3 front pages

The Q masthead is placed in the left top corner as usually for Q magazines which makes it recognizable very easily. Editors decided to use sexual design for this issue to attract more male audience through choosing a topless model and writting "sexy beast" as as title.The main photo is long shot. The front cover designed very well as we can see all titles clearly and easily understandable. From the main title we can guess that the main article will be about Lily Allen becuase it is the biggest title on the page . The two black panthers represent characteristics of the singer as a dangerous woman. I would say that audience of this issue are male 17+ mostly but also there are some intresting topics for female as well. To attract more audience there is an exclusive interview, reviews and sticker on which says "The 25 greatest rock movies". The colours used are blue, red, white and black.

XXL magazine always use the same masthead for every issue, so it became very famous and easily recognizable. The picture covers up a lit bit of the XXL logo but it isn't a big deal because audience will recognize it anyway. Magazines always put a picture of a singer about which the main topics will be about and in this on is Lil Wayne. He is one of the symbols of Hip-Hop/Rap music our days so he is shown in close up as a cool person with lots of tattoos and angry facial expression. The background is a white wall which doesn't attract attention but colourful titles change it. The colours used for titles are blue and black which suits the white background very well. The XXL logo is red and it makes it highlighted. The audience of this issue are male and female 15-25 because in Hip-Hop teenagers and young adults are intrested mostly. For people who doesn't like Lil Wayne there a list of singers which are in magazine as well.                              

The NME is slightly different from previous magazines that I have analysed. It looks more busy as there are more titles on the front cover. The front page is using attractive colour red to look more professional but it looks less intresting because of one colour and it doesn't look colourful. The logo of NME is large and red as well.The main image is a mid shot of two people which takes up part of the masthead, but the magazine is famous so people can make up the rest of the logo. The main articles will be about Alex Turner and Miles Kane because their names are highligthed in white colours which looks different from all titles. NME is a kind of magazine where all styles of music are included as we can see on the left side there are titles about different singers and each of them has his own style of music. SXSW special will attract audience as it says that they are 12 new bands to be intrested in and Rolling Stones exclusive. The audience of this magazine are male and female 17-28. 

All three magazines have the same style of putting barcodes of pages; bottom corner, left or right side.       

InDesign

My first time using Adobe InDesign to create DPS. My first task was very easy to do but next tasks will be more complicated and harder to do.

Comparing magazines

I am comparing 4 magazines (The Clash, Q, Record Collection, Metal Hammer). All of them are based on music and research about it.

• The Clash

It is the most expensive one from all of them, it costs £5.99 and a number of pages is 146. The Clash is about one music band called ''The Clash'' and it is published by Uncut and Sonic Editions. It contains one section about the same band; history, interviews, stories and lots of photos. To make people buy this magazine, editors have written some exclusive interviews. Also to advertise another products, Uncut have shown different covers of another issues. A design of the magazine is a rock style and it looks very nice.

• Q

Q is the most famous one from all of them. A price is very cheap, comparing to a number of pages, it costs only £3.99 and the number of pages is 162. It has 3 sections; features, regulars and the Q review. To advertise the magazine editors have included very attractive titles, like 50 albums of the year, 12 hot new artists and very popular topic about Amy Winehouse. As well Q is published monthly in UK and the publisher is Bauer Media Group. A cover of the newest issue looks very nice and attractive. Q is based on different styles of music and mostly modern.

• Record Collection  

Already looking on a cover we can see that publisher decided to use Christmas style in a masthead, style of texts to attract more buyers by Christmas Issue and a chance of winning a special album. A magzine costs £4.00 and a number of pages is 146. It has 3 sections features, regulars and review. Editors published mostly all topics based on Christmas like 31 excellent xmas songs. Also one of topics is a cover story: Led Zeppelin. The publisher of Record Collection is Diamond Publisher. Overall the magazine looks very nice, it contains good photos and texts.

• Metal Hammer

From the masthead we can guess that a magazine is about hard rock or even heavy metal. Also just next to the masthead it says that it is the biggest issue ever with 188 pages which will attract more people. Metal Hammer has 1 section about rock music singers. When we check the contents page we find out that the magazine contains 72 interviews, 87 reviews, 233 gig listening. The magazine is published monthly by Future Publishing. Typical articles; The Devil's Blood, Megadeth and Defenders of the faith.
 

Action Plan

5.12.11

• Write action plan
• Compare magazines
• Textual analysis (3 front covers, 2 contents pages, 2 DPS)

2.1.12

• Audience research (polls, questionnaires, theory)
• Internet research (institutions, readership figures)

16.1.12

• Plan photoshop
• Take photos (using camera)

30.1.12

• Layout designs
• Masthead design (dafont.com)
• Make pages (photoshop, publisher)

6.2.12

• Drafting
• Audience feedback (questionnaire about pages)
• Evaluation

Deadline 2.3.12

Deadline

Our deadline is on 2.3.12 so we have plenty of time to do our task, and I am starting to do now )

Good news

I have finished my first task, and from now on I am starting to do my main task, which includes a front cover, contents page and DPS.

Contents page

Here is my design of the contents page. I have included texts, page numbers, photos, title, also I have written a school website and included the title of the magazine.

Final cover

I have made some changes, like additing more texts in the left corner. Also I wrote on the cover that readers have a chance of winning an IPod so they will be more intrested in reading the magazine.