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:

Target Audience

To appeal to my target audience, I am going to attempt to mirror the mixmag contents page; I am using a black background - this will make the contents of the magazine seem a little like a night club (which is where my genre of dance music is found). I am keeping the colour of lime green consistent throughout my magazine and using a picture of my main artist SIAN on top of a lime green background; the lime green background could be interpreted as a bright light (disco light). I think the colour scheme works really well.
To keep similar fonts throughout the magazine, I am continuing to use Courier New and Consolas as the main fonts and I have now decided to use Amity Jack as my new masthead and I will use this on the font that says 'contents'. It's bold and edgy but still quite 'curly' taking the edge of formality away. As my target audience are 16-21 year old's, a bold font for the masthead/heading would not be particularly appealing. Here is an example of AMITY JACK:

Another way to successfully target my audience is through use of images: I will use more than two secondary images on the contents page. Mixmag usually uses one but to keep my magazine looking busy and interesting I will use two. This will entice the reader...
Furthermore, the layout of my contents page will have the stories in columns - because 'move' will be a monthly magazine, I must make sure it is jam-packed with stories so there will be around 80 pages worth. I will use white font for the stories but highlight the heading of the stories in burgundy to tie in with the colour scheme of the burgundy masthead. This will create symbiosis.
Overall, if I follow the above, my magazine should successfully appeal to my target audience and be not so dissimilar to mixamg or DJ either.

Drafting and planning

I have reconstructed my double page spread:

I have kept the background of my DPS lime green to create a clear connection and consistency between the front page, contents page and double page spread. I have kept the layout not too dissimilar from the first attempt; the main artist is positioned slightly tilted to the right hand side which connects to usual dance music magazine's. I decided to keep the secondary image of S.O.D. over the artist image to make the page look busier and more interesting. However, to improve on my use of secondary images I will use a caption underneath in my third draft. I used white highlighting over the most important text in the article in attempt to make it stand out to readers and seem quite bold and edgy to appeal to my target audience. I ensured that the heading and subheading are bigger and bolder to differentiate themselves from the main article. The article itself is an interview with SIAN regarding her album success and new tour. I made sure the font is really small to make it appear like a real life article. Overall I am happy with my second attempt of a double page spread; I think it seems pretty realistic. 

Organisation / Drafting and planning

To improve on my contents page:

I am going to change the layout completely. Firstly, I am going to remove the main artist image as it's been pixelated because of the sizing. This means I will need to use a better quality image if I want to stretch it out as much as I have.

I will not use the masthead again on my final contents page because it could bring confusion to the reader as to whether they are looking at the right page or not. It also takes up too much room and a contents page is supposed to be full of juicy information and gossip that will be revealed later on in the magazine.

Between the black highlighted boxes, I should think about using spaces to ensure that it looks modern and fresh to appeal to my target audience as it creates a sense of simplicity and boldness. 

I must make sure that I edit the secondary images well so that they don't appear pixelated like the main image and have bits erased or not present e.g. half of a finger missing etc. 

I must ensure that there is a consistency of fonts as I could keep the contents stories the same as the masthead but differ the main artists quote font on her main image to give her a specific identity. 

I must make sure that all images on the contents page are prominent and aren't overlapped by the stories to give them a sense of importance and allow them to stand out to the reader.

I am doing this because looking closely at magazine's such as mixmag I have noticed that I have lots of room for improvement:

I can use negative space around the artist to feature my articles and like I said ^ I'll use highlighted boxes, this links to this cover of mixmag. This magazine has a variety of fonts but looking closely, even so, the ones used are consistent; the cover lines are the same font as the title. I'll have to do this in my magazine to stick to the generic conventions found in this edition of mixag.