I also wanted my own original colour scheme, as most magazines have a black, white, grey, red type colour scheme I wanted to challenge this and use brighter more exiting colours-mainly on black as it made the colours look bolder and brighter than if they where on white, also a lot of blank white spaces makes the page the empty and boring but black makes it look fuller without anything having to be there. I choose to use orange as my main colour for my title and appears constantly throughout out my magazine. Then I choose to do a different colour scheme on the front cover each week as it made it more interesting and didn't get boring to look at and would still catch peoples eyes each month. Using various bright colours, it makes it look bold, and also fun in a mature way.
The magazine I took my main inspiration and influences from (NME) didn't follow all regular magazine convention, for example the masthead doesn't take up the whole width of the page so a lot of what I did was original and without parts from other existing magazines.
My magazine contents page sticks to all the regular conventions, with the page number and page info all in a invisible table format that is easy to read and effective. I used clear sub-genres for my pages so it was easy to find what you were looking for. I also kept the same orange colour scheme through to the contents page so it all flowed together. I also included a small introduction article to lead my readers into the main body of the magazine, this is now quite popular and is seen on many music and lifestyle magazines, but not so much in other magazines like fashion magazines. But I feel it is an interesting way to fill up space on a page without wasting the available space. I also inserted a subscription advert for my magazine on the same page so to advertise my magazine further and get a more regular readership, this is quite common in popular magazines and is proven to work well.
My DPS is quite different for the genre and style of magazine I want to achieve and doesn't follow all conventions of magazines, and it also doesn't follow the convention I set up through out my own magazine. It has a black background which links in with the cover image but not the rest of my magazine where I have used bright colours. I kept it very simple with just black and white rather than a lot of colour. But it does follow the simple convention-the main image and the related article. I also found i used very informal and colloquial style of writing in my article and found this was common in music magazines, it really fitted well with the tone of my magazine and made the black and white colour scheme seem less harsh. How i presented the main image is quite similar to one that could be shown in a fashion magazine, so therefore challenging conventions of a music magazine, but i felt as I had the same type of image I should follow it through to the actual article and having two different styles of images would make the magazine detached.
On my DPS I also included a separate bit called the 'Hit List' which was still on the same page as the article but was not part of it, although they did still relate to eachother. This i rarely done in a magazine but often appears in its own page, I wanted to develop this and make these pages more interesting. As I wanted my magazine to be fast moving and current. This I felt was a good way to achieve a balance between the two without making one the dominant feature. The way I had two different things on my page changed and challenges the layout of my magazine and made it look unique and interesting.
My magazine is mainly aimed at males between the age 15-24 as they are the main readership of other music magazines with similar themes and genres to mine. The adverts also reflect my target age, with adverts about aftershave and mens fashion brands. I used certain fonts and colours that fitted in with my audience and that also fitted in with the style/tone of my magazine. The articles, information and images included are written and designed specifically for my age and gender, not being to long and 'real life' orientated as these are things that have been proven not to be popular with my target audience. I choose this age range as younger people are more likely to spend their money on magazines and have the time to read them where as an older age range would not be as eager to buy this kind of magazine.
Although it primarily follows what my target market want to see there are also aspects that could appeal to females, like the articles and images. I didn't want to completely cut out any other type of audience but i felt it was in my interest to concentrate on one and appeal completely to them rather than trying to please everyone. Throughout my magazine I tried to keep a youthful look to it, using particular colours, fonts, images and layouts that look fresh and original. I wanted to reflect my target market in my magazine (males in their mid teens to mid twenties) and in doing so appeal my magazine to my target audience. This included the genre of music I choose, indie is a fairly new genre that has only recently become popular which makes it appealing to the youth. The magazine has an edge to it, with the informal tone and lots of visual aids and not much text it brings out the male attitude in it, it enables my audience to flick through the magazine and still get a feel of it without having to read the whole thing which can help my magazine become popular in this age range. It also changes to fit in with current trends and fads, and set them as well making it up to date and not boring/old. As my target audience/social group is stereotypically a 'rebellious' or 'out of control' age I tried to use this to my advantage by using swear words and sarcastic cover lines so it seems familiar to my age range and vague and 'cheeky' to an older generation who therefore wouldn't be interested in my magazine. This also gives my magazine a good reputation in the music world which is important to young males as image means a lot.
I made my magazine as eye catching as I could using bright colours and interesting images on the cover, I wanted my magazine to stand out from others like it so I took a risk and tried a varied colour scheme using a range of colours rather than the typical black, grey, red and white combination. This hopefully would make my magazine stand out against the others on the shelf, I also made my left third colorful and interesting with information and an idea of the tone of my magazine, I included a marked out swear word to show instantly that my magazine was for a youthful age group. This would make my magazine look rebellious and different which my audience could relate to.
It also had that cover artist looking straight out at them which would instantly draw them to my magazine, then the bold cover line with drop shadow would then hook them in as it jumps off the page at them. The use of colour coordination would help lead the readers eye from cover line to cover line, but the contrasting colours would take away from the regimented layout and make it look young and fun.
I thought IPC Media was a perfect institute to distribute my magazine, as it already distributes popular and successful music magazine like NME Magazine and others. This therefore means my magazine being very similar to NME Magazine would hopefully be easily accepted be IPC Media and would do well with them.
IPC Media started in 1986 so has been able to introduce itself and has become profitable in the media world which would help a new music magazine get a good name. It has a wide and successful website with many readers per month this would give my magazine advertising. Also it is a trusted company that is tied with many well know media companies and products.
The main things i used when producing my magazine was a computer, mainly using Photoshop and Microsoft Publisher and a camera. In taking the photos for my magazine there where many things to consider that I didn't always realize until I was laying out my magazine. I had to take in consideration the style of my magazine, the space i have, what the photo should be reflecting, the way in which i take it (landscape/portrait). I had access to a high quality SLR Camera and studio with lighting which helped me a lot and made my photos have a more professional finish to them. This then made my final magazine as a whole look more professional. I took around 60-70 photos overall so i could choose the best ones in context to what i mentioned. I tried various poses and positions to find the most effective one that would work best in a magazine layout. Being able to crop, edit and touch up images in photoshop made the process easier and I found I was able to achieve a lot more and editing my images in various ways creating different looks that I could use to get across what I wanted. I made a mock up magazine front cover layout on Publisher which helped me find the perfect image to use. In using various equipment and programs I have discovered the advantages of more high-tech processes that make everything a lot quicker and easier to do and the final product ends up looking better with a better finish.
I approached my preliminary task in a different way, I choose to do something very typical of the genre and didn't push myself out of my comfort so therefore I didn't have many problems with my magazine. It was very useful to do the preliminary task and it gave me a chance to introduce myself to new programs and get familiar with them for the real thing. It also gave me an a idea of what works well in a magazine format and enabled me to make mistakes and right myself, which prevented me doing it on the real thing and wasting time. I found out that doing research on existing successful magazines really helped and inspired ideas for my own magazine. Then when i started my real thing I had very specific ideas in mind that I wanted to achieve and this was due to not being properly prepared in my preliminary I planned ahead and had a clear vision of what I wanted, and even though it didn't all go to plan it helped things develop.
