Drafts of my music magazine

This is my first draft for the front cover of my magazine. I have used typical conventions such as a large main image, a masthead, several cover lines (most of which are on the left-third of the page) a barcode, tellers, a dateline, and an issue number. I really like this front cover as I think it looks quite professional; I used a simple, clear colour scheme and created the layout in a way in which looks conventional. The one thing I don't like is the use of the red text, however I felt a black and white colour scheme would be too boring, so i felt I should add some colour.  A strength of this magazine cover is that the all the elements work well with my chosen genre; for example, the use of colours (red, black and white), images (model looking very serious, dressed in black etc.) and headlines ("Top ten rock tracks this month") all promote the rock genre.  A weakness of this magazine cover is that the use of black and white is prominant, so I don't think the cover lines that are in red match the cover very well; I think it makes it look less professional.

This is my first draft for a contents page. I kept it simple by using page references for different articles, one main image, and a smaller thumbnail image to advertise a product. I used my magazine name at the top of the page to remind people which magazine they are reading (it also promotes my magazine to others) and used a big, bold title saying 'contents' to that the audience know what page it is; this is also use of a convention. I used a main image (as seen often in my research) to advertise the main article, which is written underneath the image. A strength of this magazine is that it does use some typical conventionals, such as the heading, main image, thumbnail image, and numbered articles. However, a weakness is that the page is very boring and lacks any real colour scheme.

Here is a draft for my double page spread. It follows some typical conventions such as a main image which takes up a full page, an article heading which goes over both pages, a cover line about the main article which is followed by a teller, the use of columns to explain the story, and a quote. A strength of this draft is that I think the layout, although basic just at the moment, when done properly will look conventional and effective. A weakness is that the image does not look like what you would expect to find on a double page spread.

Here I changed the colour of one of the cover lines and chanegd the font.

Here I added another cover line and changed font sizes/styles and colours.

 I again changed the font styles.sizes and colours, and took off one of the cover lines.

 I added the cover line back and editing some text.

Here I changed the colour of some of my cover lines.

More drafts of the front cover.

Digital mockups using found images

Promoting my magazine

The first way in which I would promote my magazine online would be to create a website dedicated to my magazine which would give information about the magazine such as release dates for issues, prices, editors/journalists names and topics covered. I would post images of the magazine onto the website, and perhaps post a tease article to show the readers what’s in store. On my website I would create the option to sign up and subscribe to the magazine for free; this would benefit both me and my audience as I could notify my readers when the next issue is due/ information about the magazine via email, but I could also keep track of how many subscribers I had for the magazine. I would also create a page in which feedback could be given in order to help me improve certain aspects of my magazine – for example, I could find out what bands to feature in an issue due to popular demand. To begin with, I would not publish my magazine online as my fan base would be very small and this would encourage any followers to look online rather than buy the magazine, however if my fan base began very large, I may expand it by publishing free issues onto the website; this is another reason why a ‘tease page/article’ may be useful – to anchor the readers in.

Another way I could promote my magazine would be to sponsor other music magazines following my genre online – therefore they would post an image of my magazine and a website link, so anybody on the website for the magazine I was sponsoring (for example Kerrang website) would automatically see that my magazine was similar and hopefully check it out. I could also ask websites to advertise my magazine – I would choose websites which my target audience would go onto, for example teenagers would probably use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter often, so I would try to advertise my magazine there.

Another way to advertise my magazine could be to do a brief advertisement for the website or the actual magazine and place it on the beginning of videos – for example, when you watch a video online on the BBC website, they often have a short (around 30-60 seconds) advertisement before their video, this could be a place for my advertisement. I would choose websites such as the BBC because of popular dramas such as Eastenders, Coronation Street etc., MTV seeing as that website it aimed at teens, and perhaps a music website (if they contain music videos as well as the song being available) such as Grooveshark, which teenagers used constantly during school/college as it was available to listen to music on the school/college intranet.  The advertisement would firstly show an image of my magazine and then briefly explain what the magazine is about/contains and give little teasers in order to persuade my target audience to buy the magazine. The advertisement would show a link to my website regardless of whether it was advertising the website specifically or not.

Perhaps if I was going to expand this idea, I could make the advertisement available to pass on through phones – this was very popular a few years back, where rather disgusting videos were created and passed on, however I would use this idea in a positive way. It would also be a very good way to advertise my magazine as it could be easily passed on to friends.

I could use different types of digital technology to further advertise my magazine; for example I could create an app which links directly to my website for my magazine. This would be effective as it would be a quick way to access the website, thus my audience will be more likely to use it. The app would be free for several reasons including the fact that my target audience (teenagers) would not be able to/ not want to pay for an app, the website would not contain any articles (unless a tease one is used) so it would be unfair to make them pay, and also because the website does not cost anything to view or subscribe, so it would be stupid to make the app cost something when they could go onto the internet and view the website for free there. It would also benefit me to create an app seeing as it is popular amongst my target audience (teenagers) to have an iPod/iPhone therefore the app would be an effective way of advertising.

I could also promote my magazine using non digital techniques such as using billboards, posters, flyers etc. These I could hang up in hotspots for my target audience – for example, the Welly club is a popular hangout for teenagers who are interested in rock music; this is exactly my target audience. I would also put a lot of posters up in town as teenagers go there several times a week.

If I was going to be more creative, I could create wristbands which could have my magazine website written on then; it was rather popular a few years back for teenagers to be wearing rubber wristbands with multiple sayings written on them.

Planning and development

The reason I chose this picture is because I liked the effect in which the brick wall has and I also thought that - as used as a background - the picture would go really well with the genre of my magazine, which is hard rock. I also took inspiration for this picture from another piece of media work that a student had created; they had done a perfume advertisement which used a brick wall in the background - when I saw this I thought it looked really good and it gave me inspiration to recreate the same idea. I also thought that this would make the magazine photograph look really natural instead of using a model against a white background which I think doesn't look right; If I used a model on top of this, the model would fit in with the surroundings. Unfortuantely the image didn't come out as dark as I had hoped seeing as, although I took it at night, the flash was on the camera and I didn't know how to turn it off. A strength of this idea is that it makes the magazine look different and unique and a lot more interesting. A weakness however, is that it may not look professional and, after staring at the image for a wall, it seems asthough the picture taken is not completely straight.

 

This is a picture of a barcode in which I created online using a barcode generator. I decided to post this picture up seeing as I used it on both my drafts and my final product (front cover).  With the barcode I just typed in a lot of random letters - I didn't bother putting a pattern to it or anything. I wanted to create a barcode as it would make my magazine look a lot more professional and conventional.

Here I took another picture which was similar to the brick wall - I wanted to take a second picture which was slighlty different so that I would have more variety when it came to choosing my background. I also decided that I liked the contrast of the gray bricks against the brown ones so I took the picture. A strength of this idea is that it is interesting and the contrast of both colours work well together and also cover lines will show up well on the gray colour because it's light. However a weakness is that the background may be too complicated and I do not like the line going down the middle of the wall.

This photograph went wrong however I decided to post it up seeing as I really liked the concept behind it. I had the idea that I wanted the background to be like the model (band or singer) was on stage performing with the lights shining down. I originally wanted to use the theatre for the backdrop, which my model on stage and the lights darkened with just one light shining down on him playing the guitar. Unfortunately I was not able to use the theatre at any point, however I managed to come across this picture. I was taking photographs at night and realised that the light was on the camera, so I tried to direct the light to be in the top left hand corner (like shown above). I thought that this would create something that looked similar to the lights shining on a stage. Unfortuantely the picture did not turn out how I expected, but I decided to post it as I thought the concept was good. A strength for this picture is that I think the light coming from the side does look quite nice, however weaknesses include that you can see the tiling on the floor, and also the picture doesn't look as though it was taken straight.

I took this photograph because I wanted to use a medium close up of my model for the front cover of my magazine. I uploaded this picture seeing as I used it; I liked how the model looked serious, which relates to my chosen genre - which is rock. I liked the choice of clothing the model wore as he was dressed in black, and his hairstyle resembled the type of stereotypical hairstyles people from the rock genre have. The strength of this photograph is that the type of shot used is versatile as I could use it for a front cover image, a double page spread image, or a thumbnail image on the contents page. A weakness of this photograph is that the model's shirt has an Umbro sign on it, which reflects the exact opposite of my genre; however I could combat this by using the clone tool in Photoshop to erase the logo.

I also took a photograph of my model using a long shot so that I could use this in my contents page seeing as, by looking through my research, I noticed that the majority of shots used for the main image on a contents page was a long shot - particularily of a band. A strength of this shot is that you can see the full size of the model, which makes him appear very tall and inferior, which again relates to my genre as you would expect to see tall, manly, prominent people featured in rock magazines. A weakness of this photograph however is that the models shoes have been cut off, therefore it doesn't look as professional.

I took this photograph as I had originally had an idea for the front cover; I wanted to show my model playing the guitar sat on the stage in the theatre with the lights off (one light shining down on the model) so that it would look as though he was playing a gig - an acoustic gig. However, I could not use the theatre, but I kept this photograph as I felt that it might make a good picture to use on my double page spread, or as a thumbnail image for the contents page. A strength of this picture is that the posing looks really good, as if the model is really getting into his work; it is also quite a stereotypical pose, with the model sat down with the guitar facing upwards, the position of his hands etc. However a criticism of this photograph could be that there are other objects in the background which were not wanted, such as the guitar case, the bag, and you can slightly notice the corner of a bin.