Survey Results

After asking the students in my Media class, the results were drawn between the two following designs:

Each of these designs received 3 votes each and this was surprising to me, as they are both very different to each other.

I will now start to plans my designs for the layout of the front cover, and then decide on one of these 2 logos in order to suit my designs and masthead the best.

Feedback on Typography Initial Designs

I have decided on 6 final design ideas, which I will receive feedback on in order to make a final decision on one of them. I have developed the first design to create the 6th design, using Photoshop editing and paintbrush tools to add the star effect to it. I have chosen these 6 developed designs as I believe that all of them would suit the image of my magazine initial designs

This screen shot shows the 6 designs completed and ready to be surveyed. They are all similar in terms of colour scheme and size, however the typography styles and arrangements differ. I will use this sheet to carry out a survey of a few members of my target audience, from my Media class, in order to find out which design is the most popular and relevant to the target audience therefore.

Initial Experiments with Typography

 In order to create some initial concept ideas for my magazine's title logo, I began to create some rough designs on a blank InDesign document. I experimented with font types, sizes, colour effects, positioning and outlining in order to create some initial possible designs. The theme of red, white and black colours seems to be prominent, and this stems from my previous existing media research, and mirrors the image of NME magazine, which also uses red and white in it's logo. I am aiming to create a gender-neutral logo image, as I would like my magazine to appeal to both genders of music fans, so I am using a palette of colours consisting of blue, red, white, black and green to experiment with in the initial design stage. 

So far, I am pleased with the designs and I feel that I can develop a few of them into possible final designs. I have used my knowledge of typography editing from my preliminary task, which I have found to have made the design process for this main task much easier. I hope to create an aesthetically professional logo, relating and appealing to the target audience of my magazine. 

Music Magazine Name Decision

I have decided to name my Music Magazine 'LAUNCH'.

Out of my list of possible names, I feel that this name is the most current, lively, punchy and relevant to the magazine content I intend to include in my designs. Here is an 'Inspirations' mind map that I created to show the reasons that I chose my music magazine name.

Audience Profile Mood Board

Here is a mood board of images and text that I created to create a profile of my target audience for my music magazine, which I have decided to name 'Launch'. It gives an idea about what the teenage demographic of today are interested in and the ideal readership intended for my magazine.

The Influence of Music Magazines on Subcultures

  I made this short animated movie on xtranormal.com, in order to showcase some of the information I have found out and present some background knowledge that I have in a multimedia way; showing that I can use media in a diverse way. It talks about how youth subcultures can be influenced by music genres and magazines.

Band Website Research

In order to gain some inspiration for graphics, design and overall aesthetic image, I decided to browse on some of today's popular bands' websites, to see recent news about them and the image that the website designers have used to make the website unique to the artist and the types of graphic features that they use. Some of the artists I have looked at could be possible headlining acts for my magazine cover, or inside features as well. The bands' websites tend to promote the artist/s in the best way possible, by promoting their records and tour tickets to the fans.

If I was to design and create this magazine professionally, I would make sure that a website was created in the same image, as I have found, from research, that magazine websites heavily increase readership numbers and can receive up to 100,000 hits daily.
As part of my designs, I will incorporate a made-up website URL, in order to promote the magazine and follow the conventions of modern day music magazines.

One of the best music magazine websites, in my opinion, is the NME website. (www.nme.com) This website is highly interactive, with videos, blog updates, images, music players and such like. The image of the website mirrors the magazine appearance, which is effective and creates a corporate image.


Here are some links to the websites I had a look at and used for inspiration:

Kings of Leon - http://www.kingsofleon.com/home
Marina & The Diamonds - http://www.marinaandthediamonds.com/
Bon Jovi - http://www.bonjovi.com/
Kayne West - http://www.kanyewest.com/

Kings of Leon Screen Shot of Website - Website mirrors the theme of their new album cover - effective graphic use