Designing my own music magazine cover and double page spread.

I have now started to design my own music magazine cover. I will draw out a few ideas first before i think of a final decision and i will start taking many photos so i have plenty to choose from when i pick the final design. So far i do have a brief idea what i would like to do but i will compare it to other ideas first.

My Ideas.

The genre that i have decided to use for my magazine cover is Dance/RnB. Stars that would be apart of this genre would be Eric Prydz, Pacha (a popular night club), Faithless, Ciara, Rhianna, Chris Brown and Bass hunter.

The target audience for the magazine will be ages 16 - 21 for males and females. To target this audience i will use a variety of images of men and women and use musicians that appeal to them like the ones listed above.

The title i have decided to give my music magazine is 'Fuse' because it links to the idea of electricity which is what speakers need to play music outloud.

My idea for the the image was at first to take a photo of a young woman listeneing to music from her head phones dancing and i would represent the music beats with bright colours of paint thrown on a white wall but because this was difficult to do, i decided to represent the music with bright colours still but have them on the face of the young woman dancing which i think has still created a good effect.

The double page spread will be a interview with the young woman having an interview for being a new music artist in the music industry. I will have a large picture of her in the middle with the questions and answers around her. The questions will be about how she feels abou doing music and how good she thinks she may be, and also to make it more interesting have some personal questions, perhaps about her love life.

The contents page will have all the page numbers and whats on those pages along the left side with images relating to the inside on the right, i just want to keep the contents page simple because it's more about whas inside the magazine.

Q magazine

Here is another magazine cover were i will be analysing the Genre, Media Language, Representation and Ideology.


Genre

To find out more about the magazine i looked at other 'Q' magazines to find out what other music celebrities have been on the cover, there have been people like Kings of Lion, Madonna, U2, Coldplay, Kylie and so on. I thinks thisshows that the magazine is more based on the individual music stars who create there own genre rather than the magazine as a whole be based on one genre. This can be similar to other magazines in the way of who is on the cover as on the cover i am using it has Madonna but she could also be used on a cover such as 'Mixmag' because that appears to have the genre of dance which to some extent Madonna has used as an image. I think the title 'Q' reminds me of questions, it gives the idea that it questions the music industry. I don't think music magazine necessarily not represent other genres because as previously mentioned it appears to be a magazine which represents more than one genre. Also the idea of all the different genres does give variety within genre and time period as artists like Madonna have been around for years.



Media Language

The fonts used appear to be straight, clear fonts and the same font appears to be used over the whole of the cover, different colours have been used to seperate them up. The largest font of course is the name on the magazine but 'Madonna' has been enlarged to, so that it stands out. The main colours used are red and white, most texts are in white to stand out against the dark background of Madonna in a black boxing robe. The main photo is the photo of Madonna wearing a black boxing robe and a dark silver glove. There is also an image of 'women in music' free 70 page special. Although there is a large photo of Madonna other stars are listed along the left side; Michael Stipe, Russel Brand, Kasier Chiefs, Girls Aloud, Mighty Boosh, Ian Brown and Little Britain which have been interviewed. There is no white space on the cover which shows the editors have used as music space as possible but i have noticed that the background behind Madonna is black which blends into her costume which prevents the idea of white space, which shows as a whole black is the main colour. When i look at the magazine i can't help but look at Madonna as her eyes always appear to be looking my way.





The title is simple and reminds me of the idea of a questionnaire. The idea of the title is to show the audience what the magazine is about but i think if it wasn't for the images of singers/bands as in this case Madonna, which does question whether its the images selling the magazine rather than the title.


The facial expression on Madonna's face looks very relaxed but also has a look of sexiness, her hair is curly but covered up by the hood of a boxing robe, this image has been used to show that they have got an interview from her inside the magazine. I think it makes Madonna look very serous and shows that she is a sensible person. The second image of 'women in music' magazine cover that the audience recieve inside has a woman on the front in a very unusual pose, when i first looked at it i thought it was about gym exercises but when you look closer she is infact in a nice blue dress, looks stylish and has a plug stating that it is a music magazine feature.

Representation

On the cover of this magazine it does appear to represent women mainly through image but to represent men, it has been written in text what bands will be featured in side, which of some have men in. I don't think it's a question of who is not represented on this magazine because i think that this magazine has an all around genre of music represented and also as well i representing music stars, it has some popular television stars mentioned for example Russel Brand and Mighty Boosh. I think it's hard to say basing it on this cover that there is any sexul prientation/attraction because only women have been shown through image, no men. Also race is not an issue only one race seems clear on this particular cover of white people.

Ideology

Although this magazine appears to represent more than one genre, i think the target audience are people who like music such as Indie, Rock, Dance and Punk but are in between the ages 18 - 25 due to new younger stars that appeal to them such as Girls Aloud but on the other hadn may appeal to people at the age of 40 because of some of the stars in the magazine which were around when they were younger as in this case Madonna, who also appeals for the younger people aswell due to new styles she experiements.