Music Magazine Brief

To create the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text must be original, produced by you - with a minimum of four original images.

Hip Hop Genre

Final Cover and Image

Evaluation of College Magazine

 
After analysing the conventions of existing College magazines on the market, I noticed that many, if not all magazines are set up in the same way. For example, the masthead always runs across the top of the product as a line or in a square on the left. I also noticed certain styles that were unique to different products. These make individual products easy to identify and also effectively draw in their main target audience. I took these conventions into consideration when coming up with ideas for a name. The majority of college magazines were named after their respected campus or target audience like with 'Ridgewater' or 'Beloit.' As a result, I looked at using Wyke as part of the Masthead. Wyke Weekly was my first Idea, Wyke College Times was may second. But I decided to shorten the second to Wyke Times. I shortened the name of my magazine to make it snappier, even shortening it to 'WT.' for my cover colour scheme; I used purple as my main colour to match the current Wyke logo and colours used in the prospectus. I used the purple in combination with white to emphasize key words in my sell lines, and pull quotes. The main quotes and sell lines are placed on the left, under the masthead and the less important ones placed on the right. The ones on the left are often seen as the ones to attract the attention of the target audience. For my main image, I used a student from the college with her folders and backpack and photographed her with the college in the background, following the conventions of may covers, by identifying the target audience. With the contents page, I planned the layout with boxes to have the list of contents to be on the left, under the masthead. A montage of college related images i.e. gigs, sports teams and student ambassadors. At the bottom, the page would have a message from the editor (most likely a student) containing a few words summarizing the contents. The target audience for the magazine is current students, and students looking to enrol. It does this by offering helpful information that will help both audiences, such as, information regarding courses and support and general gossip and banter regarding teachers, students and events within the college. Also, by offering information on things like Trips, NUS Cards and Sports teams as well, students looking to enrol have a good understanding of the kind of things that go on in the college. The integration with social media makes some exclusive information easily accessible to many people around the world. This could potentially draw students nationally or even internationally.  

Images

Front and Contents Mock Up

Front cover and Contents Page constructed using boxes. The design layouts are based on conventions of existing products.

Initial Ideas Diagram

Colour Scheme

Using the Current college logo as a reference in designing the Magazine colour scheme. Purple is the Wyke colour so it should be an anchor point for the design. Green goes together well with purple. However, the original gold 'College' text suits the logo better. The two middle purples seem to work as an anchor point for the design.

Moodboard 1

Moodboard creating inspiration for a college magazine.

• Books and hardworking students - Study advice for students, from students.
• Enrollment/Graduation help
• College facilities, catering, sport etc. (what to do with free time)
•  Out of college events - Parties, gigs organized buy students.

LIIAR Analysis of front cover

Language:
Mid shot of Daft Punk against a pink and blue neon background. Their shiny suits, covered on sequins and reflective helmets distort the reflections into interesting shapes. The colour scheme matches the pink light, with a bold white accompanying it. The masthead is placed over to the left in a bold font. The majority of the masthead sits over the green so that it stands out against the bright colours. Alongside of the masthead, the issue date and price is displayed. This makes the two easier to spot when stacked amongst other magazines. The issue date and price are also located in the bottom right with the barcode and website (www.nme.com), as well as prices in US and Canadian Dollars and in Euro's too. Pink is used to emphasise the Masthead, main article subject "Daft Punk", "Exclusive Interview" and the word plus. However, there is only one sell line relating to the the contents of the magazine, showing the high profile nature of Daft Punk. The sell line reads "we don't have egos, we have super powers." The line "we have super powers" is larger than the rest is the line so that it stands out as more important or representative of the Duo than the rest of it.

Institution:
NME, stands for New Musical Express and is published weekly. It was founded on 7th of March 1952 by Theodore Smythson as a newspaper. On its release, it was the first paper to publish a singles chart. Over the years it has become more like a magazine that tends to focus on a wide tame of music genres, often shedding light on some of the lesser known acts. As of 2011 23,924 copies if NME are estimated to be in circulation. In the 70's NME was seen to be the best selling British music magazine. NME is published under IPC Media (Inspire) (Time inc.)

Ideology:
NME aims to shed light on up and coming acts, as well as regular mainstream acts from a wide range of genres. Mainly focusing on genres like Rock, Pop and Alternative. However NME has been known to look at Metal bands and various underground dance movements. Reviews are generally unbiased on albums and gigs, offering a good insight into new material.

Audience:
NME has a reader base of both Men 69% and Women 31% with an average age of 24. The majority of readers are students who are interested in a wide rage of music.

Representation:
NME represents audiences by offering a diverse approach to its contents and a constantly evolving layout and style. NME changes with what music is popular to maintain a a strong reader base, whilst offering coverage of artists who aren't necessarily mainstream, but have been going for a long time.