Music Magazine- Contents page Inspiration

Billboard magazine contents page

We love pop magazine contents page

These are contents pages from 'Billboard' magazine and 'We Love Pop' magazine. I hope to use these as inspiration when designing my contents page. I love simple layout and how easy Billboard magazines contents page is however I really like We Love Pop magazines bold fonts.

Final front cover

Music magazine: Stages of my front cover

Stage 1

Once I designed my masthead, I then put it in place and put it into size. I made my photo black and white  but kept the lips red so they stood out and gave off the idea of sophistication and glamour. This is what would appeal to my target audience. I matched the colour of the masthead to her lips to draw attention to both of them. 

Stage 2

I then added my cover lines, I put my 'artists' name in bold and added a white stroke so it stood out amongst the dark background. I used bold but simple fonts making them eye catching and easy to read. I used a reduced colour palette of typical girl colours such as pink, purple and red and used a block of colour to also act as a background to some of the cover lines making them easily seen against her dark dress.

Stage 3

To make it look like a typical pop music magazine I added a puff however only make it have a stroke as the circle so the cover image was still easily seen. I tryed using a whole block of colour for the puff however the cover looked over crowded and messy, i thought this gave a sophisticated look to the magazine cover, while also making the cover line stand out. At this point I Also decided to add a tag line saying 'the ultimate pop mag' this use of slang would appeal to my target audience of teenage girls and makes it look like a music magazine. I made the word 'pop' stand out by putting it in a typical pop font and making it red.

Final front cover

To finish, I added the finishing touches of typical conventions of a music magazine such as a barcode, the date and a price. I also thought it needed something extra so then added a banner across the bottom of the cover with again a simple but bold font 'calibri'.

Front cover: choosing the font

I wanted to have an eye catching font which looked like it would appear on a pop music magazine cover. I decided to make it the same colour as her lips so it would link the two together and go nicely. I liked the shape of this font but it didn't scream out 'pop' to me and it didn't look like a music magazine.

I tried something abit more interesting but I think that with a line not filled in with colour in the middle it didn't really look appealing to a teenage girl audience. 

I then went on photoshop and downloaded a font from a website called 'dafont' which was called LL Record font. I then used the 'd' key to get the play button and then put in into the P of the word play so it looked like a music magazine. I thought this would be too cheesy but then I tried it and it looked nice while also looking like a music magazine, striking out all the other connotations of the word play. 

Front cover development

Stage 1 (original photograph I took) 

Stage 2

Stage 3

I decided to use this photo for my front cover of my music magazine because she is giving direct address and it is a striking photo. Using this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COjBtg--HrY I learnt how to get my photo into black and white with only the colour red on the lips showing. I thought this would make it eye catching and would give it a sophisticated look while appealing to my chosen target audience.

Music magazine: Draft front cover

Draft front cover

Using Indesign I tried designing my front cover. This is only a draft so i could play around with the colours that worked together as well as where to place things such as cover lines and puffs. I initially as going to have my title like this however i think its too dark and is not eye catching enough. I did however like the colour pink as I thought it would appeal to my target audience as well as going with the genre for my music magazine.

Music Magazine- Front cover inspiration

My main inspiration

My other  inspiration

When designing my front cover I am going to get inspiration from these two magazines. I will mainly focus on 'billboard' magazine but will add touches of 'we love pop' magazine so it looks somewhere in the middle. These magazines both have the target audience of teenage girls and are both about pop/chart music. I aim to create my magazine to have elements of both of these magazines within mine. I particularly like the cover image on Billboard magazine and the bright and bold fonts on We love pop. They are both successful music magazines with Billboard published weekly with a circulation of 16,372.

Music magazine: Double page spread

I designed my double page spread on Indesign. I decided for my layout of my double page spread that I would have A picture covering the left page and the article covering the right page. I edited the margins and put three columns into the pages by going to the 'layout' menu and clicking margins and columns. I made the margin at the bottom the biggest so I could fit a page number into it. I then placed the image onto the left page by getting the 'Rectangle frame tool' and then clicked 'Place' on the 'file' menu selected a photo which I had previously edited so the leaves stood out around her but then it went dark when going towards the edges. I then made the background of the next page black. For the title I used a font which most suited my genre of music Pop and which would appeal to my target audience, called Bauhaus 93. I then used the 'Eyedropper tool' to pick the colour out of a leaf onto the font, and then put it to 73pt and then by putting the vertical scale to 109% and the horizontal scale to 105% it then filled the top of the page nicely. I then wrote out a short line to attract audiences and used the 'eyedropper tool' to then make the font the same colour of her hair. I used a simple font of 'Calibri' for the article and made the colour of the font white making it easy to read. The article is embedded with questions, so to make them clear I made them bold. I made the first letter of the whole article bigger to make it stand out and look stylish. I finally made the writing neater by clicking 'justify with last line aligned centre' making it look even better. To highlight the fact that my music magazine have a Twitter and Facebook page I then put in the small icons which audiences would then recognize and then would promote our pages better. I added the page number onto the bottom and made it the same font as the title making it stand out.

Music magazine: stages of my double page spread

Stage 1

I started off by choosing the picture I wanted and adding it to the left hand page. I had previously edited this so the leaves looked bright around her but then around the edges of the photo went dark. To make it look natural on the page I made the right page black. I then used a typical pop font and wrote my title and a small introductory paragraph. I used the 'eye dropper tool' to pick out the colour of a leaf and use it as the colour of the title and then picked out the colour of her hair.

Stage 2

I then added three columns and inserted in my article. I used a simple font and then made the colour of the font white so then it stood out against the background. I neatened up the edges and tryed to make the article even in the columns.

Final double page spread

I added the finishing touches such as a page number and then inserted pictures of the Facebook and twitter icon. My target audience would recognize these symbols and this would add publicity because they would then look onto the Facebook and twitter pages.

Practice page: Double page spread

This is my first ever attempt at a double page spread. I used a replacement picture which I have taken previously ( I will not be using this photo in my music magazine) and inserted it on the left page using the 'rectangle frame tool' and then clicking 'place' and the selecting an image. I used InDesign to design the double page spread by adding pages and adjusting the margins so on the inside and outside they where smaller as well on the top margin bigger because I plan to put my Logo at the top. I wrote a title which sounded like it would be in a magazine and then changed the font so it was eye catching and interesting. I then added an introductory paragraph and inserted columns. 

I then added a small picture within the text by using the 'rectangle frame tool' and then clicking 'place' and then selecting an image (not one I have taken for my music magazine). I then highlighted the image and then clicked the 'Window' menu and then selected 'Text wrap' there I could choose which option of text wrap, which was 'wrap around bounding box'  that I would like and then was able to pick the amount that it would push the text away, I chose 1mm. I then created another text box at the bottom of the page and wrote the name of the magazine (I made this up, its not going to be the name of my magazine) and the page number which is odd because its on the right page. I changed the font to a bold and edgy font to make it stand out but also look stylish like a music magazine.  Even though this was new I found it simple and I now have more of an idea of how to make my double page spread. 

Music Magazine- Double page spread inspiration

Billboard Magazine double page spread

We love pop double page spread

These are double page spreads from 'Billboard' magazine and 'We Love Pop' magazine, they are both magazines which are aimed at teenage girls and are about pop/char music. I really like the simplicity but effectiveness of 'Billboard' magazines double page spread. However I also like the how the article is laid out on 'We Love Pop' magazines double page spread. I hope to get inspiration from both of these double page spreads to create something new.