Colour Scheme

Generally with most magazines the colour scheme can reflect the time of year/season it is. An example of this would be that during spring, magazines tend to have more pastel colours on the cover and throughout the magazine, in summer the colour scheme is more bold and bright consisting of colours such as yellow and red. 

The background colour of my magazine is red, I didn't initially plan for this it was just the colour of the wall that I took the photo against then I really liked it. By doing this I went against the convention of most magazines having a white background. I thought that the red stood out and was very bold which would attract the audiences attention. Here are some examples of magazines with red backgrounds:

With these red backgrounds the main colours used for the coverlines are yellow and white, I have always incorporated those two colours into my cover.

In my peer feedback I received mixed views about the colour scheme with someone commenting on it as 'good', another saying that 'there are too many colours used', the yellow and blue 'clash' and that the blue does not compliment the red background. 

 This is the initial look of my magazine: 

Fonts

I used both the fonts that are available on Photoshop and dafont.com to use for my front cover. When using dafont.com I was looking for a simple font, for this reason I looked at the fonts under basic, then I chose sans serif. I thought that serif fonts would give a formal and classy feel whereas I wanted an informal feel. I didn't want to use too many different fonts as I didn't want to give my magazine the crazy and chaotic feel which would look cheap and tacky. 

In my initial front cover feedback my choices of fonts were criticised for being too similar and boring. However my title font was commented on as looking nice and working well.

Front Cover Journey

When I thought of the idea to have the main text 'Shona G' written sideways I thought it would look good however once I tried it I didn't like it leaving me to have to change the layout.

I then changed this and added more cover lines:

From the feedback I received I decided to change the blue font, this would not only look better but would also make it easier to give the magazine a house style by using similar colours throughout; red, white, black and yellow.  

I then thought some boxes/shapes behind the cover line would make the cover more interesting in general, however once I tried this it didn't look as nice as I'd hoped. I couldn't put boxes covering all the cover lines because then some of the words that cover the person would have a box covering the model which wouldn't look professional. 

I then tried the rectangular boxes with rounded edges and felt that they looked better. I also added in a pink box with the hope that it wouldn't look out of place or clash with the other colours. The problem that I still faced was that my fonts were too simplistic and similar which made the magazine boring.

I struggled finding a colour for the boxes that looked appropriate for the colour scheme but this proved difficult. I also felt that the yellow didn't work so I used the colour pick tool in order to get the same colour of the pink top onto the text which would start a house style.

As I really liked the colour of the pink from the top as I was still struggling to find a colour for the boxes I decided to try out the pink in the boxes to see if it would work, unfortunately it didn't. The strong colours of the pink and red contrast against each other too much however it is my favourite colour scheme so far.

 

Peer Feedback

I gave 4 peers this cover to look at and asked them to give me feedback which would help me improve my work. This was a good thing to do because my target audience is people from this age group.

 

In summary the main points are:  title font is nice and works well

- other fonts are boring and too similar 

- some cover lines stand out 

- colour scheme clashes, too many colours especially the blue

- model should be more dominant

Making the barcode

I used an online barcode generator in order to create my barcode for my magazine. As the model is wearing a short skirt and vest top I thought that her outfit reflected summer; therefore I made it a summer issue. 

Initial Cover Layout

To give me an idea of what type of cover lines I should include I researched into 'Top of the Pops' and 'We <3 Pop' magazine covers and found that the covers were jam packed with text. I noticed that most of the content was celebrity based and there were many well known celebrity names mentioned on the cover. The content of the teasers were hybrid and did not just stick to music i.e. '107 brilliant bargain buys' 'true life: my sister was abducted' and 'the best problems and the worst cringes'.

I tried to stick to my cover lines being all music based because I didn't want to put it in the direction of being a lifestyle magazine. I will use this as my base when creating my front cover. I didn't want to use too many cover lines, especially ones that were diagonal which would make the magazine look too busy, disordered and cheap.

Favourite Masthead Colour Ideas

Front Cover Image Editing

Masthead Ideas

I decided to try out a variety of fonts on the masthead so I could get an idea of which one I would eventually use. 

Groteski

IMPACT 

VIPER NORA

Orator Std

Soda Light

Magazine Title

I asked a group of my peers who differ in music tastes which title they liked best: 

My favourite names are 'Download', 'Countdown' and 'Notorious' with the help of my research I have decided to title my magazine 'Download' as it was most popular.

Front Cover Pictures

 I have narrowed it down to these two photos being my favourite for the cover. With the photo on the left I like the photo and realise that I will have to crop out the floor and skirting board using Photoshop. The same would have to be done with the photo on the right where the stick on the wall and plug socket will need to be edited out. I think the photo on the right is much more relevant for a music magazine as the flowers she is holding in the other one is irrelevant and more suited to a teenage lifestyle magazine i.e. Bliss, Shout and Mizz. 

Target Audience Interview

I interviewed these people as these are the people who I am aiming my target audience at:

How old are you? 16

Which radio stations do you listen to?
Capital

How often do you keep up to date with the charts?
About once every two weeks

Who are your favourite artists?
Lana Del Ray, Conor Maynard

 Which albums (if any) have you purchased within the last 6 months?

Lana Del Ray

Which shops are most of your clothes from?
H&M

How much money are you willing to spend on a weekly music magazine?
                                  £2

How old are you?

19

Which radio stations do you listen to?
Capital FM

How often do you keep up to date with the charts?
Never

Who are your favourite artists?
Swedish House Mafia 

Which albums (if any) have you purchased within the last 6 months?
None

Which shops are most of your clothes from?
Boohoo

How much money are you willing to spend on a weekly music magazine?

£2

How old are you?

16

Which radio stations do you listen to?

Kiss 100

How often do you keep up to date with the charts?

Never

Who are your favourite artists?

Kanye West, Jay Z, Tyga

 Which albums (if any) have you purchased within the last 6 months?

Watch the Throne 

Which shops are most of your clothes from?

Hollister 

How much money are you willing to spend on a weekly music magazine?

£2.50

How old are you?
17

Which radio stations do you listen to?
XFM

How often do you keep up to date with the charts?
Rarely

Who are your favourite artists?
The Killers, Two Door Cinema Club, Paloma Faith, One Direction, Oasis, U2, Lana Del Rey, Mumford and Sons

Which albums (if any) have you purchased within the last 6 months?
None

Which shops are most of your clothes from?
TopShop & Urban Outfitters

How much money are you willing to spend on a weekly music magazine?
£2




How old are you?
16

Which radio stations do you listen to?
Capital FM

How often do you keep up to date with the charts?
Weekly

Who are your favourite artists?


 Which albums (if any) have you purchased within the last 6 months?

Which shops are most of your clothes from?
River Island

How much money are you willing to spend on a weekly music magazine?
£3

How old are you?
16

Which radio stations do you listen to?
Radio 1

How often do you keep up to date with the charts?
Weekly

Who are your favourite artists?
U2, John Mayor, Oasis

Which albums (if any) have you purchased within the last 6 months?
None

Which shops are most of your clothes from?
TopMan

How much money are you willing to spend on a weekly music magazine?
£1

How old are you?
17

Which radio stations do you listen to?
Radio 1

How often do you keep up to date with the charts?
Often

Who are your favourite artists?
Alt-J, The Killers, Disclosure, Jay-Z

Which albums (if any) have you purchased within the last 6 months?
The Killers - Battle Born, Calvin Harris - 18 Months, David Guetta - Nothing But the Beat 2.0, Devlin - Bud, Sweat & Bears, Disclosure - Disclosure, Ellie Goulding - Halcyon, Example - The Evolution of Man, Frank Ocean - Channel ORANGE, Fun. - Some Nights, Jack White - Blunderbuss, Lana Del Ray - Born To Die, Muse - The Second Law, Nas - Life is Good, No Doubt - Push and Shove, The Script - #3, TNGHT - TNGHT, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - Trouble, Train - California 37, The Vaccines - Come of Age, The Weeknd - The Weeknd, Kanye West - Good Music Cruel Summer. 

Which shops are most of your clothes from?
Superdry, Jack & Jones, Tommy Hilfiger, Levi's 

How much money are you willing to spend on a weekly music magazine?
£1.50

How old are you?
16

Which radio stations do you listen to?
Absolute

How often do you keep up to date with the charts?
Never

Who are your favourite artists?
Coldplay, The Beatles 

Which albums (if any) have you purchased within the last 6 months?
None

Which shops are most of your clothes from?
TopMan

How much money are you willing to spend on a weekly music magazine?
£2

Market Research Poll Results

From my market research I have found out that most 11-16 year olds will buy one magazine weekly, this could be due to their lack of interest in reading or their money budget. The money budget is shown by the fact that the magazine costs between £1 - £4, most magazines in general cost around that price however some magazines are slightly more expensive e.g. Vogue is £4.10. Features that I will include on my front cover shown by the cover lines will be interviews and posters as they are the two most popular features that are relevant to persuading music lovers to buy a music magazine.

Initial Photos

Thumbnails of my photos:

Here are some collages of some photos: