Double Page Layouts...

While im making sketches of layouts and thinking of a name for my magazine i am still looking at magazines and i have found some double page spreads that i really like.

The one at the top is using a four column per page rule but grouping two columns on one side and two on the other making it look like a two column layout. This means that in a magazine that uses 2 columns this wouldn't look out of place.  And the other two are using two columns which i think looks really good. I'm going to try to to find some other examples of some different, less common, types of grid systems. 

NME covers...

NME is a really popular magazine for music fans of my age, particularly those into indie and alternative music. Obviously it is really important that the cover is appealing to the target audience and it must be considering NME is one of the biggest selling music magazines. 

So i am going to look at some NME covers and decide what makes it suitable for the intended audience and what makes it successful in drawing in new readers.

I have found that, compared to Mojo magazine covers NME covers are alot more colourful and less symetrical and organised looking. This makes them look a bit less sophisticated but they look more fun and i think this is important when aiming at the 15-20 age range. The covers also feature much more up-to-date names such as Panic at the Disco and The Wombats which is going to appeal more to the younger audience. Two of the covers also say 'Glasto' on them which is the name that mainly younger people give the Glastonbury music festival. Younger people are also more likely to be interested in music festivals and so this will be eye catching to this age range.

All of the covers also feature many other well known band names to younger audiences. The covers also feature well known up-to-date faces in the music industry which will be recognised by this age range. The cover pictures are also busier and more fun looking which is far more likely to be appealing to 15-20 year-olds.

Target Audience...

I have just been searching target audiences for music magazines and i have found out that... 

KERRANG- Metal/Nu metal/ Screamo

NME- Indie/Nu Rave/Alternative (and new bands)

Mojo- 35-55 year old music fan

So i am going to buy a NME magazine to look through and refer to when making my magazine.

Target Audience...

Today we started talking about thinking of names for our music magazines.

To think of a suitable name i need to take into account my target audience.

My target audience is 15-20 year olds and the genre would be indie/acoustic.

I am going to make a brainstorm of name ideas. I think it would be really good to have a name that could be abbreviated and be really memorable.

I also need to do some research into what an audience of this age range wants to see and read about and what would catch their attention on a front cover etc.

Mojo Magazine Covers...

Here are some of the Mojo covers which I particularly liked.

I chose them because they stood out to me. It is important that they stood out to me because a magazine cover needs to do this because it makes it more sellable. 

They have used well known artists on their front cover because that always stand out to people and the names across the middle stand out.

The images are also quite striking. The black and white images stand out but the rainbow one also does because the colour has been used in an interesting way. So they stand out because the pictures are not in realistic colours like most magazine covers.

So these are the kind of things I may think about doing with any photos I take for my cover image; 

• Making them black and white
• photoshopping colours over them
• 
  

Music Magazine research...

I have been looking through music magazine websites such as :

• NME
• Mojo
• Kerrang
• The Wire
• i-D

My favourite website was Mojo because I looked at a lot of the past covers and I thought they were more eye catching than any of the others. They were also more interesting and all the covers look very different.

Final Ideas...

Now I am starting to think about making my final magazine ideas.

I have already looked at some magazine covers and contents pages but I need to look at some more because I will be looking at them for different reasons. I am going to make a music magazine and the cover and contents pages will need to appeal to very different audience so it will need to be a very different style.

I need to make a :

• front cover
• contents page
• double spread
• any other pages
  

I will probably make a sort of indie music magazine because I really like some of the magazines I have looked at of this genre and also because some of my friends are in bands of this style who I can interview and take pictures of.