BEAT Magazine - Mock

Colour Scheme ideas

I want the colour scheme on my magazine to be quite simplistic as i think this will have a good effect on the magazine. I will use neutral colours and stick to 3 colours. I'd like the background to be either white or black because this makes the text and the model stand out more. I will maybe have 2 main colours and  1 contrasting colour that I will use either on the masthead, image on the cover or text. The contrasting colour can also be used to highlight the importance of something in the magazine e.g page numbers, pull quotes.  

I like this colour scheme as the blue contrast well with a black background and white text that would be on the magazine. A good example of this colour scheme is Clash magazines cover on above. The blue on this cover contrast really well with the black background and the white text. If I did use this colour scheme I will make my cover have a black background with white text or blue text and the masthead would be large in a bold white font.   
   

                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Above is an issue of NME magazine, this uses a red/white/black colour scheme. I will use the colour scheme (red/white/dark grey) above in a similar way. With the red/white/dark grey colour scheme there are many different variations of ways I can use this on my magazine. I could make the masthead red on the white background and use the dark grey as the cover lines and text. Having a white background will make the image on the front of the magazine stand out. The white background would also be in on the contents page and double page spread because  white gives a magazine a clean look,  also having grey/black text will also make it look sharp and appealing to readers. The red can be used also to show the importance of something on the magazine, for example on the contents page, the main article could be highlighted in red to show it's more important the other contents on the page. Also red could be used as the colour for pull quotes in the double page spread interview because this would contrast well with the white background and the grey/black text.

I cant decide without seeing them on a draft of my magazine so I will try both of these colour scheme ideas on my draft  and decide from there which looks better and use this as my final idea.

Magazine Title & Possible Fonts

It's pretty self explanatory why i called my magazine 'BEAT' as every song has a beat to it. Also i chose this as the name as its short and easy to say, this makes it much more recognisable & appealing to readers. I wanted to included 'Music Magazine' and the issue date somewhere on the title as i think it will look good if there both included on the masthead. The bottom masthead is the one I've chosen to use and i'll improve it when making my magazine. 

For the font i wanted it to stand out and be large at the top of the magazine. So by using a bold font this helps it stand out. I decided to uses capital letters because it's quite conventional, for example NME, Clash, Spin and more magazines use capital letter on their mastheads. The fonts on the left are Myriad Pro (top), Abadi MT Condensed Light (middle) and Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold (bottom). I chose the bottom font because i think it stands out well and would look good at the top of a magazine. I will change the colour of the title depending on the background colour. For example if my magazine had a black background the masthead would be white. I decided to put 'Music Magazine' underneath the title to the left because i want the space to be filled by the model. The issue date on the side of the 'T' of Beat i think fits nicely and the font help it to do this.

UPDATE:
I changed the layout of the masthead slightly with now the month and issue number are both underneath 'BEAT' also now instead of Music Magazine i changed it to 'Monthly Music Magazine'. I've done this because looking at my draft the masthead didn't really work and looked out of place on the cover, so i've made it slightly simpler to prevent this.

Magazine Construction Task

Preliminary Magazine

Magazine Pitch

Audience Profile

Age: 19 years old.

Gender: Male

Occupation: Student at university. Has part time job in supermarket.

Likes & interests: Listens to a lot of new music, goes to see new bands a lot of the time. Play sports such as football. Likes to be social; he likes going out at the weekends, enjoys sharing his views on bands and sports etc. on social networking like Facebook, twitter etc. He also has slight interests in art, photography and fims. He earns his money through a part time job at a supermarket and enjoys spending money on clothes, gigs and events.  Also has keen interest in the latest technologies and reads a lot of magazines - music, film, fashion, sport.

Musical Preferences: He enjoys most genres of music but mainly indie/alternative music. Favourite artists are Oasis, The Maccabees, Foals, The XX, The Courteeners, Gorillaz.

Style: Has a simple taste in clothes, plain colours and patterns, jeans, trainers.

Analysis of Institution

IPC Media i think would be a good publisher for my magazine as it publishes a similar genre in NME. IPC Media is a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, with a large portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year. They currently publish 2 music magazines, Uncut a rock magazine and NME. I think that IPC having a indie/alternative genre music magazine would suit them nicely as they have experience with similar magazines and they would benefit from this. NME is a weekly magazine, Uncut is monthly, having another monthly magazine would benefit them also.  

Mood Board

Audience Research

My target audience for my magazine is aimed towards both genders between the ages of 16-25 with an interest in the indie/alternative music genre. Music interest of my audience would be artist like The Maccabees, Foals, The XX, Oasis, The Courteeners, MGMT. My target audience media consumption is heavy with them enjoy watching TV, browsing the internet, reading magazines and going to the cinema. The types of magazines they read are NME, Q and Clash. My magazine will be priced around 3-5 pounds so its affordable to my audience as they may or may not having jobs. It will be a monthly magazine consisting of 150+ pages and this makes easier to sell as the target audience may not be able to buy the magazine weekly but making a monthly magazine would sell more to my specific target audience.

Magazine Analysis: Double Page Spread

Magazine Analysis: Contents Page

             

Magazine Analysis: Front Cover

    

Magazine Genre - Indie/Alternative

I've decided that my magazine will be an indie/alternative genre.

Examples of indie/alternative music magazines:

 

Magazine Layout Glossary

Alley: the space between columns within a page. Not to be confused with the gutter, which is the combination of the inside margins of two facing pages.

Ascender: in typography, the parts of lowercase letters that rise above the x-height of the font, e.g. b, d, f, h, k, I, and t. See descender for headline implications of these

Angle: The approach or focus of a story. This is sometimes known as the peg.

Banner: The title of a periodical, which appears on the cover of the magazine and on the first page of the newsletter. It contains the name of the publication and serial information, date, volume, number. Bleed: when the image is printed to the very edge of the page.

Block quote: A long quotation - four or more lines - within body text, that is set apart in order to clearly distinguish the author’s words from the words that the author is quoting.

Body or body copy: (typesetting) the main text of the work but not including headlines.

Boost:  picture boost (usually front page) pic promoting a feature or story in later pages

Strap boost: as above, but with a strapline, not a picture

Buried lede: when the main point of the story is hidden away deep in the text. It should come first.

Byline: A journalist's name at the beginning of a story.

Callout: An explanatory label for an illustration, often drawn with a leader line pointing to a part of the illustration.

Caption: An identification (title) for an illustration, usually a brief phrase. The caption should also support the other content.

Centre of visual interest (CVI): The prominent item on a page usually a headline, picture or graphic.

Column: A regular feature often on a specific topic, written by the same person who is known as a columnist.

Column gutter: The space between columns of type.

Copy: Main text of a story.

Cropping: the elimination of parts of a photograph or other original that are not required to be printed. Cropping allows the remaining parts of the image to be enlarged to fill the space.

Cross head: a heading set in the body of the text used to break it into easily readable sections.

Cross head: A few words used to break up large amounts of text, normally taken from the main text. Typically used in interviews.

Cutlines: Explanatory text, usually full sentences, that provides information about illustrations. Cutlines are sometimes called captions or legends.

Deck: Part of the headline which summarises the story. Also known as deck copy or bank.

Deck: a headline is made up of decks, each set in the same style and size of type.

A multi deck heading is one with several headings each different from the next and should not be confused with the number of lines a heading has. A four line heading is not the same as a four deck heading.

Descender: letters that descend below a line  (q,p,g, j) Ascenders and descenders can create unused space in large headlines.... that is one reason why tabloid front page headlines use capitals... there are no ascenders or descenders in caps, so the lines can be crammed more closely together by adjusting the leading and therefore make better use of the space and add to the impact)

Discretionary hyphen: A hyphen that will occur only if the word appears at the end of a line, not if the word appears in the middle of a line.

Double page spread: magazine design layout that spans across two pages. Usually, the design editor will arrange to spread the layout across the centre pages of the magazine, so as to ensure that the design lines up properly.

Drop cap:  a large initial letter at the start of the text that drops into the line or lines of text below.

Drop shadow: Drop shadows are those shadows dropping below text or images which gives the illusion of shadows from lighting and gives a 3D effect to the object.

Editorialise: To write in an opinionated way.

Feature: A longer, more in-depth article.

Facing pages: In a double-sided document, the two pages that appear as a spread when the publication is opened.

Filler: extra material used to complete a column or page, usually of little importance.

Flatplan: A page plan that shows where the articles and adverts are laid out.

Flush left:  copy aligned along the left margin.

Flush right:  copy aligned along the right margin.

Golden ratio: the rule devised to give proportions of height to width when laying out text and illustrations to produce the most optically pleasing result. Traditionally a ratio of 1 to 1.6.

Grid: A layout grid is the non-printing set of guidlines that designers use to align images and text in a document layout.

Grip-and-grin: A photograph of no inherent interest in which a notable and an obscure person shake hands at an occasion of supposed significance.

Headline: The main title of the article. Should be in present or future tense to add to urgency. Must fit the space provided. If it doesn’t, you are using the wrong words.

House style : A publication's guide to style, spelling and use of grammar, designed to help journalists write and present in a consistent way for their target audience.

Justify: (typesetting) the alignment of text along a margin or both margins. This is achieved by adjusting the spacing between the words and characters as necessary so that each line of text finishes at the same point.

Kerning: Adjustment of horizontal space between two written characters.

Kicker: The first sentence or first few words of a story's lead, set in a font size larger than the body text of the story.

Lead or Leading: (typesetting) Space added between lines of type to space out text and provide visual separation of the lines. Measured in points or fractions thereof. Named after the strips of lead that used to be inserted between lines of metal type.

Leader: An article that shows the opinion of a newspaper.

Leader: A line of dots or dashes to lead the eye across the page to separated copy.

Leading: Adjustment of vertical space between two lines.

Lede: The phonetic spelling of lead, the beginning, usually the first paragraph, of an article. The importance of getting the main point of the story in the first sentence is regularly stressed to young journalists by editors. Don’t bury the lede. When we were taught to write stories at school we were urged to save the best for the climax. In journalism, get the climax in first, then give the context.

Masthead: Main title section and name at the front of a publication.

Masthead: Magazine term referring to the printed list, usually on the editorial page of a newspaper or magazine, that lists the contributors. Typically this would include the owners, publishers, editors, designers and production team. The masthead is often mistakenly used in reference to the flag or nameplate, which actually refers to the designed logo of the publication.

Negative space (or white space): the  area of page without text, image or other elements

Noise: A noisy image or noisy scan is one where there are random or extra pixels that have degraded the image quality. Noise in a graphics image can be generated at the scanning stage, by artificially enlarging an image by interpolating the pixels, or by over-sharpening a digital photograph. Noise can sometimes also be found in photographs taken by some cheaper digital cameras.

Orphan: First line of a paragraph appearing on the last line of a column of text. Normally avoided.

Overline: introductory headline in smaller text size above the main headline

Pull quote: A brief phrase (not necessarily an actual quotation) from the body text, enlarged and set off from the text with rules, a box, and/or a screen. It is from a part of the text set previously, and is set in the middle of a paragraph, to add emphasis and interest.

A quote or exerpt from an article that is used as display text on the same page to entice the reader, highlight a topic or break up linearity

Pull-out quote: Selected quote from a story highlighted next to the main text. Often used in interviews.

Puff piece: A news story with editorialised, complimentary statements.

Recto: Right-hand page.

Rivers: a river is a typographic term for the ugly white gaps that can occur in justified columns of type, when there is too much space between words on concurrent lines of text. Rivers are especially common in narrow columns of text, where the type size is relatively large. Rivers are best avoided by either setting the type as ragged, increasing the width of the columns, decreasing the point size of the text, or by using a condensed typeface. An often overlooked method of avoiding rivers, is the careful use of hyphenation and justification settings in page layout programs such as QuarkXpress or InDesign.

Running head: A title or heading that runs along the top of a printed publication, usually a magazine.

Sell: Short sentence promoting an article, often pulling out a quote or a interesting sentence.

Serif and Sans serif: Plain font type with or without (sans) lines perpendicular to the ends of characters.

Set flush: text set at the full width of the column with no indentation

Splash: Main front page story.

Standfirst: Lines of text after the headline that gives more information about the article, or about the author.

Standfirst: will usually be written by the sub-editor and is normally around 40-50 words in length. Any longer and it defeats its purpose, any shorter and it becomes difficult to get the necessary information in. Its purpose is to give some background information about the writer of the article, or to give some context to the contents of the article. Usually, it is presented in typesize larger than the story text, but much smaller than the headline.

Strapline: Similar to a subhead or standfirst, but used more as a marketing term.

Subhead: A smaller one-line headline for a story.

Subhead: A secondary phrase usually following a headline. Display line(s) of lesser size and importance than the main headline(s).

Talkie headline: a quote from one of the people in the story used as a headline

Tag line: a short memorable line of cover text that sums up the tone of the publication (Loaded Mag has :For men who should know better)

Tombstoning: In page layout, to put articles side by side so that the headlines are adjacent. The phenomenon is also referred to as bumping heads.

Top heads: Headlines at the top of a column.

Widow: Last line of paragraph appearing on the first line of a column of text.

Widow: In a page layout, short last lines of paragraphs - usually unacceptable when separated from the rest of the paragraph by a column break, and always unacceptable when separated by a page break.

Wob: White text on a black or other coloured background

Inspiration

AS Coursework Schedule 2013

As Schedule 2012-13