research

I have been researching other magazines to help me with my task of designing a magazine. All magazines follow the same conventions even if they are different types of magazines. some of these are music magazines, lifestyle magazines and a computer magazines. These conventions all include an image and a logo. The image of the magazine and the name of the magazine must also fit the target audience, this is because the audience have a certain expectation for a type of magazine and if these needs are not fulfilled they may not buy the magazine again. the colour scheme should also match the certain genre. An example of this is the colour maybe pink for a lifestyle magazine because women  are most likely yo buy it and pink is the dominant ideology for women. The magazines always use mode of address. This is when the text creates a relationship with the audience. A type of mode of address is direct address. Direct address is when the the main person on the front cover is looking straight into the camera. Magazines use this because it invites the reader in. Indirect address is the oppisite where the person looks away. Although this is not one of the conventions of a music magazine. The mode of address can also refer to how it addresses the reader. An example of this would be would be friendly or in informal. Magazines usually contain starts and celebrities on their front cover and have articles about them in the magazine. This is because people are interested in there lives which will therefore increase the sales of the magazine and the profit. For a music magazine it is most likely that a musician will be on the front cover. The front cover of the magazine is the the most important part as it is what is seen from the buyer and this represents the magazine as a whole because it is the main advertisement. The covers are usually bright with intriguing information to catch the audiences attention which could make them buy the magazine. In a music magazine the colours should also represent the genre of music. An example of this could be dark colours such as black and red would be used for rock magazine. On the cover the fonts tend to be different. This looks eyes catching and stands out more. It would probably look plain with the same font on the cover. The cover usually contains a header at the top of the page which will create a brand image and become easily recognizable to its audience . These is usually one main star with a close up shot . This is direct address. Sometimes there are strap-lines. These are used to to give you extra information about what's inside the magazine. The Magazines always contain a date and a barcode and usually with a wed address. The contents page should be bright and colourful which will encourage the reader to read on. Direct is again used in all images. Sometimes the contents are in lists and sections. An example could be gig selections or reviews. There is usually a feature article inside most likely to be a double page spread. An example is information about a stars new album/tour. There is usually one big image of an artist or a bad with smaller images across the page. The price that a magazine is sold doesn't cover the printing cost for the magazine to be published so the way the magazine makes profit is from the money made though advertising. The magazine must appeal to the audience and sell well to have large circulation figures to make profit. If it sells well then they can charge more for advertisement space because more people will be seeing the advertisement therefor the companies will pay more to advertise.

preliminary task

The magazine cover that i designed was for St. Mary's college and was a preliminary task to help me practice for the real magazine that i am going to do for my coursework. There was things i liked about my cover but there was also room for improvement. I thought the bar along the bottom of the cover giving a taster for what's inside was a good way to attract the readers attention to but the magazine. The title cover stood out but i don't think it looked efficient like a real magazine. I thought this because there wasn't enough text on the magazine and maybe the variety of colours was low. I now feel more confident about using In Design and Photo shop after more practice which should help me with my real music magazine.
The contents page that i have also done is just a simple idea for the contents page that i would do for my real task. i have only done the layout for what i would put there. There is images and information spread out so it doesn't look to complex and is easy to read. Also there is information about certain pages which are inside the magazine like real magazines have.

Initial Ideas.

I have some initial ideas for my music magazine. Some of these ideas are that the music genre is going to be Indie/rock and the for an audience of a mix gender and people at the age of 15-26. This is because my article will contain information about some bands and gigs which is what people of that age group are more likely to read. Inside the magazine will contain a variety of images and text so the magazine looks appealing and doesn't look boring and difficult to read. NME is a similar magazine to this and the audience and genre follow the same suit. I think i could better the NME magazine by adding more information and making the front cover look more appealing to the buyers. Although NME is a big selling magazine and appeals to the audience that already buy it it could it doesn't attract anymore readers because it is already a big seller it doesn't seem to attract the reader any other way apart from the big name brand logo on the front cover that NME is. My unique selling point is going to be a big star on the cover to attract the readers attention with loads of little tasters about other acts round the sides which the audience may also find interesting.