Monday 14 November 2016

Publication plan

Title: Neon
Why I chose this title: I chose the title ‘neon’ as I feel that it will correlate well with the colour scheme of my magazine. It also relates to the neon lights that feature at gigs and in a lot of the pictures that I have taken.

Positioning statement: The most vibrant vibes from the indie scene.

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Price: £2.00

Distribution: Newsagents and supermarkets; gigs; festivals; indie shops such as urban outfitters and Resurrection.

Rationale: The magazine will be tailored towards the fans. It will include a lot of fans input, such as ‘have your say’ and asking their opinions on various things. Each issue will include an argument topic for fans to share their thoughts on, for example the first issue will address the predicament of artists “selling out” and their tours becoming bigger, thus meaning their gigs increase financially too. It will also give a lot of tips regarding gigs, gig attire and attitude.

Style: The style will be very organised and cleanly set out, I want the magazine to have a minimalist approach, with lots of pictures to attract the audience’s attention. The magazine is tailored towards the youth culture so it will feature a lot of colloquialism in order to relate to the reader.

Regular content:
 -Editors Letter,
 -Gig Guide,
 -Have your say,
 -Gig Reviews,
 -Album reviews,
 -Interview of the month,
 -This issue’s issue

Features: 
 -Alex Turner – Is there more to come from the Arctic Monkeys?
 -The 1975 – “I never anticipated how far our bands aesthetic would reach”
 -Catfish and the Bottlemen – is their UK tour making Van McCann ‘Homesick’?
 -The Strokes – Their ‘last nite’ on tour
 -Oasis – is the ‘songbird’ making a comeback?
 -FIDLAR – “the Californian punk scene is more alive right now than it ever has been”
 -Tame Impala – exclusive interview with the band on their new album
 -Battle of the eras – the 80’s or the 90's?
 -Peace – Their success is ‘higher than the sun’
 -Nirvana – the gig that shocked the world
 -Swim Deep – They’re back, and better than ever
 -Soundcity pays its respects to Viola Beach
 -Miles Kane and Alex Turners bromance
 -Leeds lineup revealed
 -What band merch would you buy?
 -Two door cinema club takeover the Echo Arena
 -The Beatles – throwback to the psychedelia of the 60’s
 -The Stone Roses – The 'resurrection' of Ian Brown

House style: 

Magazine name: STENCIL
Coverlines: Eccentric STD in bold and Eccentric STD
Standfirst: Eccentric STD
Body Text: Aparajita
Colour Scheme: Black and white with greys and occasional electric blues, neon colours

Questionnaire feedback (video and audio)

Monday 31 October 2016

Analysis of professional magazine covers

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Initial plans for my magazine

This blog post is dedicated to my initial plans for my music magazine.

I plan to make the price of my magazine £2.00, as based on my market research, this price is cheaper than my competitors, yet profitable too. Perhaps the low expense will attract a larger audience, as the magazine will not be too financially detrimental to purchase regularly. I plan for it to be published each month, on the 1st day of each month. This regularity should maintain an audience, and more customers may purchase the magazine regularly, as it is more cost effective. The average issue size will be around 100 pages, to ensure a multitude of content, so each customer feels that they are receiving their moneys worth. The regular content will consist of feedback from fans of the magazine, album reviews, song reviews, upcoming gigs and bands. The main feature article for the double page spread will be of a local Indie band "The Seegulls", and I will also include features from prominent artists in the Indie genre, such as Arctic Monkeys, Catfish and the Bottlemen,, Miles Kane, The 1975, Two Door Cinema Club etc. I intend for my front cover to feature a main image, which will be a photo of my friend Julia whom I plan to take wearing indie clothing. Alongside this image will be the coverline "Julia J - Reinventing indie my way"

Sunday 30 October 2016

Researching the marketplace

NME magazine 

NME, a prominent magazine within the music industry since 1949, is tailored towards the target audience of the indie and alternative music genre. Each issue originally costed £2.50, however due to the continuation of poor sales, the magazine became free in September 2015. A new issue is released weekly, each Wednesday in the U.K. Each issue size is of around 60 pages normally, however in special additions that feature a particular artist or genre, there are 100 pages. The regular content consists of "sounding off", "on repeat", "in the studio", "anatomy of an album", "soundtrack of my life", "radar", "reviews", "this week in..." and "things we like". The feature articles are always of prominent artists in the current alternative music industry.


Q magazine

Q magazine, another renowned magazine in the current indie and alternative music industry, has been of popularity since its first issue in 1986. Each issue costs £3.99, and a subscription costs £24.99. A new issue is published monthly. The average issue size is around 150 pages. The regular content includes: "new albums", "live", "reissues" and "gadgets". The feature articles again, are of prominent artists in the current alternative music industry.

Initial ideas

In this blog post entry I will discuss my initial ideas for my music magazine.

I plan to tailor my magazine towards the indie target audience, as it is a genre that I am extremely interested in and informed on. It is also the most marketable genre momentarily, as it is current and favoured particularly among today's youth. I predict that the target audience's ages will range from 14-30 year old's, as they are the most popular receivers of the indie genre. I will cultivate the sense of an indie genre by ensuring that it is fits the indie stereotype aesthetically, and also by ensuring that my content is entirely of the indie genre.

Evaluation

In this blog post entry I will evaluate my school magazine that I have produced.

My magazine uses and develops the conventions of real life media products by utilising each feature, and replicating a professional magazine as closely as possible. For example I made use of a barcode, and I also included the date, origin, price and issue number. I used new media technologies to create my product such as a camera to take the photos required, and photoshop to edit and produce the magazine front cover and contents page. The strengths of my product is that it maintains a colour scheme, the required features such as a masthead, the continuation of brand identity, and a miscellany of images in order to attract the readers attention to all of the content. The weaknesses are that I did not include as many regulars and features as I would've liked, and I did not maintain a font size with all of my coverlines, so they appear unorganised.

Completed school magazine contents page


Thursday 20 October 2016

Production of magazine contents page with screenshots

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Completed school magazine front cover


production of school magazine with screenshots of process

Original photos for school magazine

Plans for school magazine contents page

This blog post is dedicated to my plans for my school magazine contents page. I will ensure that the general theme of the magazine front cover has been continued to the contents page, in order to maintain brand identity. I will use pictures that I have taken which correlate to the main features, that will be highlighted in the "features" section. I will also include a "content" section that will consist of the reoccurring weekly content. Next to each I will add page numbers, so the reader is easily directed to each article. I will differ the colour of the page numbers to each feature, to ensure clarity for the audience. The title will be "contents" and next to it I will feature a miniature masthead. I will also feature an editors note to ensure that the audience feels directly addressed.

Plan for school magazine contents page:

Features
• interview with head girl, Beth Morrison
• Adam Davies wins award for IT
• Chris Green reveals his top tips for surviving sixth form
• Pink day fundraiser, who's playing?
• open mic

Content
• upcoming school events
• ice radio

Rough layout of school magazine contents page


Plans for school magazine contents page

This blog post is dedicated to my plans for my school magazine contents page. I will ensure that the general theme of the magazine front cover has been continued to the contents page, in order to maintain brand identity. I will use pictures that I have taken which correlate to the main features, that will be highlighted in the "features" section. I will also include a "content" section that will consist of the reoccurring weekly content. Next to each I will add page numbers, so the reader is easily directed to each article. I will differ the colour of the page numbers to each feature, to ensure clarity for the audience. The title will be "contents" and next to it I will feature a miniature masthead. I will also feature an editors note to ensure that the audience feels directly addressed.

Plan for school magazine contents page:

Features
• interview with head girl, Beth Morrison
• Adam Davies wins award for IT
• Chris Green reveals his top tips for surviving sixth form
• Pink day fundraiser, who's playing?
• open mic

Content
• upcoming school events
• ice radio

Rough layout of school magazine front cover


Plans for school magazine front cover

This blog post is dedicated to my plans for my school magazine front cover. The title of my magazine is WeatherForecast, and the coverlines I have produced will border my main image, along with smaller images that I will take that correlate with each coverline, for example a microphone next to an "open mic" coverline.

School magazine front cover plan: 

• colour scheme - predominantly grey, mostly dark, neautral colours to ensure that the pictures fit into the colour scheme correctly.
• coverlines - "interview with head girl"
                      "Open mic"
                      "Pink day fundraiser"
                      "Ice radio"
• main image - correlates with the main image. It will feature the head girl in a medium close up.
• other images - a microphone, the ice radio submissions box, stationary
• typography - I plan to maintain the font throughout each coverline. I will use a unique font for the masthead to ensure brand identity.

Practise shots and movements

Shot types and movements

Tuesday 27 September 2016

The Brief

In today's lesson we discovered the course outline.

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.

Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.

All images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate(s), minimum of four images per candidate.