Planning Process

This is the plan that I created, this is the actual start of project:

Some of the genres that I could do the magazine on are:

Rock
R&B
Soul
Pop
Reggae
Electronic
Heavy Metal
Blues
Dance
Rap
Drum and bass

I have researched all of these styles of music and I have narrowed it down to four of these genres. I did all my research on magforum, and the reason I have narrowed it down to these four is because there is a bigger market opening for these four genres. Right now there is a very wide variety of magazines that are covering a very wide range of music. I have studied the magazine ‘DJ’ and it has given me various ideas about how I am going to lay my magazine out. The layout of ‘DJ’ is quite packed, it is very colourful and the sizes of the fonts are all different. The Masthead would be made to be very bold and it would have to be very visible. Also the writing would be at an angle; this would attract people that listen to dance music because it should stand out and appeal to them. This is an example of the DJ magazine front cover.

These are four different things that I have to think about while creating the magazine cover, I want something like this front cover because it attracts peoples attention while keeping it completely uncluttered.

Masthead: This needs to be bold and colourful so it will attract the target audience that I am trying to make this magazine for. (16-20, shown by questionnaire).

Main Cover line: This needs to be the latest news about DJ’s so when a potential customer picks it up they will want to read more, it should have a good punch line so it will make them want to read on.

Cover lines: This should just be a small amount of information about the top 100 DJ mix’s in the charts or something along those lines.

Main image: This needs to be eye-catching and quite colourful, something that is trying to sum up electro. This image will be in the background and all the cover lines, main cover line and masthead will be in-front of this main image so the image must stand out.

R&B – I have chosen this genre as one of my final four because it seems to be right for the target audience that I want (14-19 year olds) I will design it so that the teenagers will be drawn towards it, mainly with headlines about certain artists and any new releases by well known R&B artists I would try to attract them with some explicit photos too.

Reggae – My target audience would be for 19-26 year olds, I would make the cover appealing to reggae fans by making it quite colourful with one or two headlines about artists but I would make sure to not make it cluttered. There are not many music magazines about reggae around so a reggae magazine should do very well because there is a lack of competition.

Dance – This would be targeted at 16-19 year olds, it would be bright, with quite bold colours, for example red and yellow. It would have various mixes from less known DJ’s and there would be headlines about certain performances of better known DJ’s. This market should be quite open because many people have recently been getting into more ‘dance’ music and it seems to be more popular than it used to be. The mast head would be done in lowercase to make it more informal so it would also attract more laid back people.

Heavy Metal – My target audience for this would be 15-29; this is a very large target audience so it would sell very well. The front cover would be darker, more gothic with hard hitting headlines. The font that I would use for it would be very bold and would stand out from the rest of the page.

After reviewing all the possible genres that I could make my magazine on I have chosen to do an electro magazine because there is hardly any competition on this type of music, meaning a huge opening in the market, I chose against an R&B magazine because there are so many in circulation that the competition would be far too high. The reggae magazine would not do as well as the electronic magazine because a lot less people listen to reggae music and the people that do aren’t the type of people that go shopping weekly to get a magazine. The reason I chose against a heavy metal magazine is similar to the reason I didn’t do it on R&B, there are a limited amount of people who listen to it and there are already lots of magazines about it. Also at the moment there has been a huge movement to club culture, and very few people have decided to make an electro magazine, the profit that could be made from being one of the first movers in this market could potentially be massive.

Front Cover Plan

· I want the price, issue number and date to be in the corner in quite bold writing and in a bright colour so it stands out, but also catches the customer’s attention.

· I am going to try and make it so that the masthead encroaches a little on the main image so it looks like it is meant to be part of the main image, and then I am going to make it so that the masthead has two very bright colours so it stands out from the main image, I am doing all this just to make it eye catching.


· The barcode is going to be something that may be considered quite random for example an animal with a barcode on it. I am going to do this because it adds an interest factor to the magazine, and it could also catch the attention of a potential customer for being a bit ‘wacky’.

· There will be three headlines and pictures next to all three so that this magazine does not just look like it is full of pictures but instead it is full of information that may be regarded useful by the customer.


· There will be two smaller pictures that kind of blend into the main image so I am going to have to colour code it right so they do not clash and looks quite ridiculous.

· The masthead will be at an angle, this is seen as more laid back and that is the sort of target audience I am going for.


Contents Page Plan

· There is going to be a bright background but I am going to have to put extra effort in to make sure that you can see the font in front of it, so it is very easy for the customer to navigate around the magazine.

· I may put a splash in the corner just to show that there is a competition on at the moment so no-one could miss it.


· The greatest reference to the double page spread, so DJ Tanya will be in the features section which will be on the left hand side underneath an image which should merge with the background of the features section.

· There may be some difference in colours in the actual text because it will be hard to make the words stand out because the background is so bright in some parts of the contents page.

· There will be a different picture that will be the background to each section



Double Page Spread Plan

· I want my double page spread to be fairly simple, with one large picture of the DJ that I am going to interview on one side and then the title of the interview and the actual interview.

· The page without the image on it is going to be as jam packed with questions as possible.


· I may make it that the colour changes whenever someone else speaks, I could also change the font between the interviewer and interviewee and possibly even change font. I will defiantly be decreasing the size of the interviewee’s font because she will be answering back with quite long answers so if we want as many questions as possible we will have to make her font smaller.

· The image is going to be used to shock the customers into buying the weekly edition of Electro Mag.

· I am going to make a large border around the whole double page spread because without it there will be too much blank it would seem like a waste of space.