For my final project I decided to create a cover page, contents page and double page spread for a new music magazine. I decided to make the magazine for ‘Indie’ music, which followed similar design, photograph and headlines to magazines like ‘NME’ or ‘Kerrang’. I looked at both of these magazines to give me ideas for the magazine I was going to create. This helped me to think of some ideas for photographs, stories and design ideas I could use for my magazine.
I decided my magazine was going to be distributed to an age group of 16-25 year olds. This limited what I could do with the magazines design, as it would have to be quirky and catch the reader’s eye. I decided to do this by making it follow one colour scheme, but have an interesting picture and text surrounding it. By following a colour scheme, I followed a regular idea that is used by numerous magazines, such as ‘Kerrang’.
The magazine represents a large portion of the target audience. Every summer, lots of people in the age group go to music festivals, which all include the sort of music that ‘NME’ and ‘Kerrang’ interview and feature. These artists would be the artist’s I’d include in my magazine if it was going to really be distributed. Therefore, by looking at these magazines, it allowed me to see how they were aiming at their target audience. The magazine design was made to be eye-catching, and had numerous stories around it, which would make it more attractive to the target audience, who, as I saw from my research results, wanted something colourful and ‘out-there’.
Having created the magazine cover, contents and double-page feature, I then showed the final products to my peers. Generally the feedback was good, and it allowed me to make some minor alterations, which helped the magazine as a whole. “It’s good, the colours stand out, and it’s eye-catching. I’d want to pick it up off the shelf to have a better look”. This was the result I was looking for, and it proved my research to be correct. Colourful and eye-catching magazines, with a good picture, allow the target audience to be drawn in to want to read more. One person said, “I like the picture, but think something with a more music related item could work better”. This was a good point, as if my model had posed with something like headphones, drum sticks or a guitar, it would have been more obvious that the magazine was a music one. From this, I have learnt that the photograph should be more music-focused, and make sure it would be obvious to the buyer what genre the magazine is.
A magazine distributor such as ‘Bauer Consumer Media’ could be a good distributor for the magazine, as it is well known and publishes magazines such as ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Mojo’. However, their magazines could be seen to be aimed at an older target group than mine is, and so could be seen as unsuitable, though it could be filling the gap in the music magazine market that the distributor is missing. Because it also seems to challenge their clean-cut magazine type, its edge may not fit in with the distributors ideas. This could make ‘IPC Media’, the company that distributes ‘NME’, a better choice. ‘NME’ has a more unconventional attitude, which is what my magazine would aim for, and so it would fit there better. However, ‘NME’ could be seen as very similar to mine, and so it would be aimed at the same target group. A company with the unconventional ideas with the gap in the market for my target audience would be an ideal distributor for ‘Boulder’.
To create the pages I needed to, I used programmes such as Photoshop and Microsoft Excel. I had only used Photoshop for my preliminary task before the final product, and so had to find out new things to allow the product to be it’s best. As the photos were quite dark, I had to use tools such as ‘curves’, which allowed me to alter the light balance. This brightened both the model’s face and the background behind her. I also used tools such as ‘Spot Healer’, which made sure that any discolourations to the model and background were removed. I used numerous different fonts, all of which I found on ‘dafont.com’. This allowed my magazine to be original, and not use fonts like ‘Arial’ or ‘comic sans’, which were available to anyone.
To create individual photographs for my double page spread and contents, I had to cut the photographs so that just the model was visible, without a background. To do this, I used the ‘slice’ tool, which allowed me to get a good finish to the photograph, and make sure that the background was completely removed. I then only had to paste the photographs into the excel document to add it to the double page spread.
The photo shoot also allowed me to understand the use of cameras, and how to take a good shot. However, for some of the photographs I used flash photography. This created a better quality picture, and the light was distributed over the model much more equally. I learnt how to take the photographs, but also how to set up for them, where to position the lights so that shadows wouldn’t be created, and what the best angle was for them to be positioned around.
Looking back at the preliminary task, I have worked hard to create a more genuine magazine cover. My preliminary task had many weaknesses to it, all of which helped me to understand how to better my final task. In the preliminary, my fonts were too plain and boring, and there wasn’t an eye-catching photograph or headline. The photograph was grainy too, as it had been stretched too large, so had lost its quality. It was also too dark, which lowered the quality even more. From this though, I learnt that a photograph that stood out was needed, and if it had an edge to it, it would improve the quality again. The colour scheme needed to match the photograph, and be stricter on the colours used. I chose to use red black and white, and stick to those three colours. The headlines also needed to be larger and more eye catching. The title of the magazine again had to be large, and stand out on the page. My preliminary task definitely had weaknesses, but they allowed me to improve my final product faster than if I hadn’t done one. They helped me spot weak points to my product, and allow me to improve them.
Overall, I think my final product represents the target group I aimed for, and is believable as a product available for sale. Because it is believable, I think it works well, and fulfils the criteria that the brief asked for.