Evaluation
After finishing my magazine I’m am very pleased with the overall result. With the magazine I tried to get the look of current, successful magazines such as NME and Q. After taking samples of these magazines I realised similarities between them all such as layout, pictures and headlines. It seemed they are all centred round a main picture of a band with smaller sub-headings blotted around the front cover. Also the magazines seem to have a colour scheme with red being the main colours along with black and white. I also noticed that there is a lot of free things available to the reader such as downloads, CD’s and posters which enticed them into buying the product. Another feature is that there seems to be two bands at the top and bottom of the magazine this was added information which didn’t clash with the main picture or take up to much room on the front cover. I took all this into consideration and started to design my magazine.
Firstly I had to think of an interesting and appropriate title to reflect the ‘indie’ genre; I brainstormed many ideas, including abbreviations like ‘NME’ but eventually I came up with IndieGo! I decided on this because it has a catchy sound, sounding like the colour indigo yet it contains the word Indie to reflect the type of magazine.
Secondly I wanted an appropriate font to go with the title so I went online to a sight called www.dafont.com this sight has many different fonts which aren’t available in the normal settings. I decided to collect many samples and eventually chose a font which looked grungy and worn to add to the effect of the magazine genre.
After I got my magazine title and font I decided I needed my main picture so that once that was in place I could work around it adding extra information and cut outs. For my main picture I wanted a group of 3 boys who looked that typical ‘indie’ stereotype; long hair etc. I decided to add a fun twist to the front cover with the addition of an orange that one of the band members will be holding. This was to reflect the fun element from the band.
One problem I found with the picture was that one of the band members had a white jacket on, meaning it was going to be difficult to cut out. So I decided to keep the grey background from the original picture instead of going for a full white background. In the end I am glad I did this because I like the effect it brings to the magazine.
Most of the writing on the magazine is normal bold text which is easy to see and read and adds simplicity to the front cover. I decided that I would stick with the red and black theme like ‘NME’ and ‘Q’. Again this was to keep it simple and not make it look too childish and busy as my audience would be 13 – 19 year olds. My magazine will also be aimed at teenagers who of course like indie music but it will also have features on fashion and also contain reviews of festivals, films and gigs.
I decided to make a questionnaire and ask around 10 people’s views on reasons why they buy a magazine and what they look for in a magazine that’s would entice them into buying. This is a copy of the questionnaire.
Print (New Music Magazine)
Research
Questionnaire
Name:
Age:
Magazines you normally read:
When you pick up a magazine which is the first thing you look at?
Do the people/person on the front cover make you buy a magazine?
Does the offer of free posters/ CD’s/ downloads entice you into buying the magazine?
Would a catchy headline draw you in?
Does the name of the magazine matter, or is it simply the genre?
Do you prefer a long magazine with many stories or a short magazine with essential stories?
Which part of a magazine do you enjoy the most? (Tick 2 at most)
Interviews
Reviews
News
Gossip
Do you prefer a magazine to be sophisticated or childlike?
Do you prefer a lot of text and information or pictures along with text?
After adding my front cover picture and headline I started to add extra bits of information around. I used well known bands such as U2 and Bloc Party. After gaining feedback from my questionnaire I decided to add a free CD that would come with the magazine. The CD will contain singles by well known chart toppers from the indie genre.
For my contents page I stuck to the red and black theme followed on from the front page with the main stories from the front page being bold and easy to see as this could have been the reason that many people would buy my magazine. I also used smaller pictures of artist’s who where featured. I also used it as an advertising opportunity to offer twelve months subscription packages. I noticed this was also in other well known magazines.
I am also very happy with my double page spread. I decided I would change this from the normal red and white theme and have it mainly black. I did this to prevent the magazine from being repetitive and boring. The layout of my magazine was simple with a large interview of ‘The PaperCuts’ taking up a lot of the space alongside a band picture that I took outside near some woods. I decided to do this as I had seen it one of the magazine I had been looking at and I believe it had a good effect.
In comparison to my preliminary task I think I have drastically improved in many aspects of creating a magazine. The original magazine I created for the preliminary task looked very simple as I only had a very basic knowledge of Photoshop and did not know how to download fonts from the internet and therefore it didn’t look particularly professional unlike my main music magazine. Also, because I didn’t have much of an understanding of creating a photo shoot and using a digital camera I had a very simple imagine for the front cover which wasn’t of as good a quality as the photos I used for my music magazine. When creating the preliminary product I didn’t really consider the representation of my magazine or my target audience so it didn’t have much of a style or theme, which is what I like about the final product I created.