Organisation

I have just finished the draft of my evaluation on PowerPoint. I have included pictures, links and text to talk about the process of making and altering my magazine.

Drafting and planning

This is my final draft of my front page:

I like the way I have kept the consistent colour scheme of burgundy and white, this makes it seem professional. However, to improve on the colour scheme, I will add in another colour.. perhaps blue. 

The masthead is good and this is the masthead I have used consistently throughout my drafting and planning of my front page, it has rounded font linking to mixmag and is written in capitals, linking to DJ mag. I have included the URL in the masthead which is something music magazines tend to do, here I am following generic conventions.

My main image is positioned centrally which makes the artist appear as the  main focal point of the magazine and it is effective because the artist is making direct mode of address with the reader. The artist's curly hair is also effective because it makes her seem wild, this has a connection with the genre of music she produces. Her plain clothing connects with the plain background but the different colour makes her stand out.

The cover lines on my front page are all about artists that are featured in my contents page: Example, Calvin Harris, Tiga, JE55ICA and Martin Garrix, I've also included a pug with the 'win a £50 itunes voucher' - this will make the reader willing to flick through and find that page. 

The anchorage text is big, bold, italic and underlined. I made sure the main part was a different colour to the masthead showing that it has equal dominance. The effect of it being italic and underlined makes the anchorage text seem like a screamer, shouting for the audiences attention. The quote will have a positive impact because it'll make readers think, "what is she talking about?", this will make them buy the magazine. 

I included the little touches such as a bar code and a date line which is what all magazines have and this makes my magazine fit in with the rest.

Drafting and planning

I have finished my final draft for my double page spread:

I am happy with my DPS because the colour lime green has been used once again. This creates a connection with the front page and contents page and gives my artist a unique image. I've also kept the idea of burgundy, black and white going too. The article is based on SIAN revealing her plans for the tour as established in the heading. The heading does not give too much away but will still entice the target audience. I have once again wrote in columns which sticks to the typical convention of a magazine and this creates coherence. To distinguish between the questions and answers in the article, I have used a white highlighter to make the questions stand out. The questions I have asked my artist SIAN differ from 'is your tour from your album success?' to 'is there anyone you will miss in particular when you leave the UK?' which hints at a possible love life: a lot of magazines tend to do this. I have used a different picture of SIAN up against the wall which if inferred correctly suggests that she is reminiscing about the happiness of tour exclamation or perhaps daydreaming about the tour. The quote over the image is a rhetorical question which shows that SIAN is loving the fame. Even though some magazines spread their main image out over two pages on the DPS I think that the type of image I have of my main artist should cover one page as she still looks very dominant. I used a secondary image of S.O.D who is another female DJ - she is positioned where her name is featured in the article (she is SIAN's support act on the tour) this will give the target audience who do not know who she is an clearer insight. At the end of the article I thank SIAN and wish her luck on the tour and in the future and tell her that MOVE hope to catch up with her when she returns. In the burgundy circle which kind of acts as a pug because it gives the target audience the chance to win tickets to see SIAN live. I have ensured to include page numbers to give my magazine that sense of professionalism. 

Overall I am happy with my DPS but to improve I will use Amity Jack to link the masthead to the main subheadings in the article. I may also re-position the text over the main image to make it more eyecatching. 

Drafting and planning

I have finished my final draft of my front page and contents page:

I have used Amity Jack, Consolas and Courier New as the consistent fonts throughout. I have also kept the colours: lime green, white and burgundy consistent too. This creates a connection between the front and contents page. I ensured that on the front page I had numerous cover stories as it will make my magazine seem lively and engaging; I used artists on my cover stories that are well-known and an unknown made up artist to appeal to my target audience. I used bigger anchorage text linking my main cover story to the artist SIAN. I used a burgundy masthead to link with usual mastheads on magazines such as NME and Q. The font for the masthead, Amity Jack is similar to the rounded font on my magazine of influence, mixmag. I positioned my artist in front of the masthead because this is what most issues of mixmag do. My artist is making direct mode of address to entice the target audience. I made sure I included a URL which is featured inside the M leg of the masthead to show that my magazine is popular and is featured elsewhere. The dateline was important to include as it creates a sense of professionalism and links to my contents page of this particular issue being February's issue. 

On the contents page I made sure that the lime green from the front page was carried through. I also made the facebook and twitter logos lime green and the page number. I kept the white font prominent on the contents page because it works well on the black background and is coherent. The burgundy highlighting of the stories also looks good because like the lime green, the colour is now consistent. I remembered to include the website URL again to reinforce that the magazine is available digitally too. There are three images on the contents page, the main image is SIAN who is my main artist and there are two secondary artist's JE55ICA and Electr0Juni0r - I have ensured that I included their stories on the contents page. I have constructed the stories in columns which mixmag (my inspiration) does. There are over 120 pages worth of gossip, news and music interviews throughout my magazine which connects to the usual 130 pages in a mixmag issue. The quote from SIAN over her photo will draw the target audience in because it gives them a slight insight to what the magazine will be about. 

Overall, I am mostly happy with my front page and contents page. However, the only change I would make is to the layout of the front page because I'm not 100% sure that I will use this in the final piece.

Drafting and planning

I have used Amity Jack as the font for the main title 'contents' and for 'www.movemusic.com'.
This is also going to be the font for my masthead. This will create a level of consistency throughout my magazine. Also because of the constant use of Courier New and Consolas.
Here is another edition of my contents page with the updated font:

The new use of Amity Jack makes the magazine appear less boring and more professional as it's similar to the font used for the masthead on DJ magazine. For example:

This shows I am using my magazines of inspiration as an influence for my changes made to my own music magazine. This blog post links to my post from Wednesday 28th January as I have used the font Amity Jack of which I said I was going to do.

Organisation

I am planning to take even more photos of my main artist SIAN. This is because, for my magazine front page I'd like a wider variety of shots. I'm looking to get the perfect MCU which enough space around the edges to put many different cover stories. I find that in my previous drafts there is not enough space to position the cover stories because it appears that they are overlapping the main artist image and taking away its prominence.
I would like a similar image to the one I already have...

However, I think the shot needs to be longer. Although it is uncommon to promote negative space on a magazine, my inspiration 'mixmag' uses this to its advantage. For example:

I think that if I use smaller font for my stories, my magazine front page might have a larger focus on the main artist.I also like this shot of Tensnake and Nile Rodgers because they look quite mysterious and this entices the target audience and engages them in the magazine. I might use this as an idea for when I take more pictures for my magazine in the very near future (tomorrow). I like the way that the stories are positioned in each corner rather than smothering the main artists because that shows that they are really owning the front page. 

If I use the above when taking my new images ^ I should have a successful range with lots of space to play around with and use to my advantage just as mixmag does.

Drafting and planning

This is my first official draft for my contents page for move music magazine:

By taking on advice from my peer assessor, I have now completed an improved version for my move music magazine...

I have completely changed the layout and colour scheme.
Firstly, I changed the background colour to black because this is what typical mixmag magazines have. The colour black will remind the reader of a dark night club for example. I made the main artist image smaller but kept it still prominent. I think the background of the main image being lime green keeps a sense of consistency and it compliments the black, white and burgundy. I have used a larger number of magazine stories, there are over 112 pages worth - this is similar to mixmag... the monthly issue has around 130 pages. I kept the fonts consistent by using Consolas and Courier New. In the next official draft I will use Amity Jack for the titled font. By highlighting the titles of stories in burgundy, it makes them stand out from the main stories which are highlighted in white. I changed the colour of the facebook and twitter logo to lime green to add to the consistent colour scheme; and changed the page number to a lime green colour too. I ensured that I added the URL's so that readers know where to find move magazine online. I added the numbers over the secondary images so that readers can easily access those stories and find the pages. I used a quote from the main artist over the image on the page to make it seem interesting and busy. I have now realised that the small details are very important and will continue to tweak bits of my contents page until it is perfect.
My magazine now looks not too dissimilar to a mixmag contents page: