Front Cover Mock-ups

I have created two front cover mock ups to give me an idea of what I want my front cover to look like. Here is my first mock up...

And my second...

I like my first mock-up more than the second because I think the overall composition works better. The image fits well with the text and I think the masthead will work better smaller in the corner rather than large. I think I will base my front cover on my first mock up.

Reflection on Planning Progress

I think my planning progress has helped me to develop my ideas for creating my magazine. I have come up with a name and masthead that I think works very well for a music magazine. I also have a good idea of what I want my front cover, contents page and double page spread to look like. By doing a flat plan for two magazines I could think about what my magazine would be like and I thought of some good articles that could be on the cover and contents page. Before creating my front cover, contents page and double page spread I will do some mock-ups to put my ideas together that I got from my planning.

Flat Planning for my Magazine

I have created a flat plan for my magazine to show how I would structure the articles if I were to actually make the magazine. I have also shown how my front cover may be structured. I will only include some of these articles on my front cover and contents page, because from my research I saw in most contents pages like Vibe and Rolling Stone only the feature articles were included. However this flat plan shows what articles might be in my magazine if it were actually made.

Flat plan for play magazine

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Flat Planning for two existing magazines

I have created a flat plan for two music magazines, Kerrang and NME. I look at each page and what was on it, like articles, adverts and so on. I also looked at how the front cover of the magazines were laid out. Here is my flat plan for Kerrang Magazine...

Flat plan for kerrang magazine

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And my flat plan for NME magazine...

Flat plan for nme magazine

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By doing a flat plan for two existing magazines I could see what sort of articles and adverts are included in music magazine, as well as how the articles are set out and how the front cover is composed. I noticed that Kerrang and NME had a similar layout of articles. They started with a contents page, then general music news updates, then a long main article, then posters and photos, reviews, gig and clothing adverts, gig guide, a quiz and then what will be in the next issue.

Designing My Masthead

After reflecting on my artist research, I have chosen the genre pop/mainstream music for my magazine. I chose this because I found that in my questionnaire the artists people said they liked were in the charts and the most popular tribe in the UK from "find your tribe" was Townies which seemed to be a group that was interested in mainstream, popular music. I have decided to call my magazine "play" because I think it is a catchy name that relates well to modern music. I like the idea of making the "a" a play button to give it an interesting twist. After choosing this genre and name I started to draft up some ideas for my masthead.

I then designed a masthead using the idea and colour scheme I thought would work best.

But I decided I didn't like this masthead because of the font and the colour scheme didn't look as good as I hoped. I then created another masthead using a different font and colour scheme. I used black with green because I liked how Billboard's masthead was black with hints of colour. I think this masthead worked very well and I will use it on my cover of my magazine. Here is my final masthead.

Colour Schemes

After putting some colours I thought worked well together in my mood board, I decided to use a website that created colour schemes for you. These are some colour schemes I looked at...

I thought this colour scheme worked very well. It didn't consist of too many colours and I think the pink and green are fun and vibrant.

This is the same colour scheme with yellow added. I think some hints of yellow could work well, but I think just the pink and green would work better.

I also think this colour scheme works well. I think the blue and orange compliment each other and could appeal to both sexes easily.

This is the same colour scheme as before with added green and purple. I don't think this colour scheme works well because it has too many colours. I prefer colour schemes 1 and 3 because they only have two colours in different shades that work well together.

Initial Ideas Mood-board

I have created a mood-board to show my initial ideas for my magazine. I have included colours, font types, use of language, layout, framing of shots for Photoshoot.