Double Page Spread Analysis

Proposal - Polaris

This is a music magazine that will place the focus on Indie artists. Indie Artists that are yet to be discovered and are carving a name for themselves on the likes of YouTube and Soundcloud.

This is Polaris.

The name chosen links to the North Star, which is the brightest star in the sky. It is an awesome thing to convey and it gives musicians something to aspire to and interpret in their own way.

This is a completely uncharted genre for music magazines and in this digital age we believe artists and music listeners will jump at the opportunity to discover new musicians as well as the chance to be magazine stars themselves.

Also, when these rising talents become popular the recognition will come straight back to Polaris magazine.

We are also hoping to feature musicians who have hit the big-time themselves providing interviews and exclusive stories to motivate the readers (and we’re aware cover stars need to be able to attract their own audience).

What will be an innovative development is the focus on digital publication. While there will still be a fortnightly printed issue, the focus in-house will be on the weekly digital publication which will update automatically throughout the week once purchased with the latest news, fixing the misconception that in the digital age magazines are obsolete and out of date.

The Fortnightly print issue will be an amalgamation of the two issues, meaning those who want to purchase in print won’t miss out on anything. We are also developing a unique version of QR codes which will allow anyone who downloaded our app to access links to songs or videos on their phone/ipod/ipad.

We want to provide tasteful colour schemes, featuring subdued tones and variations on a set colour each issue, this will provide a recognisable design.

We believe Polaris is the magazine that will find the future before anyone else.

Production Diary: 27/09/13 - Proposal Development

This week we have worked on our Proposal and creating a profile on our target audience.

For me, this has actually been very enjoyable, as I like creating the sort of character who would read my magazine. It’s a lot of fun imagining who would be the kind of person who would read this magazine, and come production I can see myself tailoring the needs for “Scott”.

The Proposal is a bit more difficult. Finding a Unique selling point is very hard and the one thing I thought was original - weekly, but artistic and high quality - is actually being covered by NME. I now have the choice of developing something entirely new (and potentially not as successful) or working on something similar and risk covering the same ground.

I am contemplating appealing to the obscure-indie side of things, so obscure; they're only artists on YouTube. This could add to a higher focus on the digital side of things as this audience are more likely to want to access it like that. Digital also means an option for a cheaper copy as it doesn't have to be printed.

Overall, I am still enjoying this topic. On Monday I will be posting a video of my analysis of Double Page Spreads inside established music magazines using different software not yet seen on my blog, so stay tuned!

Audience Profile

Scott is a 20something year old who isn’t sure where he’s going in his life. He shares a flat with a roommate with similar taste and is even in a band. Nothing serious - just messing around with guitars and making music. He and his friends are eager to upload their songs to their YouTube and Sound cloud page for people to listen and they love feedback.

Scott often finds himself networking over forums and Facebook with other musicians and is eager to connect with more.

One thing Scott loves more than good music, is new good music. He jumps at recommendations to hear new songs.

Outside of music, Scott appreciates films with Ryan Reynolds in and anything that can make him laugh. He tried watching the Kings Speech once but decided it was too heavy-going.

Scott and his friends all have Iphones and a many of them are eager to invest in Ipads. While his friends are all for purchasing magazines digitally, Scott values the collection aspect and keeps his physical copies. However, for some reason he doesn’t mind digital music; a consensus amongst his friends. “It’s just easier” they said.

While music is, and always will be done for the love of it, Scott dreams of being appreciated, which is why he and his friends jumped at the opportunity to pick up Polaris magazine due to its cheap price and seemingly tailor-made to them.  He waits for the physical copy, content with the QR codes with his IPhone to access digital content but his friends get the weekly digital copy and appreciate the embedded hyperlinks to new musicians.

They are hoping to be featured in the magazine, having just submitted a few of their best songs. Best of luck to them!

 

Survey

Please Check out my Survey!

My survey was designed to examine the views and opinions of potential readers. I have attempted to make as many questions as possible "Multiple Choice" to make it easier for the people filling it out. I have focused my questions on ones that will allow me to understand what readers and buyers are looking for - especially in respect to the digital aspect of it. My survey has directly impacted my decision to make the coverstars of the magazine established artists as that is what my audience wants.

Contents Page Evaluation

Production Diary: 20/09/13 - Preliminary Task

This week I put the finishing touches on my preliminary task and typed up the evaluation.

We have also produced a survey for product research for our music magazines. I can see how beneficial this will be for the final product, assuming the people who fill in the survey are the target audience. 

This will help me understand what the audience is looking for in a music magazine and what features it will include. I hope to get a good number of people looking at my Survey in order to receive the optimum amount of input.

Once more, I have been considering possible genre of music magazine to create. I had briefly considered a very childish pop magazine in the vain of Top of the Pops, but I have become aware that it will be problematic to photograph as it'd be rare to have a photo of the models where they look like anything other than a sixth-former attempting to be a Pop-Star.

I have settled on an Indie-Rock magazine, and I am considering outfits as it is likely to lend itself to the colour scheme. One possibility is using a countries' flag, such as the Union Flag as that is a very recognisably iconic set of colours and reinforces the Indie or Lesser Known aspect as it suggests it's focusing on the British music industry.

Preliminary Evaluation

Preliminary Task Evaluation

For my Preliminary task I developed a school magazine. I used a full bleed image I took, I chose the image due to the colours provided – I kept the whole cover featuring a blend of Yellow, blue and red, all taken from different areas of the image or logo. The Headline features colour from the wall, behind my model which meant I didn’t have to generate a new colour which would contributed to making the magazine look very messy.

The grab lines on the right were created to entice the potential reader to pick up and find out about Mr Jones’ favourite cup of tea.

My contents page features a full bled image of the canteen, generating a kind of house style between the two pages as it links to the previous image. The colour-scheme continues, using the red of the column on the cover.

The contents features a blend of text and images to make it look exciting.

I took all the images used in these two pages and I chose the six I used out of 22. They were the most striking photos with stories to tell.

This was the first time I had used InDesign and while it was initially confusing to use, by the end of the project I felt very comfortable with it.

To help my design of the contents page I divided it into three columns which allowed me to break up all the content and divide it all equally over an area. I used the first column on the contents page for an editorial comment from the fictitious Edd with a photo to provide reference, a technique used in many magazines.

Overall, my two pages became quite professional with consistent fonts and colour scheme.

Preliminary Video

I have here a couple of videos displaying the development of my cover and contents page.

 



Preliminary Task

Magazine Cover Analysis

I've been assigned the task of analysing three magazine covers. After seeing the wide variation in Tesco over the weekend, I opted to choose three very different music magazines.

1. Q

Q is a monthly music magazine covering the Indie Rock genre of music. The consistent house style is the red Q in the top left corner. This edition features the lovely Florence (minus the machine) as a cover star. What is worth noting is that the creators of Q have opted out of overly sexualising her in the image which can be the norm with females on the covers of magazines. The image instead focuses on attracting people with the vibrant colours of Florence's hair and makeup contrasting with her pale skin. This appeals to their demographic of music listeners who are far more likely to appreciate music on its own merits, not relating to the attractiveness of the artist.

The hooklines link to articles within the magazine and promise features that will appeal to their readership - the 16-Page Gig Guide would have likely been published during festival season, when the readers are likely to go to see their favourite bands for the first time. The pull line for Skrillex raises a debate many readers feel passionate about one way or another and are likely to want to read the view of writers, who's opinion they respect.

2. Kerrang!

Kerrang covers a different genre to Q and therefore appeals to a different demographic. This time, teens or young adults who like rock. These readers will appreciate the promise of posters inside as they are more likely to place them on their wall than readers of other magazines. 

The band's facial expressions seem very aggressive and chaotic (except for the guy on the right, who doesn't look like he's even trying) which would appeal to their target audience of individualists who want to rebel against the "system" and listening to a different genre of music not considered pop. The bright colours make the magazine stand out amongst the others and give it a distinctive style.

3. Guitarist

This is a very obviously different style of music magazine, intended for the creators instead of the consumers. There are no singers or bands on this cover, instead a very striking blue electric guitar. This magazine will, I imagine, appeal to the must niche market out of the ones I have chosen to analyse. It is only those with a prior knowledge of guitar playing who will consider buying this. The interviews it offers aren't well known people yet I imagine due to their prominence appearing on the cover they will be recognisable to the community. The promise of 51 pages of product reviews highlights the main content of the magazine and shows the reader what they can expect.

Production Diary: 13/09/13 - New Softwares

This week I have been introduced to the E-Design software, which I have been using to create the preliminary task.

Initially I am finding the software slightly confusing (I have issue with the framing of images) but I know that it will be better than photoshop once I have mastered it. I have found it especially useful when it has come to choosing the colour for the text, I am able to use a tool to take a colour from a photo I have used - this is very beneficial when developing a colour scheme or house style.

I believe my prelimnary task to be complete, I just need to evaluate it. Despite it not being marked, I have enjoyed myself creating the school magazine and I've put a lot of thought into it.

I have also put more thought into the music magazine I will create for the final task. While I previously considered creating a musician's music magazine (with focus on the development of music as opposed to what is being released) but as proven in my post where I discussed the covers - there isn't much I feel I could evaluate. Therefore I will begin putting thought into a music magazine covering rock as that is the genre I feel most comfortable discussing.

Every little helps...

Was dragged to Tescos Extra in Watford last night (they've redecorated - I don't like it) and when checking out the magazine aisle I was actually very surprised to see how vast and diverse the music 'section' was.

The most noticeable things I noticed included the difference in Target audience which I believe can be divided into two major categories which anyone purchasing a music magazine will fall into - the listeners and the creators.

I imagine there is a huge difference between the content of Q, say, and Guitarist. This is because The latter is much more likely to focus on creating music than pointing people to songs/albums to listen to.

This has left me aware that my music magazine has a wide berth when it comes to the production.

Preliminary Task Planning

The Preliminary Task we were asked to do was to create a School Magazine. Here is a mock up of what my cover may look like.

I chose to make mine slightly tongue in cheek, because who doesn’t love a bit of Satire? The main image was chosen due to the bright colours already provided; the yellow lends itself to a very simplistic colour scheme of Primary colours, tying in with the school theme. I am likely to change the main image for the final cover as I believe it is too plain for the main story - then again, it is a school magazine. The Two secondary articles were placed there due to being decent photos - The Portaloo and my friend Zak licking a column are both very striking images in their own way. I chose to give them their own hooks, presenting (what I believe would be) a very interesting story. For my final Cover I am likely to put more features and articles. The Mockup was created in Powerpoint and I am looking forwards to starting to use the new software.