1st Draft of my Feature Article for my music Magazine

This is my basic layout for my feature article. When looking at already established magazines I found that I preferred a layout with the main image being an A4 page, I think this makes the feature article looks sophisticated.

I will have the title of my article in large writing at the top of the left page, the I will have  a kicker to kick start the article and get the readers attention. I will use a drop-cap because when looking into the magazine I found that most magazines use this technique. I will also use a pull quote directly form the article. I will also have a box in the left hand corner with another mini story which links to the article but doesn't carry on with the exact story.

When constructing my magazine the layout may change slightly, however, this is the general layout I will use.

1st Draft for Contents Page for my Music Magazine

This is my first draft for my contents page that will feature in my music magazine, the title for this page will always be at the top of this page,  however, the rest of the page may change composition depending on what layout looks beat when I start creating my magazine.

As most magazines do, my contents page will feature Editors Notes, this is just where the editor will introduce this weeks magazine and will welcome the reader. I may have a picture of the editor with the notes, or I may use have the notes, it will depend on how crowded the page will look at the end.

My main image for this page will be in the top left hand corner, it will be of something that will feature in the magazine, the photograph will be taken by me, and will of something that relates to indie-rock fashion or music.

I will also have a box in the bottom right hand corner where it will be offering the reader to subscribe to this magazine which will hopefully boost sales and profit of this magazine.

The numbers will be larger than the text when creating my contents list, this will grab the eye  of the reader and will make it clear what page the article is on, also the layout of the contents list will be about 'this issue' and also a separate one for music specials.

1st Draft for Magazine Front Cover

This is my first rough draft of my front cover, for my music magazine. This will be my general layout, however, due to this being my first draft it may change where the cover lines will be placed.

However, I will have the mast head to the top as this is what most high and upper market magazines use, so I believed that if the mast head works well at the top for all other magazines, my should fit in with that general layout. I think that having the mast head at the top of the cover works particularly well because you can see the mast head when it is stacked in a newsagents or supermarket.

With my cover lines I will allow the to cover the main image, however, I will not allow the cover lines to continue onto the face of the person, as the person featuring on the front cover will be lose behind the righting. The main cover line will be larger than all the other cover lines, however, it will not be  larger than the mast head.

I will probably only use one image on my front cover, as my main image, this is because if I have more than one I think the cover becomes too busy and loses its sleek and sophisticated look. The main image for my cover photo will be taken by me, and will reflect the cover images of Vogue and Glamour.

Initial Idea for my Music Magazine

Target audience:

A magazine that has been slightly edged towards females but still approachable by male, between the ages of 16-19.Teenagers that are interested in Indie/Rock based music and those who follow Indie and Vintage fashion style, which some call a ‘Hipster’ market. This target audience will be attracted by some upper-class brands such as Starbucks which are commonly associated with the ‘hipster’ market; however, being of a young age they will not have a high income.

Price point:

The price for my magazine will hopefully be around the £2.50 to £4.00 mark, being quite a high priced magazine it makes it slightly upper market and it will be specifically marketed to those who have a passion and general interest for vintage fashion and indie rock music, so in view of this they will be willing to pay more for something they are passionate in, however, this could change depending on more research into my target audience.

When:

This magazine may be published fortnightly or monthly depending on more information into my target audience, however, if it was published weekly I think it may be too expensive for my target audience, being slightly upper market the price would stay a little high.

Overview of the Magazine Industry

A brief look into the overall Magazine Industry and I found that there are more than 8000 magazines published in Britain. These 8000 titles can be broken down into categorises, one would be ‘consumer’ titles, both general and specialist, which would be normally sold in newsagents and most of the time are available online. Another category would be ‘business’, which includes trade, professional and people at work. ‘Customer Magazines’ that organisations give to their customs as a form of marketing. Staff magazines are given to employees to inform the staff about their company. Magazines that you receive free as part of a daily or Sunday Paper, is another category called ‘Newspaper Supplements’. Another two parts of the magazine industry are ‘Part works’, a set number of issues builds up an ‘encyclopaedia’ on a specific topic, and ‘Academic Journals’, which are for university-level discussion of all sort s of arcane topics. However, out of all these sub-sections of the magazine industry the Consumer magazine makes up the bulk of the titles for sale in the newsagents. These vary to general titles such as ‘Elle’, ‘Loaded’ and ‘Radio Times’ which are entertainment and aim to inform, or they can be consumer specialist titles which are more specific and aim at particular interests, magazines such as ‘Car’, ‘Gardeners’ and ‘Total Film’.

By 2008 sales revenue in newsagents the biggest consumer magazine publishes were Bauer Publishing with 25%, closely followed by IPC Media with 20%, then BBC with 7.8% (Immediate Media brought out BBC magazines in October in 2011) and National magazine company are at 7.3%.

Today in the United Kingdom there are over 3,200 different consumer titles which is a dramatic contrast to 1980 where there only were 1,383, so we can clearly see that the amount of choice of magazine you can have has increased. 1.4 billion magazines are sold each year, and 85% of the UK’s population reads a magazine. In 2008 Advertises spent £745,000,000 on magazine! And, consumers spent £2 billion on magazines yearly! However, in the current market only 3 out of 10 titles survive for more than 4 years!

But magazines that are huge and are the top 5 women’s monthly magazine of 2013 are Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Yours, Women & Home and Good Housekeeping. And the top four for Men’s lifestyle were Men’s Health, Nuts, FHM and GQ.

Colours Mood Board

These are the main colours that will feature in my music magazine.. The colours are often associated with females which is what my target audience mainly is made up of. The colours are very complimentary and I may have more colours that I consider later. I have put all of the tones on this mood board because it will depend on my main cover photograph as to what tone and shade I pick of the colours to see what looks best and compliments the image.

Although these colours links stereo-typically to females they are also what are seen on most high class music  magazines, I tried not to go for the really bright colours as the indie-rock target audience that I am aiming for are often wearing colours that are not really bright.

On my front cover, contents and feature article I will also consider using black and white to add really contrast, and these colours are very popular in the magazine industry.

Typography Mood Board

These are some of the fonts that I will consider using on my music magazine, I the reason to why I choose these fonts is that they look quite sophisticated and are not childish, which will hopefully reflect that my music magazine is one of quality, also I choose these fonts because they look quite feminine, especially the Bodoni MT, looks like the typography that you would see in the pages of Vogue and other top designer magazines. Times New Roman was also chosen because I think it is easy to read and looks very smart. All of these fonts are easy to read and suit the type of reader that shall buy this magazine, it shows sophistication and reflects my female target audience.