Flat Planning

This is the flat plan of the front cover that I will be creating. I chose to just use one main image to make a statement to the reader that this artist will be highly featured in my product, therefore making it more likely for them to buy my product, I chose to use a close up shot of my main image as from previous research I have found that magazines use this to make a statement to the reader and catch their eye with the use of a powerful image. The model used in my main image will be looking quite feminine to match the genre of my magazine which is pop, also my magazine is generally aimed more at younger females so I want them to be able to relate to the model used on the front cover and therefore feel more inclined to buy my product. I discovered from research that readers prefer when the model is shot in a studio, being able to be styled to fit the genre of the magazine, it allows more focus to be on the model rather than what is around her. The colouring of the image will again be quite feminine, colours such as pink and white being frequently used, however not completely throughout the magazine as I feel this completely shuts out male readers. The masthead is going to be in a simple font as I feel this would make my product look much more professional and shows diversity with my product, although it is generally on a pop slant it will feature much more genres so I do not want to shut out other readers whose favourite style of music may not be pop, I have based this decision on seeing magazines such as Kerrang! and the masthead used their seems to focus on just readers who enjoy rock music. The masthead will be black with the "O" filled in with colour which I have seen on other products and it makes the masthead look very professional but adds some colour to the product also. I have used sell lines with phrases in them such as "Exclusive" and "New Artists Inside!" and "Hot On The Charts!". This will be to draw readers in and make the magazine more appealing, it makes the reader want to read the articles featured in the magazines. There is also a number of other sell lines and the sell line to go with my main image is "Star Of The Year", this makes the reader very interested in what the article is about as it pairs well with the bold main image which makes a statement to the reader. There is also a sky line which tells the reader that there is a free CD included, this again makes them more inclined to buy the magazine as they know that they will get a free gift inside. There is a bar code and price in the bottom right hand corner of the magazine. 

This is the flat plan of my contents page that I produced. It is going to have a simple white background with the same sort of title used on the masthead on the front cover, the simple black font with the "O" filled in. I am doing this as I want my magazine to look consistent and professional throughout. The main articles featured in my magazine will be listed on the right hand side of the page with enough spacing so that the reader will have no problem reading it and will not find the page too cluttered which I found was a problem from my research. Also the "Contents" title is placed on it side, I did this so that there was more room for images on the page so that the reader would not find the page as dull if there was less images for them to look at. Also I feel that the title placed on it sides makes the contents page much more interesting visually to look at, rather than just a typically placed title on the top of the page which I feel is worn out and boring for the reader to look at. The articles listed will again be in a simple black font, subtle on the page and easy for the reader to read, it is simplistic but not so that it will be boring for the reader, just gives the contents page a much more professional appearance. The image on the top left of the screen is depicting an artist representing the house music genre, it is a very simple head shot of the artist, nothing posed or dramatised, simple enough to represent the type of artist this man shown is. The bottom left image is of a smiling girl representing the pop genre, she looks very friendly and quirky which I feel represents this genre well, I am going to make it quite a feminine image also to appeal mostly to the female readers as I specifically want to target them with my magazine. The bottom right image is going to be an extreme close up shot of a girl, mostly featuring their eyeline, I am choosing to do this as I want this to be a very bold, statement image as it is going to be the article featured on my double page spread so I want the image to catch the readers attention and be visually interesting for them to look at. There has specifically been a mix of genres shown on my contents page as I want my magazine to be able to appeal to many target audiences rather than block many audiences who like different music genres.

This is the flat plan I designed for my double page spread that I am going to produce. There is a main image of my artist on the right hand side, taking up most of the page, I want it to be a simple, posed image with no props so that the girl alone will stand out to the reader and it will be a simplistic professional image that shows off the model alone. There will be a quote featured underneath the image of the artist to make the page look more interesting and less boring which it would if it just featured an image alone. I want the image to represent the artist as the pop/mainstream genre that she is part of, so the outfit used will be quite fun and girly, again making the magazine more relateable to the female audience my magazine is generally targeting. The title "Rock or Role Queen?" is going to appear how it is drawn, with red font so that it stands out on the page, and the question mark will be black, this colour contrast makes the title look much more interesting and the quote shown underneath the artist will also be black, however the inverted commas will be red, again the contrast looks much more visually interesting to the reader. There is going to be an introductory paragraph and four columns of text with a quote in the middle of the text, designed the same way as the quote underneath the artist. I took the idea of the enlarged quote from my textual analysis research as I felt it was effective and makes the page look much more interesting rather than a whole page of plain text. The colour of the article again will be black, contrasting to the white background of the page. 

Research into a Potential Target Audience

Research into audience

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Research into a Potential Target Audience

Q magazine reader profile:
Q's audience is composed of passionate, engaged and open minded music fans driven to continually discover new music - and to use this lust for discovery to influence their friends. The audience is split 75% male to 25% female and is affluent (with 68% ABC1). 
http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Brands/Q/
20/1/12

http://magazines.bauermediaadvertising.com/magazines/detail/Q
20/1/12


NME reader profile:

http://www.nme.com/mediapack/pdf/nme_media_information_full.pdf
20/1/12


The audience which my magazine would be targeted at are relatively young readers (16-24 year olds) who are passionate about many types of music genres and music which is currently in the UK charts at the time. However the magazine will also have a section of it aimed at audiences who enjoy discovering new artists who are unsigned and relatively unknown. The magazine will typically be aiming at the female gender because of the magazines large pop slant. I am targeting this group as there isn't many UK magazines which focus on an audience who enjoy a number of music genres not just one specific one, also most UK magazines such as Q are mainly targeting the male population so my magazine will be aiming at the audience who haven't got a product designed for them. 


How will this affect the content of my magazine?


This will affect the content of my magazine in a number of ways. For example as my magazine is targeting a younger audience of 16-24 year olds I will have to use younger models who my audience will be able to relate to. The magazine will also have to be designed in a much more feminine way as the audience it is targeting is females. The language of my magazine will be less formal than that used in magazines I have analysed such as Q as this is targeting a generally older audience than my magazine will be. The price of my magazine will have to be considered also, as my audience is generally quite young they are more likely to be students and therefore will have less money to spend on things such as magazines.

Research into Institutions that Distribute Similar Products

Bauer media

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Textual Analysis

Initial Ideas and Feedback

For my magazine my idea is to have a magazine which specialises in the typical mainstream/pop genre however also has aspects of other genres within it such as indie and house. In order to make sure my product is professional I am going to look at magazines such as Q and Billboard which fit the type of genre that I am looking for my magazine to specialise in. My magazine will feature local solo artists who fit the style of music my magazine is looking for.

Brief

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.

Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.
All images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate, minimum of FOUR images per candidate.

Print Prelim, Finished Magazine Cover & Contents Page

Evaluation Key Points:

• similar structure and layout to real magazine covers
• two light set up
• main image, masthead and sell line
• college related sell lines
• audience aged 16 to 18
• audience attracted by stories that would be helpful
• informal language
• knowing audience made product easier to design
• Photoshop and InDesign showed how planning needs to be well thought out, product looks different once created
• programs made product look more professional
• photography equipment created professional looking images

Flat Plan

The colours I have chosen to the feature on the student magazine fit the target audience well as I feel that they are very friendly and bright, something which would appeal to a student magazine's audience of teenagers. I do not feel that they would be interested in a dull colour palette as it would not stand out. 


I chose this style of layout because I think it represents a typical magazine layout, something which you would expect to see in a real magazine. Some sell lines will be bigger than the others representing the importance of some stories, these will be featured more than others. The main image will be featured on the right side of the cover, again very similar to typical magazines. The mast head is larger than all sell lines on the page, to clearly show the name of the magazine so it is easily recognisable to the reader. 



The sell lines I have used all fit the genre of a student magazine, offering advice to students, free equipment, and trip information etc. They will relate well to the target audience as it will all be useful information for them. As the magazine would be a free handout I think that it would be more sought after as it is all helpful free advice for students.


The main image will be taken at a mid close up and will be using a two light set up. The only prop will include a folder for the model to represent them as a college student to make them relateable to the target audience. 

Inspirational Texts

This contents page from OK magazine has a very simple layout, images representing the stories featured in the magazine itself. The actual contents itself is aligned all together, it doesn't create that much of a packed imagine so the reader wouldn't just skip past it if they felt it was too much to read. The images are all set in the same part of the page so the reader can view them all at the same time.










This magazine cover is very colorful and bold which shows how it would stand out to it's target audience on the shelf. It also appeals to the target audience which is teenage girls by using a celebrity who would appeal to them on the front of the magazine which would interest them in buying the magazine even more. The masthead is very bright so a reader would not struggle to find out what the actual name of the magazine is. It has no specific alignment for the sell lines they are just placed in dead space on the magazine which means the magazine looks very full so the reader would feel that they would get good value for money.

 This magazine cover again has a very bright and colorful masthead so the reader could easily recognize this when placed among other magazines. All the sell lines appeal to that of it's target audience which again would be teenage girls. This cover has a specific color scheme of orange, yellow and pink which are all very bright and girly, similar to the style of the magazine itself. The main image is again a celebrity who would appeal to the magazine's audience convincing them further to buy the magazine.

Preliminary Exercise

Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP.