Mood board

I created a mood board of the inspiration I have found for the magazine in which I am going to create. The mood board includes aspects to do with my specific genre, colour schemes in which i choose to use within my magazine and famous artists within my genre already. Some of the magazines already existing in the media at the moment are presented on my mood board. This is because the images which have been used on these magazine have given me inspiration to take images similar to those already successful as this will help my magazine become more professional and successful as possible.

Double page mock up pages

Idea 1 for my contents mock ups:



Idea 2 for my contents mock ups:

Contents page mock ups

Mock up idea 1 for my contents page:

Mock up idea 2 for my contents page:

Front cover Image choice

After looking through the large amount of images that I took for potential pictures to feature on my magazine, I finally came to the decision of using this image for the front cover page of my magazine. I have chosen this image as i feel that it is immediately eye catching with the close up shot of the camera being directly on her face and the upper part of her body. Although there is no specific eye contact as you cannot see her eyes, the forward pose with the use of glasses show that she may be using a direct mode of address straight to the reader and the reader is drawn in quickly through the use of forward pose and her head being straight on at the camera. 

I feel that the image will be effective for the genre of music I am aiming my magazine towards as when doing research on what types of images to take and use, I found an image similar to the one taken and for the same genre of music. The research helped me to get ideas for positioning of my model for the images and this helped me to develop my genre and help it to come across clearer to the reader. 

To make my image more professional for the front cover of my magazine, I am going to use Photoshop to edit my image to make it suit the purposes of the magazine. 

New photos and feeback

From receiving feedback from my class mates and also teachers in class, I realized that i needed to take some more photos for my magazine as the images that I took before did not suit the genre of music that I was aiming to focus my magazine on, as they looked more for an Indie magazine; where as I am aiming my target audience at Pop music and the genre of mainstream music as I know more about this type of my music. From my feedback in my new images I made my model more 'glammed' up and a bit more 'posey', as I found that this was the normal of a typical pop magazine image. Here are some of the images that I took and need to choose between:

Front cover mock ups

I have produced three mock ups for my front cover pages in which i will chose from for the design of my magazine. Each design has aspects which are the same featuring on the front cover page, but also features which are different and make them stand out from the other.
Here is an idea of the first mock up of my magazine:

For the first design of my mock up for my magazine, I have placed the masthead at the top of the page. I found that this was a norm of the typical magazine and so decided to include this on my first mock up. This occurs on another of my mock ups also. The design of this magazine front cover page is very simple with small amounts of text, one large image and a strapline. Although I haven't included it on my design I do also aim to include flashers on the front page to advertise things within the magazine.  The large image is also a norm of the typical magazine and so this is why I have chosen to use this on the front page of the magazine. Although there are only three spaces of text on the mock up, I also aim to include more text, I just felt it was unnecessary to include lots of boxes on the page explaining where the text is going to be. 

Here is the second design for my mock up 2:

For my second design for my mock ups, likewise with the masthead on design 1 I have placed the masthead at the top of the page  but this time slightly to the left of the page. I got this idea from my format research and from looking at Q magazine especially as the masthead/brand was placed in the top left hand corner of the page and stood out clearly. Although this defied convention, I really liked the idea of this and placing it in the top left hand corner as I felt that it caught the readers eye easily and it was very effective as it was different to other types of magazine and so therefore stood out more as it was obviously defying convention and catching the readers eye. The use of large image is once again following the norms of the typical magazine with it standing out well and drawing attention immediately as the reader has no other images to distract their eyes from. There is a large amount of space for text and these are placed around the edges of the page, keeping them away from the image but being easily read as there will be nothing to distracting in the background of the text. The use of flasher is to advertise products or interesting things within the magazine. The flasher idea helps to attract the reader more and draw them into information that probably isn't so important but makes it look more important and also adds dramatic effect to the aspect that they are advertising. The design of this mock up is also very simple, it just has a few more ideas and is set out differently. 

Mock up design 3:

The design of this magazine is slightly different to the other two designs with the masthead being in a slightly different place, defying convention, and also the amount of images defies convention also. The masthead being down the left third of the page helps to fix up the design of the magazine and it can be effective as it gives more space for the image at the top of the page, and in this case makes room for other images to be included on the page. The logo being at the top of the page is also effective as this shows that the magazine has some sort of branding that they are trying to get across to the reader and they try to get the logo recognized with it being in bold and at the top of the page, so easily readable. The large amount of space for text on the page on the right hand third is effective as this allows lots of headlines to be featured on the front cover page, advertising the articles in the magazine straight away. The two smaller images at the top of the page are effective as with the masthead being placed in a different area of the page, this allows space for these images and so having more than one image on the page can be effective as there are lots of things to look at and many eye catching features. The footer at the bottom of the page is effective as it helps to include any other information that needs to be included on the front cover of the magazine and is an area for extra information. 

Questionnaire

Before creating my magazine I created a survey using the website Survey Monkey, to help me to decide on different features for my magazine and from the feedback of many others this gave me a clearer idea of what the majority of people like to see on magazines; whether it be on the front cover or the double page spread. Below I have posted the results for you to view.

Music Magazine questionnaire

Please could you all answer my questionnaire for my music magazine so that I can gather feedback and decide on what is best for to use for my magazine to make it most successful.
Click on the link below to answer the questions.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MF6FQH6

Potential images for my magazine

For my magazine I have taken a few photos of a young girl with the guitar, posing and also with a kitten. I aim to target my audience for the magazine at teenagers and those who enjoy pop music, or mainstream music. With the use of variety of images of the young girl, I intend to attract readers through the use of model the same age as the target audience and also with the different images giving a variety of shots. These are potential images for my magazine, however i haven't quite decided on whether to use them for my final piece or not. Would other bloggers please give me feedback on whether these would be best suited for my magazine or not and what I could do with my images to improve.