Font Ideas

These are some of the fonts which I have chosen to use as the main title font. I have a variety of fonts which are simple and some that are fairly prominent. I originally wanted to have a simple font that would be widely recognised. The font that I am thinking of using at the moment is the fourth one down.

1. The first font is a font which is used too much by other people for their titles and I feel it is a bit too boring after seeing it so many times.
   
2. The second font is not a font that would go well with the genre of my magazine. This font would look better if it were to appear on the front of a sort of rock magazine.
   
3. The third font is one that i was also debating to use on the font of my magazine. It is a font that I feel would be recognised, and also looks like somebody has painted it with a paintbrush. Although saying this, i feel that the font is too bold and having that at the top of the magazine may take up too much room or drown it in the colour i choose to put it in.

The fourth font is the one I am thinking of using. It is simple, of nice size and easy to read.

The fifth font is one that is too simple and looks like it has been created on a simple word document and would therefore not be acceptable on the font of my magazine cover.

The last font is doing too much to appear on the front of the cover. The key problem with this font is the way that it is waving around. I initially wanted a font that would be simple and in a straight line, however this does not fit my criteria.

The font on the right is also another font I am considering using for the front cover. I is, like some of the others, a simple font that is easy to read and could be identified to a magazine if used consistently.

COLOUR CHOICE
I decided that I preferred the last font of the options. The font is called FUTURA. Although I had the font and the name of the magazine, the next thing to do was to look at what colours I could use. I knew at this time that I wanted white background with a black and white picture on, so having a bright colour would not work as well as a darker one. I felt that having the colour black for the title was was too boring and plain seeing as the picture is going to be in black and white! The second colour, the dark red, seems an appropriate colour to use. Firstly, red is one of my favourite colours, so I initially wanted to use the red colour for the title of the magazine, and also to use it as the colour that would dominate my magazine as its unified house style. The bright red was too bright for the magazine and I did not want bright vibrant colours appearing from my magazine. To me, the bright colours shows that the magazine is not serious and could be aimed at children who like bright colours. The darker colour adds a sense of maturity to it. Taking this into consideration, I felt that it would not be appropriate to use the other colours of text that you can see on the left hand side.

Potential Photos

These are potential photos that I have taken to appear as the cover picture on my magazine. I have used both a male and a female model in order to see what image, and who would look best on the page. The picture of the female in the top right hand side is one that I have edited in Photoshop. I have edited it by desaturating the main image, and then re applying her lipstick using the art history brush tool. I do like this picture the most out of my collection, however when taking the pictures, I did not think about pictures for my double page spread. I have taken photos which would appear on the cover and would not look right if they were placed in the middle of the magazine. The pictures of the male model, I feel, are also inappropriate to use for my magazine cover as I do not think they collaborate with the title of my magazine. The pictures would be worthy for a double page spread article within the magazine, and not to appear on the front. Because I am unhappy with the pictures I have taken, I intend to carry out another photo shoot with the male model. The way I wish to have the model is in the same way an R&B artist may dress and would therefore fit my magazine title perfectly.

Target Audience & Genre

To identify the different audience's for my magazine, I went on to the 'UK TRIBES' website. The website puts people into different categories depending on different things such as activities they take part in and the music they listen to. You can see that the main tribes within the UK are: young alts, townies, indie scenesters, trendies.




It is mainly the townies and the trendies that I am aiming my magazine at. When I hovered my mouse over the word 'townies', it read 'viva the ordinaries! Townies are the mainstream kids who still - in terms of numbers at least - reign supreme. Townies think most non-Townies are weirdos. So there'.

When entered into an Internet search engine, the word mainstream - in music terms - means 'Mainstream music denotes music that is familiar and un-threatening to the masses, as for example popular music, pop music, middle of the road music, pop rap or, soft rock. My magazine is mainly based on pop music/pop rap/r&b and therefor fits this criteria perfectly. Below are two videos that summarise what both townie and trendies are like.




GENRE

It is important to keep a magazine about one genre of music so as the reader can enjoy the full magazine and not be bored by contents of other music. I have decided to create the magazine based around my own personal type of music interest which is POP/R&B Music. I have chosen to do this for two reasons. Firstly, it is easier for me to create this type of magazine as I have a greater knowledge about this type of music rather than, say, rock music. As well as this, after researching different types of music magazines which are out in the shops to buy today, I found it difficult to find any (apart from VIBE magazine -loosely-) which concentrated on this genre of music.

Name Ideas

Before any creating of the magazine cover itself, I did a bit of research about magazine names. From the magazines that I looked at -Q, NME, Kerrang!, VIBE, UNCUT & MOJO- I noticed that they were all short words that could be easily remembered. The short and snappy name is something that I wanted to follow as a convention for my magazine. I initially came up with 5 potential names for my front cover with a favourite in mind before asking people to vote on which name they preferred. Here are the 5 names;

• Sound 7
• Static 4
• Defused 3
• Deluge 4
• Inside 2

I asked 20 people in my target audience which is 16-24 year olds and the results are next to the names of the magazine. As stated above, before I asked my target audience to vote on the name they thought was best, I had a name which I wanted most on the front of my magazine. That name is 'sound' and as you can see, it also had the most amount of votes.

I am focusing on POP/R&B music and decided that after researching different magazines, I wanted a simple yet effective cover name. I wanted this because there are very limited magazines with long winded names on the front, the vast majority have initials which stand for something, or simply have four or five letters in them. After thinking, I typed 'pop music' into a Internet search engine, and one of the words on the findings was 'sound'. I wanted to use this name as it could be interpreted in two different ways;

1. Sound as in, music makes a sound/you can hear a sound;
2. Sound as in 'that is a sound idea', also a way of saying something is good, i.e. that song artist is sound.

Q - Inside Analysis

Including the front and back page, there are 188 pages. Out of all of these pages, 37 pages are dedicated to advertisement, 3 of which are double page spreads. The adverts can be categorised, and in this instance these are the ads which appear throughout the magazine;

• Electricals: BOOTS - Men's Shaver
• Play.com + HMV deals
• Cars: Nissan Juke + New Skoda
• Amazon.com Deals
• Gigs and Tour Dates
• Magazine Subscriptions
• Jack Daniels Advert
• 3 the mobile network

The main articles in the magazine are as followed;

• 2011 Preview - The 20 Albums You Must Hear In 2011
• The 10 New Faces Of 2011
• Interview With Jay Kay
• the REVIEW OF THE YEAR (album reviews)
• The Lost Boy - The Life Of Elliott Smith
• Technology Section
• Cee Lo Green
• Paul McCartney And Wings
• Q LIVE - Biffy Clyro, Pendulum, Lake Of Stars Festival, Ellie Goulding and Lady GaGa.

There are 42 double page spreads throughout the magazine. The double page spreads consist of;

• Album Reviews
• Interviews
• Artist Reviews (singers and song writers)
• A look into artists' lives
• Technology

The magazine manages to achieve a unified house style. On each page of the magazine, the page numbers, date, and the title of the magazine is displayed (unless it is an advertisement). As well as this, the colour scheme is similar throughout mainly focusing on the colours red and white. There is also a mixture of sans serif and non sans serif font within the magazine. The reason for using the same colour code is so as the reader doesn't think they are reading something from another magazine. If they were to pick up this magazine with white, black, red and gold on the cover, then they may be puzzled if they were to see other colours such as blue and green inside on the main articles.

Q - Cover Analysis

As stated before, the name of the magazine is Q. Because of the simplicity of the name, the title of the magazine is just the letter Q or a RED background. The magazine cover appears to follow the rule of thirds. I say this because there are cover lines on either side of the page with the main picture placed in the middle.


The main focus image is of a male and a female. They are part of a band called Arcade Fire. If you were unaware of this, it would be difficult to establish who they actually are due to the placement of the words 'Arcade Fire'. As I am unaware with this genre of music, I had to search most names on the magazine cover until I had found the people on the front cover. I did this because the name Liam Gallagher appears on the cover next to the picture. Although i know who he is, others may not and could assume that Liam Gallagher is in fact the man in the picture. As well as this, the big PLUS sign in the middle at the bottom of the page could also suggest that it is referring to the picture by saying 'plus the new faces of 2011' and therefore introducing the readers to a new artist who hopes to make it big.

The image itself gives me a mixed view. It can either be seen as fun and energetic, or have a sense of seriousness to it. This is because the girl in the picture has been caught jumping in mid air adding the energy to the cover, whereas the man is standing with his arms out slightly looking straight down the lens of the camera. The caption to go with the name of the band is 'three months inside their great leap forward'. The pictures may be summarising those three months which are going to be read about. Maybe the three months has brought a lot of hard work, time, and effort, hence the serious face with the man, but it has also seen some highs and good times which is shown in the smile and jumping in the air. Apart from the main image there are NO OTHER IMAGES on the front cover.

All of the main text on the front of the cover is written in BLOCK CAPITALS and in a non sans serif text. This is so as each and every caption can be read clearly by the reader. It also allows the magazine to stand out more from a distance. If you were to walk into a shop and browse the magazine stands, then you would be able to read every caption clearly because of their sizes and due to the CAPITAL letters. Although this is the case for the main captions on the front cover, there are small quotes and other bits of information which dive into the main caption which are written in a plain black sans serif font, such as this.

Q - General Analysis

The next magazine I am going to analyse is Q magazine. It is published monthly in the United Kingdom and has been running since 1986. The magazine is published byGerman publishers, Bauer Media Group. They are also the publishers of popular magazines heat, FHM and Kerrang! According to them, the magazine was initially going to be called 'Cue' however it was changed prior to release so as not to confuse the magazine with a snooker one. The magazine is mainly aimed at people who are into indie, rock and alternative music. The magazine costs £3.99 with a circulation of 94,811. The readership of the magazine is far greater as people tend to share magazines and allow others to read them. This figure shows that over 700,000 people read the magazine roughly after each issue is published. Their target audience is predominantly men, however both sexes do read the magazine. Their website is http://www.qthemusic.com/.

NME - Inside Analysis

There are 67 pages in the magazine, 19 of which is made up of adverts. This is over a quarter of the magazine; 28%. This is not a lot compared to others who have over half of the the magazine containing adverts. Adverts are the production companies main income. They would charge significant amounts of money in order for someone to place an ad, and it also depends where abouts in the magazine they put it. The first page in is the most expensive place to put an advert, whereas a thumbnail ad in the middle of the magazine somewhere would not be as expensive. The adverts can be categorised into groups such as clothes, electronics, and gigs and tours.

Gigs and Festival Articles:

• Babyshambles Insight
• Line up for NME Awards Tour 2011 Revealed
• Rhianna
• Twin Shadow
• Tinchy Stryder
• Foals
• Manic Street Preachers
• Release the Bats
• Tame Impala

Interviews:

• Damon Albarn
• Chester Bennington
• My Chemical Romance
• Suede (their comeback)
• Jenny and Johnny
• The New Puritans
• Mick Rock
• Alice Cooper

These sort of articles would appeal to the target audience. Although I personally have not heard of some of the artists mentioned, people who listen to this genre of music will know who they are and will want to get in the know about their idols lives and to know when they are going to tour.

In the magazine, there are 11 double page spreads. The vast majority of theses double pages contain the interviews stated above and the feature article on the front cover also has a double page spread (just as any main article in a magazine would). The NME magazine follows a house style which means the layout is similar on each page and the same fonts are used throughout. If there were too many fonts, the magazine would look unattractive. Too much would cause the reader to not know where to look on the page and instead, would put it down. The pictures in the magazine are set out in an attractive way. Instead of being straight and using the rule of thirds, they appear to be at different angles to the page and some even overlap each other. This adds to the appearance to the magazine. If the pictures were all in a line or in a column with the text simply wrapped around it, it would look boring and many people may not want to buy the magazine again. The way in which the magazine has been layed out would appeal to the target audience (mainly the young generation) as it has a fun sort of look to it, whereas, if the pictures were all straight, and the colours were all the same etc.. then the magazine would be more for the older generation who would rather sit and read an article as oppose to looking at pictures and wanting different fonts and colours.

NME - Cover Analysis

As stated before, the main title of the magazine is NME. It stands for 'New Musical Express' which used to be the name of the magazine when it was first published. In the last 20 years, it has abbreviated its name to just NME. Although this is the case, its original name still exists underneath the main title in a smaller text.


The main image of this issue of NME is a picture of the lead singer from the band 'My Chemical Romance'. The picture is a medium close up of the lead singer and is focused on him because of his change in hair colour. The image of the singer, named Gerard Way, shows him to be looking straight down the camera lens and out into the audience. This look may have a 'come and buy me' effect to a person in a shop, especially if they see somebody they look up to with a different hair style. Some could argue that the pose in the picture is fairly feminine due to fingers in his hair and possible seductive look. As well as this, the singers clothing is BLACK, and the background of the magazine is a light blue colour. This has been done so as the bright red of the hair stands out to the audience more. If you were to walk past this magazine in a shop, the first thing your eyes would be drawn to is the colour of the mans hair.

There are only three other pictures that appear on the front cover. Theses are small thumbnail pictures showing the reader some FREE items that they can receive if they were to buy the magazine. It also gives an insight into what else the magazine magazine may contain story wise.


There are different tag lines on the front of the magazine. They are written in the colour white in BLOCK CAPITALS so as they stand out better. They are written in sans serif font however in a small size. This is done so as the the main cover image is not covered by the writing. Although the information displayed in the cover lines is not as important to the reader than the main cover story, it appeals to the reader because they are telling the reader about music performers going on tour.

The title above is the main cover line for the magazine. Looking closely at the title, I can see that it has a drop shadow. This is done so as to make it stand out more to the audience against the darkness of the black shirt. The writing is also in white so as it can be seen clearly against the clothing. As well as this, there are a few different ways the creators have played with the language on the front cover.Above, is a quote from the cover story. The reason there is a quote on the front page of a magazine is to tell the audience about the article they will read inside. The word 'we' suggests that although there is a picture of just the lead singer of the band in question, the article will actually be about them all.

As well as the quote used, the magazine cover uses a pun. 'Gerard Sees Red' could have two meanings to it. Either the obvious, that his hair has changed to this colour, or even to suggest that he is angry about something, and if you were to continue to read, one may think that he is possibly angry about 'what goth has become'.

NME - General Analysis

The first magazine that I am going to analyse is NME. The title stands for 'New Musical Express'. This name did originally appear as the main title for the magazine, however it was abbreviated to just NME in the late 70's. The company which produces it is called IPC (Internation Publishing Corporation). Here is a link to their website. Not only does IPC publish NME magazine, but also 'NUTS' and 'LOOK' magazines. IPC say that 'NME.COM is Europe's biggest and most views music website'. They also say how their magazine 'offers unparalleled access to an affluent young audience and a unique opportunity to communicate with them in an environment that they can relate to and return to frequently'. IPC have also established roughly who is reading NME and have managed to work out that the audience consists of 65% males, 50% 16-24 year olds and 23% 25-34 year olds.

The magazine costs just £2.30 to buy on its own in any newsagent; however it can be subscribed to costing £74.99 for a years subscription. The magazine is published weekly (Wednesday) with a different front cover and article each week. Its current circulation figure reads 38,486. From this figure i can see that every week, if every copy is sold, the £88,517.80 would be made to IPC and NME creators. The figure however could be larger as its readership is considerably more. It is around 325,000. The readership is so much higher than the circulation because it is assumed that for every magazine brought, it is read more than once by a different person each time. As well as this, it is available online for free any time you wish to visit the website http://www.nme.com/

Preliminary Final Front Cover

This is the final product for the preliminary task. Using the initial picture, I have desaturated the background of the picture leaving the main feature in colour. After deciding on different fonts and also a colour scheme, I started assembling the front cover. When i had everything that i wanted on the age, I re-arranged the layout of everything so as the page looked similar to that of a genuine magazine cover. I had to place grey boxes behind some of the text, mainly the yellow text, so as I could read the text well. Before the boxes were there, it was difficult to read with the yellow text against the white shirt. As well as this, the blue text which is on the page has been taken from the thin blue lines on the tie so as the colour scheme matched.




On the right is the contents page for my preliminary task. I used the same colour scheme as my front page in order to achieve the same house style and make it look as though you are reading the same magazine.

Preliminary Task - Original Photo

After taking many photos for potential front covers for my school magazine, I settled on using this one.

Preliminary Exercise

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 you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP.