Magazine Cover Analysis

Q Magazine -

Immediately by looking at the cover of this magazine, were struck with three different genre's of music, just by looking at the image. Jay-Z stands up for the rap side, Lady Gaga the pop/dance element and Dave Grohl for indie rock. This already suggests that the target audience for the magazine is open to different genres, which will help with Q's success in readership.
As the image only presents plain colours that is redeemed within  the masthead, puffs/plugs and cover lines as they use bold colouring, which will make the magazine stand out.
The cover lines link in entirely to the image, as they are all quotes from the three musicians in the image. The idea of these cover lines is to attract a potential buyer, as they'll probably want to read on into the interviews.
Overall I definitely think this is a successful front cover, and will probably take this all into account when creating my own.

NME Magazine -

You can always judge the target audience of a magazine by looking at the front cover. In my own opinion it seems to me that NME appeals to only specific music genres. (which could account for their recent dip in circulation).
The layout of this cover however works really well, the mid shot image fits around the cover lines and draws attention to the main puff/plug in the middle of the page.
Again like Q magazine the image doesn't bring much eye catching colour therefore it has to be compensated for with the text.
In my own opinion I don't like this magazine in comparison to Q, It doesn't bring life into the subject of music. It seems to be stuck on the same old genre's, however I can learn from this and only take what I need for my music cover.

Music Magazine

The Success and Failure of Music Magazines

Due to my recent research into the popularity of music magazines, there seems to have been a major downfall for them. Maybe this is because we don't need them as much anymore? After all we do have the internet at our fingertips. Even the most popular magazines have their own web page to back themselves up.

Taking into account all of the music magazines that are still successful today, I researched into their recent readership and circulation. NME, seems to have fallen incredibly compared to other magazines, with less than 34,000 in circulation. Where as Q magazine seems to be at an all time high with circulation of 113,000. Maybe this is because NME doesn't seem to vary its genre's of music, along with the same of colour schemes and puff/plugs.

I have now realised that if a music magazine is to be successful, then it needs to have varied genre's of music included, Im not saying from one extreme to another, but it would be sensible as it opens up a whole new window of readers. The design also plays another major part, by having an appealing front cover and cover lines, you could attract absolutely anyone to your magazine. This I will bear in mind when creating mine.

Student Magazine- Planning

Before I created my magazine I had to determine in which direction I wanted it to go. By this I mean, the layout, the image ideas, the coverlines etc. I started my planning by mind mapping potential ideas I had, then I wrote myself a proposal which stated everything I intended to do within the project, what my aims were and the outcomes I hoped for. I also included flat plans, which was a rough idea of the magazine layout. Here I have uploaded all my planning work.

Student Magazine - Front Cover and Contents Page

This is my front cover and contents page that I created for my student magazine coursework. For the front cover I used photoshop as I took photography GCSE I found I had more knowledge of this software rather than InDesign. Im pleased to say that I am happy with the layout of my magazine and the colour contrasts, however I feel that the cover lines on the magazine didn't work as well as I wanted them to, because the background seems too busy and therefore makes them hard to establish.

My contents page worked well in contrast to the front cover because I maintained the same relevance in images and colour schemes. However compared to the front cover the contents page isn't as exciting, which I will bear in mind when creating my music magazine.

Initial Reflection - Student Magazine

This blog has been created for the purpose of my AS Media Coursework, here I will upload my all of my drafted and actual work.

I have just completed my first task of creating a student magazine, and have therefore created this blog to reflect upon my previous and future work. Looking back at my student magazine I have identified that to be able to make a realistic music magazine I need to input a lot my time into researching successful magazines that have made their mark on the industry today.

However I am happy with the outcome on my student magazine, because I spent a lot of time constructing a cover that fitted together nicely. I will continue this further when I come around to creating my music magazine, because there is always room for improvement.
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