Drafting and planning

I like this double page spread of Nicki Minaj:

She looks very prominent and prime over the two pages. This inverses the stereotype of magazine's having a full picture on one page and text on the other page. 

I want to create a magazine that inverses usual stereotypes and is one of a kind. I also want to use a colour scheme that is different to this and includes the primary house colours e.g. red, yellow, green and blue. This DPS shows that I need to include a lot of text and a full article. I'll need to read different articles of different magazine's to see what sort of stories are included in music magazine's. I'll be able to pick up on language choices and positioning and artist attitudes. 

I could also look at this for different interpretations i.e. this DPS shows that the heading is very important and needs to be big and contrasting with the background. The artist looks very mysterious in contradiction to the Nicki Minaj DPS as she looks very intimidating. This DPS below shows that most articles are laid out in columns and the artist can cover the whole of one page:

From this I have learned that on my DPS the artist image needs to be big, I need to have a contrasting colour font to the background, my artist can make a certain impression by their facial expression, the heading needs to be huge and enticing and the article needs to look busy.
I will take all of the above into account when constructing my own DPS.

Drafting and planning

When looking at my two music magazine name possibilities I have concluded that my magazine title will either be 'step' or 'move'.

I like the name step because it reminds me of the film 'step up'. This is a dance film which includes the genre of music my magazine will be all about. The word 'step' relates to a form of dance too. I like this name because it's short and simple which is what readers usually look for in a magazine. 

Although, my most favourite name for a dance music magazine is 'move' because similarly to 'step' its short, edgy and cool. It describes exactly what you do when you hear dance music. If I were to look at dance music magazines the name 'move' is something that wouldn't surprise me to see.

I am going to use MOVE as the masthead and the colour will be red. Most magazine's for example, NME, Q and DJ all have red mastheads. It's a colour that connotates passion and my artist has passion for her music.

I am going to use a red masthead and I will fit in with the generic conventions of other music magazine's by using the same stereotypical colour. 

Research into similar products

My artist for my front cover will be a female DJ, female DJ's aren't very well known so to help me find an image to mirror I found a website called Miami New Times. This has given me a list of the top ten best female DJ's and I will use them as my influence for my artist image.

Here is a link to the website: http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/crossfade/2014/01/edm_best_female_djs.php?page=3

Not only have I used this website to research female icons, I have looked at some issues of the actual 'DJ' magazine as it obviously is a big hit with house/dance music which is my genre.

Here are two images presenting female DJ's:

The significance of both of these images is that they both make a direct mode of address with the reader. The colour scheme is bold and the font colour always has a major contrast with the background.  Both of the women look quite rebellious - the top magazine shows a woman who is slightly revealing of her body but in contradiction, the bottom magazine shows a woman who has her hood up, Both of them are wearing black which may be significant and something I could replicate.

It's important for me to recognise that there are no secondary images which is something I may not necessarily need on my magazine if this is the genre I am using. 

Each magazine uses the typical conventions of a music magazine and when drafting my own I will refer to these examples. 

I will take pictures of my artist in poses like these.

Drafting and planning

Self assessment of codes and conventions:

1) Have you justified your decisions on your blog? How could you enhance these blog entries?

I feel like I have justified my decisions fairly well on my blog post, however by taking into account my peers feedback, I understand that I could have analysed my ideas further. For example: talking about the connotative effects of the colours and why I used them, I could have also thought more deeply about where I put the cover stories and did I necessarily need secondary images on some of the covers.

2) How do you plan to use these in the future?

I will definitely use these music magazine cover pages to see how layout is used in research to similar products. I will also use them for my drafting and planning in particular because by setting the layout of these covers, I have a better understanding now, of how to draft my layout for my own music magazine. It's quite shocking how before this task, I didn't realise how much layout affects a target audience. I now know how to use specific fonts and images to target a specific group of people. In terms of organisation, I will use these covers when I take various different photographs for my own magazine because they'll influence me on how a certain image can link to the main cover line etc. 

Organisation

In terms of the organisation of my magazine, I have decided to use a female MCU for the title page. My artist will be a female DJ and the style of magazine will have a feminine edge to it. I will take various photographs of this female artist (which I do not yet have a name for) holding many different poses and then I will decide which is the best, most effective photograph. I'll be able to edit the images on photoshop or paint.NET. 

I could use this image I found on google when researching magazine front page images to help me.

Drafting and planning

I went on to http://www.1001fonts.com/

I have researched into different fonts I could potentially use for the masthead for my magazine cover for the word 'move'.

The fonts I like the most for the word move are 'Umar +5' and 'Uchiyanna' I think they'd look most effective on my masthead because they are both bold. I like them because they have a sense of roundness which links to the mashteads of mixmag and DJ. 

I also entered the word 'step':

The fonts I like the most for the word move are 'Umar +5' and 'Rakesly +11' I think they're most suitable to be eyecatching on a music magazine.

Overall, I have decided that on both of the words I typed in, 'Umar +5' stood out the most to me. This will be very important when I make the final decision of which font to ultimately choose for my magazines masthead. 

Codes and conventions task

I have edited 5 different magazines in order to include the typical codes and conventions and to make them more appealing to their specific target audiences.
M magazine before:

M magazine after: 

I have added a puff, four cover stories including the anchorage text linking to the main artist Drake.
I added the issue number, date, website and price. I have also added two more images linking to the cover stories. I used Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Tyga and Lil Wayne specifically because they are all R&B artists and share a connection with Drake. I used red in the colour scheme to match the colour of the masthead and the gold to link with the gold on Drake's t-shirt.

M magazine 2 before:

M magazine 2 after:

I have included a skyline with an 'exclusive interview', I have added 4 cover stories including the anchorage text which suggests this unknown band which I christened 'fusion' have got back together.

I added another image to the magazine linking to one of the cover stories about 'the 1975'. I added the issue number, magazine website and date. I used this colour scheme so the red would have a connection to the masthead and the purple would link to the colour of the lady's dress.

Music X magazine before: 

Music X magazine after:

I did not know this artist, but to fit in with the colour scheme I decided to use neon fonts to contrast with the image and background colour. I included four cover stories including the anchorage text for BJORK. I included two extra images, the issue number price and a skyline.

Sound magazine before: 

Sound magazine after: 

I have added a skyline for an offer found inside, three cover stories and anchorage text for the main cover band. I included one more picture advertising the different artist stories inside. I included the date and price of the magazine and stuck to the specific colour scheme of red, black and white. I also added the magazine website at the bottom. 

Pitch magazine before: 

Pitch magazine after: 

I used a contrasting colour scheme of so that the font stood out clearly compared to the background. I included 5 cover stories including the anchorage text linking to Marilyn Manson. I highlighted similar artists to him. I included a skyline giving a special offer, the date and price and the website too.

Doing this will help me in the construction of my own magazine, this is because I have added anchorage text and cover lines - I had to come up with all of this myself which is a task in itself. This gives me confidence that I can perform well in my own music magazine. I can now put these skills I have gained into my own music magazine. 

I have learned that I need a contrasting colour scheme, to include generic conventions, a large masthead, secondary images and a selling and date line. I will include all of these in my magazine. 

Drafting and planning

I went on to visual thesaurus and typed in the word dance. I did this because dance music is the genre of my music magazine. This will give my ideas for my title of my music magazine and this will allow me to develop ideas for my magazines masthead.

The visual thesaurus came up with many different examples but the words that I like the best for a music magazine are: 

• Step
• Move

These are very short and simple and link to magazine's usual short and simple titles e.g. DJ and Vibe. Having a short title will be more eyecatching and invite readers in. I am going to use either one of these words as the title for my magazine.

Drafting and planning

I went on to visual thesaurus and typed in the word dance. I did this because house music is also known as dance music. This will give my ideas for my title of my music magazine and this will allow me to develop ideas for my magazines masthead.
The word I liked the most from my findings on visual thesaurus was the word 'move' as it describes entirely what action you take when you hear house music... you move to the beat.
Here are some of the other words I found when looking at 'dance' on visual thesaurus.

Drafting and planning

For my music magazine I am going to use a female artist. As my artist is a dance music artist, it means they will have to look quite edgy and cool. I think the curly hair, direct mode of address and the big smile will entice the readers and may foreshadow the anchorage text on my magazine.

Response to blog feedback

So far, I have successfully published 11 blog posts regarding my research into similar products. I have not yet posted about my target audience which is something I will do as soon as possible. I have published 4 posts on drafting and planning which at the moment is quite low; I will have to publish more on drafting and planning. I have not yet posted on my organisation either which is something I will look at in my independent blog posts this week.

Drafting/planning of magazine layout

This is my first draft of my music magazine. I may call my magazine 'house' which is very simple because it links to the genre of music my magazine is going to cover. I've drawn the medium close up, three cover stories, anchorage text, a screamer, barcode and a skyline.

These are the key codes and conventions of a magazine front page; however I have missed out the dateline - I will include this in my second version of my front page draft. 

Research into similar products

For my front page image, I am going to  use a medium close up. It is common to use an MCU on the front page of a magazine. My artist is going to be one singular person so I think an MCU would probably be the best idea.
I have looked at a different range of music magazines where each of them use an MCU effectively on their front page e.g.

Drafting and planning

I am going to use the four main primary colours for the colour scheme for my music magazine. I am going to use blue, red, yellow and green because it promotes the house music edge. Dance music is very bold and this makes a connection between the colours I am going to choose. I think all four colours work quite well together. The colour scheme will entice readers but it won't draw attention away from the main stories.

However, I did not make this decision spontaneously. Magazine's that I have previously looked into display these bright colours and make them work well together. An example of this is DJ magazine:

In this issue of DJ, the colour scheme works really well because it makes the magazine appear quite edgy and modern. The different colours present a sense of a  busy, full magazine that has lots to offer. 

In my magazine, the use of colour scheme will be very important. I must ensure that the way I use the colours really compliment each other. I will have to use a colour scheme that is centered around the artist. This means that the four main primary colours will be a successful colour scheme for me to use because it will create emphasis on my artist and make them seem really prominent. 

Research into similar products

These are some examples for skylines on three different music magazines.

If I include a skyline on my music magazine it could offer different things e.g. it may give the audience a chance to win something or get something for free. However, like NME shows: it doesn't always have to be an offer - it could be exclusive information. 

DJ magazine shows that:

Likewise, the skyline of DJ magazine shows that there is something available inside the magazine.

If I include a skyline in my magazine it will link to DJ magazine's because it's a magazine that is the same genre as mine. I think my skyline will offer something like '10 pages of posters of your favourite artists' so that it has some connection to my magazine of inspiration.

I also like how the skyline colour links to the colour scheme of the actual magazine rather than something bizarre and odd. In my magazine I will use a skyline that links to the colour scheme of my magazine.

Research into similar products

I have researched into some magazine websites:

http://www.qthemusic.com/

http://www.mojo4music.com/

http://www.factmag.com/

By looking at these websites I can have a clear idea of what kind of artists to include in my magazine. It will show what people are interested in lately in the music industry. I'll then know what to include on my front page or contents page: what to name my cover lines or what my anchorage text would be. These are all successful music magazine's and if my magazine can be somewhat similar I'll be very happy.
By looking at how magazine's develop their popularity elsewhere will help me understand that my magazine needs to include lots of links to different websites i.e. Twitter and Facebook...
Seeing all of these successful artists on the magazine websites will help me go even further to develop an artist image.

Research into similar products

Each of these three music magazines feature my specific genre of music e.g. dance/electronic music.

They feature big, bright mastheads and eye-catching main cover stories - they all make direct mode of address which means that they will connect with the reader and really look at them which invites them into the magazine. I like the example of DJ magazine because the artist looks really smug and mysterious and this will make the reader want to know why.
 The colours are clearly chosen to scream at the reader as the schemes are great contrasts. I will use these colours in my magazine to be successful. I specifically like the edition of mixmag because the colours used make the front page appear like a nightclub rave - I want to display the same effect in my magazine.
 The magazine covers look very busy which reflect the style of music. There are lots of cover lines  which shows an element of busyness... This also links to the genre of music. I will use numerous cover lines to make my magazine seem full and lively which connects not only to these inspiring magazines, but the style of music my artist will produce. In the elektro edition, the use of the swear word makes the artist seem rebellious and lively - this fulfills the usual personality of a dance music artist.
 I hope to construct a magazine with a similar appearance to mixmag especially as it's very popular.

Drafting and planning: investigating typography

My least favourite is cover C as you wouldn't associate this with a typical music magazine. This doesn't seem professional because it appears quite childish - it may be a little too simple for a magazine cover.

However, my most favourite cover is E because it's in capital letters which is a typical convention of cover stories on music magazines. The font is bold and simple - there's a link between the font in the masthead and the font in the cover story. The font entices the reader because of its simplicity and I understand that simplicity is the essence; usually if the fonts are too fancy they're hard to read yet the font on cover E shows a sense of clarity.

I'd rank in order of the most likely used font to less likely: B, F, A and D. This is because fonts B and F are relatively similar as they're quite clear yet not as bold and effective as font E. Although I think the fonts A and D are less likely to be used on a magazine front page because they're lower case and do not show any immediate importance. They just appear to be a little too plain and not as eye-catching as perhaps font E, but more mature and simple than font C.