WE LOVE POP

Analysis of a front cover of a music magazine

Music magazine research

NME music magazine

The New Musical Express (better known as the NME) is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, in the 14 November 1952 edition. In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music newspaper. During the period 1972 to 1976 it was particularly associated with gonzo journalism, then became closely associated with punk rock through the writing of Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill. The editor of the magazine is Krissi Murison.

NME covers a wide variety of music such as rock and roll, punk rock, indie, R'n'B, rap and many more.

For every edition they bring out they sell up to 34,000 copies and that’s the actual magazine, they also have a radio station and an online website where you can read the latest interviews and articles. The magazine targets many audiences its a punk rock magazine and targets the punk rock generation but also targets musical lovers of the world.

Kerrang!

Kerrang! Is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group, It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds Newspaper. Named after the onomatopoeic word that derives from the sound made when playing a power chord on an electric guitar, Kerrang! Was initially devoted to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the rise of hard rock acts.  In the early 2000s it became the best-selling British music newspaper. Its editor is James McMahon and their circulation for every edition is around 44,000, which doesn’t include the music channel they have, the radio station, and Twitter and Facebook accounts they use to promote themselves. The target audience is heavy rock and metal genres this type of music is running throughout the magazine.

Smash Hits

Smash Hits was a pop music based magazine, aimed at teenagers and young adults and originally published in the United Kingdom by EMAP. It ran from 1978 to 2006 and was issued fortnightly for most of that time. The name survives as a brand for a related spin-off digital television channel, digital radio station, and website which have survived the demise of the printed magazine. Smash Hits was founded in 1978 by Nick Logan, who had previously edited the New Musical Express during one of its most creative periods and went on to create '80s fashion bible The Face.

My final front cover

My coverlines

The cover lines I have come up with link with my main front cover and with the smaller image on the front cover.


and

My college magazines Masthead

The SDC News

I chose this as my masthead because it is big, bold and it catches the attention off people walking past easily it was easy for me to sort out and will look good on my front cover, i chose 'THE SDC NEWS' because its short and sweet and it includes South Downs college in it. 

My front cover photograph

I have chosen this as my front cover because it is a medium close-up shot, I had to rotate it first and then I kept it the same as my main background for my front cover student magazine.
I took two other photo's for my front cover but decided not to use them you can see these on here

FlatPlans- Contents Page

FlatPlans

the truth

im homosexual.

Proposal

The college magazine is going to be aimed at college students aged 16-20 because there are younger full-time and older part-time students. The magazine will be about lots of things including; events on at college i.e. gigs which bands at college are doing or gigs or sports games which are being held at college, it will contain pictures of previous events and also results of previous games of sports teams and upcoming fixtures, there will be space for any students to advertise anything of their own for free, it will always have all college contact information and it will also contain lots of information about university's for students.

My idea for the cover line are to be big and bold so it catches peoples attention quickly and will make them want to read the magazine. I have decided to call my magazine THE SDC NEWS, i have chosen this because its very bold, it stands for south downs college and people will think its not a jokey magazine with a stupid title, i decided not to call it the college news because it was to long it needed to be sharp and to the point. I would like to use an outgoing font which catches peoples attention easily, and my tagline is going to stay the same throughout and its going to be a made up quote from a student and it is "it will make your day better".

The time of year its published will differ, when there is lots of events and fixtures going on there will be more publications and when there's not there may be less or it will just be a smaller magazine, this is also the same for when students are deciding on universities to go to, there would be more publishings around that time. The image on the front cover will change weekly depending on what events are going on in the magazine or what the main part of the magazine is about in that publication. The magazine will be in an A4 dimension and will contain as many pages as is needed but if there is less than 10 pages the magazine will be made into a smaller A5 dimension to reduce cost.

The images and colours i use will stay the same they will be bright and colourful so its made to cheer people up when they read also the contents page will have a large font so it is easy to read and colours which when mixed are still easy to make out the writing.

Initial ideas

These are a few ideas for the college magazine i am going to produce:

• Its aimed for students 16-20
• Contains information about college events etc. and entertainment
• Lots of pictures
• A place where students can advertise things
• college contact information
• information about sports and music outside of college 

This magazine cover is aimed at many different audiences, firstly at old and new rock and rollers. Noel Gallagher is the stand out on the front cover and he was in one of the most famous rock and roll bands, oasis, therefore the first target audience being aimed at is oasis fans, this is then broken down into old fans who have been with them since they formed in 1991 and then younger people who have maybe grown up listening to them and still listen even though they have split up. The cover has tried to appeal Noels new start to them and they did this well by having a big picture of him and then ‘NOEL STARTS OVER’ in bold writing and different coloured font so it stands out from everything else, also at the bottom of the page it says ‘win signed noel singles, read classic interviews. See page 13’ this is enticing the aimed audience into reading the magazine. On the left hand side it says ‘it’s like when definitely maybe came out, everything feels out of control’ this makes that target audience think ‘what’s that about’ and makes them want to read about it.

The next target audience is REM fans, at the top it says ‘REM split the original indie icons remembered’ so even if a fan doesn’t read this magazine they might want to get just this one copy because it has something about that particular band in it. They have put ‘REM split’ in black and white which is different to any of the other writing they’ve dine this to make it stand out and catch peoples attention even though its in smaller font.

On the left hand side there are three small paragraphs, the first one says ‘Arctic monkeys sex tape!’ This is targeting teenagers and although there probably isn’t a sex tape the teenagers and Monkeys fans are still thinking they must read to see why it says it on the front cover. Underneath that it says Bloc Party and a quote directly from them ‘were auditioning for a new singer’ this creates a wider audience because if you’re a singer you might think its interesting and they could audition and then anyone could think its interesting that they’re auditioning for a singer and would then want to read about it. Then the last one is targeting a different type of music genre because it says ‘plus, marina and the diamonds, Metronomy, Wretch 32 and wolf gang’ so this is targeting these bands audiences and what this magazine will have to say about them, also all of these sub headers are in black font to make them stand out with red font underneath to make it stand out more.

my first page

First of all i took these photographs then i uploaded them and then i out them onto indesign. Firstly i made them to a correct size by transforming them and then cropped them into different angles using a white arrow. then did the same but with a different insert picture box it was a circle so put the picture into circle.

This was the first time i'd used this programme.

My First Page

Things you can do with blogger:

• Put pictures onto it for everyone to see
• Post text on for people to read
• Post videos
• Add links to other web pages onto your page

How i think blogger will be useful for my coursework:

• It will show how i got to an end product 
• Keep past ideas if i need to see any
• Everyone will be able to see where i'm at and give me feedback and/or give me ideas for something else to add to my coursework