Planning Double Page Spread Article

Plain Mockup

This is my plain mockup for the front cover of my magazine. I have done this to help me plan my layout, so once I have taken my photos and I am creating it, I have a rough outline of how I'm setting it out.

 

Flat Plan

Generically companies use flat plans to see the layout of their magazine before publication.
I did some research into music magazines and their normal flat plan layouts and I have found they would normally consist of roughly 60 pages.
When planning my magazine, I need to know how my layout is going to be set out. So that I can plan  my page presentation accurately and include consistency between them. This is the Flat Plan for my magazine:

Possible Fonts for my Masthead

I am playing around with Font ideas for my Masthead of my magazine. I am using www.dafont.com to create some edgy and quriky fonts which would represent my magazines genre in the best vibe. I have used the four names that were my original ideas on my Questionairre and I am going to position a few on my mock up front cover to see which ones look best with my genre and photography.

Names of Fonts:

• Noir- et- Blanc
• Stenha
• Ayosmonika
• BellRose
• Passion

Photoshoot Ideas

When developing ideas for my photoshoot, I am going to consider, clothing, location, camera angles, props, hairstlye, make-up and facial expressions. For my genre of my magazine (indie pop) my audience have a very edgy, unique style and I want to portray this through the clothing and hair. I am going to make my model look very casual but quirky, and create quite  a relaxed/natural look. I am creating a moodboard of ideas for possible clothing, and then a document about camera angles and background/location ideas. When thinking about colour schemes and clothing I will have to plan carefully around the main colour scheme of my magazine, so that the clothes do not clash with it.

 This is my moodboard of fashion ideas, I have stuck to the indie-quirky-casual vibe, but also to highstreet brands as fashion is something my audience look up to in my genre.
This particular genre of magazine, doesnt generally show where the clothing is from but as I think this is important I am going to meet this mean by asking it as a question in the artist interview.Therefore the clothing will be highstreet branded.

Questionnaire

My Questionairre

This is my questionnaire which I created to give out to my target audience which is indie-pop music listeners (girls aged 15-19).I have left open ended questions so that I can get a wide range of answers from my audience and so I know what my audience are interested in other than confirmation on my suggestions. I have also created some tick box questions so that I have a general control over what the answers might be.

 

Questionairre Feedback

 

Question 1

 

For my first question, i gave my audience 4 response boxes to choose from.I had a rough idea of a name I wanted to call my magazine and therefore just wanted to be able to give guidance toward the answer I thought would be best. I decided to give them the options of:

 

-CULT
I feel this is an effective name as, its short and bold (in upper case letters). Also cult means a group of people which is what the music industry caters too and is all about and a cult also have rivalries which also links to music industry and its other magazine competitors.

-UnPlugged

This name relates to the genre of my magazine, as many indie-pop artsists play acoustic or have acoustic songs released and UnPlugged means: Performed or recorded with acoustic rather than electrically amplified instruments.

-iP

This name states the obvious genre/brand of my magazine. i (indie) P(pop). It is also a short name which can sometimes be effective as its simplicity can deflect from the bold colours, text and images on the front cover.
-MM
MM stands for Music Matters, and I feel this is a clever way of targeting enthusiastic music lovers but keeping simplicity and an edgyness to the magazine. Which fits to my indie-pop genre.

 The overall outcome to this question was the majority of votes went for the name CULT. I am pleased with this result as it will give my magazine a striking Masthead but justification and relevance to my branding/genre.

 

Question 2

 

What artists would you like to appear in my magazine? leave your suggestions in the boxes.

 I purposely left this as an open ended question so I can include artsits in my magazine that personally suit my audiences prefrences. I left four spaces that could be filled and the artists that were suggested were

-The Vaccines

- Coldplay

-Emeli Sande

-The Lumineers

-Arctic Monkeys

-Ed Sheeran

-Ben Howard

-Oasis

-Lana Del Rey

-Miley Cyrus

-Mumford and Sons

-Florence and the Machines

-Ellie Goulding

-The Script

 

Some of these names appeared more than once, so I am now going to research further into the bands/artists to check they fit with my indie pop genre and I feel this will also be able to help me when taking my photoshoot.

 

Question 3

 

 



This question was fairly even in its results as most of the response boxes on each questionairre had been all been ticked. The three most wanted questions were: Latest Album plans, Love life and Gig/Concert plans, I will be including these questions for definate in my artist interview but I will probably use the majority of the questions as they were evenly spread results.

 

Question 4/5

 

When recieving back my feedback for this question 100% of my audience responded yes to getting a free gift with the magazine, so when producing my magazine I am going to ensure I include a free gift to meet my audiences needs. I gave four options with this question,

-£5 iTunes Voucher for the featured artist

-Posters

-Discount Codes for gigs at the 02 Academy Brixton

-Other Suggestions

After thinking carefully about the results to this question I feel, by giving £5 iTunes vouchers it would cost the magazine too much, so instead I could use that as a sell line on the front cover and promote the Voucher as a competition offer inside. Also this is along the same lines as the Discount Codes for the gigs. I could either include 5 discount codes in random magazines and include a sell line such as 'is your mag the one with the lucky code tag'. This is not only alluring to the audience but promoting an offer that will entice them and encourage them to buy the magazine in future.

 I left an 'other suggestions' box for my audience but I feel either out of laziness or lack of ideas this box did not get any responses. Therfore, I am going to include a free poster inside and use one of my other two ideas as competition offers inside the magazine for promotion purposes.

 

Question 6

With this question I gave four price options and as you can see by my results the outcome was pretty evenly spread. The majority of my audience would be willing to pay £1.50 to £2.00. I have researched into music magazine pricing and many of them are priced in the range of £2.00 upward so I could create a poll on my blog from the £1.50 up to £3.50 to see if the outcome is any different and how willing my audience are with the amount they would pay for this magazine.

 

Question 7

 

With this question I gave my audience 4 different colour palette choices that I think reflect my genre and let them choose which one they preffered. As you can see by the results White, Dark Navy and Burgandy was the most popular choice. I feel burgandy and navy are colours that teenagers do associate with the edgy different vibe as burgandy is quite a statement colour and navy is more the relaxed colour that the fashion style of 'indie' goes for.

 

Magazine Analysis

Genre/ Target Audience

I am thinking of creating a 'indie/indie pop' magazine as I feel by creating something Im interested in will help me relate to the types of music, artists, advertisements to include. Also, I have found the most popular music magazines currently available are rock, indie rock, punk etc. So indie pop isnt as common and it is becoming a growingly popular genre of music, which I know from fashion, festivals and music channels/ radio stations.

I want to aim my magazine at  mainly girls aged 16-20 as I feel magazines such as NME and Kerrang are more aimed to boys and also I want to promote to the young audience as a lot of magazines such as Q and NME are aimed at a much older age range.

A typical person im my target audience:
Favourite shops: Rokit, Urban Outfits, American Apparel, Dr Martens..etc.
Favourite bands: Mumford and Sons, The xx, Biffy Clyro, SBTRKT etc. 
Favourite programme: skins or misfits. These type of people are my audience:

  

Moodboard

I have created two moodboards that reflect my ideas and target audience for a pop/ indie pop magazine. I have gathered together possible pictures fonts, and advertisements I could include in my magazine. The type of pop artists I could use as inspiration for my magazine are, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, The Saturdays etc. I am going to include music festivals, and current music artists, as I am thinking of targeting my audience at girls aged 15-19. I am researching into two genres of music that are closely related so it's easier to link a lot of ideas into either genre. The type of artists I could include in the indie pop magazine are: two door cinema club, lana del rey, the xx, ellie goulding amd ben howard etc. This genre of music interests me and I think could be very enjoyable for me to create.

Music Magazine Research

In my music magazine research I found that a music magazine is a magazine dedicated to music and music culture. They generally include articles on top music news, artist interviews, photos, concert reviews and advertisements.

I am thinking of creating a pop/indie pop magazine, so I have done reasearch into these types of magazines to help me get familiar with the right look for my magazine. I feel that by creating a magazine aimed at the type of music I normally listen to, it will be easier for me to relate to and make it as best as I can.




 
Billboard magazine: Billboard magazine is an extremely well known pop music magazine, it is said 'if its not on the billboard chart, its not a chart'. Billboard is the world's most influential music media brand going out to key executives and tastemakers in the music business. They generally use bright colours and white sans serif font on there front covers. On all of there magazine covers the Masthead is always the same colours which makes it recognisable to the target audience. Also on the cover with Miley Cyrus her head is covering part of the Masthead which shows the magazine is well established and they can assume the audience will recognise the magazine without the need to see the masthead completely. I think Billboard magazine is targeting the teenage/young adult audience, due to the type of music it advertises and the age of the artists on many
covers.

 

 

     

Q Magazine: Q was founded by Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, it's first publication was in October 1986 and originally titled 'Cue' but on its 200th edition the name was changed as they didn't want the misconception of it being a Snooker magazine. 'Q' magazine is aimed at the older generation of music buyers, males and femals aged 25 and over. Q features many genres of music from rock, indie etc. It is suited to all music lovers but also as its based at an older audience they also focus on the 'old classics'.


 

             

NME: NME stands for New Musiccal Express, it was founded in March 1952 and belongs to company IPC. NME is aimed at the indie/rock genre but includes a variety of different bands/artists weekly. Most of NME’s audience are males aged 17-30, they represent males in this magazine by having male celebrities on the front page.

 

 

Blender magazine:

Blender was an American music magazine that classed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more".It consists of lists of albums, artists, and songs, including "best of" lists and "worst of" lists. Blender was published by Dennis Publishing. The masthead is in capitals and has a slash through it which could show an edgey vibe to the magazine. The genre of music it is aimed at r&b/pop culture and the its demographic is targeted at young lovers of r&b/pop.
The main image is normally a long shot of the artist at a tilted angle and Blender was also known for sometimes using steamy pictorials of celebrities as there main image. The font changes on the covers but they generically use Sans Serif fonts in blacks and bold colours.

Vibe Magazine: Vibe is a music and entertainment magazine founded by producer Quincy Jones. The publication features R&B and hip-hop music artists and other entertainers. The target demographic of vibe magazine is predominantly young, urban followers of hip-hop culture. After shutting down production in 2009, Vibe was purchased by the private fund InterMedia Partners and is now issued every-other month with double covers, with a larger online presence.

Link to School Magazine Blog

http://www.gemmaholmesasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/