Nearly Finished Magazine

  Front Cover

 Contents Page 1

 Contents page 2

 Page 3- DPS

Page 4 - DPS

DPS In Development

Image Manipulation

Contents page - In Development

My Current contents page

Article Ideas and Language

Article Ideas

1.     Top Music lists

2.    Hottest ‘Independent’ labels – could make up a name

3.    Cross-over artists

4.    New and upcoming bands

5.    Album Reviews

6.    Covering concerts – could have a personal account of the ‘concert’

7.    A certain group or a new album by a certain artist

8.    Any upcoming music festival updates – comic-cons?

9.    Movie/Game soundtracks – reviews of the ‘hottest’ soundtracks from recent movies or games.

10. An interview with an artist

11.  An Informative or Service article – e.g. How to not get yourself murdered by fan-girls/fanboys survival guide.

12. An Exposé article – e.g. How extension cords can kill

13. Human Interest Article – an anecdote – e.g. So-and-So shares their experience of being a superstar

14. Historical Article – e.g. how the band came to be…   

15. Round-up magazine articles – Where you gather a collection of information – focus on one theme – offer opinions, quotations, anecdotes etc. An example of this kind of article would be something like: 10 Tips to become famous on Instagram

Language:

I want to use language that’s not too informal, but I don’t want it to be too ‘chatty’ either – I want it to sound familiar/friendly but not too intrusive.

I could use puns within my article or the article’s heading to draw in readers – I could perhaps use some goofy fonts to emphasize certain features to perhaps maintain the joke-like article. I want to use a wide range of both vocabulary and punctuation in my articles and my titles so that it can create a sense of variety within my work.

Contents and Double Page Spread Analysis

Masthead Tests

Fonts that might work well with the masthead and within my articles:

http://fontsinuse.com/uses/10454/born-to-run-by-bruce-springsteen-album-and-40
http://fontsinuse.com/uses/10291/lunchmoney-gallery
http://fontsinuse.com/uses/10326/park-session-poster-1
http://fontsinuse.com/uses/10143/pantofola-website
http://fontsinuse.com/uses/9842/die-revolution-entlaesst-ihre-kinder
http://fontsinuse.com/uses/9730/the-velvet-underground-byandnbsp-the-velvet-u
http://fontsinuse.com/uses/9571/saopaulo-casa-andamp-decoracao-2013
http://fontsinuse.com/uses/9539/jonny-size
http://fontsinuse.com/uses/2422/new-york-photo-festival-2008

Photography Ideas

Style Sheet

Pitch Questions and Feedback

Questions:

1) What sort of colours do you think I should use?

2) What sort of bands do you think I should cover?

3) Do you think there is a gap in the market for my magazine?

4) Is there anything that you think should be featured in my magazine?

5) How much would you pay for this magazine?

6) What do you think I could do to make my magazine unique?

7) Are there any names you think I should call my magazine?

______________ Answers_________________

1) I think you should use pastel-like colours for the contents and maybe the double page? I think using black, white and red would accentuate certain things like featured articles on your front cover.

2) I think you should cover some really well-known bands along with some advertisement for smaller bands that might just have started up or that should receive some well earned recognition.

3) Definitely. I haven't ever seen a magazine that combines K-pop, J-pop, anime,films and games - It's a magazine that I would, without a doubt, pick up and buy. 

4) I think you should feature the latest games - maybe do a *SPOILER-FREE* review (emphasis an spoiler-free) You could also do like a top 10 of movies or games or even music. Maybe do an interview with a certain band?

5) Honestly? I'd rather not pay, but I might be willing to splash out 2.50, any more then that would be stupid.

6) You could do some of your drawings! It would definitely make it a lot more 'unique' from other magazines.

7) Make it sound futuristic perhaps? NEO is pretty futuristic sounding and NEO-Tokyo is a thing. You could use some Latin or Japanese to make it sound 'cultural'?

Some Latin words:

 https://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/frivs/latin/latin-dict-full.html

Pitch

The pitch from Caranmason4

Magazine Analysis 2

Analysing a magazine cover from Caranmason4

Magazine Analysis

Made in Publisher then exported as a jpeg.

Mood Board

Evaluation of Student Magazine

1.      In what ways does your student magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Before designing my student magazine I analysed another student magazine and looked through many examples of student magazines I found that there were certain features that kept popping up - such as the central image being a young person, probably similar in age to the audience. I used mainly blues in my magazines colour palette - because I was originally going to put the Ludlow college logo on my magazine, but in the end I didn't but I still kept the blue colour for my magazine. I wanted the mode of address should be informal and chatty so that the audience can connect with the magazine on some level. The layout and the Masthead should be simple which connotes maturity and it has a clean-cut look. I continued using blues to create my house style which is within the conventions of a student magazine. I photographed a student - who was similar age-wise to my audience- I used a medium close-up which was part of the brief. I edited my photo in In Design using the effects - the tone and feather - I did this to try and cover up some of the noise on the photo and I also think it made my student magazine stand out more. I chose the name 'Ludlow Antics' after trying out some other names but I think that 'Ludlow Antics' fit better for my student magazine. I used Hobo Std because it has character which I wanted because it would be more memorable and eye-catching.

2.      How does your student magazine represent particular social groups?

I created my student magazine by basing it around both my own tastes and some of the student magazines that I looked at because I form part of my age range and the example student magazines are aimed at my age group which is ages 16-20. I also got some input from other students about how my magazine should look. The clothes that my model was wearing were quite neutral - as I didn't really want them to cater to any stereotypes - I didn't want my magazine to be aimed at any specific readers. When I asked my peers how much they thought the magazine should cost most of them said that it should be free so that everyone can access it. So with that in mind I made sure the magazine was free.

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

 I think that my magazine would be sold in a college because it would contain information that students would find useful (e.g. Revision tips) and because my magazine is free it'll appeal to more people who want to know about local news, trends and celebrity news.

4.      Who would be the audience for your student magazine?

The target audience for my magazine would be students between the ages of 16-20 also those who are interested in the local news, fashion trends, films and tips on revision and other things involving studies.

5.      How did you attract/address your audience?

 I attracted my audience with my central image being a student who goes to the college that my student magazine is based on. I used a bold font and made the 'strokes' larger on my Masthead and strap-line so that it was clear to the reader and for the cover contents I had intended to use a different font (but because the trail version of In Design didn't have that certain font, I used 'Impact' instead) and I made them white with a black outline except for one - which was kept black. On my cover contents, I used two different fonts to differentiate between stories and additional information I made sure that these fonts were clear and easy to read.

6.      What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the student magazine?

To put all of my ideas together I used In Design and although I understood the layout somewhat, it was a completely new program to me. I found that the more I tested out the different tools the easier it became to use In Design - using layers to add, delete or move certain fonts and images as I developed my magazine. I found naming my stories and where to put things a bit difficult but in the end, I have learnt a lot about In Design which will be more useful as I continue on to my main coursework task.

Initial Ideas

Initial Ideas:

• Could do a music magazine blended with soundtracks from games - I like music from games, because it doesn't normally have lyrics to it, so it works if I play it while doing work.
• Anime music - J-pop and ~Kpop
• Pop + Rock 
• I could do something that combines all my interests (Animation, films, J-pop, comics, gaming) and go on from there - I could go further and go on to 'review' certain songs, tracks or games (and/or films) - hybrid magazine 

Examples of Anime magazines:

Examples of gaming magazines:

Student Magazine

Magazine Market Research

Music magazines are mainly dominated by the genres of Pop and Rock - because they seem to be the most popular music styles. However many music magazines are broad with their genres so there could be a large mixture of genres within one music magazine. Many front covers of music magazines have well known artists on them, which appeals to certain audiences - there are also many audiences of different age groups. There are some specialist magazines that appeal to a somewhat smaller audience than the generic music magazine does.

Introduction and Action Plan

Introduction
I will be making a music magazine that will follow generic conventions of an actual music magazine and my magazine must appeal to my target audience.

Work Flow

5th Oct:

• Introduction to main task
• Initial Ideas for music magazine
• Research of chosen subgenre - Front Cover Analysis

12th Oct:

• Research of chosen subgenre - contents and double spread page analysis
• Develop Pitch

19th Oct:

• Pitch & Audiences
• Style sheet and mock-ups
• Planning for production

2nd Nov:

• InDesign/Photoshop training
• Designing front cover

9th Nov:

• Designing front cover

16th Nov:

• Designing contents page

23rd Nov:

• Designing double page spread

30th Nov:

• Gain audience feedback on all magazine pages

7th Dec:

• Finalise magazine design

14th Dec:

• Evaluation preparation

4th Jan - 11th Jan:

• Evaluation

DEADLINE: FRIDAY 29th JANUARY

Experimentation with Mode of Address, Name Ideas and Strap-line Ideas

Mode of Address:
I don't want to sound too formal, so I'll use informal language to try and connect with students reading - I'll also use personal pronouns (directly addressing the reader) so that the reader feels involved when reading the magazine.

Name Ideas:

• Ludlow Antics
• The Wassup Mag
• Ludlow Student Times (LST)
• Urbanter (Urban banter)
• Next!
• College News
• Student Chat
• Study Bible
• The Goss

Strap-line Ideas

•  Putting it in words 
• Keeping you informed
• The latest gossip
• Leaving you wanting more

Target Audience Research

As my target audience is students from (Ludlow) college I decided to ask a few other people to answer some questions:   

What kind of things would you want a student magazine to cover?

• Local Events - what's happening in and around Ludlow
• Sports news
• Reviews of new products  
• Celebrities 
• T.V show updates - e.g Who got though on X-Factor
• Help with Revision
• Latest trends - fashion, shows etc.
• Latest media - Film, books and music

How much would you pay for a student magazine?

• From nothing to £1

Anything else?

• It should be relate-able 
• Don't make it too 'grown-up'
• Maybe have some puns in it?
• It could have articles about certain students - like winning awards etcetera 
• Don't make it too wordy otherwise some people won't be othered to read it

Experimenting with Fonts

This font is Hobo Std. I'm thinking of using this font for my Masthead, although I might use a different font for the first letter(s). It gives my masthead a bit of character with its roundedness.  

This is the Candara font; I'm thinking of using this font for my Strap line and the main text (the contents page) because it’s spaced out, easy to read and really contrast against Hobo Std.

There is a font called Lithos pro regular and I'm thinking of using it for the ‘best bits’ text on my front cover page because it grabs your attention. I also want to use Adobe Song Std L for certain parts of the text on the cover page.

I did consider using MingLiU_HKSCS on the cover page but it’s a bit too ‘spaced out’. 

Mock Front Cover and Contents page

Experimentation with Colour

 I have chosen to use mainly blues, yellows and perhaps greens for my colour scheme. I wanted to use these colours to match the college's logo:

I'll also use these colours on the contents page do that it stays continuous throughout. 

Analysis of a Student Magazine