Here is an example of some of the original photos i took to feature on my magazine.

I plan for the main image on my front cover to be an image of a girl band wearing appropriate clothes that fit in with the genre of the music i have chosen. They will also be on an old building background to make them stand out and make the photo interesting. I plan to call the band Domination because i feel this is a name which could work well for a girl band because its a word which could be memorable. I will also have titles either side of the main image telling the reader about what's inside my magazine. I will make the title of my magazine stand out by adding effects to it, i have learnt from researching similar media texts that having a title that stands out is very important.

I plan to keep the design of my contents page very simple so its accessible to the reader. It will feature a few main images showing a taster of what's inside the magazine and i plan to have three columns of features, they will be; every month, features and events. I think these three are appropriate titles as shown in my similar text research. My double page spread will feature one main image on the left hand side of the page. This will take up the whole page and attract the readers attention. I then plan to have an interview with the band domination on the right hand side of the page, in this i will include questions to the band asking them what life is like on the music scene etc. I will also feature two smaller images around the write up to make the page more interesting.

The genre i have chosen for my music magazine is going to be Pop/Rock. Also the target audience for my magazine will be males+females aged 14-25, i therefore are aiming my magazine at a target/niche audience as its a music magazine aimed at a specific age group.
This means that the design of my magazine will be affected by the audience im aiming to read my magazine. I will do a questionnare/poll to reserch into what the name of my magazine should be called. This will help to give me an idea about what to put on my magazine and will eventually meet the expectations of the target audience. Here is an example of some questions i asked people to decide what i should put in my magazine;

Which genre do you think would be best for a new music magazine?

• Hip Hop
  
• Rock


• Indie


• Pop


• Drum + Bass


• Dance
• All genres

After asking this question i found that the most people thought that pop and rock would be best for a new music magazine. I therefore thought i would combine the two to create a sub-genre for my magazine.

Would you be interested in purchasing a magazine to find out news and information about any these genres?

• yes
  
• no

Out of the 40 people i asked 28 said yes they would be interested in purchasing a magazine about the genre they chose. 19 of these chose the genre pop/rock.

How much would you be expecting to pay for a music magazine?

• 50p
  
• £1.00


• £1.20


• £1.50


• £1.75


• £2.00 or over

The majority of people said they would be expecting to pay £1.50 and £1.75 for a new music magazine. I think i will price mine at about £2.00 because researching magazines this seems to be a common price of music magazines.

How often do you buy magazines?

• everyday


• once a week


• once a month


• once a year

24 out of 40 people said they bought a magazine once a week. This would give me an indication about how often to release a new issue of the magazine to enable it to sell well.

The genre i have chosen for my magazine is pop/rock i will need to take appropriate pictures using colour design and mise-en-scene to fit in with the style of my magazine. I plan to take an image of a band or an artist to feature on the front cover of my magazine. I was originally going to have an image of a band with about 3 people featuring on the front cover but now i think i will probably only use one person for the front cover of my magazine as by looking at my research it works better than an image of several people because you only concentrate on one thing. I plan to call my magazine The Beat as i think its a good name for a music magazine and fits in well with the genre of the music magazine which is pop/rock. I will also stick to a colour design but use a few titles in colours which contrast to make them stand out to the reader.
My contents page will have several images on and will list the main features of the magazine. It will also stick to the same sort of colour design as the magazine front cover to keep in the same context.
I plan to have an interview of the band I picutred on the front cover as my double page spread.

By researhing similar media texts i have found that the main codes and conventions for a music magazine front cover are:

• Bold and bright colours which contrast with each other to make it stand out and attract an audience.
• A masthead which is fairly big and bold.
• Usually one image which takes up the whole page or a few images but one which mainly stands out over the others.
• Lots of titles/features on the page about whats inside the magazine, these should also be bold and stand out to the audience, some more than others for example the main title for the cover story.
• A barcode so people can purchase the magazine.
• Most of the magazines i researched used phrases which attracted an audience to buy the magazine such as "Free..if you buy this months issue" or "exculsive only in (thier magazine)"

The main codes and conventions of a contents page are:

• Usually very simple design, featuring only a few pictures.
• The main titles are usually features- which is a story or interview only featured in that issue of the magazine. Monthly features which appear in the magazine every issue.
• The page title is usually something which is used to attract the reader to that page, it could be a phrase or quote from the page and then underneath it there is usually a sentance explaining a bit more about whats on the certain page.
• Some magazine's also featured pictures for example of a certain band which then had a page number on, so if the reader liked that certain band they would go straight to that page.

The main codes and conventions of a double page spread are:

• Usually one main image which is fairly big, in most of the magazines i have annalysed they have chosen to take up one whole page with one image. This is done to draw the reader towards that page.
• They also use bold writing and colours which stand out.
• They normally feature interviews on a certain artist or double page about an event or something like "10 ten songs to listen to this week".#

The main title on this double page spread stands out more than anything else because of its black bold writing which is made to stand out because of the light blue backing to it. This is the first thing you look at and exlpains that the double page is about the band called "the teenagers". It also has a small black star shape next to the title which says NME loves, this would draw the readers attention becuase if the magazine loved the band it would make them a bit more high profile. The small light blue box on the image of the band also attracts the reader because it contrasts with the picture and the phrase "need to know" has been used to make the reader want to read the small factfile about the band. This will then determine the reader whether they would like to read the whole story about the band, as the main facts would sum up what the band are like. The black column on the side shows bands which maybe arent as well known but are similar to "The Teenagers". They have attracted the reader by putting "Everyones talking about it" in capital white letters at the top of the column. The picture like other double page spreads ive annalsyed takes up the whole page so the reader cant help but look at it, the pose the artists are doing makes them looked very chilled out and makes them look quite cool.

This contents page is kept quite simple, each of the pictures has a page number on. This means that if a person has a certain interest in the band or artist in the picture, they would automatically go to that page. This is a good way to attract the reader as its very simple. The contents list doesnt list all the features in the magazine, it only lists the main features of the magazine. The titles of the articles/interviews are done in red which is a bold colour and would automatically attract the readers attention. Also like the other contents page i analysed from Q magazine, the titles have a word or phrase which sums up the story on a certain page and then underneath in black font it explains a bit more about it, this means the reader can have a chance to read a bit more about the page and see whether they unltimatly turn to read the page.

This double page spread from NME magazine is an interview with Lilly Allen, an interview is an example of somthing which may feature in a double page spread of a magazine. They have also used the whole right page to take up the image of Lilly. The shirt shes wearing particulary helps to make the image stand out because it contrasts with the white background used on the page. The design they have used is very simple but works because it makes the title and image stand out. The Title has been done effectively because the black squares which are the background to each letter give it more impact and make it stand out as one of the main features on the page. The fact that all the letters are different sizes also makes the title stand out because it looks quite different to what you might normally see as a titles. They have also used a quote from her interview as the title for the interview, "People think im an attention seeker but im just honest". This is good because the reader may see this and want to read into it more and see why she says this.

When you look at this magazine front cover of "Scratch" magazine, it is clearly a magazine which is specificly about HipHop and Rap music. You can tell this because of many of the names featured on the front cover such as Snoop Dogg and the main feature of the magazine being Lil Wayne who is a hiphop artist. This shows that they are aiming thier magzine at a specific target audience being people who are interested in this specific genre of music. The image of Lil Wayne stands out as they have used layering to get the image of him to come in front of the masthead. His name is then done in capital letters and in white which is made to stand out by the black outer glow used on it. The masthead also uses colours which contrast, the yellow title "Scratch" is made to look bolder also by the black outer shadow. This magazine has also stuck to a specific colour design being white, yellow, black and blue. This front cover also pictures two main images on the fron cover, they have used layering and editing to get the image of the DJ in the background. They have used the phrase "Simply the best" to make the audience of the magazine attracted to buying the magazine. They have used up most of the mage but unlike other magazine covers which i have annalysed they have chosen not to fill up the page as much and dont have as many features written on the front cover, this works becuase it draws your attention more to the image and subheading about Lil Wayne which seems to be the main story in the magazine.

This Issue of NME magazine has used layering to get the image of "The Last shadow puppets" to be put in front of the masthead, this is the main focus of the magazine, the fact that thier eyes are looking towards to the reader makes the reader drawn to this magazine. Also the fact that they are back to back and thier name is written in bold white capitals and is placed in front of each of them is effective because it fits in well with the position they are in.

The masthead uses the white and black outline to make the red text reading NME to stand out. Its quite a plain front cover but by using a lot of red text and bold font it makes the front cover stand out.

They have used specific phrases to make the reader by the magazine such as "First major interview as..The last shadow puppets" by doing this people buy the magazine because they think this is the only magazine where you could find this sort of information.

They have also put a quote from the interview which gives inside information from the band which encourages people to buy the magazine and read in to it more. The black circle shape which has "Jack Whites shock new album" written on it stands out because they have used yellow text which contrasts with all the other colours used on the page.