My Contents page ideas:

Ideas two:

Ideas two: Contents is once again in large font in the top right hand corner. There is one large image taking up a large percentage of the room. The image placed inside this box is still to be decided, in relation to the front cover, which is a mid-shot image I can’t repeat the same shot in the contents this doesn’t provide much variety. Showing little capability of taking various shots. Therefore the shot will be either a log shot or a close up, either those two or a mid-shot of a band. Down the right hand side of the page there are subheadings such as ‘news’ and ‘gigs’ listing the articles in numerical order in the order they appear in the magazine. This is easier for the reader to turn to the categories they are attracted to. Along the bottom of the page there will be an offer on music merchandise, next to the offer there will be a box for the reader to subscribe to the magazine for an ideal cheaper price as it is the first of ever issue of the magazine.

My Contents page ideas:

Idea one:

First idea: Contents in large font on the top right hand corner. Issue number under the contents heading. There are 3 images going diagonally down the page starting in the left hand corner. One of the images will be an image of one of the posters that’s inside. One smaller image between 2 larger images. To keep with the messy teenager concept there will be headings scattered all over the page, with articles listed underneath them. Headings consist of ‘News’, ‘Reviews’, ‘Gigs’, ;Interviews’, ‘Who’s New’, ‘ Win, Win, Win’ and ‘Quizzes’. Depending on the chosen front cover idea depends on what the colour scheme the contents page will be.

My ideas for my front cover: ME! (Musical Evolution)

ME!

IDEAS 3: This idea is similar to the first idea.

Masthead: ME (Musical Evolution) the name centre on each individual, making them selves’ feel more important an boosts self-esteem. It’s similar to the NME style acronym, which may confuse readers. The style of music will be similar so disappoint may come from dedicated NME readers who may feel this new magazine is trying to over ride the existing mag. It represents my audiences taste in music. Just like the letter from the editor in Kerrang! It personalizes the magazine.

IMAGE: Will be a mid-shot of my model, wearing dark eyeliner and red lipsticks they contrast each other well. Depending on the pose chosen the colour of lipstick maybe dulled down a little so the eyes grab more attention she will have messy hair representing the rocker image. Also she will be wearing a deep plunge line top revealing her cleavage.

COLOUR SCHEME: Black and green. The first band I think of with the colour black and green are GreenDay. Black is a basis colour it contrasts well with any other colour it symbolises style, power and sophistication. Green represents growth and being new or in experienced which is ideal for the content of promoting up- coming bands. Also represents youth and good luck. These colours are good to use as they do contrast well, they are striking and eye catching.

DESIGN: The masthead will be ME! And be in the centre of the top of the cover. For a new magazine I want my readers to familiarise with the company before following other existing magazines and cover some of the masthead with an image. There will be one main image taking up 70% of the cover slightly off centre, more to the right. The image will be on a background from London, such as Camden Market, it’s an exciting location. Along the left hand side will be neat line up of boxes alternating colours green and black. Each pug will contain something that will feature inside the magazine. They will include main articles as well as sub articles along with a few pictures. There will be a ‘NEW!’ in the top left hand corner to show the audience it’s a new magazine. As well as ‘Issue NO. 1 and the date.

LANGUAGE: Just like the other magazine ideas, the language is going to involve a slight bit of simple slang to show the audience that the magazine is current and up to date with the times. Which will appeal to the audience, it will not be patronising or incredibly grammatically correct, as I feel that this detracts from the over all image of ‘Rock n Roll’.

I like this idea for my front cover, it will be easy to create the predominant image. The style with the neat boxes does not reflect my target audience of being messy teenagers.

My ideas for my front cover: ALTERNATE.

Alternate:

IDEAS TWO: Masthead Alternate, this suggests that you deviate from normal society and change things up or you don’t follow the crowd. This is ideal for my audience, however more people listen to rock and alternative music than a few years ago, this especially for punk music.

Once again the masthead will be along the top of the magazine, following the conventions of other magazines.

IMAGE: A selection/collage of pictures of artists featured inside the magazine and magazines to come. I think this is a good way to kick off a new magazine and demonstrates the genres of music present. The cover would have artists in boxes instead of cutting round each person and overlaying each other.

COLOUR SCHEME: Red and blue these colours will be along the masthead and alternating font colours, this sticks with the masthead of alternating. A few of the boxes will be highlighted with either red or blue just to emphasize the colour scheme. The red represents danger and passion where as the blue contradicts this as it is a cool calming colour. Making the overall colour scheme neutral.

DESIGN: however this design will be mainly of the background image with few bits of texts. The text used will be in matching boxes to the images and writing across a few images, so the image is clearly visible. Little text will be used to give the image the full effect of variety. I don’t want to overpower the cover by putting too much into it.

LANGUAGE: The language is going to involve a slight bit of simple slang to show the audience that the magazine is current and up to date with the times. Which will appeal to the audience, it will not be patronising or incredibly politically correct, as I feel that this detracts from the over all image of ‘Rock n Roll’.

I feel this is a good idea, however as the criteria lists you have to take your own pictures it will be very difficult to take a large amount of different pictures, around twenty. So I don’t think I will be using this design.

My ideas for my front cover: LAUNCH.

Launch:

MASTHEAD: My first idea for my masthead is Launch, this is because its eye catching and you can emphasize the name. According to the dictionary it is said to be used to set something off for the first time to the public ‘launch the new perfume’ but in this case it would be to launch a new band, as a large proportion of the magazine will be filled with undiscovered bands trying to break into the market. Following conventions of other mainstream, or in fact nearly every magazine the masthead will be along the top of the magazine. This position has been used for a long time. When on the shelves the top of the magazine is always visible on the racks, drawing peoples attention.

IMAGE: A friend covered in eyeliner, quite pale skin, simple lip-gloss so doesn’t take attention away from her eyes which will be looking deep into the camera in a trance sort of pose with lips pressed together, or bright red lipstick as its st

riking a passionate colour also represents danger, which can connote it’s dangerous to think you have a chance with her, or she’s drawn to danger which makes her more appealing to those rockers who ‘live on the edge’. Her outfit is undecided at the moment but it will be kept simple with dark colours keeping to the rock image, as well as being a sexy colour, its dark and mysterious. Which makes the reader be intrigued to who this girl is, I’m using a girl model as my magazine targets both the male and female audience, it’s appealing to see a sexy girl on the cover of a magazine which consists of there favourite music. Also girls can aspire to look similar, with tips on how to look like a rocker and money off eyeliner. It will either be a close up or a midshot where you can see part of her outfit.

COLUR SCHEME: One initial idea for my colours is black and purple. However now looking at the predominant image I’ve decided that the purple and red colours would clash and subtract attention from the models lips, also however if I decide to go with simple lip gloss I would choose the purple. Black and purple contrast well. Also I’m going to add green to the colour scheme, this will make it more boyish as the purple was quite overwhelming, green it’s easy on the eye and represents growth and being new or in experienced which is ideal for the content of promoting up- coming bands.

DESIGN:

Masthead along the top, posters down side, image 70% of page centre, pugs in different shaped boxes scattered around, not in a simple order down a particular side of the posters down the left hand side. 3 fit nicely and are not stretched like they cover, as the main age range of my magazine tend to be un tidy and a bit every where. Three would be if only 2 posters were available. ‘NEW’ will be in the top right hand corner along with the price as it catches your eye and reveals it’s new and affordable. The price is between £1- £2 as this is the price my questionnaire results conjured up.

LANGUAGE: The language is going to involve a slight bit of simple slang to show the audience that the magazine is current and up to date with the times. Which will appeal to the audience, it will not be patronising or incredibly grammatically correct, as I feel that this detracts from the over all image of ‘Rock n Roll’.

I like this idea it’s a catchy masthead. I think it will appeal to both audiences, however my second questionnaire will clarify if they think so. I might have to cut back a bit on the amount of purple used or use different shades to appeal to the male audience.

First issue of existing magazines

To help me understand what a front cover needs, I researched into 3 existing magazine companies and there first ever issue of the magazine these were Kerrang!, NME and Q. Kerrang!'s first issue was published and released on June 6th 1981. Q's was first released in 1986 and NME which has been published weekly since 7th March 1952.


NME has gone through many drastic changes as it started out as a large Newspaper magazine. It was in black and white, it was the first of its kind and only on the 14th november 1952's issue is when the first ever singles chart was released inside. It has four images on the cover each sharing a relatively equal size space. There's little space for text or articles to be attached to the images, there's a little article attached to te first image, however any other article is seperate and inside an indivdual text box.
When NME was first released it wasn't written as an acronym, this gave the audience time to familiarise them selves with the product. Starting off the conventions of magazines the Masthead is in the middle at the top of the page, standing out, everything below it is written by them, etc. Bold fonts in text boxes stands out and catches your eye as colours were not used at this time. Drastic differences have developed over time. An issue published in December 1978 is the first we see the acronym NME being used, a good 26 years after being on the market.

Questionnaire results

To collect my questionnaire results I used both the blog and handed out written questionnaires. I used both these methods because it if often quicker to fill out a questionnaire if you are already online on a website such as Facebook, this site is extremely popular with my target audience. therefore i frequently posted links onto my status asking my friends to fill it in. A problem with this method is that I found people only fill in part of the questionnaire then either get bored or distracted and leave it half filled in. Therefore to hand my questionnaire out to people means they have to fill it in there and then, this cuts back half filled out questionnaires as I can check them. An overall problem with questionnaires is social desirability bias. This means that people don't fill in questionnaires out properly they tend to make themselves look better, also with pressure to fill in the same answers as your friends , for example if you buy a magazine every week but your friends only buy them when they feel like it you feel more obliged to say you do the same. However this is simply the easiest way to collect results. I added the results of the online questionnaire with the questionnaire I handed out together and obtained the following results:

1. Gender:
15 males 10 females

2. Age:
14 - 1
15 -0
16 -9
17 - 11
18 - 1
19+ 3

3. Occupation:
Student - 15
Student + part time job - 6
Part time job - 2
Full time job - 3

This shows that my ideal target audience are aged betweem 16 and 17 years old, both male and female. They are students with no income except for either pocket money/ paper round/ EMA/ or part time jobs, relating the fact that the price of my magazine has to be affordable to draw in the readers.

4. Often buy magazines:
Yes- 4
No-2
Sometimes-20

5. How often:
Once a week-
Twice a week-
Once every two weeks-4
Once a month-9
Other- (every 3 months- 1)(when I can be bothered- 11)

These two question results show that magazines are not an often buy for the average teenager, as 20 selected they read them sometimes. This means that for your particular issue of a magazine to be bought it needs to catch the eyes of potential buyers either by colours or images.

6. Attention:
Familiarity-13
Reputation- 7
Masthead- 7
Celebrities- 8
Freebies- 9
Other- ( cover- 1)

The company that produces the magazine should be a trusted distributor of media products for example if Cadbury was to release a new product the likely hood of someone buying it is largely increased as the brand is known. This also goes for the reputation. The front cover is the only bit visible in sight therefore it has to catch attention any way possible.

7. Price:
>£1-2
£1-£2- 10
£2-£3- 12
<£3-1

As my target audience are largely teenagers the price of the product can not exceed expectations or margin higher than what the majority are willing to pay as you would loose readers. Therefore my product will be priced at £1.50. £2-£3 is the maximum price people would pay increasing chance of buyers if the price is lower than they expected as we have seen previously many are unemployed.

8. Genre:
Rock- 13
Metal-2
Punk-5
Indie-17
Pop-13
RnB- 10
Dance-9
Garage-4
Oldies-10
Clssical-1
Any-1
Other-1

9. Number of genres:
One type-3
Mixutre of two-13
Complete mix-8
Other-1

These questions were important for my products research as the type if music that features inside a magfazine is important for example metal music alongside RnB music in one magazine wouldn't work as the two genres do not coincide with each other but instead clash. My original idea was to have a mix of at least two genres. The results collected demonstrate that this is what the majority of my audience are after.

10. Turn offs:
Not attractive-1
Too much content-1
Price-16
Too many colours-6
Adverts-2

These answers help me to understand what not to do with my product in order to target a broader audience. The main concern people have is the price, it has to be correctly priced in the markets opinion to be considered a purchase which is understandable as often teenagers do not have a lot of money to spend.

11. Feautes:
Artists-15
Posters-7
Quizzes-8
News-13
Competitions-1
Letters from readers-1
Reviews-7
Festivals-5

This question was in aid of my contents page to research into what headings and subheadings would appeal more. Typically the artists inside won the most votes as these are who they are going to be reading about. Which follows onto the second highest answer of news. People who buy the magazine want to know what their favourite artists are up to and what's coming up next for them.

12. Layout:
Centred main image with text around-9
Centred main image text above and below it- 4
Centred main image images and text above and below-12

The most popular layout of centred image and images and text above and below is becuase it gives the reader more to look at, more items grab the readers attention.

13: Style shot:
Mid shot-18
Long shot-1
Midlong shot-2
Close up-4

Mid shots are popular as its close enough to see emotions on the models face, you can see part of the outfit and the image is nicely positioned in the centre of the cover with enough room either side.

14: Colour schemes:
Purple and Black-10
Black and White-5
Black and Green-2
Red and Blue-3
Green and Purple-5

The most popular colours are not suprising purple and black is a good choice as they contrast nicely together black is used a lot in magazine as its a dark colour its striking and it can be contrasted with nearly any colour.

15: Masthead:
Launch-10
Alternate-6
ME-9

These results were close but i'm glad that Launch won by one point as it was my favourite choice because the masthead represents what my maazine would be about.