Front cover and contents for student magazine

This is my student magazine, Plazma. I chose the name, Plazma as it isto do with science, which is a mandatory subject which is studied in every school, and in most further educational establishments. I think my front cover and content page work well together as practice before making my music magazine. As I now realise, that the front cover picture may be too dark, and with the black writing on top I realise that it is not very clear and does not look professional, my contents page I think looks quite boring and the white background doesn't seem to go with the darkness of the front cover, next time I would make more of a link, maybe using colours.

Picture Perfect, double page spread

I created this double page spread to help me with the design of my music magazine double page spread, it also explains things about how to get a good image, this also helped me as part of my research to understand good pictures and what type of pictures I would like to add in my magazine.

Possible Names For My Music Magazine

Airbag
Alarm
Spark
Fuse
Brick
Bedazzle
Trace
These are just possible names i thought of at random however they all have good reasons as to why they would be the name of my music magazine, for instance, Airbag- helps you to live, This is a good selling point for my magazine.
I think I will go with the name Fuse. This is because fuse means to combine or blend something together, this therefore is a good name for my music magazine as it will be a combination of different music. Fuse also means 'part of a circuit' this means that fuse could be like a part of someone, and without it they will not be as musically incliened.

Front Cover, Flat Plan

Contents Pages, Flat Plan

Double Page Spread, Flat Plan

3 Potential Ideas for My Music Magazine

New album review
Views from the band themselves and other famous bands/artists. Would include quotes from the band, facts and how not that good being famous was, they preferred it when they were an amateur band. I would have a picture of them practising all together in a room, a picture of one specific person practising, one that’s planned and looks as though it could be an album cover, and one of a specific person in the band playing live, probably on a stage.

Revealed Secrets Of A Band/Music Artist
Including brief of their life style from the writer’s point of view and questions and answers which get gruesome facts and tails. Pictures would include a studio shot of the artist and some partying images or some of them looking really rough. To show that the true them isn’t what they see on stage.

New Band/Artist Makes It Big
Including brief on their life, how they made it big, what are their regrets and such they have had about becoming big, their inspirations and track list of their top songs this year. I would include a studio shot of the band/artist and some of them when they started compared to now, a gig shot and one of them practising.

Demographics and Psychographics

Demographics are the average or typical characteristics of the people who buy your products or services. Such characteristics include age, income, education, status, type of occupation, region of country, or household size. Demographics can also include the age of children, the status of home ownership, one's home value, and whether one's home is located in an urban or a rural location.
Psychographics take this idea a step further: These include people's lifestyles and behaviours — where they like to vacation, the kinds of interests they have, the values they hold, and how they behave.
To perfect this information to fit your marketing needs, you will need to conduct research — survey people who have bought your products or those who use similar ones.
You need to know both demographics and psychographics in order to advertise and sell your product effectively. You'll need to match the audience's characteristics of the media you choose with the characteristics of your desired purchasers. In that way, you won't loose precious dollars on wasted advertising and marketing.

Conventions and Codes of Q Music Magazine

I found out that music magazines are similar but not exact to other magazines such as gossip magazines. I started of looking at the code's and conventions of Q magazine, which doesn’t really have a genre as such but tends to focus on new album releases and up and coming artists.
I looked at the four main elements of magazine's which are layout, image, text and audience profile. Q magazine is male in many way's, the target audience I would expect would be an older man, like 30’s+ who has a general interest in music and buys a lot of CD’s this is because all the bands you see on the cover are either mainstream bands or old bands that are coming out. I think that a younger person maybe wouldn’t appreciate this as much because they might be looking for trendier newer things.
The magazine's colour scheme has colours such as red, black and gold. The images on the front are usually in black and white and have a great amount of contrast. The colour scheme backs up my view that this is a male magazine as the colours represent a male who is quite sophisticated and doesn’t like fussy colours.
The layout is quite simple and clear to see. Everything appears to be in lines, stripes or boxes, this looks very neat and organised whereas Top of the Pops music magazine isn’t very sophisticated and neat at all, which implies that it is for a younger person.
The text of this magazine is mostly all in Serif, this gives a sort of antique and refined look to it. However there is some text on the front cover that is in Sans-serif, the things in sans serif are standing out well, they draw the eye to them immediately because the text looks different from the rest of the cover.
Q’s magazine doesn’t use a very gender specific image which could tell you that it is a mix-sex magazine. They usually use a band whether female or male, but usually male. The images are always black and white which makes a good contrast on the white background and red Q logo. This makes the magazine recognizable so that if you were in a shop you could generally pick it out straight away just by the colour and framework on the front cover.
From looking at the code's and conventions of this magazine, i have found some idea's for my magazine. It has gave me some aspiration as Q has the same music genre as the one I will be using for my magazine, also it has used the same ideas that i will expand on to make my magazine competitive towards other magazine's from the same style of music genre, Pop!

Conventions and Codes of Music Magazines

The conventions and codes consist of, Genre of music (rock, pop, indie, heavy metal, etc.) and most importantly Audience, this can be from age bracket, gender and race, to labelling them in socio-economic classes which refers to people’s occupations, education, economic status and background. People can be targeted by psychographics which is looking at the way people see themselves and the kind of lifestyle they would like to have, such as, rebel (someone who doesn’t obey rules), trendies (want people to think highly of them), puritan (people who want to feel as though they have done their duty), innovator (want to make their mark on the world). All these things contribute to the selling of the magazines, with the right audience. And you can tell all the codes and conventions by sometimes just looking at the colours and text used on the front cover of the magazine.

My Target Audience

The target audience for my music magazine will probably be:
Age- 16-21
Gender- mix-sex, will probably be more male than female.
Race- British
Socio-economic grouping- from C2 (skilled working class) +
Lifestyle- student, interested in new music and music in general, someone who likes to know the ins and outs of everything to do with music
Psychographics- trendies, groupie, drifter.
My target audience will be similar to NME music magazine.

Audiences

Audience:
A group of people that something is aimed at, a person who watches, reads, listens of buys media products.

Obtaining the right target audience is important within media because it can determine who buys your product, it is important to get the correct audience to fit the agenda of your media product.
Audience has many categories:
Age-
There are usually many age brackets, usually children aged 3-7, 8-11, 11-15, 16-21, 22-30, 30-40, 40-50, 50+. As the age go on the brackets widen.
Gender-
Male or female, usually images and colours can determine what gender the product is for.
Race-
Can determine certain products, can revolve around religion and their beliefs.
Socio-economic grouping-
Falls into different categories such as A (upper middle class), B (middle class), C1 (lower middle class), C2 (skilled working class), D (working class) and E (lowest level of subsistence), theses are niche markets which are small groups who are targeted because they share the same interests, income, needs etc.
Lifestyle-
Where they work, what their hobbies are and what they do in general, who they live with, their income.
Psychographics-
This is looking at the way people see themselves and the kind of lifestyle they would like to have. It is looking at where you think you are now and what you want to be in the future. People are usually stereotyped into different kinds of people such as Rebel, Trendies, Cow Boys, Groupies, Utopian, Drop Out, Traditionalist, Innovator, Egoist, Puritan, drifter and Cynic.

Research on Mojo Music Magazine and EMAP publishers

Mojo is a popular music magazine published by Bauer, and edited by Phil Alexander. It is a monthly magazine in the United Kingdom which Follows the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music. Mojo was first published on 15 October 1993; in keeping with its classic rock aesthetic, the first issue had Bob Dylan and John Lennon as its first cover stars. Noted for its in-depth coverage of both popular and cult acts it acted as the inspiration for Blender and Uncut. Many noted music critics have written for it including Charles Shaar Murray, Greil Marcus, Nick Kent and Jon Savage. The launch editor of Mojo was Paul Du Noyer and his successors have included Mat Snow, Paul Trynka and Pat Gilbert.
Often criticised for its frequent coverage of classic rock acts such as The Beatles and Bob Dylan, it has nevertheless featured many newer and "left-field" acts. It was the first mainstream magazine in the UK to focus on The White Stripes, whom it has covered as zealously as many older acts.
Mojo regularly includes a covermount CD which ties in with a current magazine article or theme. In 2004 it introduced the Mojo Honours list, an awards ceremony which is a mixture of readers' and critics' awards.
More recently, the magazine has taken to publishing many "Top 100" lists, including the subjects of drug songs, rock epics, protest songs and even the most miserable songs of all time. To celebrate 150 issues, the magazine published a "Top 100 Albums of Mojo's Lifetime" list (essentially 1993 onwards).

The publisher for MOJO is Emap.

"EMAP" is an abbreviation of East Midland Allied Press.

Emap Limited is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but is now owned by Apax and Guardian Media Group.

(Information obtained from wikipedia)

Emap, use a lot of different types of the media, specifically radio, press and most of all magazines. Emap has been the publisher of many magazines from gaming magazines, to music magazines, to fashion magazines.

Research on NME Music Magazine and IPC Publishers

NME stands for “New Music Express” and is a popular music magazine in the United Kingdom which has been published weekly since March 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, which first appeared in the 14 November 1952 edition.
The magazine's commercial peak of success was during the 1970s when it became the best-selling British music magazine.
During the period 1972 to 1976 it was particularly associated with gonzo journalism, then became closely associated with punk rock through the writing of Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill.
Krissi Murison was named the magazine's eleventh editor on July 29, 2009.[2] The magazine's first female editor, she took over on September 1, 2009.[3]
In 2002 the NME started publishing a series of themed magazines reprinting vintage articles, interviews and reviews from the NME archives. The magazine special editions were called NME Originals, with some featuring articles from other music titles owned by IPC, including Melody Maker, Rave and Uncut magazines. Notable issues so far have featured Radiohead, The Beatles, Punk rock, Gothic rock, Britpop, The Rolling Stones, Mod, Nirvana, and the solo years of The Beatles. The series has had several editors, the most prominent of whom have been Steve Sutherland and Chris Hunt. The most recent issue of NME Originals was published in 2005.

IPC Media (formerly International Publishing Company ltd) is one of the United Kingdom's leading consumer magazine and digital publishers, with a large portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year.

It was formed as International Publishing Company in 1963 from the rationalisation of the holdings of three companies; George Newnes, Odhams Press and Fleetway Publications. In 1968 the company bought the Daily Mirror and became the IPC-Mirror Group. It was then purchased itself in 1970, by Reed International, who in 1974 separated the company into two groups, IPC, formed of the magazine publication holdings; and Mirror Group Newspapers, formed of the newspapers. The latter division was sold to Robert Maxwell in 1984. In 1987 all comics holdings were placed in a separate division, Fleetway Publications, which was again sold to Robert Maxwell.

In the early 1990s IPC launched Loaded which launched a wave of 'lad mags'. In 1998 IPC Magazines, as the division was by then known, was subject to a management buyout, which was financed byCinven, a venture capitalist group. The company was renamed IPC Media in 2000. Cinven then sold the group to Time Inc., the magazine publishing division of Time Warner, in 2001. Information obtained from Wikipedia)

Survey Monkey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/MySurvey_Responses.aspx?sm=Ao9DFzzNqpfZjPZjJsGpCGocAjDDqzgkOxpHBO3URoA%3d
This is a link to my Survey Monkey responses.
To get responses for my survey i sent out the survey monkey link via facebook mail, that way i could email it to a lot of people, at a variety of different people.

My Proposal

From my survey on survey monkey I have realised that the majority of the people who read music magazines are aged between 16-20, this will be the target audience for my music magazine.
I have also noticed that the most popular magazines bought are NME and UNCUT which means I should look closer at these magazines and take note on their layouts and fonts etc.
Most people are willing to pay no more than 4 pounds for a music magazines, so I will not price mine at more than this amount.
From my question 7 from my survey monkey I have realised that people mostly download their music, so maybe I should have something about downloads in my magazine to draw people in
Most of the people who took my survey are into rock and indie music, this indicated that I should probably stick to that genre.
In conclusion to this I will make a music magazine that’s for 16-20 year olds, based on rock and indie music, which isn’t too expensive and includes things about downloading.

Gant Chart

This is my gant chart, which will help me organise my time and when i do each task.

Comparing the contents pages from Uncut and Hammer

Contents pages are used to give information to the reader about what is in the magazine, this can help them decide whether they want to buy it.
UNCUT’s contents page is very conventional, it is orderly and simple to understand, Everything is in columns and the picture is unintimidating which gives it a calm and relaxing feel. HAMMER’ contents style is totally opposite, the art work of the bands name, Iron Maiden, appears to be quite threatening. The main image takes up most of the page and it seems to have a left third, I think this gives the feeling that it is a lot like a front cover. The only similarity is that it has two columns.
The Mis – en – scene in Uncuts contents page is quite a lot different to Hammer’s contents page. In Uncuts contents there are a few small pictures and a lot of writing, whereas Hammers contents page consist of the large image with a few titles laying about. Hammers contents page looks very disorderly and confusing.
I prefer the layout of Uncuts magazine a lot more than Hammer’s because it is more advertorial– it shows features, reviews and regular contributors as well as editorial commentary and feature writing. The page numbers are a lot clearer than Hammer’s however Hammer’s could be preferred because it is ‘straight to the point’. Hammers includes what’s in the magazine and has plenty of ‘easy to see’ page numbers.
The music artists are presented clearly on Hammer’s contents page, it clearly says “Band Finder” followed by a long list of different bands. This shows that Hammer magazine is purely for the music and not much else. Uncut’s magazine contents does not show as many bands names but the ones it does show is followed by a brief summary of what is on that page.
The music genres for each magazine are completely different. Uncut’s genre is about indie-rock which probably means there is quite a variation of different kinds of music, whereas Hammer’s magazine appears to about heavy metal which specifies it’s audience to one that has a particular likeness for heavy metal music.
It appears that “Band Finder” for Hammer’s contents is probably something that is in every Hammer contents as well as ‘regulars’ on Uncut’s magazines. These things most likely appear in all of the Hammer and Uncut magazines and contents pages.
My analysis of these contents pages show that the audiences for both magazines are entirely different. This shows that although it is a music magazine, the kinds of music is very different. One is covers the indie-rock scene whose audience want to find out more about different things, while the other, heavy metal based magazine is metal – and only metal.
The techniques used to make you want to read the magazine are large headlines, rhetorical questions and bold fonts – all of which stand out exceedingly well and make you want to read on. The rhetorical questions are good because it makes you want to find out the answer, e.g. “…has the troubled front man finally laid his demons to rest with a Wilco album that’s nice to listen to?...” This makes me want to read on to find out whether he has made a nice album or not.
The style of language is completely different in both contents pages. In Hammer’s the language is self explanatory whereas Uncut has titles that need explaining. Hammer comes across as quite loud and threatening whereas Uncuts language is softer.
The layout is completely different. Hammer has a layout like a front cover with a left third and a big picture whereas Uncut’s is laid out with more information and pictures. It is a typical contents page with pictures and text.

NME magazine deconstruction

The front cover of NME shows a mid-shot of a boy band, they are all wearing dark colours which help them to stand out against the blue background. This shots looks like a documentary shot, which means they were ready for it. The darkness of their clothes contrasts brilliantly with the font colours (red, white and black). Being the cover picture means that, that’s fortnights magazine is focussing on them mostly, a reader who like this band will immediately want to buy the magazine. This is good.
The masthead for the magazine says “NME” which is the title of the magazine, it stands for “New Musical Express”. The masthead is off-centre but this means the band members can be see fully, the masthead is clear and easy to read from a distance. It appears that the title of the magazine isn’t as important as the cover lines (this is because the font for the masthead doesn’t stand out as well as the cover lines), this I think works well because people would rather know what’s inside rather than the title. Also it’s not covering anything important (such as the picture). There is a banner at the right hand side at the top which talks about The Pixies new album. This stands out well as the banners background is red. The headline I think is “Panic at the Disco” however this doesn’t say anything about them, just their name. it is not clear what the headline is, this isn’t good because its good for the reader to be drawn in by something. There isn’t really a left/right third as the cover lines are placed all over the place which makes the magazine look exciting. The cover lines play a big role of inviting the readers and I think this front cover does just that. The cover lines state lots of band names, which is good and a lot like MOJO magazine. The cover lines big up the magaziene and makes it sound like the best in the world for example it says- “UK’s Biggest Guide for Gigs” and “Exclusive Story”. This makes the magazine sound like if you don’t read it here, you won’t read it anywhere else. There is not much information on the front cover which makes you want to read more from the inside and what the cover lines say, this means you would buy it to read it, this is good.
I think this cover has a slight uniqueness to it, because generally other magazines have a lot of information on the front cover but where this one doesn’t you have to buy it to read it, this is good because it entices people like they want to read more. However, I do think that ‘NME’ is similar to ‘Kerrang’ music magazine, this is because they share the way they used an image of a whole band, rather than just one member of a band like other music magazines (MOJO). The font, colour scheme, type and even the way it is laid out is a lot like MOJO’s.
The audience for NME magazine is not really gender specific as it appears to not specify to the gender but by the lifestyle of the reader. I think the lifestyle would be a fast paced person, interested in music (new music). This magazines appears to be distinctively for people who go to gigs and events, they can find out everything that’s going on in this magazine which is an advantage for NME. The age for this magazine would probably be from teenaged till their late 20’s, they probably don’t have a full time job as they obviously go to gigs and events a lot. I don’t think NME specifies the wealth of a person however the magazine is only £1.99 which means almost anyone can afford to read it fortnightly. NME has a wide range of different audiences but it is mostly “trendies” and “people in the know”. They are mostly likely to be individualists looking for any way to be “different”, probably by the new, obscene music in NME, they are probably looking for a way to vary their music from everyone else’s.

(The picture used is not the front cover I deconstructed)

MOJO magazine deconstruction

The front cover shows a mid-shot of a band member, he is singing into a microphone this could pursue that the picture is a candid shot, the man appears to be not posing for the camera. The image is a plain photograph which has been turned to high contrast and there appears to be an orangey-red tint to him, this means he fits in with the colour scheme of the magazine (red, white, grey and black). The blackness of the background man makes the man stand out well, showing that he is the main focus of that month’s magazine. I think this works well because the high contrast of the man on the sharp black background creates a grungy kind of feel to the magazine. The picture looks as though it is a candid shot as the man appears to be not posing for the camera.
The masthead says ‘MOJO’ which is clearly the name of the magazine. It is placed behind the mans head which I don’t think works well because all you can really see is the M and the O, this means that if you have never seen the magazine before you probably would not know what the title is, as its not very clear. There is a banner along the top of the magazine that shoes the free CD and a few things that are inside the magazine, these things stand out well so this entices the reader to read on. There isn’t a clear headline on this front cover because all of the cover lines are pretty much the same fonts and colours however it says “IGGY & THE STOOGES” in a large white font (like the title) which could suggest that it is supposed to stand out well. The cover lines appear to be all about bands, there are lots of band names placed all over the cover which suggests that it is a music magazine. I think all the band names work well because if people are browsing magazines in a shop and a band that they like is on the front cover then they might take a double look, and end up buying the magazine.
The magazine cover is quite unique in the way that they have used a black background, you don’t tend to see black as white is usually used. Also the changed contrast of the image is quite unique as they never do that on glossy fashion and gossip magazines however this magazine is quite a lot like ‘Uncut’ music magazine because they both used sans-serif fonts that are bold as well as being dark and grungy looking, unlike the freshness of the life-style magazines.
The font plays a lot of importance in this front cover as the colours and fonts help to create a modern, comic-book feel to the magazine making it easy to read from a first glance and from a distance. The font on the front cover appears to be a lot like the font on the front cover of NME (also a music magazine). I think this is good because it draws people in easily. The font is Ariel narrow. I think the dark colours along with the red and white suggest that this magazine could be for a male, this is because there are no stereo-typical “girl” colours on the front. I think the age would probably be for young/middle aged men. This is because all of the bands are not “new music” they are generally old bands that are perhaps making a come back. I think the occupation of the person buying the magazine varies as the magazines specifically about music, I think it’s probably for someone who has a great deal of interest for music. I think the person buying this magazine would be quite wealthy as it costs £4.10, this is expensive for a magazine and there are other cheaper music magazines. This makes me think that the reader would have to be dedicated to music so much to want to buy it monthly. I think the reader would either be a mainstreamer or an individualist, this is because the bands on the cover are very well-known (mainstream) however it’s quite individual to have such a passion for music- the read would clearly have to be fanatical about music.