Music Magazine: Planning

Proposal

The initial genre for my music magazine is rock. However it came to my attention that just defining it as a 'rock' magazine was too vague. So I needed a specific type of rock genre. I took into account the various types of supporters of rock, including classical and heavy metal. I didn't think this would be suitable for my magazine. I eventually came to the conclusion of my genre. I have chosen Punk Rock.  Therefore from my understanding of punk rock my target audience is going to be of student age, which is what I initially wanted. So my specific age for my music magazine has been decided to be 16-24. I think this is a reliable target audience to have as students of this age tend to have an interest in this type of punk rock genre, but to keep this as my target audience I understood I needed to include specific contents that are contemporary and appealing to them. I propose for my magazine to be about current and popular punk rock artists. I want to include a range of different musicians in this genre but also want there to be a main story on one specific musician or band. I was thinking perhaps punk rock bands like Blink 182, Evanescene, Greenday, Muse, Linking Park, My Chemical Romance etc. I still haven't decided specifically which one I want to be the main focus of my issue of the magazine I will create. I want my magazine to explore the content of what these artists have been doing currently in the music industry and offer insight to their lives in their rock lives and out of their rock lives. 

I've had a few ideas for my cover lines. I want my cover line to be effective and supportive for my magazine. My first initial idea was 'Linking Park introduce the art of guitar to primary school children'. There were many thoughts with this small idea I soon realised, firstly I found it was too long, secondly it had absolutely no comparison with my target audience as they're not primary school children, they are students. I then tried thinking of more simplistic but eye-catching ideas. One of which was 'Snapped in the act', another being 'Amuse for Muse' and 'Age is but a chord'. These I felt were good initial ideas, but they didn't just seem to fit what I was looking for, I liked the idea of having the title of a band juxtapose the cover line. I thought of different punk rock bands with names I could expand on, this gave me the idea of the cover line 'Green Day goes Green', this I thought could be an article focused on the band Green Day for this particular issue of my magazine; the article could be on them using recycled instruments to perform live shows with. I feel this is a great cover line as it has complete relation to my target audience, the band is contemporary, popular and the cover line offers such depth into the story and would hopefully attract my audience to purchase the magazine. Of course, as well as having an appealing cover I needed an appealing title. I found deciding on a title was very hard, not only did it need to relate to my magazine but it also needed to be a word or phrase that could be said and someone could instantly know that's my music magazine. Names I thought of varied completely, for instance an initial idea for a title was 'WHAM', I liked this as I felt it reflected the noise of instruments, however of course 'Kerrang!'s' title resembles this, also I felt this wasn't very appealing. It just lacked interest in my opinion. My thoughts furthered and I came up with names such as 'R3JECT, RUN WITH GUNS, LOST INNOCENCE, JOKED, UTILITY AND SPACE, FIRED STRINGS, AMPLIFIED' as well as a lot more, again I felt these lacked interest. None of these either seemed to share a comparison with my magazine excluding 'AMPLIFIED'. In regards to the idea of 'AMPLIFIED' I thought that perhaps this would be the title I'd use, it did link to my magazine in the music sense that they use amps, it also reflects the punk rock type of genre. But I felt that it didn't necessarily relate to how the audience of my magazine respond to music my magazine offers. I wanted my title to both reflect the music and the individuals. It was then that I decided what my title would be, I decided upon 'MOSH'. I picked this title as it's a simple phrase, which is catchy and relates both to the music and audience. Mosh-pitting is often popular at music conventions and an associate of punk rock, which is why I feel it’s a perfect title to have for my magazine.

I am rather inclined to use quite a distorted type of font, I want it to be depicted and bruised so that in a way it reflects the contents of a mosh-pit. I feel the font of my title would reflect this. Also I feel that this is a rather punk approach to take in relation to punk rock. It makes the magazine stand out more and seem rather interesting. I had ideas for the mast head being perhaps a number of instruments, but I felt this is too complex to include on a front cover. So I took into consideration having quite a minimalistic masthead for effect, I thought perhaps having quite a dark banner with a guitar neck visible. I still haven't one hundred percent decided that I'd use this. But currently this is my aim. As my ideas began to fluctuate I then considered potential taglines, I understood they needed to be appealing and have a strong relation to my magazine; these are a few examples of some I originally thought off: Insight To The Best Of The Best, Jammed Read, Ultimate Stories and Music’s Most Appealing. I liked these initial ideas but of course I didn't use them, my chosen tagline is 'Read To The Beat'. I find this is quite simply effective as it about summarises up that all information in this magazine is in regards to music (the beat).

In addition, I plan to publish my magazine at the start of September and then through into the next academic year. I have chosen this date simply because September marks the month in which students either start or continue their academic career. I feel this is an effective as most students are on the move, which allows this magazine to be noticeable when they could be buying lunch for instance. Also I feel the cold month of September relates to the black and white colours I plan to include on my magazine. I plan to only have one image on my front cover. I will include more on the contents and double page spread however. But for my cover I only want one image of an individual playing preferably an electric guitar, I want to keep it as minimal as possible for effect. My thoughts on getting this image is that I could find someone suitable enough to be on my cover, I personally own an electric guitar so I could supply that as a prop.

My music magazine would be published monthly. Specifically at the end of each month, I want this as it allows my magazine to some up what's been happening in the music industry that past month. Also I want the dimension of my magazine to be regular like Kerrang!'s for instance, typically 8.5 x 11. I want it to be regular because I have no means on decreasing or increasing any page size to other music magazines, I don't think this is necessary in regards to getting a buyer for my magazine which is why it will remain a regular size.

I plan to use the same colour scheme on my contents page, as I am my front cover page. I wish to stick to the black and white colours with hints of other darker colours. Again, I want to stick to one image on my contents, if I feel it's necessary to include more then I shall. But I don't want to make it too complex, I think for my magazine just having one central focus will work effectively. In order to get my images I plan to use either a friend-family member, I will personally supply them with props and shall take the photographs of them in a plain background making it easy to work on. 

For a long time now I've been researching different music magazines ranging from Q to Kerrang! etc, I've grasped an understanding of different approaches music magazines take to appeal to their target audience. Initially I didn't really perceive the importance of particular features on magazines, however upon my research on a target audience I soon learnt that certain things are compulsory to include in a magazine, for example I learnt that a magazine publisher such as Q wouldn't use heavy metal images on it's magazine, as it doesn't appeal to a heavy metal audience nor young individuals. It's more an older adult based with calmer images, such as gentleman and acoustic guitars. I also learnt that formats on a magazine are very important, the layout is key when you want to catch an audiences' eye, which is why from my research I will include a central image on my front cover. All of my undergoing research has shown me overall that there are specific approaches to creating my magazine, now that I'm nearly ready to start designing my magazine I am going to consider all I've learnt and incorporate what I find important into my magazine.