands that are popular and have been around for a long time and that everybody knows. The colour theme is black, red and white as these colours are used on big music magazines such as Kerrang! and Q so the coverlines and masthead will be these colours. The band featured on the front cover will always be wearing different colours with the exception of black. The coverlines will be eye-catching quotes or slogans which will attract the reader into buying the magazine. The magazine will be priced at £2.50 which is quite an affordable price for a music magazine.

Themes and Typical Features: My magazine will have many regular features that will appear in every issue; features such as reviews, for example. The main feature that will appear in every month will be the interview with the artist that appears on the front cover every issue, and the double page spread will always be that interview. There will also always be a real life story of a reader recommending a gig that they've attended. This way, other readers will have an insight to gigs from the opinion of somebody else rather than just the writer of the magazine that is giving you their opinion every issue. Inside the magazine, I will still stick to my colour theme of red, black and white and each heading of the pages will be these colours. Writers will use language that the target audience could use such as slang, as this will get the readers even more interested in buying the magazine.

Potential Advertisers: In my music magazine, I will have adverts such as upcoming gigs, new albums/singles and ring tones. In Q, for example they have adverts for alcohol and technology. An alcohol advert would work but having an advert for technology wouldn't work as well because it's too expensive for my target audience age to afford.

Editorial Team: The editorial team for my magazine will be made up of writers and designers that know what they're talking about with all genres of music, although when it comes to the gig opinions, I will use the writing skills of the audience. Writers will be aged around 20-40 and of both sexes. This way, you have a range of likes and dislikes that can intrigue the audience more than having just one aged, one gendered writers.

Colour and Font Analysis

 

I have decided that I am going to use reds, blacks and whites for my colour scheme as big name music magazines such as Kerrang and Q use those colours and I like the look that it has. I think these colours compliment each other and on Kerrang and Q they go together really well. I think it looks quite sophisticated, although Q is better presented compared to Kerrang. Their font helps this a lot because with Kerrang and the cracked effect that runs all throughout the word gives off a sense that the magazine could be messy or not very well presented. I will choose a font that is easy to read, but not plain.

I found a font called 'Rom' which I think will work and I like how I can use the 3 colours in it. I've done a couple of examples shown below.



I also tried out a font called 'Offset', but I think that some members of the public may see it as too feminine. I've also done some examples of this font as well.

I then found a font called 'Punched'. I like the bubbly effect that this font has but it may not be a music magazine font as it could be classed as one gendered by being too girly. I used my colour theme to colour the font in to try and make it look more mascaline but I still think it's my least favourite out of the three I've done so far.



What should I call my magazine?
	Scream!
	Bang!
	Boom!
	Crunch!
	Buzz!
	Zoom!
pollcode.com free polls

Magazine Name Ideas

For my magazine, I want a name that is relevant to the music industry, but also something that's different to what you usually see on the shop shelves.

Genres of music
Using a type of genre for a magazine name would work really well as you automatically know what the magazine will be about. On the other hand, if you call a magazine 'Rap' for example, the public may just think that the magazine is just about rap.

Song name
Having a popular song name would also work well because if a fan of the song saw the name on a magazine, they'd be more tempted to buy it. Although this may not work as again, if it's an R&B song and the audience doesn't like that genre, they may not buy it for that reason.

Onomatopoeia
Having an onomatopoeia as a magazine name would be the obvious choice as it doesn't represent a certain type of genre. Words such as scream, bang, boom, crunch, buzz and zoom would work well in my opinion as they're loud noises and that would work better than a quiet onomatopoeia such as click or drip.

I have decided I will use an onomatopoeia as my magazine name and I will conduct a poll to see what my audience think would work best.

Internet research into institutions and readership figures

Figures from January - June 2009

The world’s biggest-selling film magazine EMPIRE celebrates its 20th anniversary year with a sixth consecutive ABC rise to 194,016.Q continues to be the UK’s biggest selling music monthly with a circulation of 100,172. Its unrivalled access has allowed it into Bruce Springsteen's inner sanctum, Noel Gallagher's family secrets and U2's make-up box for world-beating exclusives has not only driven newsstand sales of the magazine, but provided complimentary content for Q’s digital offering - qthemusic.com, Q TV and Q Radio.

MOJO is the second highest selling music monthly after stable-mate Q at 97,722. From Fleet Foxes to The Who to Nick Drake, MOJO remains dedicated to getting to the heart and soul of music - whether its new, cult or classic.

KERRANG! remains the UK’s best-selling music weekly at 43,253.  Changes in market conditions and music consumption have affected sales, but Kerrang! remains committed to serving its passionate rock readership with a weekly dose of news, features and reviews of the weeks hottest, gigs, albums and new music.

Stuart Williams, MD of EMPIRE, Q, MOJO and Kerrang!, commented:

“It’s been a huge year for the EMPIRE team, and it was the most extraordinary experience to work with the greatest ever movie director to create the greatest ever issue of EMPIRE in its 20 years.

“Q, MOJO and Kerrang! all have strength in breadth and depth in being complete 360 brands. Each continues to lead and define the music market by connecting all manner of music fans with their music heroes via groundbreaking editorial access and content.”

Information from http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Press-Office/News/ABC-Circulation-Figures-January-June-2009/

Figures from January - June 2010

 
Empire  - 179,064 (m)
Kerrang! - 44,013 (w) 
MOJO - 91, 678 (m)
Q - 89,450 (m)

As you can see from this bit of information, Empire magazine had the most readers out of these top 4 music magazines with Kerrang closely following. Although Empire has the most readers, their figures have dropped 14,952 in one year. MOJO and Q have both dropped down in figures as well so even though Empire lost readers, it is still the most popular magazine and so I will base my magazine around the same style that Empire and Kerrang use. Because Empire is a film magazine, I will combine the two magazines into mine and make it more hybrid.

Information from http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Press-Office/News/ABC-Circulation-Figures-January---June-20101/

As you can see from this chart, there is no music magazines in the top 30 bestselling newstrade titles. The majority of magazines are female gossip reads which may show that females may buy more magazines than males. In the top 100 bestselling newstrade titles, Top of the Pops magazine is at number 60 and is the only music magazine in the chart.

Information from http://www.marketforce.co.uk/downloads/Marketforce_JJ10_ABC_Summary_Report.pdf

How much would you pay?

How much would you pay for a music magazine?
	Less than a pound
	Between 1 pound and 2 pound
	Between 2 pound and 3 pound
	Over 3 pound
pollcode.com free polls

Audience Questionnaire

1. What genre of music would you like to see in the magazine?

• Chart
• Rap
• Metal
• R&B
• Indie
• Other

2. What features would you like to see in the magazine?

• The charts
• Gigs and upcoming events
• Adverts for albums
• Interviews
• Reviews
• News
• Other - If so, what else?

3. How often would you like the magazine to be released?

• Weekly
• Monthly
• Annually

4. What type of name would stand out to you? - Any ideas welcome :)

Textual Analysis

Front covers

• Big Cheese (Issue 128)

The front cover uses bright clashing colours (pink and green) and the use of the band wearing blacks, reds and whites make them stand out against the green. The masthead font isn't very readable but the colour and font may be a brand identity so fans of the magazine would know what it says as they would have seen it before. The colours of the cover lines match the masthead which make the masthead fall into the background even more. The use of another picture in the bottom left hand corner fills in a gap well but looks as if it's part of the main image. Also the small image in the top right corner also fills in a gap, but it looks too small. Despite this, the cover line that goes with this image fits well as they've used My Chemical Romance's band logo instead of their own magazine font so they're not all the same on the front cover.

• XXL (October 2010)

This front cover is very plain, but effective. The use of the red background on the masthead makes it stand out against the black and white image. the way that the image has been edited to slip around and change the cover lines so they juxtapose, e.g. "Love Kanye West" to "Hate Kanye West". The editors haven't just turned the image around, they turned the whole of the front cover around so the use of having two coloured mastheads make it stand out even more so. This issue of the magazine is obviously all about Kanye West as there is nothing else on the front cover. If there was more information in the magazine about other celebrities, then the editors should have put something about that one the front cover as this would advertise the magazine more to different ranges of people.

• Eve (December 2007)

The first thing you see is the image, so if you are a fan of Zoe Ball then you are more likely to want to buy it. They may have made the image so prominent because if fans of the celebrity saw her first, they would more likely buy it despite the fact that the magazine is worth £3.30. The use of the grey background goes well with her grey dress, and the red font stands out against this. It's got a very classy, glossy, expensive look to the magazine and is obviously for females with cover lines such as "Miracle Dresses" and "Be Totally Gorgeous". Their slogan is "Beautiful, Useful, Real" which also targets the female audience more so than the male. It also has seasonal cover lines such as "Deck Your Halls" which correspond with the month that it came out in.

Contents Pages

• Eve (December 2007)

Eve's contents page matches the front cover well, as it has bold colours for the borders of each section and it's laid out in a manner which you can easily read. They have also highlighted the cover stories in pink so if you bought the magazine especially for item in particular, then you can easily find it in the contents page. They've also put an image from each feature within the borders, and especially the beauty feature (bottom left) there's a picture of a snowman which also relates to the festive feel of the magazine. In the bottom right hand corner, they've also advertised recycling by having the green logo and underneath it says "When you have finished with this magazine please recycle it". I like how it's all lined up and extremely neat.

• Q Magazine (October 2008)

Q Magazine uses red and black as their colour theme with the background of white most of the time. The use of these colours make the images and writing stand out really well as the colours don't clash, but blend really well together. The image takes up most of the page and the writing is surrounding it, again with their colour scheme.They've sectioned each of the features of the magazine into 4 sections and so you can find what you may have bought the magazine for easily. They also have an 'every month' section which would be useful for some of the readers that buy the magazine most months. Q also include most of the features they have in the issue, naming almost every page within a section. The way that the main image is in colour and not black and white adds more colour into their scheme, yet it still fits in really well together as the band is in dark colours which correspond to the black colour scheme.

Double Page Spread

• NME Magazine

This double page spread uses images and titles to fill up most of the space but they then make the article writing small so it balances out. People who like Lily Allen's music will understand the title as this represents her personality and the font similarly represents her style. Similar to Q Magazine, they have also used black, white and red in the writing and the styling of the model. I now know that using these colours will be the best idea as a lot of top music magazines use them. The way that the model is leaning matches the direction that the font is leaning as well and this may portray that what she's talking about in the interview may not be smooth. Also, the font is that used in a newspaper which might be saying that it's the press that stereotype her as an attention seeker and that's why people think what they do. In my double page spread, I will take all of this into account and see if I can show my magazine in a similar way to what NME have.