Analysing front cover images

I looked at different magazine covers which could help me find out how the image on the cover represents the artist being shown. The top of the pops magazine cover below is showing JLS to be a nice , sweet and innocent by band. With them all smiling it makes them fit in easily with the theme of this magazine, it gives them their pop identity.

Researching and designing mastheads

Once I had decided what I wanted my genre to be which is pop, I created a brainstorm on what I believed pop music to be all about to help me decide a name for my magazine. The names in which I had come up with where POP; the music thats in! , 1,2,3 POP, out with the old..., and pops the music.

First of all I thought 1,2,3 POP would be a fun, and funky name however it made me think of bubbles which are fairly girly and wouldnt be a mixed gender magazine.

I then changed my mind to the idea of a magazine called "out with the old..." this was because I thought a good magazine should show both old and new pop artists and bands such as Madonna and Kylie Monoque, and new artists such as Nicole Scherzinger and Justin Bieber. I also chose this name as older pop music is completely different to new pop music, back in the 80's it was very girly and "hip" and funky, however nowdays its more lively and simplier. As well as that things such as style, haircuts and colours have changed alot over the last decade or two. I also thought that people would recognise the saying, I didnt use the whole saying as the title of my magazine would be too long.

When I had decided my magazine cover name I then searched for a style to use as my masthead I decided that I would like such as a simple design like Blender Masthead. It is a very plain and simple masthead which is easy to find when looking for it in a shop. This helped me to decide that I wanted slim block letters for my masthead.

Once I had decided what I wanted my magazine title to be like I tried a few ways of creating my title showing below.

example 1:

 example 2: 

 example 3:

Once looking at these three title designs I decided to go with an origional font called century gothic as it shows a more "pop" feeling then the other two.

Investigating the conventions of; front covers, contents page and feature pages

In order for me to understand what has to be placed on the front cover of my magazine I researched different magazines and analysed them and discovered what the main elements where. I found out I need to include masthead, images, coverlines,banners, prices, etc. Below I analysed the front cover of Q magazine.

Exploring values/ideologies of different music magazines

Ideology is what you may believe in according to your position in society. It can describe a certain set of ideas/values such as 'racist ideology'.

On deciding what values and ideologies I wanted in my magazine to have, I then did some research into different magazines to see what they appeared to have made clear what they believe in. First of all I looked at NME and these are the main beliefs I thought they brought apon;

• An intrest of history of music and the past
• New media and technology for example NME radio, twitter and facebook links
• An intrest in political elements
• Business like intrests (online music stores)
• Quality music- things like track of the year

I then researched another magazine called Smach Hits. I looked at Smash Hits and these are the main beliefs I thought they brought apon;

• An intrest in different styled music
• Young, made for the younger generation e.g bright and colourful
• Many female qualities (pink and purple)
• Simple
• Not interested in anything political

Researching target audiences of different music magazines

The pictures above show my work on researching how magazines show their favoured audiences. For example the picture on the left shows different magazine covers and what I thought was the gender, age, etc of the magazine. The work on the left is my work comparing NME and Uncut readers.

Investigating the market

Before I began my magazine I researched magazines that are already on the market, magazines such as Blender, Smash Hits, and Vibe. I looked at these magazines in particular because two out of the three relate to what i would like my magazine to be.

 Preliminary Task; Front Cover

Preliminary Task; Contents Page

Before creating my final magazine I was given a preliminary task to design a front cover and contents page for a school magazine.