Front Page Spread
- Band on front stands out and draws your eye towards it. They are looking straight at the camera.
- Name of band equally large and prominent. More noticable than 'NME' in top left.
- Plain whitebackground makes band stand out.
- 'Satanic majesties' and 'The new queens of the underground' are the dominent phrases on magazine.
- Magazine about Warpaint, not NME magazine.
- Two other bands mentioned off to the side which are featured in magazine .
- Another feature- 'The 50 greatest debut albums ever' which sparks interest even for those who aren't loyal NME consumers.
- The 'Free classic posters' are shown at bottom. Fans of the bands featured will spot this and may buy the magazine for this content.
- All writing is upper case so it can stand out.
Contents Page
- Not a traditional layout. Designed for a young audience.
- Only has pages that might be of interest to audience (possibly those who like Warpaint?).
- Page dedicated to upcoming national event (Christmas).
- Rather than saying contents it is labled 'Inside this week' to demonstrate the unconvetiality of the magazine (young audience?).
- Personally as someone in NMEs target audience I dislike the randomness of the contents page. Page articles are layed out with no particular order. What's on page 44?
- It's not initally a noticable contents page. People usually associate them with tables or at least expect to see larger page numbers. When flicking through I passed it thinking it was just a page.
Double Page Spread
- Looks very much like a broadsheet, contrast to the contents page which is a bit more fun.
- I hope it's an interesting article because it's not something I would read for the sake of it.
- Doesn't really make any good use of the two pages.
- Very dreary colours; the sort of colours I would associate with a ration book rather than a music magazine.
- Overly very boring and depressing.
Objective
In order to create a magazine that best suits the reader I carried out a questionnaire. I asked questions about how the cover should look, what sort of content they would like to see in it and even on colour choice. I planned to hand out 16 questionnaires; 8 to boys and 8 to girls so as to get results that were as fair as possible. I also gave a selection of questions which were either multiple choice or gave a space for someone to write an answer.
Results
Q.3 - A lot of people never buy magazines so my magazine won't suddenly be issued every week, I instead will compromise and issue it every fortnight.
Q.4 - As expected.
Q.5 - Varied selection. Music mag should include some film/gaming, human interest and car contexts.
Q.6 - As shown.
Q.7 - Interviews and Reviews appear to be the more favoured content.
Q.8 - The majority of people prefer Rock and Pop.
Q.9 - As shown.
Q.10 - Magazine needs to be slightly more playful than serious but still remain seriousness.
Q.11 - As shown; magazine should be priced at around £1
Q.12 - Adverts should relate to content i.e. band t-shirts and other similar merchandise.
Q.13 - There should be some information on the front cover
Q.14 - There content in the magazine should be more splashed out.
Conclusion
These results will act as guidelines for the music magazine I aim to create. That way I will end up with a magazine that suits it's audience.
Basis
I understood the need to have two articles; the main one takes up the cover and would be on the subject of spooning (an old sixth form game) and a second on a smaller article inside the magazine.
Layout
Because of the positioning of the background picture and my attempt to show only the back pocket of the jeans I was unable to place the title of the magazine at the top of the page. I added the second article preview to the side to emphasise its positioning in the magazine. Other details such as the slogan and issue numbers are to add a professional effect and the Guilsborough logo was added to show that it was a magazine associated with the school.
