Pictures and photoshoot for magazine

Before starting my magazine, I have to take some pictures which I can include in my magazine using props and professional camera equipment to make my pictures a good standard to give it a real magazine look. I know after I take my pictures that I will later edit them using Photoshop to improve the quality of them and make them have a professional finish.
I am also considering what models I will use and what 'look' I want them to have. I want my model not to have a 'pop' colourful look but more of a grudge look which I think fits my magazine genre the most. I have decided to choose Nicole to model for my magazine as I think she fits this genre. 
I do not plan on using many props, I am possibly thinking of using a guitar and a poster which has a homely fan feel to it which is what Enter Shikari symbolize.

Publication Plan

Publication Plan

 

Name of magazine: Zzzonked!

 

Font of name: undecided

 

Positioning statement: middle of magazine

 

Frequency of publication: every week

 

Price: £2.10

 

Distribution: supermarkets, shops, band websites 

 

Rationale: (what is the thinking behind the magazine - have you identified a gap in the market?) I have a passion for Enter Shikari and I have seen a gap in the market as there isn't many magazines that are targeted at one band and there isn't one which is targeted at Enter Shikari. Enter Shikari have a huge dedicated fan base around the world which is why I think that it would be a good idea to make my magazine based around Enter Shikari and their music.

 

Style: rock, grunge, alternative, hipster

 

Regular content: regular updates on Enter Shikari, news, compititions, merch, pictures, quizes and interviews.

 

Feature content in your issue:

 

House style: what font will you use? will it be the same for articles/headings/captions? I will use a big bold font for arcticles/headings and captions, the rests of the arcticle will be usually in italics.

Explaination

Before making my music magazine, I first have to consider what models I will use, what props I will use and where I will take my pictures.
I have considered to use Nicole Laloo, Lee Edwards, Luca Everett, David Jarvis, Conor Toland and Bradley Woods to model for my magazine.
I will take my pictures in the English room where we have photography equipment.
I have yet thought of what poses I will get my models to do but I know I will use props such as a electric guitar, amp and some band merchandise when I take pictures for my music magazine.

Comparing double page sprends

The ‘We Love Pop’ double page spreads is an interview with singer Tulisa. Most of the layout is kept very interesting and eye catching as the colours which are used catch the eyes of the reader. The title and subtitles is a quote from Tulisa which she says in an interview and it is written in bold, this catches the eye of the reader as it is a strong personal opinion which will probably encourage people to read the rest of the interview. Throughout the interview, whenever Tulisa says something either shocking or gossip, it is highlighting in yellow which also catches the eye.

In the Q magazine double page spread, the layout is a lot more basic than the We Love Pop’s double page spread. The colours used are a lot more basic (black, white and red), this could be because of the target audience which both the magazines are aimed at are different. We Love Pop would be aimed at teenage pop lovers, possibly female and Q would be more aimed at people who enjoy rock and alternative music, slightly aimed for at males.

The language used in both of the double page spreads is also different. In We Love Pop, the language used is quite general chat and friendly whereas in Q magazine, it involves jokes and sound more rock n roll.

Target audience research

Before starting my magazine, I have decided to make a questionnaire which asks a few questions which will help me find out firstly, who my target audience are, and what they expect from my magazine, so I am able to try and meet those aims to try and achieve the best magazine for my target audience. Below, I will attach what my questionnaire asked and what results I had received from my questionnaire.

The first question I asked was how old the person questioned was and I have made pie charts to show all of my results.

From this pie chart, I can clearly see that the main age I will be aiming my magazine at is 15 to 20 year olds. This will help me identify how to style my magazine and what types of tone throughout the magazine I shall use. I will keep my magazine in almost a banter tone, as Enter Shikari are seen to be a band which don't take life too seriously which is what their fans will expect to see in the magazine.

I also asked people what type of music mostly interested them. From the results, you can see a huge variety of mixture but people mostly prefer rock/dubstep. As I am planning to make my magazine about Enter Shikari, this will fit well as Enter Shikari don't want to label themselves with a genre but their music tends to be a mixture of rock and dubstep which fits the majority of results.

Out of interest, I also decided to compare two completely different styled bands to see which the people I questioned prefer. The results show a clear preference in Enter Shikari, showing that the people I question have an interest in the band I want to aim my magazine about.

As internet is growing especially in my identified target audience of people aged 15 to 20, I thought that asking whether people would rather buy a magazine or read about their band on the internet and surprisingly to some, most prefer to buy a magazine to read about the band meaning that my magazine has growing interest from my target audience.

Beginning plan for my magazine

I have been working on a rough plan for how I am going to order my music magazine front cover and contents page. This is the first plan I have made so it is not very detailed but it has a rough idea of where I want to place things on my front cover and contents page which should be useful when I start making my actual magazine. Below, I am going to included pictures of my first plan which I will follow when starting to make my magazine. As this is only a plan, I will probably consider changing a lot of the layout when finding out about my target audiences' wants and needs for a music magazine and also on peoples opinions.



 

Preliminary Task explination

On my previous post, I have uploaded pictures of my preliminary task of where I had to make a school magazine. I decided to make a magazine for sixth formers as I know the target audience very well and can relate to it, which made sense for me to target my magazine at it.
I used basic fonts to keep it simple as I know that teenagers don't want to have loads of different things thrown at them and prefer simplicity.
My contents page is kept relatively simple and easy to navigate as you can see every story easily, which is what most teenagers would like from a school magazine.
If I were to do my preliminary task again, I would make sure I have less empty spaces on my cover page as it doesn't look very eye catching or exciting which are words that teenagers would usually use to describe themselves.

Preliminary Task - School magazine cover and contents page

The image above is of my school magazine front page and the picture below is an image of my school magazine cover page.

 

Music Magazine Moodboard Homework

For homework, we were asked to make a moodboard with possible ideas which could be included in our music magazine. I have thought about making an music magazine based around one band, Enter Shikari, as I have a high interest in them and they have a very big fan base in their specific genre. Below, I have included a Prezi presentation including my moodboard ideas for this magazine, although it is very likely my ideas will change when I make my actual magazine.

http://prezi.com/wlbblfeyikfa/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-wlbblfeyikfa&rc=ref-33360141

Comparing two magazine covers

                                                          Comparing two magazine covers

 

In the two magazines I have compared (Kerrang! & Total Guitar), I found many similarities and differences between the two covers and what language and presentational devices that they have used. Both of them fit into the ‘rebel’ rock genre and it is very interesting to see what both of the magazines put on the cover for it to sell and how they differentiate and also how they’re similar.

A similarity in both of the covers is that Billie Joe Armstrong is the key figure on the cover, and in both of the magazines his head covers the title of the magazine but the big subheading ‘Green Day’ goes over his picture in both of the covers. This is showing that usually, the readers from Kerrang! and Total Guitar will know what the title looks like as they would have most likely purchased the magazine before so they will be able to spot it in the shop easily without the worry of the title being unclear to the customer. This means that both of the magazines can allow themselves to put a key icon such as Billie Joe Armstrong on the cover of the magazine.

The subheading which is going over both of the cover pictures which says ‘Green Day’ is there incase someone is unaware that Billie Joe Armstrong (in the picture) is in Green Day as they may like the band, they will be more likely to purchase the magazine based on the fact that they like Green Day but just may not know what the members look like. In both of the magazines, Green Day is in big bold writing in bright colours (In Kerrang! it is a florescent red colour and in Total Guitar it is a bright hot pink), this automatically grabs the reader’s attention.

A difference in Kerrang! and Total Guitars is the colouring used on the covers of the magazine. Total Guitars generally have used dull faded out black and white colours throughout the cover (apart from the subheadings) and Kerrang! have used bright eye-catching colours such as yellow and red on their magazine. I think that Total Guitars have showed a more sophisticated approach in their cover whereas Kerrang! have just used eye grabbing colours which would most likely catch the eye of more people who are interested in music rather than Total Guitars.

Both of the magazines have used pronouns such as ‘your’ on the cover of the magazines. This speaks directly to the speaker and makes them feel like the magazine is speaking out to them. Kerrang! have even underlined the word ‘your’ which is allowing the reader to feel apart of the magazine and like they are interacting.

I have learnt from comparing and looking at both of these magazine colours that presentational devices and language used on magazine covers are highly important because presentational devices such as colour could effect on how many readers the magazine has due to some magazines such as Kerrang!, using eye catching colours and getting a huge amount of readers and possibly being more well-known than Total Guitar which uses more dull colours throughout their cover which grabs less readers attention. Language is also important because when pronouns such as ‘your’ are used, they allow the reader to feel involved and I think I will be including pronouns on my magazine cover to allow readers to feel involved.

Research on Magazine Publishers

Bauer Media
Bauer Media publishes magazines such as Closer, Zoo, Match!, Mother & Baby, Heat and Kerrang!. Bauer Media is built on influential media brands with millions of personal relationships with engaged readers and listeners. Their strategy is to connect audiences with excellent content through their broad multi-touch point brand platforms, wherever and whenever and however they want. They are very diverse as they publish many different type of genres of magazines. Bauer Media's wide portfolio of influential brands gives them advantages over pure play magazine or radio competitors. They are very successful and publish dozens of popular magazines. (Source from http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/)


National Magazine Company
National Magazine Company publishes magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Best, Men's Health, Reveal, Thriathalete's World, All About Soap and many more. National Magazine Company's  major interests include magazine, newspaper and business publishing, cable networks, television and radio broadcasting, internet businesses, TV production and distribution, newspaper features distribution and real estate. They are highly succesful and have recieved many awards. (Source from http://www.hearst.co.uk/)

Future Publishing
Future Publishing publishes magazines such as Classic Ford, Total Guitar, Classic Rock, PhotoPlus, Cycling Plus and Simply Kitting. Future was founded with one magazine, today they have operations in the UK, US and Australia creating over 200 specialist publications, apps, websites and events. They are succesful in the magazines that they publish and they have won awards for AOP Consumer Digital Publisher of the Year 2012 and PPA Digital Consumer Publisher of the Year 2012. (Source from http://www.futureplc.com/)

IPC Media
IPC Media publish magazines such as NME, Woman's Weekly, Now, Nuts, and many others.
IPC Media is the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisherw ith more than 60 iconic media brands, IPC creates content for multiple platforms, across print, online, mobile, tablets and events. They engage with 26 million UK adults - almost two thirds of UK women and over 40% of UK men. Their award winning portfolio of websites reaches over 25 million global users every month. They are very succesful with a good portfolio and a range of different diverse genres of magazines. (Source from http://www.ipcmedia.com/)

Conde Nast
Conde Nast publishes magazines such as Glamour, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Brides and Easy Living. They publish magazines which are usually aimed at women and are usually of a fashion genre. They are highly succesful as the majority of their magazines are very well known and popular and usually are expensive.

Hachette Filipacchi
In France, Hachette Filipacchi publish 47 magazines such as Elle France, Ici Paris, Joystick and Photo.

Things included in a school magazine

We also studied what would be inside a school magazine as we will be making a school magazine in the near future. These are the ideas I have come up with what would be included in the magazine would be:
- recent news about school 
- pictures
- recent events (e.g. sports day, arts evening)
- in school competitons 
- students work
- upcoming events
- student & staff included in magazine
- benefits the students
- informs parents/students/teachers/staff

Things included in a regular magazine Contents page

It is highly important I acknowledge what is inside a contents page as later on in the year I will be making my own magazine which contains a contents page. Earlier this month, we learnt about what is inside a contents page and our class came up with these ideas:
- whats inside the magazine (titles of articles with maybe a few summary lines)
- page numbers of articles
- pictures relating to what's inside (different variety of pictures e.g. types and sizes)
- captions
- quotes
- possibly the editor's letter
- a title saying contents page (or similar)
- usually placed at the beginning of the magazine
- easy to navigate

Attached below is an example of a contents page including some of the points above.

 
 

Homework- Analysing the Ruislip Eye magazine cover

We were set homework to analyze the cover of the Ruislip Eye magazine and this is what I done.

Analysing a magazine

Today, we looked at the covers of a magazine. I looked at a cover of Heat and had to annotate the features used on the cover. I looked at the colours used, the sizes of the pictures/fonts and the varieties of them. We also had to think about why they would be used and why this is important to a magazine. I think that this was very beneficial because I know that every time I look at a magazine now, I will evaluate it more and give more thought into why certain colours, fonts and quotes are used.

How colours on magazines effect their popularity

As you are aware, there are many very popular and money making magazines. There is a reason for this. If you were to go into a shop and see many magazines on the shelf, how would you choose a magazine? It has been proven that colours such as yellow and pink catch the readers attention the most. Magazines such as 'Closer' and 'Heat' (pictures below) use a lot of these colours to grab the readers attention and make them stand out from all the competitive magazines.

I never really gave any thought into how colours can make such an effect before I started this course, but now I realise the importance of how a magazine would be effected if they used dull colours that didn't catch the buyers attention.