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. 

Magazine research - other students magazines

In class, we were given three other magazines that students last year created. We were also given the grades that they had gotten for them too. This really helped me to see how much I need to add onto my own magazine. It also gave me a few ideas of what type of magazine I would like to create and made me think of how I actually want it to look and how I want to set it out. 

Magazine Publishers

Main Magazine publishers

• Bauer Media
• National Magazine company
• Future Publishing
• IPC Media

What magazines do they publish?

Bauer Media:

• Music magazines such as: Kerrang, MOJO, Q
• Mens magazine: ZOO, FHM
• Nature magazines: Garden Answers, Bird Watching,Country Walking
• Car magazines: Classic Car Weekly, Car Mechanics, Classic Cars
• Mother and Baby magazines: Mother and Baby, Prengancy and Birth
• Gossip magazines: Closer, Heat, More
• Fashion magazines: Grazia
• Sports: GOLF illustrated, Golf World, RiDE

 Ethos of Baeur Media:

•  The ethos of this is that they have quite a mixture of genres in the magazines they publish. They publish a magazine for each genre and ages and audiences vary for each magazine.

How successful are they?

• Bauer Media is Europes largest privately owned publishing group. Bauer Media create a very wide range of magazines offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries as well as online, TV and radio stations.

National Magazine Company:

• Tv magazines: All About Soaps, Inside Soap
• Fashion magazines: Elle, Elle decoration, Bazaar, Esquire, Handbag, Prima
• Gossip/Womens magazine: Cosmopolitan, Best, Reveal, Bazaar, Red
• House magazines: Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful
• Teen magazines: Sugar Scope
• Health magazines: Net Doctor

Ethos of National Magazine Company:

• The National Magazine Company publish magazines mostly for women as most of the magazines are about gossip and womens fashion. They also publish House magazines which stereotypically is aimed at women.

How successful are they?

• This company is the largest UK digital publisher and is one of the UK'S leading media companys with 24 magazine brands and 22 digital assets.

Future Publishing

• Technology magazines: Mac Format, PC Plus, Windows: The official magazine
• Games magazines: Nintendo Power, Xbox 360: The official magazine, GamesMaster
• Music magazines: Total Guitar, Metal Hammer, Classic RoCK, Future Music
• Sports: Cycling Plus, Mountain Biking UK, Triatholon Plus
• Auto: Classic Ford, Mini Magazine, Trucking, Truckstop News
• Craft magazines: The knitter, Your Family tree, Mollie Makes

Ethos of Future Publishing:

• Future Publishing mostly publish mens magazines such as sports and car magazines. However they do publish craft magazines such as 'The knitter' which people would think are stereotypically aimed at women. 

How successful are they?

• Future Publishing attracts more than 45 million monthly unique visitors to our digital properties websites; and we deliver over 100 digital editions and bespoke apps on tablet devices. They sell 2.2 million magazines every month, and export or syndicate to 89 countries, making us the UK’s number one exporter and licensor of magazine content. Our most successful products include TechRadar (the UK’s number one consumer technology website), T3,Total Film, BikeRadar, MusicRadar, ClassicRock, GamesRadar, Digital Camera, Mollie Makes and Official Xbox Magazine. 

IPC Media

• Country pursuits and equestrian: Country Life, Horse & Hound, Eventing
• Fashion and beauty: Look, Marie Claire, Now 
• Home interest: 25 Beautiful homes, Homes & Gardens, Ideal Home 
• Lifestyle: Essentials, Woman&Home Feel Good Food, Wallpaper* 
• Sport and Leisure: Cycling Active, Amateur Photographer, Golf Monthly
• Teen: Teen Now 
• Tv Entertainment: Soap Life, Tv Times, What's On Tv 
• Women's Weeklies: Women's Weekly, Woman, Pick Me Up 
• Young Men and Music: NME, Nuts, Uncut 

Ethos of IPC Media: 

• With more than 60 iconic media brands, IPC creates content for multiple platforms, across print, online, mobile, tablets and events.

How successful are they?

• IPC Media is the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisher. They engage with 26 million UK adults - almost two thirds of UK women and over 40% of UK men. Our award winning portfolio of websites reaches over 25 million global users every month. 

School magazines

In this lesson we were talking about school magazines, what you find in them and the purpose of them. 

What you would find in a school magazine: 

• Pictures
• Recent news about school - whats going on
• Recent events (sports day/arts evening)
• Competitions within school
• Students work
• Students and staff included - featured writing 

Purpose of school magazines:

• It will benefit students - helping them to read 
• Extra curricular 
• It will inform parents, students and teachers
• A way to communicate with everyone in the school and parents 
• Helping students understand the school
• It gives students a voice 
• Bringing staff and students together
• Allows students to show talents

Conventions of a contents page

In this lesson we talked about contents pages and the conventions of a contents page.

Conventions of a contents page:  

• It will tell us what will be inside 
• Title
• It will tell us page numbers so it will be easy for us to find specific pages we are looking for
• Pictures relating to whats inside maybe using different varieties, types and sizes
• Titles of articles 
• Summary 
• Captions underneath the pictures 
• Quotes from what is inside 
• An editors letter 
• Found in the front of a magazine 
• Easy to navigate - Might be set into themes/page order/regular/feature

Signs and Signifiers

In this lesson we were talking about signs and signifiers that all media texts might use which subconsciously send messages to the audience. 

Definitions:

• Signifiers- shows something or means something, e.g. the colour red signifies love and romance. 
• Encoding- putting the meaning into something
• Decoding- working out the meaning of something
• Denotation- the meaning of something 
• Connotation- meanings associated with something

Key point: 

• All meanings vary depending on the reader/audience. 

Signs and signifiers:

• facial expressions and body language shows emotions/moods of people
• colours have a range of connotations
• lighting can create an atmosphere or highlight certain features
• objects can tell us more about people/places - they can be used instead of words

Here are 3 sheets that I filled out to show different types of signs and signifiers:

This picture shows different colours and what the colours may signify. 

This picture shows different diagrams and what they may signify.

This picture shows different fonts and what they may signify. 

Understanding magazines

In this lesson we looked at different magazine types. We were asked numerous questions about them:

What are magazines made to do? 

• Magazines are made to advertise, entertain audience, inform audience about recent events (news), inform audience about celebrities lives (gossip), to show pictures of celebrities and mainly to gain money. 

What are usually inside magazines? 

• Inside a magazine you will usually find products being advertised that will make you want to buy them, music advertisement, pictures and gossip about celebrities, general news (current events), personal stories so that the audience can also feel involved with the magazine, daily horoscopes, advice for the audience, competitions, interviews with famous musicians/celebrities and columns. 

Name the magazines that you know or have heard of: 

• Magazines that I have heard of are: Kerrang, NME, OK, Now, GQ, Look, Glamour, Closer, Fabulous, Star, Woman, Vogue, Beano, dancing times, Sky Sports, House & Gardens, Mens Health, Tv mag, Time and Elle. 

What sort of magazine genres are there? Give examples of magazines that are in these genres:

• Music/Rock music - Kerrang, Woman based - Glamour, Men based - GQ, Teen based - Vogue, News - Time, Sports - Sky Sports, Home and Garden - House & Gardens, Gossip/celebrity - Star, Lifestyle/Fitness - Mens Health, Fashion - Elle and Television/entertainment - TV mag.