Finished Product Analysis

Final Front Cover Design
When producing my final product, I had a lot of decisions to make that would affect whether or not my magazine would appeal to my target audience.
The target audience for my magazine I had decided would be young readers and teenagers around the ages of 11-16 years old. I had to keep this in mind when creating my final product so that my work would be as effective as possible.
When choosing each aspect of my magazine, I referred back to the research I had made on teen pop magazines, so that my magazine would follow the conventions and would be appropriate for my readers.
The main thing I noticed about the teen pop magazines that I researched was that the front covers were all very bright and colourful, which would appeal to the eye of younger readers and would appear very attractive and stand out on the shelves amongst magazines with a blander colour scheme. I decided there and then that I would try and make my magazine front cover as bright and attractive as possible so it was in-keeping with the conventions I had looked at.
I also had to make sure that I kept the average conventions of a music magazine the same (masthead, headline, plugs, main image, ect), so I referred back to my earlier research to do so.

The first thing I chose about my magazine is the background colour. I wanted a bright and bold colour that would stand out from the page, and would make the magazine look attractive, and would fit in with the bold and bright colour scheme that I was going for. I chose a bright purple colour, because I hadn't used the colour anywhere else in my magazine, and it was a bright and attractive colour, which I think would attract my target audience and make them want to pick up my magazine. I also had to pick a colour that could be seen as gender neutral, although from my research, it was shown that the majority of readers for a teen pop magazine were going to be girls rather than boys.

I placed my magazine masthead in the top left hand corner of my cover, which is conventional of most magazine front covers that I have looked at. I made the majority of the masthead black, as there was lack of this colour on my front cover, and I thought it would stand out from the purple background. I chose to make the first letter of the masthead a different colour though so it would make it look more attractive to my audience. I chose yellow as it contrasts with the black lettering of the rest of my masthead, and the purple background colour. Another convention I'd noticed when researching most magazines, is that they featured a strapline of some sort, so I thought it was only right to include one of those in my final design. I had the idea to include two straplines, rather than one though to really let my audience know what my magazine was about. These are located right across the top of my magazine, and just underneath the masthead. I made the one across the top 0f my magazine (which reads "your one and only stop for the latest in pop") stand out from the page by using a yellow and pink font. This made it look attractive, and noticebly different from the other strapline underneath my masthead (which reads "britain's top teen pop magazine"), which was just in a plain black font, so that the audience would relate that strapline to the masthead. I thought adding these two features to my magazine would help the audience understand what kind of music genre they would expect to find inside the magazine, if the rest of the front cover was not a good indicator.

I wanted the main focus of my magazine cover to be the main image used, so I tried to make it as large as possible, which I found was also one of the conventions of any magazine. Because of the genre of my magazine being teen pop music, I wanted to make the image I would use be really bright and colourful, so that it would not only be attractive to my audience, but it would also relate back to the content of my magazine. I chose to use three models dressed in fairly bright clothes, and all dressed in different colours, so that they would all be noticed from each other and would stand out on the page. I chose to edit out the background of the original image and add in a white background to make the colours of the image really stand out and pop, so that the image would work to its full potential. I also made the models in the image look up, with the smallest model in the middle (which was convenient being the only female) and taking the shot from above. I think the shot works as it is flattering as the angle works really well. I didn't want to use too many other images on the cover, so I used one other smaller photograph in the bottom left hand corner of my cover. Because all of our images had to be original, I had to improvise when creating artists for my magazine. I used a medium close up image of my model, and I again edited out the background of the image, which made the image more noticeable. I chose not to add in any other background colour, and just added it over the top of my purple cover background. I added a bright headline over the top, in fairly small font so it would not be too dominant of the page, but would still be readable. I also added a plug detailing the page number of the said article.


Final Contents Page Design

Final double page spread Design

Final Magazine Drafts

Possible images I may use in my music magazine

Drafts of My Music Magazine Front Cover, Double Page Spread and Contents Page

Deciding upon a name, genre and audience for my magazine
The next task in the project was to come up with an original masthead name that would be inkeeping with the style of a contemporary music magazine. At this stage, I have decided that I am going to create a pop music style magazine, due to the lack of available pop focused magazines available on sale in the general market. I want my name to be catchy and memorable, and also sound fun and endearing, as this is the image I want my magazine to follow. My magazine will be aimed at the young teenage generation of readers, so the layout and style of my magazine, as well as the artists and content featured in the magazine will have to be age appropriate. It is very important that the masthead of my magazine appeals to the audience that I am aiming at.
After researching different connotations of the word 'music', I came up with four possible masthead ideas for my magazine;

Harmony
I like the sound of this masthead, however, I think that it would not be easily remembered.

Melody
This is my favourite choice of a masthead, as it sounds fun and is short and snappy, which is in-keeping with the style of my magazine. Along with the word 'magazine', alliteration makes 'Melody' catchy and would make it easily memorable to the audience.

Fusion
I think this particular masthead idea wouldn't quite work, as after thinking about it, the name seems to connote a more dance and club feel, which is not the style of my magazine at all, and would not appeal to my target audience.

Tune
I think this masthead connotes the idea of classical music, rather than pop music, so it would not be a good choice for my magazine masthead.

My chosen masthead for my magazine is Melody, as I feel it is the best of the names I have researched and will project the right image about my magazine.

Conventions of a teenage pop magazine
Because the task requires me to create a believable and realisic music magazine, part of my research has to be on teenage pop music, and how i could possibly present a magazine based around it.
The first thing I researched was teen pop artists. This included names such as Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Avril Lavigne, Taylor Swift and the Backstreet Boys. These are all considered to be 'teen idols' and are definitely artists which young teenage readers can relate to, and will enjoy reading about.

Pop music magazine cover
The first thing I notice about the front cover of this magazine is that it is bright and colourful and attracts the eye straight away. A bright blue background has been used,


















Pop music magazine double page spread
The first thing that I notice about the double-page is that one page is almost entirely taken up by the featured artists photograph.












Font ideas
Now that I have picked a good masthead for my magazine, I need to find a stylish font that will display it in a way that is suitable for the idealogy of my magazine.


This font is fun and attractive and would make a funky masthead for my magazine. The bubble style of text is in-keeping with the fun, teen-pop idealogy of my music magazine.





I think this font is perhaps too plain for a teen-pop music magazine.

This would be another good font to use for the masthead of my magazine. Again, it uses the bubble style font and is in-keeping with the teen-pop music idealogy of my magazine. However, I think that maybe it isn't bold and attractive enough to use as the masthead of the magazine.

First draft of my front cover

First draft of my contents page

First draft of my double page spread

Analysis of Magazine Contents Pages

Contents page of Q magazine





















Contents page of NME magazine

Analysis of Double Page Magazine Spreads

As part of my main portfolio task, i have to create a double page spread of a music magazine to accompany my front cover. To gain a better understanding of the layout and techniques used in creating a successful double page spread, I have analysed a few double page spreads from popular music magazines.

NME Magazine Double Page Spread
This is a double page spread from NME magazine. The first thing I notice about the spread is that it is very colourful and attractive, and would definitely be eye-catching at first glance. I think this reflects the audience of the magazine, which is generally aimed at a younger audience, probably 16-25.
The first half of the fouble page spread is covered by a large photo of the band, which I've noticed is a big feature of double page spreads, as it gives the audience a big insight to who the band is. The photograph of the band that is used, is quite colourful and busy in itself, and is quite natural which is in keeping with the style of the magazine.

Kerrang Double Page Spread
This is a double page spread from Kerrang magazine. In contrast to the Nme spread, this spread is very












Q Magazine Double Page Spread