Contents Page

Magazine cover

Contents page production

Added a Contents Title bar, that is similar to some magazines already on the market.

Next time i put down a basic plan of the page, including details on free gift and subscription advertisement.

Lay down boxes for placing contents titles and page numbers.

This sets them apart from the descriptions to come.

Added titles and page numbers to boxes.

added images, and a top border that uses the magazines colours

wrote a brief description of the pages listed in the contents page and wrote out description of the free gift item.

Front cover development

I started of by placing the masthead and barcode on the pageNext I added a background and some coverlines

Here I have added a tagline, puff and some more coverlines.

Potential fonts for front cover

I shall use the Brutal Tooth font above for the masthead. this font is good because it is similar to the font used by many bands in the metal-core genre.

I shall use the Pulse Sans Font above for the strapline of the magazine, this is similar to fonts other magazines have used, and it connotes a sense of sound.

This font shall be used for the coverlines of the magazine.

Cover Lines

For my music magazine's coverlines I will use various things that are standard for a music magazines, including:
Band Interviews.
Latest Bands.
Latest Albums.
Concert Information.



My focus group revealed that i should include an interview with a band or band member, I shall show a teaser of this interview on the cover.


Potential cover lines are:

We Interview A Thousand Eyes on their new Album

We give you an inside look at the Concert of Serenity

Music Magazine, Contents Mock Up

Music Magazine, Front Cover Mockup.

Style Sheet

Focus Group Video

Summary:

From the focus group i have concluded that the title of my magazine should be the metal, i should have images of the band with their instruments for the cover image and the article, and the article should be a question and answer style interview.

Questions for Focus Group

Which name would you choose and why?
what colours would you like to see and why?
what content should be included in the double page spread and why?
What kind of images should be used on the cover and double page spread respectfully?

Music Magazine Pitch

Magazine analysis: Metal Hammer

Initial Ideas For Music Magazine

The purpose of this post is to establish any initial ides for my music magazine, including genre, images, target audience and a name for my magazine.

Genre: The genre of my magazine will most likely be metal, metal has a large target audience of varying ages and types of people, this gives me a lot of freedom in what I can do with the magazine.

Target Audience: As a result of choosing metal, my target audience will be aimed at people between 16 and 40 years old, this means that I cannot focus too much on a singular things. The audience would consist of many types of people including: Emo, Goth, MetalHeads, Skaters and many others.

Images: For the Images in my magazine i would likely include at least on of someone head banging, and possibly someone with long hair, screaming into a microphone. They shall be wearing either band shirts or shirts from cupcake cult or something similar, as these fit the genre nicely. The locations used would either be somewhere quite industrial or a concert stage with bright lights.

Masthead: For the masthead, I was thinking of using either Metal-core, or Trash-Mag, these two ideas are both derived from types of metal music, so fit well.

Introduction To Main Task

Now that I have concluded my work on the preliminary task, I shall be moving onto the main task of the project, creating a Music magazine, with a cover, a contents page and, a double page spread. I shall be using the methods learned during the production of the preliminary task, such as how to conduct the research properly and, how to use the technology available to me.

WORK FLOW:

Evaluation Of Preliminary Task

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

My Product contains most, if not all,  of the conventions of a real media product including, a puff, masthead, central image, cover lines and a Splash, it also uses a quite commonly used mechanic of magazines, in that the head of a person in the central image slight covers some of the masthead, but not so much that you can't read it.

2. How does your media product represent different social groups?

The central image on the cover of the magazine is of a group of students, who are just standing around, I also  have used students of both genders and a gender neutral colour pallet to show that this magazine is not exclusive to any one gender.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think my magazine would be likely to be distributed by a company that already has a series of other student magazines for other colleges, either that, or the college itself, as it would be distributed properly, plus, if distributed by the college, it would be more likely to get to the students, as it is free and could be in student common areas for it to be picked up.

4. Who would be the audience for you media product?

My magazine is aimed at an audience of students of bother genders, this is a fairly wide audience and as such requires things that would appeal to all members of this audience.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my target audience by featuring members of the target audience in the cover image, this helps them feel that they are close to the people on the cover, thus making them comfortable with the purchase of this magazine.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From the process of creating this product, I have discovered that it is very difficult to compose everything together in one program, and that other programs need to be used to do things, such as, editing the photo to put the masthead behind it and to correct colours and other such things.

Student Magazine Cover and Contents Page

Front Cover and Contents Page Mock-Up

Focus Group Results

What should the name of the magazine be?

Excel
Animated✓✓✓
Moxie✓
Battery

What image should be included on the cover?

3 People stood in a group posing ✓✓
Someone studying✓
Someone enjoying themselves✓

What colours should be used for the house style?

Red, Black and white ✓✓
Blue, Black and Yellow ✓
Green, Bue and Black ✓

What would be an appropriate price for my magazine?

Free✓✓✓
50p
£1✓

What content should be included?

Reviews of films and albums✓✓
Sports ✓
College advice✓

Initial Student Magazine Design Ideas: Contents Page

Contents Page Design Ideas

To ensure continuity between the cover of the magazine and the contents page, the contents page will have to include and primarily be made up of, the same colours that i used for the cover of the magazine.  This sets the house style and makes it look like that the contents page goes with the cover and that it is not just a random contents page stuck in with it.

Content

As well as including the splash and cover-lines from the front cover, I include other stories that might interest my target audience, young people/adults who are currently attending college, so I shall include things that will interest them, such as film reviews, album reviews and recommendations for the weeks TV.

Images

On my contents page, I will include an image of one of the people on the front cover doing something interesting, I will also include an "editorial" section at the bottom of the page that will have a small picture of me and will have a "letter from the editor" talking about the things mentioned in the magazine, and what particularly interests me in this months issue.

Initial Student Magazine Design Ideas: Front Cover

FRONT COVER DESIGN IDEAS

The aim of this blog is to show to design process of creating a student magazine cover and contents page. The target audience of the magazine will be college students, so generally people in their late teens. The language used shall be informal and slight personal, for example saying you and us.

Front Cover

Masthead

• Bold letters
• slightly curved font
• black or white.
• behind person in central image

Magazine name

Relevant to student life/college. Energetic.

• Excel
• Battery
• Animated
• Moxie

These might work at target audience and they all relate to being energetic and are positive. I intend to use a bold, eye-catching font.

Central Image

For my central image I would like to have a group of three people, the one in the middle looking at camera and two slightly below and behind the first, one each side, looking off to the side, as shown in sketch below:

Splash

A splash is the main article in the magazine, so it will have to be something interesting. 

some ideas are:

• You can still have a social life and do your homework, we tell you how.
• We list the top 5 places in Ludlow to get coffee before college.
• Interview with Stacey Thomas on her first month at college.

Cover-lines

Cover-lines give small excerpts from other articles in the magazine.

Some of my Ideas for cover-lines are:

• The best and cheapest places to buy college supplies.
• How to best use you free time for work.

Colours

For my magazine I will use the following colours: Black, White and a Dark Red, these colours allow for a high contrast meaning that my target audience would be more likely to notice them, these colours are also unisex, so they will not stop some people buying it because they are worried it will affect there image.

Research and planning: Analysis of Student Magazine 2

Research & Planning: analysis of Student Magazine 1

Research & Planning: Generic Conventions of Student Magazines

Preliminary Task Action Plan

Over the next three weeks I have a few tasks to complete, including research, design, drafts and compiling of the magazine.

Week 1:

•   Identify Generic Conventions of a student/college magazine.
• Analyse the front cover and contents page of 2 student/college magazines.
• Conduct a focus group to establish what the students want.

Week 2: 

• Using findings from research, produce mock cover and contents page.
• begin design of front cover.

Week 3: 

• Continue work on student magazine, including cover and contents page
• Complete evaluation for homework by the 22nd of October

Introduction To Preliminary Task

For this task i have to create the front page and contents page for a student or college magazine, i have to use both DTP programmes and Image manipulation programmes, so most likely will be Adobe inDesign and Adobe Photoshop. The cover has to include a medium close up image of a student/students and i must include a suitable masthead and logo.