Double Page Spread article - First draft

Here is the first draft of my double page spread article. It may be slightly short but remember it is only a first attempt. This is written as the main story to the cover about the new singer Vikki Rose. Feel free to criticize on parts I could add or change.

Main Task - Front Cover First Draft

I have completed my front cover's draft. Here is my result, I am very happy with what I have done. I apologise for the loss of quality due to blogger's limit, considering the image was quite a large attachment.

I placed Vikki's hair over the top of the title as it looks like she is leaning out of the picture, so it makes it look more realistic. I included an "EXCLUSIVE" extra to show that there is backstage info inside the magazine, to get the customers' attention, as we all like a bit of extra gossip. I also included a "Get your next issue FREE" sticker type thing on the front so that people can keep up to date with their next issue without having to pay, basically giving 2 magazines for the price of 1. Everybody likes free things in life. A "Win your iPod" competition along with this makes the magazine look like its full up of extra stuff. Instead of putting the word "an" I replaced it with the word "your" to make it look like this is the way to getting your iPod, as if you win the competition, it will be "yours". Quotes have been included on the front along with the main story cover healine, showing that there is an interesting interview to be read inside. I included some famous bands on the front to make the magazine look more realistic, as though I have found out gossip about other bands, which everybody likes.

Research - Front Cover

Before finishing my magazine front cover, I decided to do some more research into what designs are already on the market and what sort of age groups that other music magazines are aimed at. I retrieved the target markets for Kerrang!, Mojo and Q at the Bauer Media site. I bought myself a Kerrang! magazine to find out what sort of headlines are used and what is mentioned on the front page. It gave me an idea of details to include and effects to use, considering my magazine was going to be based on a rock/grunge type magazine. I also looked online for other Kerrang! magazine front covers to see the different variation. To give me even more of a variation, I also decided to research into other types of music magazines such as mojo or nme. Here are some of my findings, feel free to click the links for websites and media packs!:


Kerrang!:

Audience profile for Kerrang!:

Individually minded, independent of thought and musically experienced, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty.

Mojo:

Audience Profile for Mojo:

Discerning and passionate music aficionados, the MOJO audience is predominately male (72%) and affluent (36% AB). These heavy consumers of music see their passion as discovery without boundaries, genre and decade being secondary to quality.

Q:

Audience Profile for Q:

Open minded experience seekers, the Q audience don’t define themselves by the music they listen to. Music is an important passion, but their love of music will never be to the detriment of their other passions, such as film, sport and comedy.

NME:

Key Facts for NME (Click for media pack):

Please excuse the differences between these statistics and the ones on my magazine analysis.
Price   £2.20 
Frequency  Weekly
Circulation  56,284
Readership  411,000
Launch Date 1952
Male/Female 73%/27%
Average Age 25
ABC1   73%
Target Market Men 17-30

I was inspired in many ways from these music magazines, which gave me ideas such as placing the head's of the characters on the front cover's over the title, giving a drop shadow to some of the writing or even mini pictures, using plain backgrounds, slanting some writing which is very effective, or even placing a bar across the top showing what is exclusive inside the magazine. Including circle sticker type things advertising competitions or free included tokens etc... drew my attention.

The headlines also gave me a few ideas and showed me the sort of language used inside the magazine. Writing with speechmarks indicating chunks taken from inside the magazine is very effective as it draws the reader to the idols' thoughts. I drew up a plan for a contents page for what sort of things could be included in the magazine for which people may read which also gave me ideas for headlines and pieces to take from the contents and place on the front cover, considering it is the front cover which is seen first. I realised that the main headers on the front are about the person on the front cover which gave me a huge indication of what to use for the main header on my music magazine.

Main Task - Picture Ideas 4 - Contents + DPS

Along with chosing pictures for my front cover, I decided to start chosing some to use on my contents page and in my double page spread.

For the double page spread, I am considering some of these tree ideas:

For the contents page or even the CD single cover, I think some of these may suit:

The ones of her in the snow are effective as they give a sense of lonliness which links to an emo genre.

Main Task - Picture Ideas 3 - Front Cover

After previously experimenting, I figured that the shadow from the light is going to appear rather annoying and will look really stupid in my photos, as shown clearly with the guitar over her face in the previous photos. Also, after asking a few of my rock friends what they think I should do to improve the way she appears in the photos, I adjusted some of her make up and this time decided to make her hair a little more crazy, so we put her hair up and tryed a few styles. After finally getting the right style, we again chucked on a bit of the bright red lipstick on her and this time, I asked her to adjust the way her eyeliner to a specific style, as shown in the images. As noticed from looking through a few pictures of gothic/emo type people, they have paleish faces, so we took off her make up and played around with some other types of make up. These appeared better than before. I was fairly happy with her clothing the same as before, so I thought I'd give this a try. I took some of her outside in the snow with certain poses as I thought the snow would bring a brilliant effect in the photos and also some of her in front of a tree trunk, which I thought would appear as quite a good background for the pictures. I also took many with both medium close up and close up with the same background as before. I was amazingly happy with these photos and figured I would use some of these in my magazine. I picked certain pictures which I thought would suit the front cover nicely, these are shown below.

Main Task - Picture Ideas 2

After taking the previous pictures, I decided that 1 girl standing alone would be my next idea, because to be honest, there are not many duo's in the rock industry now-a-days as they are mostly singular artists or bands. So I fetched a friend and asked her to wear something appropriate for my images, leaving her hair long and I told her she might aswell let me do her face. So when she arrived, I thought that the specific clothes she were wearing were very suitable, as little details, for example her scarf stood out quite well. Skinny jeans are also worn by rock chicks. Even boys now-a-days. I asked her to put some bright red lipstick on and to try and make her eyeliner fairly thick as it also suited the rock look. I then found a suitable plain background to take a few tester photos. I ended taking quite a few, and I quite liked the idea as having her for my choice of photos. However, these are not quite my final ones. She too did not look like she would be the rock type, without adjusting some of the make up slightly. Here are a small sample:

Main Task - Picture Ideas 1

Right so I am all happy with my title and had decided to start taking pictures for which would be included in my magazine. At first I thought two girls may suit my title, these however are not my final pictures, as I decided that they would not suit my magazine, because not only does the girl on the left looks a bit young, they do not quite look like they would be the grunge/emo or rock type. I asked them to pose and took a few pictures. Here they are:

Research - Magazine Analysis

Here is a magazine analysis of other magazines, mainly the magazine Kerrang, of which I have concentrated on researching, because I fancied creating a music magazine of a similar type. I also had a great interest in it when I was reading it.