Contents Page Planning

I have decided to design my contents page in a similar way to leading music magazines such as 'NME' and 'Kerrang!' Here is an example of a contents page that I am using as inspiration for my piece.

Re-evaluation of my work so far

I have decided to change some things about my magazine so far.

The name of the magazine will be: Soul. This is because the word 'soul' connotates emotions, a higher deity, spiritual beliefs and purpose. These are all associated with the ideologies and purpose of Blues music; which sings from the heart and with passion. Spiritual belief is a subject which is commonly sung in Blues music therfore I think 'Soul' will be an appropriate name. It is also short and catchy, making it memorable.

The name of my created band will be The Expressors and the first album will be called Bluefire. This uses contrasting ideas of blue, which conotates for rain, sky etc and fire which is red and conotates for romance and passion. The use of 'Blue' is also a direct reference to the music genre I am targeting. I have chosen the band name to be The Expressors because it also relates to Blues music and the conotations that are associated with it; expressing yourself etc. .The word 'The' also makes the band appear more important as it gives them more of a title, rather than simply 'Expressors'. The most popular and most heavily adverstised song on the album will be 'Statements of Sorrow'. I have decided to put this on the front of the magazine because it will potentially attract music listeners who tend to associate themselves with other music genres; such as metal, emo, rock and punk. This is because many of these genre artists have songs or lyrics that are similar to this. Sorrow, suffering, pain etc are all connotations or 'emo' and 'metal' music. Therfore, I am appealing to other genre listeners, as well as primarily basing my music on Blues. The music featured on my magazine is subsequently a multi-genre type. The main genre being Blues, but also portraying the ideologies and some music from genres such as metal, emo and rock.

Conventions

In this post I will identify the conventions of front page covers, double page spreads and contents pages.

There are many conventions to a typical front cover of a magazine. One convention is a masthead. This is commonly used to attract a certain audience and inform the reader's of the magazines intentions. It is usually the magazine name, examples are Kerrang! magazine and NME.

Here is an example of a masthead, (to the right). As you can see, this magazine has used black/white colour schemes as contrasting colours. This is eye-catching and a typical use of colour for a magazine masthead.

Basic Information about my Magazine

Magazine Title: Soul
I have chosen this because it is snappy and short and grabs the attention of my target audience (The word Soul applies to Blues genre lexis)

The magazine will be released monthly- i have chosen this because Blues does not have a large enough audience to raise substantial profits from a weekly issue. Monthly is better because it gives people time to buy each issue and means that production of the magazines will be easier.

The cover price for my magazine will be £2.30
Due to the more expensive price of the magazine, the printing and quality of production will need to be better. (high quality paper, coloured ink, free inserts such as DVDs and posters)

Double-page spread- Planning

Here is an example of a double page spread from a popular, published magazine called Kerrang! magazine.

Analysing a Music Magazine

Analysing Kerrang! magazine.

Kerrang! magazine is a popular music based magazine which is published in the United Kingdom by Bauer Consumer Media. The magazine was first published on June 6th, 1981. Kerrang! is a weekly magazine that is highly acclaimed for representing many 'emo' or 'metacore' music.

Iconography is important for any magazine that wants to publish itself on a routine basis. The Title Kerrang! is iconographic as it unique and features the same in every issue. In the example issue above part of the title has been covered up for the celebrities head however due to iconography and recognition the audience still know that it is Kerrang! magazine; even though only the first three letters are eligible.

The colour black is a distinguishable feature of Kerrang! magazine. Black is used in every issue that I have researched and come across. Other features are also consistant throughout every issue such as the barcode being on situated at the bottom of the page, on the front page, in every release. Another feature of Kerrang! is that they have celebrity status on the front page, situated centrally and filling most of the page. The celebrites are usually solo performers or group bands such as 'Greenday', 'Paramore' and 'YouMeAtSix'. In the photo above the main person represented is the singer who is in the front out of the four band members. He is pointing at the front, towards the reader, which involved the audience in the magazine, including them in it.

The tagline "Panic At The Disco" is another popular band. The word 'Panic' is written in red. Red has connotations of anger, panic, blood and pain; these are all features of metal and emo music. The word 'panic' also stands out more than the rest of the text.

The background is white and therfore suggests blankness, clearness and stops the page from looking crowded and overfilled. Both male and females have been placed onto the front cover to reinforce that the magazine targets both males and females. However, the magazine rarely features black song artists or anyone other than white english or americans. The magazine generally targets an English audience by using American ideologies. The magazine is based in the UK however represents mainly American singer/song writers such as My Chemical Romance and Greenday to target other audiences.

In the front cover above you can see that Kerrang! have used 'Plus!' and 'Inside!' to entice the reader into buying the copy and seeing what is inside the issue. Plugs, side photographs/imags and sublines are an effective method of doing this.

The image is a medium shot of the band.

The largest text on the page is the masthead and the headline, both include block capital text to make it stand out as if the letters are screaming out at you.

Titles for my magazine

• BluesIsBack
  
• Soul


• BringBackTheBlues


• Bluesoul


• Blue Blues

The name for my magazine that I have decided to go for is Soul. This is because it targets the audience who enjoy Blues music without having to directly include 'Blues' in the title. It is also short and catchy so it will be memorable for the readers. 'Soul' has many connotations- Life, unknown, peace and importance. These features are significant as it will entice the reader into purchasing the magazine; and to ensure continued, regular purchase.

The title 'Soul' will also fit much easier onto my magazine front cover whereas 'BringBackTheBlues' would take up more room and the layout of the overall piece would be less effective.

As part of my planning I have decided to include this list of potential titles for names so the reader of this blog knows my thought process as I concluded on the title for my magazine.

Here is an example of a draft front cover of what my magazine would look like with the title 'The Blue Blues' and 'Soul'