Stages of production & Audience feedback

Stage 1 – Choosing the right front cover picture

Option 1: Option 2:

Audience Research Results:“I really liked Option 1 as it looks like the pictures extending back which is effective when you first look at the magazine” - Hannah Upchurch

Option 2 is a well taken photo! However, the person sat on the floor looks out of place and isn’t entirely clear why she is there. Whereas with Option 1 you can see both of them clearly! - Catherine Upchurch

Stage 2 – Choosing the name of my magazine

•Decode•Allure•Vibe

Audience Research:

“I personally like ‘Decode’ the best as it links to magazines and our media course. Also Allure sounds like a name for a fragrance magazine” – Holly Bowler

Stage 3 – Choosing my genre of magazine

Before we even started planning our magazines I had always wanted to do an Indie magazine as I felt it would be a good genre to explore and try and create my own representation of an indie music magazine so I asked people on survey monkey if they would read an indie magazine and 40% said No, yet 60% said Yes so I decided to go with Indie as my genre of magazine.

Stage 4 – Choosing a colour scheme for my magazine

I asked people on Survey Monkey what colours would you associate with an indie/folk music magazine and 36.59% said ‘Neutral colours – brown, grey black’ and 31.71% said ‘Dark, block colours (black,grey,red,dark blue, dark green). I will incorporate those colours into my magazine as they are the colours that represent indie music magazines.

Stage 5 – Beginning to construct my magazine

I decided to flip the picture for my front cover as it gave me more room to add secondary images, cover lines to my magazine effectively.

I added a box on the left hand side which will be where my secondary images and sublines will go. I made the box transparent so that it looked more natural and effective.

I then added a place for the tagline to go which I will also make transparent as currently it looks odd.

“I like the positioning of the boxes but the colour of the box is lilac which doesn’t match your colour scheme” – Mrs Gama

“The picture looks better flipped this way then before as you have a lot more space, very creative!” – Holly Bowler

From my audience feedback I am going to change the colour of the box to a darker or more neutral colour as from my previous audience feedback those are the colours you’d expect to see for an Indie music magazine.

Adding Secondary Images:I then chose 3 secondary images to go onto my front cover so that people who look at the front of this particular magazine may be convinced to buy it if they see who else features in this magazine and what else they are getting for the money they are paying!

I decided my 3 photos would be of other artists as usually when people see other artists they know of that convinces them to buy the magazine as they are their idols for example. I made sure that every image was clear and that most of them had the use of direct address to really captivate the audiences attention.

“I really like the secondary images Beth! But the way they are arranged look like this is a contents page rather than a front cover, maybe position the images in different angles to make it look more random rather than ordered!” – Mrs Gama.

“The secondary images really fit in with the Indie genre and you’ve created a clear link with the main image as it’s a similar location which means they all look good together on a page as they all fit in with the theme!” – Annie Mingo.

Adding Masthead, Strapline and a Plug:The next thing I did was add my

masthead to my magazine front cover. I made sure that it was bold and stood out to the audience as I wanted it to be the first part of my magazine that catches their eyes! The dark blue colour scheme goes well with my magazine personally. However, I am not sure about the font as it looks like you’d find that font on a young children's magazine!

I also added a Strapline at the bottom of the magazine which I made dark blue also so that the colour scheme was clear! I also made it transparent so that it didn’t take the effect away from the guitar in my models hand which is a key part of the front cover as it highlights that this magazine is a music magazine.

I decided to do a circle to resemble where the plug is going to go on my front cover, I positioned it next to the masthead so that when the audience look at the magazine they always look in a ‘Z’ so they will look at the masthead, the plug, then main image down to my strapline at the bottom.

I like the dark blue colour scheme, maybe you could add some other colours to it. The masthead is good but I agree with you about perhaps the font not being the right font for an Indie music magazine! – Chloe Surridge

Adding the Main Cover line:The next step in creating my front cover for my music magazine was adding the main cover line. I decided to use the rule of 3 and relate it to a festival as that’s what my double page spread is going to be about (featured band playing at an indie music festival). Again, I made this box transparent so that you could still see the guitar and I made sure that no text was covering the guitar to make it even more clear.

I also added sublines to my secondary images they are ‘Exclusive Interview’, ‘Explore their lives’ and ‘Many new artists’ which adds effect to the images as it also tells you abit about why they are on the front cover and what is about them within the magazine, extra detail basically.

“For the sublines Beth, you need to tell us more as you’ve said ‘Explore their lives’ who are ‘they’? Perhaps add names of artists instead?” – Mrs Gama

“This is good Beth, I recommend coming up with a name for your artists instead of just their 2 names as you wouldn’t usually find that on a music magazine! Also only one part of the main cover line has to be in bold and a bit bigger then a part underneath can be a bit smaller.” – Mrs Heywood

Adding more text, information and a barcode:

For the next stage of creating my magazine front cover I added a barcode to the bottom left hand side of my front cover as I didn’t want to block the guitar in the bottom right hand side as it’s a key part to this front cover.

I then decided to make my plug colour orange which is a subtle and neutral colours which adds another colour to the colour scheme and also goes quite well with the colour of the guitar. I also added some text which says ‘Free tickets to festivals near you’ which may encourage people to buy the magazine to be in with the chance of winning free festival tickets!

I also added a little orange music note symbol which also allows people to know this is a music magazine.

I then added text to my tagline and it reads ‘Biggest Indie Pop magazine sensation in the whole nation’ this is effective as it can persuade people to buy this magazine as it shows its popularity and promotes the magazine.

“I love your front cover! Especially the ‘music, mud & mayhem’ part of the main cover line, it really suits the Indie genre!” – Tara Taylor

“It’s beginning to come together quite well Beth! The tagline is great and the colour of the plug goes very nicely with the colour of the guitar and leaves in the background!” – Mrs Gama.