Wednesday 7 October 2009

Plan

Research






- ‘NME’ is a weekly British music magazine.
- Title is short for ‘The Musical Express’.
- Title is always in a bold red font, with a white outline so the audience always recognises the magazine.
- ‘Free Poster’ advert attracts a broader audience.
- Only three colours of text are used; yellow, black and white.
- Magazine includes TV reviews.
- Cover photograph is a medium shot and the models are looking directly into the camera.
-‘Skins’ text is much bolder, so that it stands out and shows it is the main feature.
- Hooks on the cover help to attract a wider audience.
- Bar along the bottom is a common convention of a magazine as it links to other features in the magazine.
- Barcode is subtly placed.Magazine has a teenage target audience.


Contents Pages
After analysising the magazine covers, I decided to also analyse two contents pages as this would help me to creat my own.




















‘Q’s contents page uses the following conventions:
- It has a clear well organised layout.
- It is quick and easy to read.
- The text is aligned down one side making it easy to read.
- The same colour scheme is used as on the front cover.
- Only three fonts have been used.
- It has separated the text into three sections: features, the Lennon issue, and every month.
- The close up of James Blunt takes up a lot of the contents page, this implies that he plays a bit part in the months issue.
- He is also looking directly into the camera.
- The bar along the bottom links to other stories in the magazine.
- A white background is used so that all of the text and photographs stand out against it.




Main Articles
Finally, I decided to analysis magazine articles, as it would help me to gather ideas on how to structure my main article.









- This article is from 'Word' magazine.
- There is no title to the article so this suggests there is a cover page.
- White background makes pictures and writing stand out.
- Double page spread.
- 4 seperate photographs of Madonna have been used, all from the same event.
- Other pictures have a white box around them and a drop shadow has been used to make them look like Polaroid photographs.
- Not a question and answer interview.
- One of her quotes has been enlarged and has been placed in between two columns; this is a common convention of a magazine.
- Text is seperated into four columns.
- All of the text is in black.
- The website is written along the bottom of each page.
- Photograph credits are written down the side.


Although 'OK' is not a music magazine, I decided I wanted to analyse it as I liked the style of the article.
Only three colour fonts have been used; black, white and gold. The interview is with Emma Watson, a famous actress and the reader immediately knows who it is with as her name is written inside of a gold header to make it stand out on the white background. At the beginning of the article there is a block of text that tells us a small amount of information about the actress, this is the introduction to the article. The rest of the article is wrote in a question and answer format, unlike the other pieces. The questions are wrote in a black bold font to make them stand out from the questions. I like this style of article, and I am going to use this format when I create my own magazine.



After analysing a range of front covers, contents pages and main articles I am now able to use ideas from those magazines when I create my own. I know now a lot of the conventions of these pieces and I will be able to incorporate them into my own magazine, in order to make it successful.



Before I created my magazine, I put a range of fonts onto a page of A4 paper, and asked 100 people what they thought were the most bold, eye catching fonts.
The most popular fonts were
- Eras Bold
- Broadway
- Impact.

After considering a range of factors I decided to choose 'Impact' font as the writing for my title, because I think it is the most bold, eye catching text, out of the three the public selected.


Monday 5 October 2009

Music mazagine

Questionnaire

Are you male or female? (please circle)
Male/Female

Do you normally buy music magazines? (please circle)
Yes/No.

What normally attracts you to a magazine? (please circle)
Genre
Front cover
Price
Model
Other
(if other please state here ……………………………………………………..)

How much would you be willing to pay for a music magazine? (please circle)
Less than £1
£1.00
£2.00
£3.00 or over.

Do you prefer to see male or females on the front cover? (please circle)
Males
Females

What type of music do you prefer? (please circle)
Chart music
Dance
Rap
Indie

What would you like your music magazine to include? (please circle)
Interviews
Posters
Album reviews
Free gifts
Other
(if other please state …………………………………………………………….)

How often would you like your magazine to be released? (please circle)
Daily
Weekly
Fortnightly
Monthly

Are you more likely to purchase a magazine if there is a free gift? (please circle)
Yes

No


After giving my questionnaire to 50 people, I compared my results so that I would be able to find out what the publics ideal magazine would be.

These are my results:





























































































When I create my magazine I will make sure it fits the criteria that the public have chosen, as they are my target audience.