Magazines that have inspired my music magazine

Kerrang! magazine

Kerrang! magazine was the magazine that inspired mine the most. I like the look of the front cover especially as it seems as though there is so much going on although it still looks attractive. 

I also chose to look at Kerrang! Magazine for some ideas and inspiration because it is for the rock genre and so is my magazine. I think it was important to look at a magazine in the same genre because different genres have different features and specific 'looks' about them. E.g. you wouldn't have bright girly colours for a rock magazine and you wouldn't have darker boy-ish colours for a pop magazine. 

On the front cover of the Kerrang! magazine I was looking at was the 'YOU ME AT SIX' one on the top right. The yellow writing really stood out and appealed to me so I decided to try it on mine to see if it would go with the background. 

I like the way the masthead is being covered by the picture of the band member in front. To me, this shows that the magazine must be popular enough for people to see the style of the magazine without having to read the title and to know that it is the Kerrang! magazine. I also find the mixture of the different fonts used attractive as it doesn't look plain and uninteresting. 

The title really appealed to me. This is because of the lines that are running through it. This seemed like a really good idea, so this is what inspired my title. 

My target audience videos - Third Person

This is a video of Becca, one of my target audience.

In it she explains what she really likes about the magazine:

• The picture and title really stands out so will grab the readers attention
• The picture makes the artist look like a well known rockstar so people will want to read about him
• The quotes like 'My fans saved my me' makes you wonder what's happened to him, it will really want to make people want to read on
• Also quotes like 'I got kicked out of my own gig' expresses 'juicy details' that's relevant to the story and magazine
• Quotes on the front page like 'Win a chance to meet you me at six'. As they're a really huge rockband people are going to want to see them so will pull in the readers attention. 
• In the contents page, it picks out bands that are relevant to the rock music genre
• Talks about big festivals coming up, everyone is talking about them and want to know who's going to be there so will really grab the readers attention.
• On the contents page, there's a massive you me at six picture, as they're a huge rockband it will want the audience to read about them and want to purchase the magazine 

My target audience videos - Second Person

This is a video of Sade, one of my target audience.

in it she explains what she really likes about the magazine:

• The front cover is effective as the writing stands out and catches readers eye
• Likes the use of advertising 
• The pull quote 'My fans saved me' is effective and would catch the readers eye 
• Good use of magazine conventions like barcode, price, issue number and date 
• Likes the use of images, they're in high definition
• Contents page is really effective because of the different headings 
• Double page spread flows onto both pages 
• Use of font colours match with the sex of the male artist 
• The blue, white and red poses shows magazine is from the rock genre 

My target audience videos - First Person

This is a video of Ciara, one of my target audience.

In it she says what she really likes about the magazine:

• Likes the yellow within the colour scheme as it brings out specific things like the pull quote
• The way the picture overlaps the text, it looks effective as it seems as though he's walking through the page 
• The title looks effective as the lines that i've put through it makes it look edgy and 'rockish'
• Likes the contents page colour scheme
• The yellow draws your eye to the specific heading like 'contents page' 
• The fancy writing used contrasts against the rock theme but works really well and looks effective
• The double page spread colour scheme looks effective as i've used white writing for the questions and blue for the answers
• Likes the use of the pull quote 'I even got kicked out of my own gig'
• The blue on the black background makes it stand out 
• The pictures used are good quality 
• The pictures are really well edited 

Final double page spread of my music magazine

This is my final double page spread. This page was developed and changed a lot from the other drafts. I didn't feel like my double page spread looked realistic enough like a proper magazine.

On the first page, I put a picture of Luke that I edited on Photoshop, covering the whole page. The photo is edited so that the background is in black and white and Luke is in colour. I did this so that my writing would be seen and easier to read but I think it also makes it look more interesting. I made it cover the page as I didn't want the page too look too boring and plain and seem like there is empty spaces on the page. On the other page, I decided to add a grey background but put a smaller picture of Luke crouching down with his guitar. I did this so there would be enough room for the text but also so the double page spread wouldn't look too overcrowded with too much going on.

For the title of the page, I added a black rectangle with 'LUKE' written inside of it and next to it I have carried on the title name by writing 'Confesses' by the side of it. On this I didn't put it in a black rectangle as I wanted it to look random and different.

At the bottom of the left page, I added a quote from the article. I did this so that the magazine would seem realistic like other magazines that have quotations that stand out. I chose that specific quote as it seems quite shocking and serious and so it would draw the readers in to reading the text. I put the word 'KICKED' in capitals and in red so that the word would stand out and to also show that it was such a serious thing happening to him.

On this page I also added the Resonance logo. I did this so that it would look consistent throughout the magazine. I also think that it looks quite realistic too as other real-life magazines have logo's too. Unlike the other drafts, I also added the page number so the reader would know where to find the article.

I wrote the colour of the text in blue and white so the reader's would know the difference between the questions and the answers of the article. I chose to use these colours so it would flow consistently throughout the magazine. I wanted the text to go around the picture of Luke than go right on top of him because I wanted it to look as professional and life-like as I could as I know real-life magazines do not have the text on top of the pictures so that the readers can clearly see them.

On the right page, by the picture I added text to make the readers want to see the 'exclusive' pictures. I used the word 'exclusive' as it's like it is describing that the pictures are secret and no one should really be seeing them. Underneath the picture on the right, I added the website so the readers actually know where to go to see the 'exclusive pictures'.

Final contents page of my music magazine

This is my final contents page for my music magazine. On this page, I wanted to change quite a lot about the last one as I felt the last draft seemed a bit empty with not enough information written on it.



At the top, I changed the text to 'Resonance! This week' as I wanted it to seem unusual and not like other magazines, however at the bottom of the page I wrote 'CONTENTS' so the reader could see clearly that they were reading the contents page. I wrote this in black writing with a yellow highlighter on top. I did this so it would really stand out and so it wouldn't be the last thing that the reader would read.

I created a logo for the magazine that the other magazine drafts do not have. This is because I think it makes the magazine seem more realistic to the reader as other magazines usually have logos too.

On the other content pages, I didn't add any page numbers onto anything but the content list. On this draft, I added the page numbers on the pictures and actually put a page number at the bottom of the page. On the pictures, I highlighted over the page numbers so they could be easily seen and read by the readers. On the actual content list, I put the page numbers in red and at the beginning of each page as I think it makes it seem more prominent and also to me the page numbers are one of the most important things on a contents page.

I completely changed the text on the list of the contents. On the other draft, I didn't think that I had enough listed down for the readers and also the list looked too plain. I decided to add more to the list and make the writing closer together, this makes it seem that there a lot more pages and writing added to the page. Like the other drafts, I added titles to the kind of things involved within the magazine. On this page I wrote the text in white and highlighted over them in black. I did this to make it really stand out and so the reader would know exactly where to look for the part that they wanted.

Final Front Cover of my music magazine

This is my final front cover of my music magazine. On this, I decided to make a few changes so the presentation of the page would look better and more eye-capturing.

Firstly, I decided to make adaptations to the title. I thought it looked too dull so I decided to make it look more prominent and bold. I did this by writing out my title in the colour black and then I did this again but using the colour white. I put the white title over the top of the black title with it slightly to the right and a bit below. I did this so that it gives the effect of a shadow but at the same time makes the word really stand out. However, like the last draft, I kept the same font and also added in the lines running through it as I thought that it looked different and unusual.

At the bottom of the page, you can see a sort of black gradient going slightly up the page. On my other draft I did this in the colour white but to me it looked like thee page was slightly fading so I decided to do the same thing but in the colour black. I think that this makes the colour of the background more noticeable and bright.

I decided to keep the same quote as I think it explained a lot about the story and would draw someone in and make them want to actually read the article. However I changed the colour of the 'saved me' to white as I thought it looked too boring and plain as most of the writing was written in yellow. I added a lot more writing to the left hand side of the page. This is because I think the page seemed too empty as it didn't have anything to fill the page. In this, I added a statistic so the magazine seemed like it was actually rated 'Britain's best rock magazine', a 'chance to win' quote to draw the reader in and a 'festival line-up' quote as people who are going to festivals will want to know who will be there.

Under the competition quote, I decided to put a picture of the band that it's written for, 'You Me At Six'. I did this so that the reader could see who the band actually is and also to show them very recent pictures of how successful they were.



Second draft - double page spread of my music magazine - page two

This is the second draft of my double page spread (second of double page spread).

Like the first page, I changed the background colour to white so that the text would be a lot easier and clearer to read. 

I put the interview questions in red. I followed the colour scheme of the double page spread which I set as red, black and white so that it was consistent and more appealing throughout. I also wrote the questions in red so that it would be easier for the reader to distinguish the questions from the answers. 

Using the 'line' tool, I drew lines around the sides, top and bottom of the page. I made sure the lines weren't straight as I thought the page seemed a bit boring and needed something to make it look more attractive and appealing. 

In the centre of the page, I wrote another quote as I thought having two quotes on each page of the double page spread would draw the reader into reading it much more than just having a whole page full of writing. I know being a teenager having a whole page full of writing is really boring and uninteresting and would rather have something to look at so I added the quote to appear more attractive for the reader. Also so the quote could state the seriousness of the situation that the artist was in. 

Second draft - double page spread of my music magazine - page one

This is the first page of my double page spread (second draft). When I looked over my last draft of the double page spread I realised that I needed to change quite a lot about it.  

Firstly, I changed the background colour. I think that this was the most important thing to do as you couldn't read at all what the text was saying. This was because of the dark colour with another quite dark colour. I changed it to white because it is obviously a colour that you could read any other colour clearly on it. 

I kept the same picture and put it on the right hand side of the page. I wrote the next next to the picture with it 'hugging' going around the picture's shape. I think this looks more appealing compared to block text.

I also used a different quote at the top of my page, I did this so because this quote is quite funny but still very serious. I wanted it to really catch the readers attention and being kicked out of your 
own gig is obviously a very serious problem. 

I used the colour scheme red and black as I think these colours go really well together. Like the other pages, I used different fonts so that it wouldn't just be consistent, boring and too plain. I put 'LUKE CONFESSES' over the top of the picture because the reader will be dragged to the text as they are looking at the picture. Also, the word 'confesses' will hopefully draw the reader in because it is like they are being told a secret.