BEAT Music Magazine Front CoverAND

BEAT Magazine Contents Page

RESEARCH FOR MUSIC

MAGAZINES

The Magazine Name – I got my idea from

Here’s where I get music covers from

The Magazine That Caught My Eye

FREE CD! Pictures in rectangles

Mid shot picture of headline

Photo in a circleCD Cover shown

The Front CoverMy front cover, instead of relating to Kelsey Park Sports College's black and gold format, is a different style to the traditional school colour scheme. This, I think, is the right decision because according to the Kelsey Park students that I've interviewed (aged 11-19, three students for each age group), 20 out of 27 suggested that the school colour scheme gets too common and that they felt like a new and unique style would stand out more and they would prefer this to traditional.

The logo of my magazine is simple but flexible. One advantage of my logo is that since it's so simple, whenever the magazine needs a change of colour scheme, I could change the logo's colour without disrupting the corporate identity much and the customers would still recognize it.

The title is named as "BEAT" to refer to music, for the magazine's authenticity, since the magazine is a music magazine anyway. I chose the title "BEAT" because it is a highly recognized word and most people would relate it to music. "The Music Magazine" is also added on "BEAT" at a slant position to make the effect of a smooth, relaxing flow and as an additional signifier to signify that the media print is a music magazine.

The text is made as clear as possible. The headline, "MAESTRO MEREDITH", is given alliteration, a high authority word, "Maestro", and a larger font to emphasize Mr. Meredith's power; the lines under this has two parts with texts of different style and size to inject tension onto the reader "How I survive my... Music Students". Since my target audience are Kelsey Park students, I thought of giving away the deep secrets of a person who the students highly respected, therefore, enticing them to "read this person's mind" but not throughout (yet), just partially, to make want to buy the magazine. All of the other sell lines are titled, with a different style, font, and size for the title and text below it to make the magazine cover look more entertaining to pull in viewers.

To attract my customer's attention into purchasing my magazine, I had to think of my target audience's interests and their budget. What I did to achieve this is to present not only the school's best music stories in text, but also to add pictures about them to make the stories seem believable. I'm a loyal believer of the quote "An image tells a thousand words" you see.

A fact that I know every Kelsey student would share with each other (including me) is a simple one - we're cheap. What I did to get over this problem is a psychological technique - I made the price £1.99 instead of £2.00 - this makes a person think it's a lot cheaper even if it's just really a penny difference. Also, with psychology on my side, I placed the ear piece "FREE CD!" on the top left with a very wacky text, drop shadow and exclamation mark to emphasize the opportunity of a free objects which music lovers would love. I also designed my own CD album cover and placed it here to show which CD they would get.To make the magazine an authentic school magazine, I added the Kelsey Park Sports College logo. My main target audience, the Kelsey Park students, should recognize the logo and immediately respond excitedly because they recognise the logo and are part of it. For the merchant's convenience, I also added a barcode to speed up the selling process using EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale).

The magazine's main picture is an outward gaze mid-shot of Mr. Meredith to invite individual contact with a hint of challenge to make the viewer feel competent and want to show that he will prevail. The main story "MAESTRO MEREDITH" is positioned alone on the left side of the magazine to highlight that this is the headline and that it relates to the magazine's main picture. The logo is placed behind Mr. Meredith's photo to make the viewer feel like a natural part of an establishment - it makes them feel welcomed and familiar because the magazine doesn't seem like it is showing off, instead, it shares trustful friendship with the viewer by being modest. The KPSC logo is added at the bottom of the magazine's front cover to avoid distracting the magazine' design e.g. by disrupting the colour scheme. The barcode and school logo are placed beside each other deliberately to partly advertise the school itself subcontiously, if ever the magazine was distributed outside the school.

I put this theory into use by: entertaining the reader by making them seem like they are "listening" to the magazine as it communicates with the famous rapper "Melodi what you tellin’ me?" this dialogue is also made slang to maximize the entertainment even more; informing/educating the reader by making them aware of a band and a music club; personally identifying the reader by recreating a conversation with the reader using the most effective direct speech word, "you"; social communicating with the reader by adding a rhetorical question "are you up for it?". The theory also suggests that after an initial impression is given to the audience, they ask for more - that's why I didn't completely give away the whole story, to urge the audience into purchasing the magazine to find out more about these interesting stories.

My magazine's mode of address is made suitable for my target audience, 11 to 19 year olds, by adding slang into it e.g. "Melodi what you tellin' me?", and "ups and downs" to make the magazine seem like a friend to the reader, not just something to read.In my front cover, I've also applied the gratification theory to base my magazine to the traditional, and successful, magazines today. The gratification theory suggests that four specific techniques could enhance the audience's interest in the media object, these are: entertainment, information/education, personal identification, and social communication.

The Contents PageAs a contents page, it should give away part of the gratification theory, the information, but not all of it to intensify the reader's lust of the promised story until they reach the page of the story itself - think of it like not having to eat for five years - this makes the reader treat the story more special, therefore, treating the magazine even more special (that's also why I didn't add the page numbers in the front cover).

The main picture on top of the page is of the story "gadget vs gadget", I added this because it seems to have the most potential of its image being graphically enhanced to "wow" the reader instead of a plain photo of guitar - this is an attempt to make the audience idolize the magazine and want to subscribe to its future editions. The bright colour of the image is also deliberate to balance the magazine's appearance to forebode that there aren't only dark pages throughout the magazine. All of the photos added in the page are of Kelsey Park Sports College students wielding musical instruments to emphasize the magazine's rich contents. These pictures also avoids the page from having white space as it is supposed to be a page of contents.

I added red dotted lines to increase the page's appeal to the audience. The effect of the dotted lines is that it seems to appeal to people aged 11-19, as people of this age usually refuse to the plain styles that less younger people want (no offense!).

Take A Look Fully

CONCLUSION>I’ve gained a lot of inspiration from the MOJO magazines including their style>I’m more mature on paying attention to detail>I’m more aware of the graphical software that designers use to make products

AFTER MAKING THE MAGAZINE

>My taste for media has intensified