Music Magazine Plan

Music Magazine Plan from smcveigh824

My Ideal reader

By using sites such as yougov.co.uk and from my own questionnaire analysis I have created Emma as my ideal reader. This would be used in my magazines media pack which I would send to various companies for them to place advertisements in my magazine if they were interested. 

Emma is a 17-year-old girl who loves being the first to download the latest tracks. Herself and her friends centre their social life around music by attending local gigs of new and upcoming bands/artists but also love to save up their wages from their Saturday jobs to see mega stars such as their beloved guilty pleasure One Direction at stadiums and festivals. She also loves keeping up with the latest trends in fashion and is not afraid to show her unique sense of style, which is contemporary, cool with touches of chic bohemian elegance. A regular at the gym she loves keeping fit and meeting new people and when she has the time to cosy up on her sofa and log on to Netflix.

Her greatest music love is 8tracks.com which is an Internet radio and social networking website revolving around the concept of streaming user-created playlists consisting of at least 8 tracks. This allows her to find the best and latest music to buy off iTunes at the touch of a button. Emma is a student who has a part-time job; by working hard she is able to pay her way to different music events as she loves educating herself on different genres of music by exploring varied styles of different bands and musicians. With no passion to a particular genre she displays extreme passion for all music as she is appreciative of “quality sounds and lyrics.’ Emma is a loyal fan of Pulse magazine as she says "my friends and I would be lost without it, it is so useful to find out the latest music but also bring us back to some of the greatest hits! Not forgetting about the great exclusives they have to offer with such a wide variety of artists." Emma would be lost without her Apple gadgets and her friends have said that you never see her coming without her earphones in! 

Music Magazine Mood Board

I have used Animoto which is an online software where you can create short videos including pictures, videos and music. I have made this 40 second video to portray the style of magazine I would like to create, the images I would use, the titles and ideas that I have to feature within the magazine (such as artists.) I chose a black and white theme so that the focus is not only on the stars but also the writing which i include which will be coloured.

Music Magazine Quesionnaire Analysis

Music Magazine Research Questionnaire

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

I was able to put my SurveyMonkey questionnaire on my personal Facebook page to get wider audience feedback. From this I was able to get 35 responses in a short period of time. 

Extra Research in planning creation of Magaizne

These are some links and extra sources I have found useful in preparation for creating my music magazine: 

http://www.magazinedesigning.com/magazine-spreads-good-bad-practices/

Readers eye direction

When influencing on the reader your design should have meaning. Readers concentrate on the top parts of the spread. This is the first place where their eye will stop when they skim through the pages, so you cannot start your story by placing headline on bottom right page. This is not natural starting point.

I have seen this in so many examples, but try to avoid it. It is not good design if the reader has to search through the page to find most important thing (if there is no image on the page), and that’s the headline. It is even worse if you put the headline at the bottom and you put beginning of the story on top of it.

This is not a natural way of reading the story. Everything should have flow. You should work your way from the meaningful top left and then continue to the bottom. Headline, intro copy and then the main copy. That should be your guide.

In this case it is OK to place the headline at the bottom. Reader will have no problem following the story, besides, it would be awkward to place the headline on top of the model’s head.

This is the natural way of viewing things, unless designer pulls his attention away by placing elements on the page that will attract the reader’s eye. Sometimes headline can go on the bottom part of the page if this pages has full-page image that bleeds out of the page.

This is an example of bad text flow. You can see how the flow of the story is not natural and the reader will have hard time following the text.

The Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Artist Albums of 2014 so far!

02/10/2014

By Rob Copsey

Ed Sheeran’s X and Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour lead a very British line-up in the biggest-selling artist albums of 2014 so far, OfficialCharts.com can reveal.

Ed Sheeran’s X has overtaken Coldplay’s Ghost Stories as the biggest selling artist album of 2014 so far, according to Official Charts Company data.

This success means the acclaimed album has now been certified 2x Platinum by the BPI - the music trade body that represents the UK's record labels.

Ed said: “I’m so happy people have been enjoying my album so much - great to hear that it’s still the biggest seller of the year and has now gone double Platinum too. Looking forward to playing it live to my UK fans when the tour starts next week!"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/singles

http://www.magazinepublisher.com/startup.html

The Planning Phase:

With the technological advancements in magazine printing presses along with the ability to design magazines in digital computer programs has made for the ability of magazines to become more profitable in smaller circulation numbers.

Still every magazine success comes down to this simple fact:

What are the costs associated with publishing?
vs.
What are the total revenues earned?

The two tests that you need to prepare are:

#1 Evaluate your projected revenue#2 Analyze your magazine operational costs

Sources of Revenue:

Magazines are still driven by three main sources of revenue:

#1 Advertisers - (who buy ads) #2 Subscriptions - (people who pay to receive the magazine)
#3 Newsstand Sales

There are a wide range of different kinds of magazines incorporating various combinations of revenue sources- local, free pick up magazines that rely totally on ad revenue to the niche subscriber magazines that carry no advertising and rely totally on subscriber and ancillary sources of revenue. Ancillary income is any additional source of revenue gained by marketing or selling products or services associated with a magazine title. An example would be t-shirts with the magazine's logo.
To be successful publisher's need to address the following:

A. Is there a market big enough to support the magazine?
B. Are there subscribers willing to pay for such a magazine? and how much are they willing to pay ?
C. Are advertisers interested in reaching this market and willing to pay for ads to do so?

Determine the costs associated with publishing your magazine title and then you will have a good barometer of how much revenue you will need to cover those costs...the average magazine can take years to become profitable - so you need to be prepared to have plenty of financial resources to cover the costs during the start up period of building your magazine brand to profitability.


https://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/charts/songs/

Billboard Magazine Double Page Spread Examples

I have gathered examples from both magazines double page spreads to be able to see what house style appeals to me more, and also how I can choose elements that I do and do not like to help me decide on how to layout my own double page spread. I am able to easily compare house styles and layout to give me inspiration on how to create my own double page spread.