Tuesday 29 November 2011

Front Cover Ideas - Name and Font

Ideas for my Front Cover

My main idea for my magazine is simple, main picture, couple of sub-titles and one main headline with the magazine title. 


Magazine Name
In one of my previous posts, I posted a list of potential names for my magazine. With the use of 16 people, a pen, a tally chart and the names, the 16 people I chose picked their two favourite names from my selection.
From the tally, you can see I have a dilemma with two of my names. 'Iconic' and 'Enstyle' both have the same amount of votes. 
Looking back at what the genre of my magazine is, I have to think about what name suits this criteria best.


So basically, the final title for my magazine is.....Iconic


                                               


  MAGAZINE FONTS

Using the font website dafont I found a variety of fonts which I thought personally represent an Indie genre. With these fonts I hopefully have found a rough idea, or certain idea of what font/style I'll use for my magazine cover.







To find a variety of different fonts, I looked at styles from magazines such as Elle and Vogue. I know these magazines are about fashion and not music, but the style of font on the front covers appealed to me, and what sort of style I expect my magazine to be like.






Friday 18 November 2011

Magazine Analysis (NME)

NME (New Musical Express) is a self-produced music magazine, with a genre of mainly 'indie' music included in it.
  • Any music magazine has a target audience. With NME having such a huge fan base, the main target audience would be 16-25 year olds, but it varies with the variety of bands inside the magazine.
  • NME on a weekly basis costs £2.20, but if subscribed to a yearly subscription, the cost of the magazine is £1.47 which together is £74.99 per year.
  • NME is published every Monday on a weekly basis
  • The circulation figures for NME roughly is 29,020 magazines sold per week

NME is produced by a well-known publishing brand called IPC Media Inspire.
The company produces over 60 media brands, such as magazines, with the printing of the brands reaching almost 2/3s UK women and 42% of UK men. Almost 26 million of adults in the UK.


The Cover
 The title of NME, as stated before is called New Musical Express. The words 'New' immediately attract someone, as this indicates everything in the magazie is new material, some of which others may of not heard of, and people want to be the first to hear a song. 
Shortening the title to NME and not the full name makes it short and simple, and gives people an easier and quicker way of saying the name. 
  • The main image on the front cover is the lead singer of Florence + the Machine, Florence Welch. Welch's eyeview is directly at the camera, with an open mouth pose. Her bone structure is very defined in this picture. The eye gaze and pose, along with the effect of the picture being a little faded, gives it a vintage feel to it.This photo appeals more to people aged 16-24, as Florence + the Machine is a band that appelas more to that age group. This can make sales increase also as Welch is making a comeback. 
  • The only other picture on the front cover is of Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division. The title next to it is 'Free Iconic Joy Division Posters'. This also appeals to more readers of a wider variety of age, as Joy Divison were a band around in the late 70s/early 80s. The posters also appeals to people who admired the band, as Curtis died in the 1980s. The free poster also appeals to people more, as if they buy the magazine they get a free item, meaning they get more for their money.
The other content on the front cover is advertising what is inside the magazine. Headlines such as 'The Greatest Track of the Last 15 years Revealed' are expected to be included in the magazine itself. There's also the headlines 'World Exclusive Comeback Interview, Florence' which relates to the main picture of Florence Welch. 
  • The font used for the main title of NME is different to the sub-title font. This shows a distinct difference between the main title and the other titles. The colours used are a basic white/cream, red and black. The red colour used for 'Florence' is a more faded red, which fits in well with the vintage theme of the main picture.
The cover 'talks' to its reader, as it is basically telling them straight away the main stories inside the magazines.
  • The magazine cover of Welch is differnt to other covers. The majority of the past covers of NME are all different, depending on what type of genre the singer or band come from. If all covers were the same style, NME would lose customers for not being original.

Inside
The amount of pages inside the magazine is 66, with 14 pages being taken up with advertisements. 
The majority of the adverts fall under the categories of music advertisements, such as dates for gigs or concerts and album releases. 
As NME is a music magazine, the majority of the articles are based on:
  • bands
  • new releases
  • concerts\gigs
  • band interviews
  • album reviews
The use of the advertisements in the magazine basically show what type of genre this magazine is. The adverts in NME reflect on what bands are in the genre of 'indie'. Bands such as Pink Floyd and Florence + The Machine are featured in this, because of upcoming album releases. There are also adverts for upcoming gigs and concerts for smaller bands, such as Little Comets and The Drums. 


Double Page Spread


The main article in NME is a double page spread about the woman on the front cover, Florence + The Machine. 
The spread resembles the front cover, with the use of the light and faded red colour, and the layout of the pictures, it makes it different which is what NME is about.
The background red onto the sub-title 'I was a scared kid, a worrier.' immediately gets your attention as it stands out more from the other headlines. 
The layout of the pictures is very random. The white border around each smaller picture gives it an alternative feel, such as the number of photos on the spread. 
To the right of the article, there is a history of previous articles and front covers which Florence Welch has been on.

    Monday 7 November 2011

    First Ideas for Magazine Title

    My first ideas for my magazine title were pretty basic. My original ideas were to have a rock magazine, but after trying to think of names, it became reasonably hard to get something decent. So, my final idea for a genre for my magazine is alternative/indie! Here are some ideas I finally came down to:
    • indieRIOT
    • loud
    • music heights
    • subversion 
    • mainstream
    • iconic (my favourite)
    • vision
    • enstyle
    Indie Music
    The urban dictionary definition of 'indie music' is: 'indie music isn't a difinite style of music, but most indie bands are infleunced by each other causing a similar sound. ' The term 'indie' is a shortened version of 'independant'. It's in the name really; indie music is basically a genre of music which a lot of people don't listen to, also meaning individual. More popular bands from the 'indie genre' are:
    (links below)
    These are the more well-known indie bands, obviously as indie is another words for 'independant' and 'individual' there are more bands/artists which no one has ever heard of...or maybe a few people have...making it 'not mainstream'




    My photos for my magazine are going to have to represent and resemble a typical 'indie' band or singer. Through this I've decided to read one too many NME magazines to see the typical style/reccuring artists. From my research I've seen that Florence + The Machine has been on 5 front covers, The Libertines have been on twice, and Oasis have been on the cover 6 times. So, basically I need to make sure my photos have the correct genre for this style. 
    With this in mind, I thought of what clothing my model would have to wear, main ideas were:
    • band/logo vests
    • denim ripped shorts
    • a knitted jumper
    • messy hair
    • flower headband
    • big eye make up
    • props such as cigarettes, cable leads for microphones etc
    So, using my ideas for a model, I now have an idea of what my pictures should and will look like!