Blog 4 - Flat Plans

Double Page Spread for Twang

This is my double page spread, it has got a very cheesey title, with the name of the magazine inbedded into it. There is a small space for text, that is in the far left of the double page. The picture of the rock group is large, and it takes up approximately 1/3rd of the page, streached accross the bottom, grasping the reader's eyes and willing them to read about them in the text. I have also included a small space in the bottom right corner for advert use.

Contents page for Peng

This attempt at drawing a contents page went down better than the last, i think this suits a rock magazine better,

Contents page for Twang

After looking at exising contents pages i have recieved inspiration from their work. So after gaining all the information I can, from other magazines i have come up with a couple of examples of what i think looks good, mixed with what i think the readers of a rock magazine will look for in a contents page.

Front Cover for Peng

Again i have forgotten to add sub headdings to this magazine front cover. 'Peng' is an attractive front cover, but i have used the wrong image for the target audience I want to attract. This picture would look good perhaps on a pop magazine, but not a rock magaizne, it would attract the wrong target audience.

Front Cover for Twang

This magazine front cover, has been laid out fairly simply, with the front cover artists, 'The Louds' posing for the camera, rather than at a live performance. They are looking into the camera, which could simulate looking into the readers eyes. Although there are not many subheadings, i will include some eyecatching ones in my real front cover, i had forgotten to include some, before i scanned it in. I think 'Twang' is a better front cover then 'Peng' magazine, simpley because it looks more like a front cover off a rock magazine.

Blog 3 - Analysis of existing magazines

Front Cover

NME

Title - I think they have given the magazine a name called NME - meaning New Music Magazine - because it gives a state of class and it stands out in levels of importance, above others. In addition to this, it gives the impression that they look at new music artists/records and write reviews about them.

Use of Font - The font of NME magazine grips you, this is very important, as this is what you read when you first look at the paper. All the text on the cover is in sanserif, appart from the occasional subheading in a serif font.

Use of Colour - The title, text and sub headings have all got catagorised in red, white and black.
This fits in with the photo which fills the entire page, black and white are popular colours in the clothing of the band 'Muse' on the front.

Use of Language - the language is fairly informal, and it has fairly familiar writing content - i.e. it assumes the knowledge of the readers of the subject area. The style of writing is not cheesey, it does not want to put the readers off with cheesey subheadings - this also reflects on fairly adult readers.

Target Audience - the age range I would say, ranges from 15 to 45. This is the age that the audience is targeted. The gender targeted would be predominantly male, although i would say about half the females in ratio to males would be 2:1, male on the left, female on the right.

What does the Image suggest? - NME have chosen this band 'Muse' on the front cover, becasue they have recently released a new album. the band have a posed shot with a subheadding of 'Muse - on their daring new album' these artists are internationaly famous, they are all males with a fairly chilled out expression on their faces.

The main sells are -
+'Jamie T - life in a toilet'
+'Wild Beasts - talking sex on a lake'
+'Spotify - spreading the love or killing new music?'

What information is shown? -
+bar code
+price - £2.30
+date of issue

The issue has 67 pages enclosed.


Kerrang!

Title - I think they have used this title because the name sounds like the noise that is made by a guitar at a high eletric volume. The title is onomatopaiac, it sounds like what it means. They have given the magazine this because it is playfull, it stands out, and people remember it - it sticks in your head so people will remember it.

Font - The font used is very modern, it is sanserif and suits the genre of music well - a little crazy, and very dissruptive. The size is reasonably big, the title lies in the top 1/8th of the front cover.

Use of colour - The 'Kerrang' title is in white which stands out over the reasonably dark background and picture. The sub heading is also in matchiong white, and smaller additional subheadings in red. These colours do not fit in witht he main immage of the artist and his band, under the name of 'Biffy Clyro'.

Use of language - the language used is quite informal and it refers to something called 'weezer', which assumes that the common readers have the knowledge of what 'weezer' is.

Target Audience - The age i would say is verry simular to NME music magazine, perhaps a slightly younger age, because of the genre of music, metal tends to have a fairly young audience, raging from 15 to 30. I would say more males than females read this magazine, but their are a fair few 'metal/rock' female bands, for example; 'Paramore'.

What does the image suggest? It suggests a serrious look is occuring between the artist and the readers. They have chosen this band because they have a new album release. They are not at live peformance, they are posing at the camera, they are giving the look as if they take their music seriously, and this album is worth listening to.

The information presented is -
+bar code
+price - £2.20
+date of issue

Pages enclosed - 63.

Contents Page

NME

Structure - This contents page is simple and less complicated, it has been catagorised into sections, and there is a band index located down the left-hand side of the page. There is only a main image, with details of what seems to be the 'main article'.

It fits witht he cover pretty well. The colour and font is matching and the NME logo is in the top mid-left of the page. There is no simular image from the front cover.

Kerrang!

Structure - The contents page is only on one half of A4 side, it has all the big titles with the page number adjacent. The top half of the page is taken up by an image, with what seems the 'main artical'. There are alot of other smaller images within the contexts section of the page.

The contents page does not really fit with the front cover. Although the kerrang title is the same, although smaller. The main font colour is black and yellow, this is different from the front cover.

Double page spread

NME

The double page spread of the NME magazine is mainly all black in coulour, apart from the photo that takes up half the page. The photo is of the band 'Muse', the title is sanserif and in white (which stands out well against the black background) says, 'warning, men at work'. This title spreads out, filling 1/4 of the double page spread. The actual text is hidden away in the bottom left corner, it first describes where they play/practice music, the way it is written is as if it is in some sort of fairy tail.

Kerrang!

The use of colour in the Kerrang double page spread is very yellow, including all of the clothing worn by the participants in this photo. The tittle is in bold white, sanserif, and large letters, it takes up one quarter of the double page spread. The actual dialogue text is in a very small font, allowing the picture to take up most of the double page. The text written is reasonable detailed and contains what i think the reader would like to be reading, the oppening paragraph grips you, and the writer does not fail to mention the name of the magazine and how the 'news story' is related to kerrang. This text is directed streight away as the first paragraph does not fail to mention the artist's new album, it then goes on to say, the new album should 'make poeple feel great and make them want to jump up and down, sing and play air guitar.'

Blog 2 - Target Audience

Kerrang target audience

To research target audience for the music magazine Kerrang, i have looked up some information on http://www.nrs.co.uk/. This has shown me that kerrang has 239, 000 readers inside the catagory ABC1, So this is the High ranking proffesionals, middle ranking proffesionals and the office workers of this nation. This is a higher amount of people for those in the catagory of C2DE, which is the skilled manual workers, semi and unskilled manual workers, and people subsisting on state benefits. There was a recorded 178,000 people who purchase kerrang in this catagory.
People aged 15-44 are responsible for purchasing between them, 378,000 coppies a week. However, people aged 45+ only 39,000 coppies are brought in that age catagory.
The ratio of men over women is 290,000:127,000, from this we can tell easily that more men puchase this magazine than women.


NME Music Magazine Target Audience

NME music magazine's target audience has a 69:31 male over female ratio. There are a variay of different ages that purchase and read this magazine, but the overall average age, is 24.

The above pictures in the bottom half of the media pack for NME music magazine has a varity of different advert inputs. It seems there adverts are all products that the typical reader of NME are/would be interested in.

Blog 1 - Introduction

My Coursework task involves designing and producing a front cover, contents page and a double page spread for a new music magazine. The genre of music this magazine will be aimed at is alternative, punk and indi. To acomplish this new music magazine, i will be producing using Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe InDesign.
I have previously competed a preliminary task involving me experimenting with Adobe InDesign, where i have learned certain skills which will help me with producing the new magazine.

AS Media Preliminary Task

In evaluation, My completed magazine front cover and contets page was overall a success. I set out to achieve a reasonable looking and detailed magazine. My aims were to gain a fairly decent knowledge of Adobe InDesign, as i wasnew to the programe at the beggining of this preliminary task.

Although in addition to these positives, there were a few things that i could have done to achieve a higher standard of work. They include, perhaps a more grasping front cover, although it was my first attempt with using Adobe InDesign, if I were to look upon and compare a typical NME magazine front cover, and the front cover of my own invention, there are major differences. Not only does the NME magazine appaear more attractive, there are certain aspects that grasp you and drive you to read on.

Although I may be being modest, as my college magazine does not appeal particulaly to me, there could have been more interesting sub-headings on the front cover. This is something to remember for the main task. The target audience was students, teachers and parents, i think if i were to do it again, I would include things/stories that would interest all of these, even though it is a reasonable broad target audience, there could be different pages interesting different people.



Here are my flatplans that I have drawn as a draft. This is how i plan my college magazine front cover and contents page to look something like.

Here i have included a couple of photos in my blog, I took these to use for the college magazine front cover. The shot below is a better shot than the one above, with this in mind, i will be using the photo below.

For this preliminary task, i have been asked to produce a front cover and contents page for a college magazine, that will be aimed at students, although there are certain pages the teachers might be interested in. In some aspects of the magazine, the teachers will be informed about changes in the students positively, and how to improve/encourage the teachers' teaching.