Throughout the research and planning process I have learnt a lot about the design of music magazines and how the process is not as simple as I first thought. I have realised that lots of work goes into the design of magazines through extensive research and planning. I took this idea forward and kept it at the forefront of my mind and made sure that the research I performed was in depth and detailed.
Firstly, with no research and very minimal planning (Preliminary School Magazine Planning), I attempted to design a school magazine as part of the preliminary task. This task went fairly well considering my lack of ability of the software photoshop and limited knowledge of the magazine industry. However, I was still disappointed with the lack of professionalism shown on the front cover and contents pages i created (Preliminary School Magazine). This reinforced the fact that research and planning is vital in the creation of a magazine.
As the first part of my research into music magazines, I researched all aspects of magazines in my chosen genre looking at various different aspects of them. I analysed 3 front covers, contents pages and double page spreads, from music magazines that were all relevant to my genre, which made me familiar with the conventions and terminology used in music magazines (NME Analysis) (Q Analysis) (Complex Analysis). Also, this section of the research cemented my knowledge of the key magazine terms such as masthead, cover lines and plugs. Also, for inspiration for my final magazine I created posts containing images of pre-existing magazines that I liked and which suited the style, design and genre of my magazine. These magzines, consitsted of Clash (Clash Magazine Front Covers) , Dazed and Confused (Dazed and Confused Magazine Front Covers) and NME (NME Magazine Front Coves). There are elements of each magazine that I like and will try and replicate in my final magazine but most of all, these images were my biggest source of inspiration.
I then moved on to looking at specific elements of music magazines such as the fonts and the colour palettes used. Through research into both of these areas I realised the importance of these elements in magazines and how they can affect how professional a magazine can appear. I tested a couple of different combinations of colour schemes ranging from conventional colour schemes to abstract colour schemes and narrowed it down to a few of my personal favourites and compiled this into a post giving a analysis on each colour scheme and expressing why I liked the ones I had chosen. (Colour Palette Analysis). From this research into colour palettes, I was able to come to decision to use a black, white and pastel blue colour palette. I would not have been able to make this decision without the use of my research. I then researched into fonts and typography and it occurred to me that there are more fonts available that those you can find on Photoshop or Microsoft Office and this taught me that my font choice was not limited to these and there are millions available to download of the internet. Following this, I created a post containing my research into fonts and the compilation of my favourite fonts that I could possibly use for my final magazine. (Font Analysis). Using my post, I then decided on final fonts for both my masthead and general text. These were Coolvetica for the masthead and a mixture of Futura and PT Sans Caption for the general text (cover lines, article text etc.).
Next, I looked into the potential target audience for my magazine as if I know who I am aiming my magazine at, it will be easier to cater the magazine to their needs and wants and it will be easier to make the magazine appeal to them if I know their interests, hobbies, dislikes etc. With this in mind, I used UKTribes in order to research my audience and found that my audience were Hipsters and Trendies. This allowed me to cater my magazine to their interests and involve their likes and not to involved their dislikes making the magazine appeal to them greatly (Audience Research). This research then allowed me to create an in depth audience profile which shows an example of a person that would buy my magaine (Audience Profile).
In addition to this, I created a mood board of artists from within my genre which allowed me to see how I should dress my models when taking my photos in the design process of making the magazine (Artists from the Indie/Alternative Genre). I also, assessed the type of language I should be using throughout my magazine in order for the audience to relate to it, for this I looked at both formal and informal magazines and decided I should be somewhere in-between them both with elements of formal and informal language within my magazine (Language Register). Also, I looked at a company who could potentially publish my magazine. I found this company as they produce a music magazine of a different genre to mine, Complex. (Analysis of Institution )
The finalised details of Havoc magazine are:
- Name: Havoc
- Genre: Indie/Alternative
- Price: £4.00
- Pages: 100-120
- Issued: Monthly
Overall, the research and planning section of the magazine creation is extremely important as with poor planning tends to result in a poor final product. I have learnt many vital things from my research and planning which I am going to carry forward into the design which I hope will make my final product a success. Without this research and planning the task of creating a magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread would seem very daunting to me and I would not know where to start. However, now I have researched and planned throughly, I feel confident in proceeding to the design stage of the magazine production.
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