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.