Magazine Drafts Analysis

Magazine Drafts Analysis

My first draft is a basic sketch of the layout of what i vaguely want my magazine front cover page to look like. The masthead is centralized at the top of the page with the image filling up the majority of the space underneath it. This is a magazine convention used across multiple genres, not just rap music.
The image i sketched under the masthead was just a quick idea i had for an image i would take for my contact photo sheet. This would be a over the shoulder shot of a motorcyclist wearing his gear and walking towards his bike in the background, while the leathers and helmet are the primary focus in the foreground, this would be used as an exciting and interesting shot that would hopefully catch the target audiences eyes.
Other conventions that the draft conform to is having a bar code in the bottom left corner and cover lines going down the sides and overlapping the front cover image.
The next draft is of the contents page. It has the masthead, once again at the top of the page. This is because i am not only trying to establish the magazine name but make it a brand, much like kerrang did to their music magazine. I then have the contents going down the left hand side of the page overlapping the image. Most music magazines have a convention of making the contents page detailed and represent what is going to be within the magazine. However, i have decided to represent my contents page in a way that is intertextual to the way Vibe does their rap music magazine. This is done by having one image of the main artist that is being shown in that magazine behind the contents and having a simplistic, almost luxurious representation. Due to me having a similar target audience and the height of Vibe magazines success, i will be doing a contents page intertexualised to Vibe's.
Last but not least my feature article has been drafted to show the main features and layout. It will also have a masthead / branding of my music magazine overlaying the main image on the page to represent the magazine itself. Generally, Rap music magazines will have one page dedicated to an image alone and then the other page generally just pure text on double page spread feature articles. This is a common convention with Rap magazines such as Vibe, therefore i will be trying to conform to this convention. As you can see on the left i have exaggerated how the page will be used for an image with the masthead overlaying it and then a page dedicated to columns containing the articles of information. Although these were rough draw ups of my ideas and ideal layout of how i want to represent my magazine, nothing is finalized and i could find that during the production i do not like the layour and could change it. However, i am going to try and stick by this draft template i have constructed.

Magazine Drafts

Magazine Drafts

Fonts I'll be using

Fonts

These are the fonts i will be using for my magazine

Font Moodboard Analysis

Font Moodboard Analysis

For my font mood board i decided to select 6 fonts that i thought would look good for my music magazine and represent my genre accordingly. By the time i had started this mood board i had decided on my magazine name 'Vermin'. So i decided to put the magazine name in each of the fonts to see how it looked.
Overall i feel that the fonts that represent the ideology, problems and grime of Rap music is the 4th font down and the 5th font down. However, i also realised that also these fonts would look good as cover lines and a masthead, they would not be practical for a feature article or double page spread and would need a more simplified font. For this i decided that the 6th font on the mood board was most appropriate.
From this mood board i have decided that i am going to do my masthead in the 5th font down (Named 'Vermin Vibes slant') and will also use the 4th font down for some cover lines (named 'too drunk to f*ck' i know the font name is inappropriate but the font itself was unique and represented the genre well). The last font i will be using is called 'Siliwangi Engineering' which will be my regular looking font for articles.
Creating this mood board has been a great help towards my production as it has allowed me to see what the fonts look like together with the same name.

Font Moodboard

Construction Schedule

Construction Schedule 

Week 1 (16/11/15): Work on 3 different drafts for my potential products
Week 2 (23/11/15): Photo shoot and contact card of all photos taken
Week 3 (30/11/15):Magazine Front cover
Week 4 (7/12/15): Magazine contents page
Week 5 (14/12/15):Magazine feature article
Week 6 (21/12/15):Finish off the above
Week 7 (28/12/15):receive feedback, make changes accordingly. Finish product

Location and Props

Location and Props

For my main prop i am going to be using a super sports motorbike on the front cover and feature article. This is because i feel that the target audience for the magazine (teens to young adults which are primarily male) will be gratified by this along with other types of 'fun' things like sports cars etc. Therefore i am going to be using my own motorbike in the photo shoot which is a Yamaha YZF R125, it is a good looking sports bike and will be represented as the rappers new 'toy' or ride and will be general news about what the rappers been up to and his connection to bikes.
For location i have decided that i am going to take images of the motorbike in the foreground with either a wall that has been graffiti'd in the background or a sunset / sunrise to create a powerful ideology of the rappers roots or how they are now powerful due to their fame. To decide on what location i feel is best i am going to scout and find some good areas in which to take photos. I will then put all these on a contact sheet to show progress and alternate versions of what my final product could have been.
My motorbike is also blue which is part of my 3 colour scheme meaning that it will stick out and appeal to the target audience for conforming to the colour scheme.
Other props obviously include the clothing used which will be fashionable and reflect modern rap conventions. This will gratify the audience and represent the ideology of modern rap. Hopefully with the use of props i am using and the location i shoot in i will be able to represent a wealthy lifestyle / modern rap magazine.
Images of my motorbike i would use as a prop are below.

Colour Moodboard Analysis

Colour Moodboard Analysis

From my questionnaire i established that the target audience wanted black, white and blue as the three primary colours on my Rap magazine. From this information i took the base colour of each (white, black and dark blue). I then used photoshop to produce a 4 way gradient of each colour (for black and white i used different shades which eventually turned to greys). This moodboard has been used as inspiration for my magazine and allows me to use perhaps two different shades of blue or be able to use grey in my product as well because it is the gradient between black and white. On first glance people would think that just being able to use these three colours would be limiting but i feel that they can be used to represent my genre in an effective way and still make things look vibrant rather than dull or a misinterpretation (black and white are commonly used in vogue etc).
Overall i feel that this moodboard effectively shows the colours i have at my disposal with the use of the colour gradient and that it will be useful in the production of my magazine because i can always look back at it as a reference. It does not matter if at some point i add an additional colour, however, i would prefer it if i tried to keep to the 3 colour scheme because i feel it would look more proffesional and appeal to the target audience more.

Colour Moodboard

Original Ideas Statement

Original Ideas Statement

For my magazine I have decided to make a rap orientated lifestyle magazine. This means that although it will feature rap artists the magazine will mainly represent the lifestyle. However, the biggest problem I have is that there is a broad range of lifestyles in which rap is portrayed. For example, you have Rap artists like drake that are represented as wealthy and live a luxurious rich lifestyle. However, on the other end of the spectrum you have artists like stormzy who represent a grimy and unattractive side of the Rap genre.

Overall I feel that I am going to aim for the luxurious, rich representation because I feel that it would be a clearer representation and appeal to a much larger audience.

Originally I wanted to make a motorcycle magazine. However, when realising it had to be music orientated I still really want to incorporate bikes into the magazine somehow. To do this I decided rap would be the best fit and perhaps incorporate it into an artist’s image or story regarding them. So as of now my initial plan is to make a loosely Rap orientated magazine which features items like bikes or cars which would also appeal to the target audience due to them being represented as dangerous and fun like the rap music. Therefore the target audience for this magazine will be an older teenage / younger adult audience which not only enjoy rap music but are perhaps aspiring to the goals or luxurious lifestyle that the magazine will represent.

Music Magazine Questionnaire Analysis

Music Magazine Questionnaire Analysis

From my Questionnaire i have been able to acquire data regarding my target audience and what they want from producing a questionnaire in survey monkey.

From the Rap magazine question 60% answered that they did read a Rap magazine and 40% answered no. This means that there is a market audience meaning that the product would not be pointless, which is a good start.

In the second question I asked what 3 colours they would most like to see on the magazine, this was a multiple choice option, The three most popular colours were Blue, Black and white at (60%,70% and 60%). I am very happy with these colour choices because they were similar to what I wanted to use myself. This means that I can make my magazine how I like and still appeal to the target audience.

In the third question I asked how often they would like to see the magazine published. 60% voted for weekly which was a significantly larger total than that of the other two options, therefore this means my magazine will be distributed weekly and therefore would perhaps need to introduce a reasonable price so that the magazine ‘brand’ could afford to release one once a week.

Related to the last point I made, when I asked how much they would be willing to pay for the magazine surprisingly nobody voted for ‘Nothing’ and 70% voted that they would be willing to pay £1. This means that I might be able to distribute weekly if the magazine had a good source of income.

When asked what kind of rap they would like to see in the magazine it was a close vote. However, the highest percentage was News about current rappers which came in at 45%. This means that for this particular magazine I will be doing a mainly news about rappers feature article. However, in the future it means that I could have a broad range of subjects and topics about rappers and rap because the tight survey results show this.

70% of survey takers voted that freebies would encourage them to buy the magazine. This means that I would most likely have to develop some type of cheap incentive that would encourage people to buy the magazine and once again, this will be possible because people are willing to pay for the magazine.

70% of survey takers voted that they wanted to see an image related to the feature article on the front cover. This means that my article will be heavily based upon the feature article but it will gratify the audience therefore I will continue to do it.

Although making a website was not part of the task, 75% of survey takers voted that they wanted the magazine to have one. I will have to do some drafts and look at some methods of making a website because if it was a real situation a website would provide the convergence link to make the magazine successful cross platform.

In thee would you like some advertising question 70% of people voted that they wanted advertising. This means that the magazine has potential to generate more money by endorsing brands, sponsors or doing general advertising on the back page etc.

In the last question, 55% of people voted that they would like the magazine to be distributed by retailers, this could prove hard to do as it can be a competitive industry to get mainstream retailers to sell your product. However, I will have to do some additional research at some point regarding what retailer sells / pushes more magazines and would be best for my specific genre. Overall this questionnaire has helped me develop an idea of what my audience expect of the magazine and how I will be making it.

Music Magazine Questionnaire Results

Advertisers Moodboard

Advertisers Mood Board Analysis

Analysis of Advertisers Mood board

In my advertisers / brand mood board I used an extremely broad range of companies from completely different ends of the spectrum. This is because when I made the mood boards I did not know specifically what type of magazine I was going to be making for the main task, therefore not knowing what target audience or demographic I would need advertising for. This means that I decided to do a very large mood board but have grouped brands and logos accordingly meaning that if I decide to make a magazine for a particular target audience that has an interest in for example, clothing and fashion, all my other fashion and clothing brands are located in a similar location on the mood board, allowing inspiration at a quick glance and be able to help me with my magazine. The mood board is not aimed at any particular demographic due to the very vague and broad range of brands. However, it does appeal to a UK audience due to the retail shops I have added such as Asda, Tesco etc and social media that is popular amongst UK consumers. 

Target Audience Moodboard

Target Audience Mood board Analysis

Analysis of Target Audience Mood board

My target audience mood board is aimed at a stereotypical teenage / young adult audience. This is because it features technology such as Apple watches and iPhone which are used by almost all teens as well as including food and drink that is also popular amongst the demographic e.g.: Starbucks, McDonald's, Costa and subway. I also decided to add some vehicles, like the red Corsa, a motorbike and a scooter. This is because average teenagers will have or be getting a mode of transport during their teenage years, whether learning to drive a car or ride a bike, therefore I added it in. It is blatant that the target audience is a UK audience due to the representations and actual use of connotations within the mood board. Although I have used stereotypes and teen conventions, I feel my mood board represents my target audience well.

Survey Monkey Main Task Questionnaire

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BJSP2PV here is my survey for my main task research regarding information on a Rap magazine

Future PLC Analysis

Time Inc analysis

Bauer Analysis