Planning-Revised Publication Plan

Task three

Price: £4.00

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Issue size: 160

Regular content:

Final Beat – inside back page question and answer with an R’n’B celebrity (the celebrity each month will change)

For the record – With an artist in a recording studio (artist will change with each issue)

Horoscopes

Feature content:

Young soul rebels – Can music solve all?

Whitney Houston – The true price of fame

Planning-Original Publication Plan

Task ten

Title: Bling

Positioning statement: The UK’s first R’n’B magazine

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Price: £3.20

Distribution: Newsagents, supermarkets and music shops

Rationale: R’n’B magazine for the UK. It will cover British and American artists. All articles and regular content are what the people want to know about

Style: Relaxed and informal style. The magazine is for all R’n’B fans so will use a limited range of vocabulary that everyone can understand and simple sentence structure.

Regular Content

• Your R’n’B - Fans Letters
• Gig guides
• N-dubz monthly column
• puzzles and competitions
• Celeb for a day – Coverage of a day in the life of a celebrity ( celebrity will change each issue)
• Final Beat – inside back page question and answer with an R’n’B celebrity fan (the celebrity fan each month will change)
• For the record – With an artist in a recording studio (artist will change with each issue)

Feature Content

• West Coast VS East Coast – who won?
• Stars on the rise - new artists to look out for
• Beyonce and Jay Z- the most powerful couple in R’n’B today
• Can Cheryl (Cole) go it alone?
• Guns and gangsters – Does rap influence violence
• Rapping wars – Best MC’s to date
• Just beat it – Best dancers in R’n’B
• 10 years on - best music from this decade
• Bootylicous – the biggest women in R’n’B
• P Diddy - The story behind his fame
• Tupac and Biggie
• Young soul rebels – Can music solve all?
• Whitney Houston – The true price of fame
• Tagged – The best art around
• A life in pictures and music – Michael Jackson ( regular feature celebrity will change each issue)
• Icons - The icons of the generations
• Hip Hop or R’n’B? – You decide

House Style

Coverlines: Arial Black

Headlines: Berlin Sans FB Demi Bold

Standfirst: Berlin Sans FB Demi 14pt

Captions: Berlin Sans FB Demi 8pt

Features first paragraph: A drop capital Arial Black Bold 7 lines deep and then first two lines in bold

News first paragraph:

Body Text: Times New Roman 11pt

Colour Scheme: Purple, Blue and White

Planning

Decide on front cover images

• Solo female artist sitting on a chair backwards
• Low angle full body shot (tilted frame?)
• Background is red curtain behind
• Lighting is dimmed with white light coming in from above right side or up lights
• Wearing a dress and heels with smokey eyes. Hair will be up with a quiff

Write the coverlines for the front cover

• Main coverline to go with picture – Who died and made R’n’B queen?
• Young soul rebels
• Guns and gangsters
• Cheryl (Cole)
• Mr and Mrs
• West Coast VS East Coast
• Plus: Rhianna, Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne, T-Pain

Write the text for the contents page

Regular Content

• Your R’n’B - Fans Letters
• Gig guides
• N-dubz monthly column
• Celebrity for a day – Coverage of a day in the life of a celebrity ( celebrity will change each issue)
• Final Beat – inside back page question and answer with a R’n’B celebrity fan (the celebrity each month will change)
• For the record – With an artist in a recording studio (artist will change with each issue

Features

• Person of the month - Celebrity interview
• West Coast VS East Coast – who won?
• Stars on the rise - new artists to look out for in 2010
• Beyonce and Jay Z- the most powerful couple in R’n’B today
• Can Cheryl (Cole) go it alone?
• Pimp my ride – Celebrity cars
• Guns and gangsters – Does rap influence violence?
• Just beat it – Best dancers in R’n’B
• 10 years on - best music from this decade
• Bootylicous – the most powerful women in R’n’B to date
• P Diddy - The story behind his fame
• Tupac and Biggie
• Young soul rebels – Can music solve all?
• Whitney Houston – The true price of fame, is it really worth it?
• Tagged – The best art around
• Icons of their time - A life in pictures and music Michael Jackson ( regular feature celebrity will change each issue)
• Icons - The icons of the generations
• Hip Hop or R’n’B? – You decide

List the images for the contents page

• More pictures of the main cover image – one full body shot standing up holding chair leaning forward, another medium close up sitting sideways on chair legs swinging and wearing same clothes, shoes and make up
• Image of a boy in a hat and hoodie facing away from the camera
• Girl in heels and normal day clothes on stairs

Decide the article you are going to write for your double page spread and photograph you will

need

N-Dubz: Rise to Fame

Double Page Spread sketch

Front cover sketch

Contents page sketch

Research-Music Magazines

Task three:researching music magazines

Price: $3.99

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Issue size:

Regular content:

Feature content:

Price: £3.90

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Issue size: 164

Regular content

New to Q

Q Hero

Q50

Q Quiz

Last Requests

Access all areas

Feature content:

Interviews with bands

Feature content

Gig guides

Celebrity interviews

Price:£3.75

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Issue size: 140

Regular content

Editorial

Letters

X Rated

Show and Prove

Doin’ lines

Feature content

Interviews with artists

Album review

Word Play

Price: $4.99

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Issue size:

Regular content:

Feature content:

Main Exercise-Questionnaire Results

Task two
What gender are you?

When I started my questionnaire I wanted to survey an equal number of men and women to gather balanced data. After gathering the information I have found that 65% of the people I surveyed are women this means that my answers will be bias towards women and I will have to take this into consideration when thinking about my magazine.

How old are you?

I surveyed people with a wide range of ages. The majority of the ages were between 11 and 20 meaning that magazine will be bias towards a younger demographic meaning. I will have to take this into consideration as I thought my initial target audience would be18-30, but they will have a different opinion compared to the younger end of the 11-20 range will probably prefer young boy bands/artist.

How often do you buy magazines?

Through doing a questionnaire I have found that all of the people buy magazines that have different issue frequencies. I initially decided that I would do a Bi-weekly magazine but as it is the least wanted frequency I have decide that I will do either a weekly or monthly magazine.

How much would you spend on a magazine?

Initially I wanted to charge between £1.51-£2.50 for a bi-weekly magazine but the majority of the people I surveyed are willing to pay £2.51-£3.50.I have now decided to charge more for my magazine but because of this I will make my magazine a monthly issue as I don’t think people will be willing to pay as much for a weekly magazine.

What is your favourite colour?

Initially I wanted my main colour to be gold but since no one picked gold as a colour they liked I will have to re-think my main colour scheme to include the one of the top three colours picked. The top three colours are blue, purple and pink. But I will have to take into consideration that I have surveyed more women than men when picking my colour scheme.

Three words you associate with R'n'B

I asked people for three words that they associate with R’n’B to help me decide a name for my magazine as I wanted it to represent the R’n’B genre as closely as possible. The three main words where bling, rap and black.

What band/artist would you like to see in a magazine?

The majority of people I surveyed have picked well known American bands and artists with a few picking small independent bands. People have also included a few English artists. The top three are Beyonce, Jay Z and N-Dubz. I will use this to start thinking about my article.

Three Types of Regular content you would like in a magazine?

The majority of answers would fit in well with a R’n’B magazine. The three types of regular content that are most popular are interviews, horoscopes and music chart list.

Three Types of feature content you would like in a magazine?

The main feature content people would like to see in a magazine is an interview with a celebrity followed by free gifts and posters.

Do you currently read and R’n’B magazines? If so which ones?

The majority of the people I surveyed did not read any type of R’n’B magazine but the few that did read them read American magazines, because of this I feel that I should include American artists in my magazine.

Audeince research answers

Main Exercise-Codes and Conventions of a Music Magazine Contents Page

Codes and Conventions of a Music Magazine Contents Page

· Magazine name – Top left hand corner

· Editor letters – Pictures and signature

· Includes - date, issue list, issue numbers/date and subscription

· Contact Details – Phone number

· Headings – Used to divide up contents, e.g., regular and features

· Content – Page number then text, one or two words bold or slightly larger text subline in smaller text

· Pictures – Corresponding page number on them, anchors the image to the written content

· Pictures –Creative photography

· Strip at top or bottom – Says the artists in magazine

· Colour Scheme – Consistent and few colours usually the same as the front cover colours

· Plain background – Usually white

· Weekly magazines – Easier form of content

· Content – Regular and features

· Free CD’s

· Headings – Used to categorise content

Main Exercise-Codes and Conventions of a Music Magazine Front Cover

Codes and Conventions of a Music Magazine Front Cover

· Title – One word or letter(s) and is in the top left hand corner and covers the full page width

· Unique font on title – Same height and is the largest text on the front cover

· Main picture – Biggest picture and usually a band or singer medium close-up , no smiles conveys an attitude and they use direct address (looking at the reader) - juxtaposition

· Main image - low angle camera shot –more power/more imposing – creative photography

· Main coverline – Over main picture to anchor picture and tells the meaning of the main image, frames main images and is on the left side of the cover

· Coverline – Usually two or three lines and are information about contents, tease the audience and provokes interest

· Cover line and subline – Few words as possible

· Smaller pictures – People using doing gigs in pictures

· Consistent colour scheme – Only ever three or four colours throughout – Looks classy not cheap

· Typography – Look of the words and letters, consistent throughout only ever a few fonts used, they use the font to reflect the target audience and subject

· Serif Sans - Is youthful

· Bar Code – On the bottom right hand side as it’s the last place people usually look, is not on the back because a paid advert is placed there

· Free stuff – to entice readers to buy

· Buzzwords – Exclusives, strip at the bottom or top of the cover – list of names and topics

· Puff – something for nothing, sales puff

· Masthead – Title, Position statement , dater and price usually all together

· Positioning statement – By the title, either above or below issue date and price

Main Exercise-Codes and Conventions of a Music Magazine Double Page Spread

Codes and Conventions of a Music Magazine Double Page Spread

· One main picture – one page or more ( bleed across from one page to another) – quirky and creative use of photography

· Quotes used

· Bold Headline – links the two pages – usually bleeds across

· Little pictures – used to break down text – usually panel

· Byline – Journalist included – by stand first

· Limited use of colours

· First letter of the writing paragraph – Big – Drop Capital

· Access to further details

· Strapline or border – Used to bleed across the DPS – to link together and to create a coherent design

· Bold text – first line of article – sometimes larger font size

· Stand first – Summary/intro –introduces article – works with the headline to tell reader what article is about

· Headline – Doesn’t tell the story

· Artist/Band name is highlighted

· Magazine title – next to page number and sometimes issue date and/or website

· Usually three or four columns

· No questions and answers by themselves – lazy

· Informal writing style

· Personality of the journalist comes through in article and sometimes there won opinion.

Preliminary Exercise-Evaluation

Evaluation

My task was to create a front cover and contents page for a school magazine. I had a variety of criteria to stick to which included the main cover image to be a medium colse up and a contents page that was only one page.

I believe that my new media product uses the codes and conventions of a magazine correctly by having a magazine title that stretches across the whole width of the page. It developes the codes and conventions of a magazine by using gender neutral colours.

To construct my new media product I used Adobe Photoshop and Quark. I used Photoshop for my front cover and then Quark for my contents page as it is a professional software.

There are many strenghts to my product which include the contents page. I like the contents page the best and I belive that it looks professional because I used Quark which is a software designed for making contents pages. I belive the main weakness of the product is the main cover image as the models face is obstructed by some of her hair.

Production-First Drawings for Front and Contents Page

First Drawings for Front and Contents Page

Preliminary Exercise-Pictures Taken

All pictures taken

Used on contents page

Used on contents page

Used as main cover image

Used on contents page

Used on contents page

Preliminary Exercise-Codes and Conventions of a Magazine Contents Page

Research
Codes and Conventions of a Magazine Contents Page
· Magazine name – Top left hand corner
· Editor letters – Pictures and signature
· Includes - date, issue list, issue numbers/date and subscription
· Contact Details – Phone number
· Headings – Used to divide up contents, e.g., regular and features
· Content – Page number then text, one or two words bold or slightly larger text subline in smaller text
· Pictures – Corresponding page number on them, anchors the image to the written content
· Colour Scheme – Consistent and few colours usually the same as the front cover colours
· Plain background – Usually white
· Weekly magazines – easier form of content
· Content – Regular and features

Preliminary Exercise-Codes and Convnetions of a Magazine Front Cover

Research
Codes and Conventions of a Magazine Front Cover
· Title – One word or letter(s) and is in the top left hand corner and covers the full page width
· Unique font on title – Same height and is the largest text on the front cover
· Main picture – Biggest picture and usually a band or singer medium close-up , no smiles conveys an attitude and they use direct address (looking at the reader)
· Main coverline – Over main picture to anchor picture and tells the meaning of the main image, frames main images and is on the left side of the cover
· Coverline – Usually two or three lines and are information about contents, tease the audience and provokes interest
· Cover line and subline – Few words as possible
· Smaller pictures – About other features in the magazine
· Consistent colour scheme – Only ever three or four colours throughout
· Typography – Look of the words and letters, consistent throughout only ever a few fonts used, they use the font to reflect the target audience and subject
· Serif Sans - Is youthful
· Bar Code – On the bottom right hand side as it’s the last place people usually look, is not on the back because a paid advert is placed there
· Free stuff – to entice readers to buy
· Buzzwords – Exclusives, strip at the bottom or top of the cover – list of names and topics
· Puff – something for nothing, sales puff
· Masthead – Title, Position statement , dater and price usually all together
· Positioning statement – By the title, either above or below issue date and price