Final evaluation

I designed a media magazine based on the rock gene. It is mainly aimed at a 14-35 male who has a liking for rock, but also has an open opinion about new music. The design had to be simplistic enough so that it wouldn't alienate people from it, but also easily defined as a rock magazine. I wanted to make it easy to navigate through so that people wouldn't find it difficult to read. My magazine is similar to others on the market such as Kerrang, Q and NME. I did a lot of research into these magazines and I liked a lot of the ideas that the magazines had and decided to incorporate them into mine. Such as NME's Band Index on the contents page (see flat plans). My title "MTM, Music That Matters" was designed to appeal to my target audience because they are the people who care most about music, and the name helps to reflect their view.The pictures and fonts I used were specifically designed to appeal to the rock culture. The text that i used in the main articles was "old Typewriter" and this gave the impression of a rough and rugged approach, which I felt was more suited to my readers. The image of a clown holding a guitar is meant to draw the reader’s eyes to the magazine and to stand out from the others. The fact that he is holding a guitar helps the reader to identify what type of magazine it is and whether it is their style or not. The choice of the guitar was also important as I wanted it to look right and have the same colour scheme as my magazine. The colours scheme that I chose in my magazine was important to me because I didn't want to create the wrong opinion or miss lead people, so I went for very "rock" related colours. Such as Black, Red and Yellow. Black is a colour that is generally related to death and danger much like Red and Yellow which can also be a warning colours and action related. This helps the reader to establish a connection with the magazine and help to determine straight away if it is her/his style. My magazine would be stocked in most shops as it has a large Target audience and in my research I found out that other magazines such as kerrang were stocked in Tescos and WHS. 

I have learnt many new skill during my coursework project. Mainly how to use design and photo shop, however i did struggle with the programme at first and it became quite time consuming. I also had problems with transferring some details from Photoshop into Indesign so my final design doesn't look as good as it did on the computer. I am slightly disappointed with my front cover because when it printed it didn't show all of the effects and some of the sizing went wrong.. I did learn a lot from my preliminary task because i made a few mistakes which i managed to correct this time, such as layout and spacing, and i think that my choices with the font and design were better than before. I planned my design more thoroughly and spent a lot of time researching similar magazines. I really enjoyed making the magazine and hope my results mirror my efforts.

my double page spread

This is my double page spread. I wrote an article that i thought would appeal to my target audience. It was of a made up band who was the next big thing in the rock industry and my magazine had an exclusive interview with them. I asked them questions to do with their lives and about how they felt about being famous. I also tried to ask questions that i think my readers would ask. The layout of this page was quite important because i didn't want the reader to feel overwhelmed with the amount of text available to read.
That's why i decide to put the text into 3 columns and added an picture in. I also had a bar of text running through the page, to break it up, which i had taken from the article i wrote. This gave the reader a quick snippet of what was ahead. I carried the colour scheme on through out my magazine, the black yellow and red, to keep illustrating a rock magazine.
The text i used at the top, in the yellow box and on the red banner in the middle, was 'capture it' because i wanted to give the impression that the front cover merged with the whole magazine. The other text i used for the main body of writing was 'rough_typewriter'. This was to create an 'old school' effect about it to show the readers that the magazine wasn't too proper and had an element of rock about it. I have kept the magazine motto at the bottom of the page so that the reader is constantly reminded about what magazine he/she is reading. I also kept the same style of page numbering on all of my pages to keep it consistent with the rest of it.

contents page.

I wanted my contents page to be simple yet effective. It has a simple layout that is easy to find your way around. All of the band names are listed on the left hand side with the page number next to them, so that if you were interested in a particular band then you know where exactly to find them. I also had three headings in which an article could be listed under, either news, bands or tours. This keeps the design basic be simple to follow.

I used the font 'capture it' to keep in touch with the rest of the magazine. I also tried to interchange the colours, so one time it would be white writing on a black background and the next it would be black writing on a white background. This just helps to add a bit of variety but still keeping the same colour scheme. I incorpirated my logo into the top of the page so that the readers know what they are reading.

Front cover

This is my front cover, as you can see I have just one main picture across the whole of the page, which bleeds out at the edges. This allows me to have sub headings around my photo to display the information about whats inside my magazine. The name of the magazine MTM (music that matters), was important because it has to "describe" the magazine and try to sell itself. That's why 'music that matters' was quite an appropriate name because it targets people who love music.
The style of the heading was also very important as it is one of the main focal points in the magazine. Other magazines such as kerrang have their title in a block running along the top of the page. This is a good idea because when the magazine is on a stand the main part of the page could be obscured by other material, but the top of the magazine is normally viewable.
Also when your browsing through magazines you need a title that catches your eye and that's easily recognised. The big yellow font across the page stands out from the rest of the dark background. This helps to focus the eye towards the center and to achieve maximum viewing potential. The clown picture also grabs the readers attention because its unusual and bizarre, this could be an incentive to read on and find out more. The guitar helps to establish what kind of magazine it is, as you wouldn't necessarily see a clown holding a electric guitar in a pop magazine. The colours also help to establish the magazines genre as dark colours are normally associated with rock and metal. Red is also a colour associated with rock but also danger and blood. This helps to give the magazine an element of scariness to it. The text that i used for the cover was called "capture it". This was a font that i really liked because it had a certain miss fit about it creating an image of slightly scruffy and blurred effect. This was use full because i think that my target audience wouldn't like something that is perfectly presented but something that was more related to the rock genre and their own style. The text that i used for the logo was 'bleeding cowboy'. This text had an unusual look about it and created a slight contrast with the other text, because it had an elegant feel to it but seemed to work as a whole. At the bottom of the page i had a box of text just giving you a few ideas of what was inside to intice the reader to read on.

Double page spread plan

This is just a plan of what i am going to write in my double page spread. I have based it on a band called twos revolution. This was a band me and my step brother created, however it never really work and most of this is just made up. I staged the interiew as if it were the readers who were asking the questions. 

Flat plan

This is my flat plan. I have split the page into 4 sections and planned out different parts of my magazine in each. I have also expanded on those drawings by grouping some ideas together to come up with a final design
In the top left section is my front cover.
I wanted to create a magazine that would appeal to my market audience. I also wanted to base it on the "rival" magazines such as Kerrang and Q. I liked the idea of full page photo on my front cover, so I decided to draw a guitarist with his back to the audience. I later read that it would be better to have the person looking directly at you as it helps to attract the eye. So from then on I took pictures of my model face on.
I wanted a colour scheme to match my magazine style, so i thought that red, black and yellow were appropriate. The fonts were also quite important because they had to give the correct impression and not to alienate my target audience. That's why in my final design I chose my desired fonts.
I wanted my magazine to be stylish and classy but still be "worthy" in the rock community. Its aimed at the middle class male from the age of 18 to 35 who has a liking for a good rock band. I created quite a simple design and included just a few large pictures. This way my magazine doesn't look to crowded and busy.

This is the double page spread from NME magazine. This page is a "letters" page where fans can wright in and have there questions answered. This page features a main letter of the week which is often of interest too most of the readers. The letters are all written in black and then the replies are written in red. This is because they are sticking with there main colour scheme of white, black and red. At the heading of each letter the text becomes bigger and bolder. The first page has a large photo with 3 columns of texts and the second page has no large pictures but 4 columns of texts instead. It has some picture of fans, who have written in. These pictures are mainly of their faces and they are normally looking into the camera. The double page spread also advertises subscriptions to the magazine. The style of font is consistent throughout the page as well as the colour scheme. This page has a 4 column layout with pictures running down left and right of the page. The columns of text have alternating paragraphs in different colours to attract the readers attention.