Adam Temple-Heald's AS Media Blog: October 2013

Magazine Proposal

My magazine will be called either ‘The Surge’ or ‘Overcharged’, as both of these names link to electricity, which is going to be the main type of music; electronic. The main genre of my magazine will be electronic/dance music and related subjects with the sub-genre being film and film related subjects. The magazine will be influenced by Mixmag as this is the biggest and most successful dance music magazine out there so they mus be doing something right to have amassed a . My target audience will be aged 15-25 as this is the age of most people who enjoy electronic music.

They have to enjoy electronic/dance music otherwise there’s no point in buying the magazine being as though that’s what it’s predominantly going to be about, they will have to watch films (which I think most people do anyway) as there will be quite a large focus on upcoming films and reviews, interviews etc. If they use social networks such as twitter and instagram they will be able to interact with the magazine more as I’d put competitions up on these sites and put up additional content. I’ll be doing a tutorial section in the magazine as they could be interested in making their own films so I’m going to include tips and hints on how to do this, maybe with help from experts, and I’ll possibly add in special deals on equipment for this. I will also do a section on how to make your own music including software and deals on the equipment and software. Other advert/special offers will include competitions, money off article related things, discounts in shops, discounts on venue tickets and phone contracts. Another main part of the magazine will be interviews with music artists, and interviews with film makers. And there will be reviews of clubs and venues by fellow readers/clubbers. Plus a possible small section of “Tweet of the Week” in which I’ll pick out the best tweets from famous music or film producers.

I’m not 100% sure what colour scheme I want to use yet, but it will be a mix of 3 colours so it doesn’t look too formal and will be more eye catching. But it will most likely involve yellow or red to connote the energy of electronic music.

The magazine will be published by Development Hell Ltd. as this is the company that publishes Mixmag, and Mixmag is very successful and experienced in publishing dance magazines, so it’ll help get my magazine into circulation, and will be distributed via print (physical magazine). My magazine will cost no more than £5, this is because I want anyone to be able to buy it and it will be released either once a week or preferably once every 2 weeks so then more content can be added and the quality will be better as it won’t be as rushed, but I don’t want people waiting ages for each issue so once every two weeks works really well.

Most magazines just interview bands/people and just throw information at you, whereas my magazine will be more interactive as you’ll be able to learn things from the people being interviewed. And the magazine will heavily involve ‘How To’ tutorials inside so the reader can have a go at what the professionals do, but in a step by step way. I believe that this will be quite a big selling point.

Ideal Audience Mood Board

Ideas for my own music magazine

Contents Page Evaluation

Evaluation

For one of my preliminary tasks I was asked to create a contents page for a magazine for Aquinas College, and in creating this I used as many conventions as I could from my previous research to make it as good as possible.

First of all the title of the page ‘Contents’ is the biggest piece of text on the page; I did this so the reader can easily find the contents page if they’re flicking through the magazine. It also follows the same design as the front cover title, thus following the house style. I placed it at the top as this is probably the best place for titles as they can easily be seen.

Now, as for the images, I used the same background for all of them as I felt it looked tidier and has a connotation of professionalism to it, and nothing really takes the spotlight away from anything else, only the size and positioning does that. The main image, the one linked to the main story, is the largest and positioned in the center to show its importance which also makes it the most eye catching. The other two then link with the two stories on front cover, but with different pictures. Each image is accompanied by a caption which explains the story in more detail, just enough to make you want to find that page and read more about it. Each picture also has a page number overlaying on top of it; this makes it really easy to find the page this story is on.

In my editor’s letter I tried to be really friendly to the reader to break the barrier between editor and reader, but then also be quite formal as I didn’t have much room to write in so it had to be quite to the point. To finish off my editor’s letter I ended by signing my name off, this lets the readers know who the editor is and adds a friendly feel to it again. And then I put a picture of the editor at the bottom just to let the audience know what he looks like, and he’s doing a thinking pose giving him the status of being smart and thoughtful.

Finally, I gave the features column a whole side to itself being as though it has a lot of information in it. For each story I put a red page number in front of it which contrasted with the white and black text making it easily noticeable, and then after the page number would be the title of the article then a short description of the story, much shorter than that of the main and secondary stories.

Throughout both the front cover and the contents page I kept with a slight cartoon theme, by putting black borders around a lot of things, and by overlaying cartoonish things over pictures of real people (e.g. the thought bubble with the twitter logo in it). This gives the magazine a comic kind of feel, and is perfect for the target audience of college students (aged 16-18).

Overall I feel as though I did a good job with my contents page as it links in with and has the same house style as the front cover, like you could see these two pieces being part of the same magazine. I really like the clean and tidy layout too, it makes everything easy to find and pick out. If I could change something it would be to add more stories into the features section and mention the iPhone competition with an added picture of it.

Contents page final design

Front Cover Evaluation

Evaluation

For one of my preliminary tasks I was asked to create a front cover for a magazine for Aquinas College, and in creating this I used as many conventions as I could from my previous research to make it as good as possible.

Before I did anything else I designed and placed the masthead. I went for a typical newspaper name to fit the genre of what my magazine was about; weekly news. I chose the first ‘A’ in Aquinas to be red as in the college’s actual logo this is what it looks like, I then carried on this trend to the word ‘Weekly’ underneath to keep up with the pattern to make it look more professional. I made the masthead the biggest text on the cover as this is the brand and what people will see when they pick up the magazine. The font of the masthead is the main font used throughout the whole of the magazine making it fit in with the house style really well.

Just above the masthead I placed a thin banner to put the issue number and date in, I made it small because these features aren’t really important to the reader, but are vital to a magazine front cover. I also placed a banner at the bottom of the cover; this one is much bolder than the top one. This is because it promotes the magazine which makes readers want to pick it up, and it will make the reader think that this magazine is “the best college magazine going” so more people will want to read it as it’s supposedly the best.

Next up is the main cover story. The picture I used was of the person who the story is about, and she is looking directly at the camera which engages with the audience, again making the reader want to read on, she is also smirking like she’s doing something she shouldn’t which links to the main story itself. I filled most of the page with this picture, overlaying everything else over it, this is because it’s the most important story. I used a blank background as I didn’t want anything to distract the reader from the main image, and it to just be her as the story is all about her. In the main story’s headline I wrote it as if it’s actually saying it to the reader, asking for help, again engaging the reader. I broke the house style of the magazine with this headline as it’s blue and white instead of red and white, but this makes it stand out more and also links with the colour of twitter which is blue.

The secondary stories I made much smaller than the main story as they’re not as important and I put them to one side to make it look tidy. There are black borders around each picture to make them easily identifiable, so they don’t merge in with the background. I put the captions under the picture they link with making it easy to read for the reader, and the fonts and colour also fit in with the house style. I made certain words red to draw the reader’s attention to them. I also made the pictures the same size so it looks tidier.

Finally, I put the pug/competition in the bottom left corner of the main image, which is somewhere where people will look but it doesn’t remove the attention from any of the stories. I made the word ’WIN’ stand out more as this will catch reader’s attention.

Overall I am very happy with my front cover; I think it looks like it would as for a proper front cover. Although I would change one thing, and that would be to make the main story headline more eye catching as it seems to blend in with the man image to much.