Stage 2 Planning

Brief:

With the inspiration of other magazines, I plan on producing an indie/rock music magazine which will have a target audience of late teens/early twenties from both genders. My magazine will include the major conventions of which a magazine should have as well as others in order to make it a successful magazine. I will use a range of images with different angles/shots in order to make my magazine look professional and to stand out from the competition. Within the production of my magazine I may face difficulties that I hope to resolve throughout the production.

Genre/ sub genre:
Similar texts/music magazines which have inspired my thoughts are magazines and downloadable versions of NME, Q and Kerrang! However NME is my biggest inspiration simply because I follow this on Twitter, have the downloaded version on my iPhone and this is the magazine I purchase the most as opposed to the other two.

Target audience:
My target audience, like already stated in Stage 1 will be for late teens/early twenties of both genders. This target audience will share similar interests, with ‘introducing acts’ as well as though who are avid gig/festival goers and love live music, since there will be chances to enter a competition in my magazine to win free tickets to a gig/festival, this relating closely to the personality of my audience.

Major conventions

The major conventions within my magazine will be that I ensure that my mastheads are clear and stand out well enough from the background. I will use a specific colour scheme in order to allow my magazine to ‘flow’ well for the reader. This colour scheme will be colours related to ‘rock/indie’ music, with the use of reds to show passion and blacks to emphasise power. I will also use the obvious conventions on my magazine, a barcode on the front cover as well as a range of coverlines of the articles inside my magazine.
These coverlines will stand out from the main image on the background of my front cover. On my contents page I will emphasise selected arcticles from my magazine by increasing the font size but still keeping it professional. My double page spread will include a large main coverline as well as other major conventions such as captions under my images etc.

Conventions:
The conventions in my magazine I may change may be the camera angle on my images, as these may not be as best as possible for what I’ve already stated.

Original images:
As stated in my stage one planning I plan on using one large main image for my front cover, with this either being a single person (if so, an extreme close up of he/she) if a group (a medium close up from an high angle shot). On my contents page I plan on using three/four primary images of the ‘introducing act’ pictures from previous gigs/festival and a possible music instrument in order for my audience to be aware of what is involved in the magazine.
My double page spread will have large images of the main article which will be an interview with the ‘introducing act’. This will have a large image on one page, the full A4 with the text on the opposite page to it. Yet, judging on the presentation of my magazine this may also change and I may have a few images on the DPS in order to show different actions of the act.

Potential difficulties:
The potential difficulties I may face whilst producing my magazine, other than the things I have already mentioned, may be that my models for my images may not show up the shoot when needed. Other academic studies may result in me falling behind in my coursework for media also since it is my first time using Photoshop I may struggle to use it correctly, and it may take a while for me to get used to the software.