My Amazing Presentation

ACTUALL EVALUATION THAT TOOK ME 6 HOURS

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Article

The first thing to do on my article was to decide what the subject would be. I wanted firstly to focus it on the model on the cover my first attempt at a magazine cover. But, after the changes I made to that, I wanted to also change the article focus. I used the same name, but used different pictures. These pictures were better than the original ones as they had natural light and a more detailed mise-en-scene, using four models instead of one, all in smart outfits. The original pictures I took are already published on my blog, but I edited them on photoshop to enhance their effect within my article;














So, my final decision for my article subject was an article about an artist "SHH!" This was going to be the original name for my artist, although I completely changed the artists look. SHH! was changed into the lead singer of a band Sammy and the Boys, who are in my pictures here.
This is the first draft of my article, I changed a few things towards the end to fill it up in my final.

Music in the 80’s: AS TOLD BY SHH!

The 1980’s were a time of bad haircuts, horrendous fashion mistakes and angst ridden teenage dramas; a time for Thatcherism to either be much loved or much despised and a time when a lot of notable things changed in the world of music.

One person who remembers the decade well is our very own Shh!, lead singer of indie/pop band ‘Sammy and the Boys’ and currently the new face of L’Oreal men, in the advert that everybody’s talking about. Despite what the press has been saying about him recently, we at The Classic feel he is very much the prince of pop he has been since the early late 80’s early 90’s when it was all about loud clothes and even louder hair.

“As a teen in the 1980’s I very much felt the impact of all the changes in society. My dad was a politician and he would have to be in London for long periods of time doing what he called; ‘Thatcher’s dirty work.’”
But Shh! was never bothered with the political side of life; his days consisted of clubbing with his friends – the soon-to-be other members of Sammy and the Boys. I asked him what those times were like, when he was young and free and careless. He looked at me with deep, black eyes before answering with a vague, “well…”
I got the feeling that the stories that have just recently been written about him in the papers had affected the way he spoke to journalists, and really, it was not surprising. I asked him whether he didn’t want to go into too much detail (to show how kind and considerate we at The Classic are) and he just shook her head. I was going to have to work harder if I wanted any real answers…

“Let’s talk about music” I said, realising that that was really the whole point of this interview. “Who were or are your inspirations?”
“Ooh, now this is a good question. How many can I have? I was really into anything and
everything as a teenager; Adam Ant, The Culture Club, Banarama.”
“So quite a mix then?”
Grinning, he answers “You could say that. But my favourite all time band had to be Blondie. I was deeply in love with Debbie Harry.”
“But weren’t most young boys in the 80’s?” “Yes, and also, although we are ashamed to admit it, the girls from ABBA had quite a large place in our hearts. But maybe I’ve said too much…” What a revelation. Grinning still, Shh! carries on to say that even though being in a teenager in the 80’s should have meant he was all about the rebelling against society and worshipping music like The Cure, he actually favoured the quieter, less aggressive styles of music which were deemed ‘girly’ by his peers. “I still listened to a lot of everything, and I even had a cassette of Joy Division’s album “Unknown Pleasures” somewhere, a thing that made me very popular for a while.”
After all these revelations, I decided to turn the topic to more neutral grounds and asked Shh! whether he attended the wonder that was the Live Aid concert of 85.
“Of course I did!” Shh! looks shocked that I could ever question his allegiance to the very best of British music at so important a time. “I was 18 at the time, so of course it was somewhat of an excuse to take a road trip up to London for the day. It was such a brilliant concert, in so many ways. I was with my mates at the time, 3 of whom would go on to become members of Sammy and the Boys in a couple of years. We were all so hyped up on excitement the whole day that we kept missing people go on stage. At one point, after Queen had played, we were so awestruck by Freddie Mercury going off stage that we failed to see David Bowie coming on the other side. It was an awesome sight.”
And it certainly sounds like it.
I could tell Shh! was beginning to open up more with me, and so I asked him what he was planning to do with his career now that he was a true connoisseur of pop.
“A connoisseur? Really? Wow… I would never have called myself that. But I guess I have been in the business for quite a while now. So, yeah, I like that title! At the moment, me and the boys haven’t got any big plans, but we’ve had some offers to guest on a couple of albums. Not going to say whose, but its all quite exciting!”
“Sounds like your career is only just beginning then, what with the new advert and all these offers!”
Shh! Looks at me for a moment before answering my last question with a smile. “Well, I wouldn't say just beginning, but it’s certainly not over!”
That’s the spirit I like to see in a guy and I tell him so as we leave the interview room. What an insight we have had into the life of our greatest pop star and what a taste of things to come!TC

I ended the article with TC to inform the reader that this article had finished. It stands for The Classic, which also gives an identity to the article.
I then made the double page spread for my article to be on using Microsoft publisher. Firstly I added a title, using Word Art and different fonts to create a professional looking headline.

Next I added the first picture plus a caption. This added a focal point to the first page and meant that it would not be completely filled with text.

I decided to keep a very straightforward layout for my article page, and so my text was split into three equal columns. I also added in a few of the most interesting quotes at random points in my article in bold, red letters to link to my title.

“I was deeply in love with Debbie Harry”

For the second page, I kept the cohesion by still using a very straightforward font and layout and also adding in pictures and quotes in a simple pattern.

This was how I thought my article pages would look:

This is my final article:

Contents Page

After changing my front cover, I knew I needed a whole new look for my contents page. Still thinking about my inspirations; Vogue, Elle etc, I decided to concentrate on designing a contents page that was simple, yet stylish. To begin with, I sketched a design that I thought would suit the ideology of my magazine:

I didn't want to make my page like a typical music magazine contents page and fill it up with pictures and colours so I stuck to a white background. Obviously, this made the detailed design harder for me, as I had to fill up enough white space to create a professional look without completely over doing it. So, although in my sketch I had four pictures in total, I decided to cut this down to just one for my final page.

I chose a low angle picture because I wanted to give a slightly distorted to the reader, to show that the simplicity of my contents page was not necessarily the same throughout the whole magazine. I also chose this picture because it could be linked to my editorial, like I had the idea of originally, or it could become an advert for an article about the subjects in the picture. I used photoshop first to enhance the picture because I wanted the natural bright blue of the sky to stand out more against the black and white of my subjects:

I then added the title. I wanted to give cohesion to my magazine, so I brought the colours, font and style of my magazine title "The Classic" into my contents page. This link to the cover gives a uniform affect to the reader.

For the rest of the text, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to go for. So I played around with a few different fonts and, after looking through some existing magazines, I came up with this style:

When I had decided on my text style, I added in the rest of my contents. I wanted to give my magazine the look of a glossy magazine, so I filled it up with articles and features. This look of fullness was emphasised by the way I squashed each headline up against its page number.

I wanted a small editorial piece in my contents page because I had like the one in the NME contents page that I analysed. The text needn't be anything to do with the rest of the issue but I wanted it to link with the ideology of "The Classic". I did this by making it about the Beatles; a classic and brilliant band.

So, I added this text and then felt that I needed some sort of call out or free gift to draw my readers in. I had also noticed that in a lot of existing magazines, there was an advert about subscription. So, I combined this idea with the idea of a competition or offer and came up with 50% off subscription. This added the necessary detail to my contents page to fill it up.

The finishing touches were to add a small picture in the bottom corner and a tag-line across the top to give another offer. The bar across the top also gave a slight border affect, which made the page more uniform.

This was my final contents page:

Second attempt at front cover

After a failed first attempt at my front cover design and production, I decided to start completely from scratch and so proceeded to take a new set of photos to use. I then picked the one I thought suited my magazine cover the best.
Like my previous photos, I still wanted there to be an element of bright, bold colours, preferably red and so i had my model wear a red shirt. But this is where the similarities with my previous cover ended. In this one, I had my model placed in the bottom right corner because I wanted him to take up more space and not be so symmetrical, like my last model. Also, I didn't stick to a plain simple background like before. Although my ideology for my magazine is still to make like the 'creme-De-la-creme' of music mags, I found that not many glossy fashion magazine didn't have some sort of background. I used a brick wall because I don't think you can go wrong with them. They add enough texture and shades to be interesting whilst still keeping a balanced background for the main subject of the photo.

This is my photo after I enhanced it. I increased the hue and the saturation of the red in my models shirt to really bring out my primary colour and I slightly lightened the background to give the same effect.

I then started adding text. Although, on my original sketch I wanted quite a lot of different sub headings, I decided through more research into existing magazines that I should be careful with the amount of text I put on my cover as it is hard to get the balance right. When I started to put my text on I decided to play around with different fonts and see what came out of it. My title font was my best feature. It kept the classic feel, which was crucial to the ideology of my magazine, but had a modern twist with the bold, rounded font of the "The". Also, to contrast with the very classic look, I had the words "the 80's issue" in stencil writing. This was in keeping with the 80's motif while also making the magazine look modern.

This was my first go:

The best thing about my first draft was the placing of the picture on the page. I made it bleed to the edge to give a typical music magazine look, using the brick wall as a solid background. The text and font was good on this draft, although I felt there was something missing. So, on my second go, I tried to rectify these mistakes.

As you can see, there were not too many changes. Upon completing my first draft, I printed it and found that the whole thing was too dark and the model looked quite washed out. Obviously this was not the look I was going for and so I enhanced the colour of the whole page in my second draft. I also changed certain other elements, for example the font, because I didn't think my first draft had enough variety and this made it look unprofessional. So, I changed the fonts of the smaller headlines from being all corbel regular to being a mixture of fonts, styles and sizes. After looking at the sort of magazines that I was basing mine on, I found that they had a lot of different headlines and tag lines, but all very separated so there were only one or two words with each. So, I changed my line "We talk to T.V's SHH!" to "SHH! tells all..." I found that this gave a more simplistic effect to my magazine. Also, as I had made the colour of my magazine brighter, I found I needed to change the colour of a few of the words to make them stand out against the model's clothes. So, I simply changed the start of some headlines to white which also added a cohesive colour scheme of red, blue and white.

The last difference between my two drafts is that I added a some other small things to the cover to increase the profession look of it. I added in tag lines along the top and bottom, a bar code and an issue number, date and price. Although these were small aspects, they really added to the believability of my magazine.

This is my first attempt at designing my music magazine front cover. As you can see, I slightly changed the ideology of magazine by getting inspiration from glossy fashion magazines such as Vogue. My thinking behind this stemmed from the results I got from my questionnaire which suggested I design a whole new magazine. I knew from my research that most magazine focused on bright bold colours with lots of information being thrown at the reader on the front cover.

So, these photos were part of the inspiration for my front cover:









I took my picture and increased the saturation of the girls dress to make the red colour really stand out. This red then became the primary colour for my cover. I tried to match closely the exact same shade with all my red font and particularly the BLONDIE sign which I got by taking a picture of the title of a Blondie CD and photo shopped to get it on its own.

I then used photo shop to add a title and the text, which was a very complicated job as I did each small bit of text separately. Of course, this was better in the long run as it meant I could move each bit round easily.

However, after spending many difficult hours working on this cover, I realised that in fact, it didn't look professional at all. The picture was too dark as I hadn't used natural light and, to be honest, my model wasn't posing in the right way to give the impression of sophistication that I wanted.


Another thing that was wrong was the fact that, in trying to keep it looking clean and simple, like the Vogue and Elle covers, I actually ended up making it look like my prelimanary piece of coursework, which in turn showed that I hadn't moved on in ability from the beginnning of the year.

Photos 2

These were the second lot of photos I took, which may also be used on the front cover or in the magazine. I was aiming to produce one or two really good pictures with an 80's theme, so I used 80's costume and added make up and hair from the era to add to the believability. Also, in some of the later pictures, I introduced 80's motifs sch as record sleeves, big headphones and walkmans.

Not all of the best pictures I took are going to feature here until they have been edited because there are too many to analyse in their original state.

However, I like these particular ones because of their mise-en-scene. The red of the dress is prominant against the wall and in the last photo links to the colour of the cushion.

The first two are the best because of the odd way the light is playing off the dress and so I am pretty sure I will use these in my magazine.

Photos

These were the original photos I took for my magazine. The main subjects are a young band who are aspiring to greater things and they may be the subject of my article or they may have a smaller role as contents page pictures.

The thing I love about this first one is the wierd, distorted perspective of the wall. With some editing I think I can enhance this wierd effect to make it really stand out.

I like the second photo because of the way the subjects are neatly lined up and the odd, contrasting red of the heart really livens the picture up. The heart means that the picture could link to any number of things in an article etc.

The third photo is unusual because the subjects are totally covered by tree branches. However, the bright blue of the sky and the brilliant light on the shirts means that this picture would work on a dull page to lighten it up.

The only thing I like about the fourth picture is the symmetry. I can see this photo working when it is accompanying an article, but it is too uniteresting to work on its own.

The las picture is probably my favorite as it shows the emotions and ideals of the band as well as being very well focused with some perfect lighting. I could see this being a main picture in my magazine.

I will now edit these pictures on photoshop to enhance their positive points so I can decide exactly what to use in my magazine.

Fonts

My magazine is going to be a music magazine which focuses on all the best music since the 50's. It will include articles about music and music ideas a long with the usual reviews and photos. It will focus on mainstream bands because, these are the most widely loved artists.

The reader profile for my magazine would be someone of any age who enjoys good music and who feels that music is a big part of their life.

These fonts all caught my eye while researching. I like how they all fit the name "classic" and therefore give the magazine title the start of a brand identity. The kind of identity I'm looking for is retro/retro chic, being inspired by 60's adverts and 80's pop culture, which fits with the whole ideology of my magazine.

My Preliminary Task - CONTENTS PAGE

This is my preliminary contents page which I was pleased with, however I know many ways in which I could improve it. Obviously, without photos the page looks empty and if i were to properly complete it, the colour from the other pictures would hopefully improve the aesthetics of the page.

The thing that I did do well on was the use of house colours. The dark red of the title and headline link to the front cover and add cohesion. Also, I used the same star shaped call out to make a link in the readers mind and persuade them to read the details which follow on from the front cover. Under the star, I used underlined text to make the writing stand out. I have seen this done in other magazines and I thought the effect was a more professional on.

However, if I were to do this contents page again I would look at adding a block of one or two colours behind all the writing, to stop the page from looking so unfinished.

I think the main problem is that this piece was only preliminary and therefore didn't need to have a complete look to it. So, without all the text and photos I can't make a complete evaluation of the page.

My Preliminary Task - FRONT COVER

This is my preliminary front cover, which I was very pleased with, despite not having access to the photoshop facilities as much as I would have liked to. I took this picture myself managing to make me be in it as well as the other subject. This meant that it was a close enough photo for my to use without having to loose any pixels by zooming.

The framing of the picture with the tree and the faces bleeding into the edge meant that there was no white spaces to fill and the text just needed to sit on top.

The dark colour of the photo meant I had to use text font and colour that stood out. This was probably the biggest weakness I had with my cover, as I dont think I chose a bold enough font design to truely make it stand out and the end result was a front cover that looked slightly drab.

However, my biggest strength was getting the balance of picture to text right, which meant that the cover had a certain asymetrical neatness, with one side taken up by photo and the other by text.

Not having photoshop meant that I made the whole cover on word, which had positives and negatives. It meant that I could easily move text around on top of the picture and add in text boxes and shapes, which made the whole porcess simpler. However, I could have improved the pictures quality on photoshop and I would have had less trouble with resizing the photo and page.

ARTICLE ANALYSIS

I analysed the NME article which was an interview of Brandon Flowers, lead singer of The Killers. I was interested in this article as it linked to the front cover that I analysed, and it stood out to me on first picking up the magazine because it showed Brandon Flowers in three different poses with a quote; "i'm having a personality crisis right now." This intrigued me to read the article because I wanted to find out why he had said that.

On the first page, there was a large picture of Flowers, with a headline/caption saying "CAN YOU READ MY MIND?" This works because it is a line from a Killers' and so any fan of the band can relate to it. Also, it links to the front cover because it mentions the mentality of Flowers and a reader could get connotations of madness from the title. The pose that Flowers is standing in works well with the title and adds to the cohesion of the article.

The lead of the article also adds to the cohesion , with the phrase "consumed by self doubt" giving the sense that this article will be about the, some would concieve, more human side of the famous lead singer. When the actual article starts, the inteviewer talks for a while about his pre concepted feelings on Brandon Flowers. He mainly mentions the singers appearance "Brandon Flowers does have astonishing eyes" and I found this useful because I may use the interviewers style when writing my article; focusing on the look of the subject so as to conjure up a piture in the readers mind.

On the next page, the interview is set out with a series of questions and answers following on from each other. This style is used as opposed to a whole article written from the point of view of the interviewer using points that the subject talked about. I do not know yet what style I want to use in my article, or whether I want to interview anyone at all, but looking at this example I can see the merits of using questions and answers.

Another thing I noticed when reading the article was that when the answers to the questions were written down, the interviewer added in any pauses or unusual reactions from Flowers, maybe to add to the realism of the article? However, although this use of slightly stage-direction-esque prompts serves to give the reader more information, it makes the whole article seem almost faked and so when it comes to writing my own, I will think before adding in any of my own.
The best aspect about this page of the interview is the layout. Down the right hand side of the text are four picture, one of each band member. These pictures are used to great affect; they bring together the whole page and give it a symetrical, neat look. However, I found that it is not good to have everything in a magazine looking like this all the time, it is more effective to have some parts disordered and messy.

The pictures themselves seem to be of a rehearsal rather than a gig or publicity photo shoot, so they are with their instruments looking natural. This gives an impression of the ideology of the band which links into the article itself; Flowers likes to take all his own pictures and doesnt ever let magazines shoot them themselves. They are also in black and white, which contrasts with the main, colour picture of Flowers but also is because there are four different subjects and settings for each picture and to use colour might have been overpowering. Originally, my article photos were going to be all in colour as I thought anything in black and white only made the page dull and uninteresting, but on looking at this example I have had second thoughts about encorporating some black and white pictures.

The last page has a slightly different layout as the three photos are in the top right right-hand corner of the page, and the rest of the page is text. I don't particularly agree with this layout as I think it makes the page look too full of writing, which may dissuade some readers from more than glancing at it. Plus, all the photos are too compressed into the corner, making the page look unfinished. This could be used in a positive way; sometimes messy, unfinished layouts give a trendy, modern look to a page and I will think about this when designing mine. However, this is not the case here.

On looking at this article I have found many aspects that I can use for my own magazine, but I have also seen some that I feel were wrong and therefore will avoid using.

My Questionnaire

I am researching music magazines for my AS level media studies and this questionnaire is going to help me understand what the public would like to see in a new music magazine. Of course, the information I gather will be confidential and only used for a private investigation.

1. Gender?

2. Age?

3. Out of these choices, what era of music would you be most interested in?
60’s – 70’s 80’s 90’s – early 00’s today

4. What sort of music are you most into? (specify to accommodate for overlapping tastes)
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
5. In a music magazine, what aspect do you like most?
Features interviews with artists reviews of gigs/festivals pictures

6. What attracts you to magazines when you first look at them?
Front cover layout free gifts headlines pictures

7. What would you like to see in a new music magazine?
……………………………………………………………………………………………….

8. What, in your opinion, is the most listened to genre of music at the moment?
……………………………………………………………………………………………….

9. Do you think live music is more important or less important than recorded music?
More important Less important

10. Do you attend any gigs/ festivals and if so, which do you think are more news-worthy?
Gigs Festivals

Thank you for your time

__________________________________________________________________
On compiling this questionnaire I handed it out in my sixth form common room to 10 people aged 16-18. I then handed it around my friends and family; people aged up to 45. The results I got for the fist question were varied; all of the 16-18 year olds said they are most interested in music of today, but some also indicated they would listen to music from all era's if they enjoyed it. I took these answers to mean that most young people today enjoy listening to all sorts of music and although they find the most up to date artist they best, they do not exclude other music because of when it was released. In question two, a lot of the older people I asked said they enjoyed soft rock the most, a lot specifically mentioned Oasis as an example. The younger answers consisted of everything from R'n'B to rock to pop, but there was a slight majority of answers that used the word 'indie'. this indicates to me that, apart from young people wanting to be individual themselves and stand out from the crowd by listening to so called 'indie' music, my magazine may have to accomadate for the tastes of young people by featuring new, independently produced music.

the answers people gave to questions 5 and 6 linked with each other in certain ways. for example; the people who were attracted to the front cover pictures also enjoyed looking at pictures in the magazine. However, the majority of people answered that they liked to see features in magazines and it was mainly the headlines that first attracted them to a magazine. I think this is because features are the things that make a magazine different; any publication can have interviews with artists, reviews and pictures, but a magazine would work hard to produce features that stood out. I will take this into account when designing my own, and make sure I include lots of original ideas for features.

The answers to number 7 were hard to analyse, as it was quite an obscure question. The answers ranged from "a wider representation of all genres" to "more gig reviews" and, from 2 of the older participants "less rock music." Looking at all the answers to this question I feel I need mkae my magazine totally different from anything out there already, as it seems to me that people are getting bored with the old conventions of music publications.

question number 8 was, again, quite obscure, but its point was too get public opinion on the most popular music now, not their favorite. Music is represented heavily through magazines such as the one im designing and therefore, I must get an overview of what the public think is most popular, whether they like it or not. the answers I got back were rather predictable; most of the older people I asked thought that RnB and dance music was most listened to by young people, and the younger people thought that indie rock and popular rock was most listened to. This is another indication that maybe my magazine could show totally different sides to music, rather than whats just popular now, as nobody seems to know what that is.

the last two questions were put in to show me what the public thought of live music. Most of the people i spoke to thought gigs were more newsworthy, but recorded music was much more important. I did not ask for clarification to these answers and in hindsight i feel i should have, but I can guess that the public feel recorded music is more important because it is accessible to everyone, through radio, TV, CD's and the internet.

Looking at my results, I feel that I need to take my own magazine in a totally new direction to anything thats already on the market.

FRONT COVER ANALYSIS

A magazine’s front cover is the most important part of the product. It is designed to hook any potential buyers into purchasing it, and notify present readers that it is what they are looking for.
The cover’s main content is generally graphic based as pictures appeal more to humans than large amounts of text and different messages can be communicated within them.
This particular front cover has a centre picture split into three. This is to support the subject’s quote under the picture about split personalities. The subject’s face is above the fold, so we know they are the main focus of the cover. The subject is a popular singer and so the picture would appeal to lots of people. The pictures bleed out to the edge of the page. In this case the connotation could be that Brandon Flowers has really “lost the plot”; his many personalities do not fit onto the page.
The title of this magazine is at the top of the cover page, however it only takes up half the width of top section. This gives the impression that there is not room for anything else in the magazine as everything is already packed so tightly. The title stays in the same style, colour and font each issue. It also stays in a fixed position and all this helps the magazine develop consistency for its brand identity. The house colours of red, white and black are used throughout the magazine to keep a certain uniformity that can be connected with the new music scene of the magazine. The name NME is also a brand, putting its name to a music channel and a radio station to entice other customers.
Over the top of the main picture is the big brand logo of The Killers. This is clearly visible so the reader knows the band play an important part in this issue. The white colour that is used in the section about The Killers could connote that we don’t know anything about this subject yet and we will find out if we read the magazine.
The use of the brand Virgin should be noted because it is an example of advertisement on the front cover. However this tag line also relates to the top of the cover where it says about previews. A review would be the opposite of this and it is showing that although a review of V festival is important, it is not as important as something that hasn’t happened. The magazine would know as well, that Reading and Leeds festivals are more popular than V so they are just going by what their readers think.
“CAN BRANDON FIND THE PLOT IN TIME FOR READING AND LEEDS?”
This text is a callout. It is shocking to the reader and opens many questions or them to ask. This is used typically on magazine covers as a hook in for potential buyers.
Having the two festivals in ‘call-out’ signs are a good way of catching the reader’s eye. The words “preview special” are used as a hook to draw the reader in. the festivals shown would be very popular with the target audience of the magazine and therefore this is a good way to ensure they read it.

CONTENTS PAGE ANALYSIS

I would say that a contents page would be the second most important aspect of a magazine. It is there too ensure that any potential reader who has been intrigued by the front cover, is persuaded to carry on reading past page one. A contents page usually contains much more writing than a front cover as more information is needed, however pictures are also useful in grabbing the readers attention.
The big NME sign at the top of this contents page relates to the front cover and it keeps the house colours of red, white and black. These colours have connotations of opposites in the black and white and originality in the red, these being key themes of the “New Musical Express”.
In an even bigger font than the title, ‘This Week’ is written to make the fact that we are looking at the contents page totally obvious. This may be because the makers have tried to keep the magazine format the same throughout, including the contents page, and it would be less easy to make the distinction between different pages.
The band index at the side of the page is a feature unique to NME. Because it covers all types of music, the magazine uses the index to attract people with different tastes by helping them find quickly what they want to read about. This feature also promotes the extent of articles in the magazine and subconsciously impresses the reader by the amount of contents, even though it would be exaggerated.
The actual content of the magazine is down the side under subheading. Although not everything is shown here, the main features are put down in order of where they appear in the magazine. This section of the page is not as clear as it could be as it does not show easily what the content is and therefore may put the reader off.
Things that were on the front cover are emphasised by ‘on the cover’ arrows in red. These contrast with the black of the rest of the writing which stands out to the reader.
Colour is used to great effect on this page. Sticking with the house colours of the magazine, red, white and black keep the page simple and consistent there is also a slight divide between the two colours of red and black. There is an obviously high amount of red on the left side, which consists of the title and the band index. This is probably because these two features are the same each week, and so the colour must help the reader make the distinction between them and the articles unique to this issue.
The picture in the contents page is an action shot that links to the paragraph of text. It shows a novelty event or piece of news that has happened in the time of the magazine going to press and it relates to the New Music ideology of the magazine. It is not an editorial comment like in most magazines, but it is a permanent feature in NME.
The language used in the contents page also presents different ideas of the magazine. Young slang related to the music scene is used in plenty, for example; “crash” and “like”. The writing is very up-to-the-minute and they definitely appeal to youth music lovers, who are the target audience of the magazine.
The main lifestyle that is being represented is that of young people, students etc and the music that is most important to them. Also, the producer is slightly promoting the stereotype of the “indie kid”, wearing skinny jeans and checked shirts.
The institution of NME is IPC Media, which is one of the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisher, with a large portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year. It was formed as International Publishing Company in 1963 and owns titles such as Now! and WOTV.

Lydia Cook

Analysis work

Planning my magazine...

I am still playing with ideas for my magazine, but my main view is that it should not be exclusive to new music. I enjoy listening to artists from The Beatles to Blondie to Basshunter and so i would like to include anything about anything, within reason.
The target audience for my magazine, I have decided, is going to be students. more precisely, anyone aged 16-18. However, there would also be a secondary demographic of 16-30 year olds. This would open up more oppertunities to include different articles etc in each issue.

Research

Week one...
I have issued a questionnaire to ten people in my year, five boys, five girls, and i am awaiting results. the questionnaire consisted of questions which, when answered, would give me a good insight into what my target audience (students) would like to see in a new music magazine. When I get the results I will decide whether I have enough info, or whether I need to ask more people.
I have also been looking at existing music magazines, in particular Kerrang! and NME to see what features make them so popular. An analysis will be posted shortly.