Redrafted Double page spread

I have now looked over and reviewed my feedback and I have decided to take them onboard, to demonstrate this I have created this second draft of my double page spread without original photography.

• Perhaps most notably I have adjusted the title, I took onboard the advise that the straight boxes didn't work so I slanted the top and bottom boxes. This is roughly the effect I want to go for I chose this after analysing and looking at existing music magazine and bands logos. The angle of the boxes can be tweaked slightly but as I have previously said this is very similar to the final outcome
• I also changed the pull quote, I have an idea of the contents of my article, it will be the story of an emerging indie band who are talking about their success and there heroes that inspired them. This means that the pull quote is the one that I intend to use. I believe that the large bold quote works a lot better than the red box (see double page spread draft) and I will keep it moving forward
• I have chosen not to make any more changes as the rest of the page received on the whole positive feedback, although it is inaccurate to say that the page is finished as my original photography may prompt changes to be made

The next course of action is to create a shot list detailing the photos I will be taking.

Feedback on Double page spread

With my double page spread draft now created I sought verbal feedback from both peers and teachers and from it I will see how my double page pre original photography can be amended.

• Firstly I was advised the change the boxes that the band name is in, I was told that the completely straight boxes didn't really work and was advised to go for an effect similar to the Sex Pistols logo. After researching it I have seen that my teacher means slant the text to make it look better.
• I was told to stick with the colour scheme because it showed a consistent house style as my front cover and contents page use black, white and red. The colour scheme was further complemented because it follows the rule of thirds i.e. only 3 main colours used on the page 
• Although the shot on the left hand side of the page isn't an exact replica of the one I was thinking of growing for my teacher told me that a similar shot would work quite well
• I had mixed opinions on the pull quote some people said they thought it was good because it stands out, but some people said that I could integrate it into the article more by making it bold and taking it out of the box and make it bold
• People generally said they like the layout of the article and the 'MEET THE GANG' section but they were worried that my main article may not be very long, they suggested making the text smaller to get more text in. I will experiment with this idea to see how it looks, but as I haven't planned out the text of the main article I don't know if I will need more space or not. 

First draft of Double page spread

This is my first draft of my double page spread, I have left it deliberately vague because I have not yet decided the exact contents of my double page spread. I know that my article will centre on the meteoric rise of an Indie band but the exact text I haven't decided yet. For this reason I haven't yet decided what will be in the pull quote.

I have used pull quotes as they attract the audience as it gives a brief overview of the interview straightaway.

As try are a new indie band I have put profiles at the side. I will take close ups of the 3 members and write a pretend bio of each. This will hopefully achieve its purpose of getting the audience familiar with the band.

I have also chosen to use the same colour scheme that I have used throughout red and white. I believe that this will give my magazine a consistent house style, which is a convention of music magazines. I will now seek feedback 

Double page spread mock up

I have now completed my draft of my double page spread, I chose to do my article about a new up and coming band in the industry. This is timely because at the minute Indie labels are on the rise and they now have an equal opportunity to plug their artists on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. I chose a new band as it will give me a chance to be creative and invent a whole back story for a new band. I will have nothing to mold my article on so it will all be down to my imagination and creativity.

My title is clearly the biggest and most important text on the page, this sets the scene for the article and tells the reader straight away what it is about. This is why I chose to highlight it, it is important it is seen as it may be hard for the audience to know where to look on a double page spread. I chose to have it overlapping the picture on the left hand side because otherwise the left hand side although it has a picture on will look very bare. I also chose to put a 60 second bio of the band on there because I felt that some members of the audience may only be scim reading the article and this way it allows for them to learn all of the information the article is telling them quickly. For the photo I will have it take up the whole of the left hand side, I believe this is the best use of the space as I don't want there to be paragraphs of writing in both sides. this will make my magazine look wordy and boring. I will try to replicate a home scenario by having posters up and having the band members sitting in a relaxed manner on some kind of sofa. This is because I want the audience to see their offstage side in other words what they are really like. I will use a second photo of one of the three member performing, it will be taken in a dark room with the light solely on them simulating the effect of playing a live gig at night. This will succeed in breaking up the text. I also want to add legitimacy to the success of the band, to do this I will use a pull quote from a respected newspaper such as the Guardian.

Redrafted Contents page

I have now completed this second draft of my contents page, I have taken on board my audience feedback where I have seen appropriate.

As previously mentioned in the future after I have taken my photos I will adjust my logo to try to suit Indie music more. 

• But I first started out by changing the colour of the grey in the news,reviews and extras boxes. I tried to go for a more suttle and a lighter shade of grey. After changing it I realised that it did look better, I think that the lighter grey means that the grey boxes aren't dominant anymore and the white and grey now command the same amount of attention
• I also tried out changing the text size I reduced the text size for the names of the articles from 18 to 16, this first succeeded in making the page less cluttered because the articles themselves take up less space. This will make it easier for the audience to read thus appealing to them more. When I compare the two now I think that the large text doesn't look right, it is only by creating this draft and taking on board feedback from my audience that I realised this  
• In the end I chose not to change any article headings, in the end I referred back to real music magazines and I saw that my headings were similar to ones they have and I didn't think I could come up with any puns that would add to the appeal of the articles
• As I received a large amount of positive feedback on my red and white headings so I have decided to keep them and make no adjustments. Although while reviewing this on my blog I have noticed that the review bar is too big height wise. When I add in my original photography I will reduce its size by making it thinner 

Feedback on Contents page

After I created my contents page draft I sought audience feedback to ensure my magazine continues to appeal to them. This is what I found out:

• My teacher told me that perhaps some of the text sizes were too big, for example the text to introduce articles not for the subheadings, some other people have also told me this so I will slightly decrease the text size next time and see how it looks
• My teacher also told me that they didn't like the grey, I said I wanted to maintain this colour because if not all of the articles will be in white boxes and it won't look right. Although I am prepared to play around with the colour and potentially go for a lighter shade of grey, I have also received contrasting feedback as some people like the grey but I will change it and see if people still like it
• Despite changing my font again I was told it didn't quite work, this is something that is very important to me as it links to brand identity but I will not address it now as it is the contents page, I will look as the issue again when I have my original photography ready to input on to the magazine. When I do I think I will try the third option from my survey that I have not yet tried
• A lot of people said that they thought the colours red and black worked well together, they also liked the red and white subheadings these are two features in terms of colour I feel that I have got right. Due to the positive feedback I will retain this feature
• A fellow peer told me that my contents page looked professional mainly due to the fact is was split up into the different sections of news, features etc. This is a common convention I noticed and tried to follow so I am pleased that people have picked up on it.  
• People have said that the articles are good and that they are like ones they would expect to appear in a real magazine. The only slight adjustment I might have to make is to my subtitles, I will try to make my subtitles sound fun and appealing by perhaps using puns.

First Draft of Contents page

This is the first draft of my contents page, once again it is created on Macromedia Fireworks. I have had to amend my plans slightly though. I had to include less reviews this was simply because when I input a picture I found similar to one I want to take I couldn't find space to put many articles around it. There is no longer any reviews under the picture like there was intended to be put that is the problem with paper mock ups, you can't see how it is going to look when it is actually created. Also I had to shorten the descriptions of some of the articles, first of all I thought some were too wordy but mainly because they took up too much space. For the more congested boxes such as features it didn't look right for the little descriptions to be more than a line long.

Just as before I will now seek audience and teacher feedback on this draft to see where it could be improved.

Contents page mock up

Before creating my mock up I did a lot of research of contents pages of music magazines, I found that they are often split up into sections for example news, features and reviews. This is a convention I decided to follow as I think it gives the contents page structure and it makes it easier for the reader. The way they split them all up is something that I also want to follow, I did this by making subtle changes to the colours of the boxes that the text is written in. This way my contents page becomes more appealing to look at because if not there would be just a white box would not interesting to look at.

I want my page to seem uncluttered so I have chosen not to feature every page that will appear in the magazine, if I was to feature every page the page would look too busy and people would find it hard to know what to look at. This is why I have only featured a selection of articles and have explained them fully to make them appeal. To ensure that a large amount of people are interested in reading my magazine I have included reviews of all the latest releases on the Indie scene. I have made sure that no artist is included twice to attract a wider range of audiences i.e the fans of each of the artists.

One thing I had to correct was the amount of text that I had written as a description for each of the articles, I found that I had written too much and had maybe gone on too much and had bored the reader or I had given away too much of the story. If too much of the story is given away the audience won't want/feel the need to continue to reading, this would be bad for my magazine because the whole point is for it to be read. For this reason I decided to cut down on the description and leave the reader curious. I also like my front cover included audience participation, I offered them the chance to interact with the magazine in the 'extras' section I added quizzes, the competition and a chance for them to subscribe to the publication. This will allow the audience to gain a deeper connection with the magazine and be more inclined to buy it in the future.

In terms of photos I will include a photo of two fans of Indie music posing with a record, this is because they will be reviewing the latest releases. I think this sets my magazine apart as people can see what other fans are saying rather than just the opinion of the magazine editors all the time. For my larger photo I will have a picture of the band rehearsing, I will aim to shoot this in some kind of garage to illustrate the bands small beginnings. I will do this as a side on shot as it will look and fit better in the space that I have to work with due to my layout.

Redrafted Front cover

           

This is my redrafted front cover, I have taken on board my audience feedback and have produced this draft. 

• I first took in to account the font for my title, I selected the second place font from my questionnaire because it was the stencil look that I was advised to go with. I believe now that my title looks better and represents Indie music better now.
• I again chose to follow my audience as looking back on my work I decided that the white didn't quite work, I tried out a lot of colours but finally I decided that the black looked best
• Although someone suggested to make the photo take up the whole page, I am planning to do this but at the moment I don't have the photography available so I have left the picture I found on the internet on there, I am soon hoping to plan a photo shoot to gain some original photography
• As I have received mostly positive feedback on the articles at the bottom of the page I have left them as they were
• The main title in the centre of the page is something I want to look at but as yet I haven't been able to do anything as I need my photo to try out and see if there is anyway I need to change the title 

Feedback on first draft

As I believe audience feedback is important and it will help me greatly I have sought feedback from both my teacher and others on how my first draft looks and how I could improve it.

• My teacher recommenced that I have another look at my font I used for the main title TMS, after finding out that this is a magazine based around Indie music he suggested that my font said American sports more than Indie music. Due to the fact I hadn't put a lot of thought into the font I agreed with this and have already begun scouting for new fonts. I was advised to go for more of the stencil look, I will now have to discard my audience feedback as it is unreliable. This is because I asked which font they prefer, instead I should have perhaps asked for which font they thought best represented an Indie artist.
• I was also told that the white 'RISE OF THE INDIE LABEL' at the top didn't work, this is ok for me as I have created a similar graphic with a black background, after asking my peers the majority of them said they preferred the black one, you will see this in my second draft I will post shortly.
• I was told that the white coloured text for the title couldn't be read very well in places, although I take all feedback on board this will become irrelevant as the staging of my  real photo will be done with a model wearing a dark coloured coat to eradicate this problem.
• Many people thought I did a good job with the articles at the bottom of the page, the way I highlighted key words in red and leave the rest in white seemed to go down quite well. As it received such positive feedback I will keep this in my next draft.
• People said that the articles were interesting and that they appealed to them as a reader, especially the competition. I agree with this as the exact reason I put the competition in place was to attract the reader
• Some people said that the cover would look better if the photo spanned the whole cover, I will take this advice on board and for my actual cover I will make the photo span the whole cover.

First Draft of Front cover

This is the first draft of my front cover, I completely followed my mock up as I wanted to see how it looked once created on the computer. I didn't put a lot thought into the font I believe I will need to get some audience feedback on some of fonts to help me make a final decision. Although I have used this shot it is the best I could find, the models are vaguely standing like the way I want mine to be and it is a low angle shot. Although my shot will feature less of there bodies.

I will now seek audience feedback on this to see where I can improve it. After I have done this I will post a redrafted version with my feedback incorporated.  

Font Survey & Results

Before I make my front cover for the first time I realized that I needed to choose a main font for my magazine logo. As I didn't really have any idea I created a shortlist of some of my favourite fonts and fonts that I thought would work. I asked a variety of people within my target audience to choose the font they thought best represented Indie music, this is a better question than which of these fonts is your favioutre because that type of question may leave me with a font unrelated to Indie music.

I recorded the feedback in terms of a tally chart, I gave each person one vote and which ever one they chose I put a tally next to. Above I have scanned in the results and as you can see there are 3 clear faviourites. When selecting the font for my logo I will choose one of those 3. If for any reason it doesn't look right I will go to the second choice and see if it looks any better.  

Front Cover mock up

When creating this mock up I have planned out the layout and the articles that will appear, although these were already planned for on my spider diagrams. I features the title TMS(the music scene) because I am sure that this will be the title of my final piece. Although not a lot should be read into the font that I have drawn the logo in. This is because I have not yet put a lot of thought into what the font will be. Soon I will produce a survey for my audience to tell me which font from a choice represents Indie music to them most. The final decision will ultimately rest upon the most popular answer.

Due to my lack of artistic skills I have not drawn the people that will feature in great detail, although I have planned out the photo I want to take to put there. I will be using 3 models as my double page spread will feature a report on a new up and coming band. As I don't want much block colour I want the photo to take up the whole of the front cover. By this I mean I want the text at the bottom to overlap the photo. To make sure the text can still be read, I will make sure the person standing at the front will be wearing a dark coloured coat perhaps black. This will make sure the white can still be read clearly without the audience having to strain. I will put the lead singer of the band at the front of the photo, this will make sure the audience are aware of the positions in the band straight away. I will aim to only feature the body of the model at the forefront,this is because their dark clothing will make it easy to read the text. Too many bodies will make it the photo seem cluttered. It would also mean that the other two would also have to wear dark clothes I don't want them to do this as it will make the photo seem boring to look at. I think a low angle shot will be best, this will allow me to make the models seem bigger and more impressive. This will also allow me to only photograph up to the shoulders of the person standing in front of the other two. I am planning to use lighting, I will beam it up from a low angle also to make the models stand out on the page. I am not worried about my magazine having blank space as the text about my articles is at the top and the bottom. This allows the band to take up as much space as they need because I don't have articles to squeeze around them. I deliberately designed them this way so I was not restricted in terms of the pose of my photograph.

I tried hard when thinking of my articles to make them generally appealing to the audience. To do this I decided to make a competition, I put the word WIN in large letters. This will stand out from all the rest of the publications on the newsagent's shelf. I also left the competition sound deliberately vague, I wrote signed record sleeves without saying by whose records they were. This will attract people to buy it to find out who or at least pick it up and read it to find out who. A recurring theme through my magazine is audience participation, this is further reinforced by the articles I have used on my front cover. I incorporated a vote about the best Indie songs as voted by the audience, this will invite the audience to buy my magazine as they feel they have contributed. I also tried to make my articles seem interesting instead of just having bog standard reviews and interviews. I did this by saying 'ADELE' but they writing 'an exclusive look at her new album tipped to bring the industry out of its slump.' This draws in the reader and has a lot more of an affect than Adele an exclusive look at her new album.

I will now create computerized versions of these and seek feedback as it is hard for people to give feedback on a pencil drawing without colour.

Initial Plans

Before I created my mock ups for my music magazine I created these spider diagrams, they allowed me to put my ideas down on paper before I actually go off and make the first drafts without original photography. I have discussed things like the house style and the photos that I will be using, I have jotted down some brief ideas as to the staging and the location of the photos. I have also planned out the articles that will feature of the cover page, this will same me time as I will be able to get straight on with the creating now.

Results of my questionarre

I have now collated the results of questionarres and have produced a series of charts illustrating my results. I will soon post my plans for my front cover, contents and double page spreads according to the answers I have recieved.

This question  was to establish the gender ratio of teenagers that would be reading my magazine from the 15 people that I surveyed I can now see that the majority of my audience will be male. To cater this I will select colours that will appeal to a male audience more. 

I felt that it was key for me to understand my target audience better, to do this I designed this question if tells me the music listening habits of my target audience. Each person was given the chance to choose more than one genre as often people don't just listen to the one genre of music. As you can see the most popular genre of music is Indie, as this is the most popular genre my music magazine will now be about this style of music.

I believe that the options I have given the audience have led to me recieving inaccuarte results that would not match up to the real world. This is because after some more research I found out that the price of monthly music magazines would be much higher. This is becuase NME is £2.20 for just a weekly issue. This would mean a realisitc price would be around £5. This is most probaly the price my magazine will be as it will come out monthly.

 

As mentioned in a previous post I designed this question to help to guide me on the content of the double page spread. The stats show that people like to read interviews of artists the most. This fits the plan that I had in the back of my mind as I was planning to do an interview about a new Indie band that has come onto the market. After recieving this feedback I will be continuing with this idea.

As I want my magazine to appeal to my target audience I want them to have an input in choosing the colour scheme. As previously mentioned this is becuase people will be more inclined to buy a magazine with colours that appeal to them. I also want bright features to feature prominenlty on my front cover, this is becuase I want it to stand out from some darker coloured magazines such as Kerrang. 

 

To any magazine the name is crucial, a poor unmemorable name and a catchy name could be the difference between poor sales or a bestseller. The question included 4 possible names that I have thought of naming my magazine, The 2 names that I think are the best are Tuned in and TMS short for The Music Scene. The other 2 are seconday ideas and I don't expect them to feature prominently in my decision making process. This is backed up by the target audience as X and The Scene both recieved the lowest number of votes. To be honest I'm still not sure which name I will use, due to the vote results Tuned in is currently faviourite. 

Questionnaire

Before I draw up my plans I decided to create a questionnaire to guide me on the creation of my plans. I will hand this out to mainly classmates as I have identified older teenagers between 15-21 as my target audience. I would like their feedback as afterall the whole purpose of the magazine is to appeal to them. If I go against what they want my magazine will be unpopular and my target audience won't want to read it. I have also designed it to help me make decisions, for example I have a shortlist of names but Tuned in and TMS are my faviourites. I am hoping the results of the questionarre will help me make my final decision as to the name. I have delibratly left my eyes open about the actual contents of the double page spread, this is becuase I want my target audience to choose and have a real imput to ensure it remains appealing. From my analysis of music magazines such as Q and NME I have noticed 5 kinds of double page spread fillers. These make up my options they are interviews, music news, photo shoots, reviews and articles about new releases. Finally I have asked my audience to help me create my colour scheme, I did this by asking them what their faviourite colours are. This will help me becuase people will more likely be drawn to colours that they like.