The document discusses planning for a new music magazine, including: 1) Five potential magazine name options are discussed: Base, Bass, Beatz, Blueprint, and Player. 2) Different fonts are tested for the potential names to see which fits best. 3) Details are planned for a photoshoot including potential actors, locations, costumes, props, and photo angles. 4) Example layout and color mockups are presented to demonstrate potential magazine designs.

1. Front Cover Planning

2. Magazine Name Ideas Pulse The Beat Base The Basement Bass Crank Tune Beatz Blueprint Raw Launch Player Encore Empire Freeze 911 The Game Stunt 101 Touchdown This is the list of names we came up with, we are definite that one of these will be the final name. Narrowing the list down, we decided to choose between ‘Base’, ‘Bass’, ‘Beatz’, ‘Blueprint’, and ‘Player’. We think that these are all names that would appeal to our young male audience as well as the fact they all have some sort of link to not only music, but our specific genre. In order to try get a better idea of what would work best, we will try out the titles in various fonts and then take our decision further to find the final name.

3. I like this font because it is big and bold and it would stand out on the page but I don’t like the styling of the letters; it looks too American and wouldn’t suit a British music magazine. This font is very bold and basic but from looking at other music magazines like VIBE for example, their title font is largely based on a simple typeface that fills up the page as much as possible instead of looking fancy and trying to impress their readers. With the title being ‘Blueprint’ I felt we had to use a font that would represent this i.e., not just have a bold simplistic font like I have found for the other 3 name choices. It wouldn’t work with ‘Blueprint’. This is our fourth name choice for our magazine. This is more suitable to the hip-hop genre of music as it give a different feel to the word ‘beats’ by replacing the letter ‘S’ with a ‘Z’. The font is quite cool and unbalanced. I like this font a lot as it is bold and striking. I feel that this would fit in well with our designs for our music magazine. It will certainly stand out on the page and when put on the right background it would appeal to our target audience. This font matches the theme of the title by making it look as if ink has been spilt onto it. It looks quite stylish and with the right colour scheme it would look good on a front cover.

4. I like the way the letter ‘E’ has been used in this typeface. It differs from other font styles I have looked at but I don’t feel the letters are bold enough to stand out on a front cover with lots of text and images surrounding it. This font is good as it offers something unique. The edging to the letter are all slanted and are all in keeping with each other and as a result the font looks good but I’m not convinced it would suit a music magazine. This font is good as it offers something unique. The edging to the letter are all slanted and are all in keeping with each other and as a result the font looks good but I’m not convinced it would suit a music magazine. I think this font is really effective in terms of conveying a music themed font. The different heights and angle of each font makes it appear to be like a monitor showing the beats to a song with varying volumes of loudness. The font chosen here again goes along with the ‘blueprinted’ look. It looks like a font similar to a fingerprint but I feel it would look lost on a front cover with other images and text. This font looks good on it’s own and I feel if we made it a different colour aside from black it would still stand out on a background with lots of colour. The letters are large and sans serif but I don’t like the large kerning between individual letters.

5. Current Artist Collage: Inspiration

6. Images: Ideas about locations for photos, clothes, styling, lighting etc. (Mise-en-scene) Possible locations: Plain background wall Sitting of stairs Performing on stage Possibly cut our artist off their current background and create our own. Park Against a graphitised wall Bench Styling: Fashionable clothes Well-groomed Music orientated Accessories such at hat, sunglasses, jewellery etc. Cool/casual look Mise-en-scene: Low angle looking up at artist. Medium shot/close-up. Focus light on the artist with darker surroundings. Props could include guitar, microphone etc. Actors/artists: Young males aged around 16-20. Possibly good looking females aged around 16-20. Artist look alike (also maybe match their style)

7. Planning: Actors, Locations, Costume & Props Actors We have a few actors in particular in mind that both represent the main two kinds of music featured in the chart genre - Indie and R&B/Pop. We chose them on the basis of appearance in that we think they could actually be artists. Locations Our final location ideas consist of a range of different backgrounds that we will edit in once we have cut the actors of their current backgrounds. We were contemplating having a graphitised brick wall but decided against it as we believe our new idea will look more professional. We are planning to have an image of the New York skyline as one of the backgrounds, this will be placed in black and white as we are trying to go for quite a slick and professional look. Then for our other cover, we are thinking about having a graphitised brick wall which is at the other end of the spectrum; that way our magazine will be quite diverse showing the different artists in their element. Costume For our R&B star, the costume needs to be very slick and cool. We had imagined a very well planned out outfit typically including sunglasses, a hat and jewellery. The clothes could either be something quite formal such as suit or simply smart-looking. For example, beige trousers and a long sleeve polo shirt. For our second cover star who will be more Indie based, we were thinking a lot more casual yet still cool. For example, our ideas included jeans, vest, open shirt and possibly a hat. Props We wanted to include music based props such as a guitar, amplifier or a poster of an artist on the wall in the background.

8. Image Experiments This is a high angle shot. I experimented with different angles to create different affects. This image isn’t close enough to capture a good photograph and also the background looks unsuitable for a magazine cover. This is a close up shot of my artist. Close up shots help to capture facial expressions. This photo doesn’t show the entirety of the guitar so I don’t feel it is very effective. The artist’s facial expressions could be better also. This is a low angle shot. I feel low angle shots work well as it shows the person to be tall and powerful. Especially in this image it captures the artist, the instrument and the surroundings. Camera model used: Olympus Tough 300

9. This is medium shot taken from a neutral angle. The image was taken on a white background and then the brightness was increased to create a more rounded and professional effect. Also, I played around with the contrast and other colour aspects that would also give the image a more professional appearance. However the background may be too plain and simple for a front cover. This is medium close-up taken from a low angle. This makes the subject look quite strong and imperial plus with the addition of the headphones this links in quite nicely with the music theme. Again, the brightness, contrast etc. were altered to give the image a more professional look however the already existing white background did help a lot. However I do think this may not be suitable for a front cover and could work a lot better on a contents page. Image Experiments Camera model used: Nikon Coolpix S Series

10. Possible headlines: *Name* Breaks Through *Name* Lets Rip *Name* Overflowing *Name* Laughing All The Way *Name* The Untouchable *Name* Comes Clean *Name* The New Kid on the Block *Name* Takes on the World *Name* Unmasked *Name* Who’s The Boss *Name* Stop and Stare *Name* Man of Steel *Name* One in a Billion *Name* The Sweet Taste of Victory *Name* Fires Back Take A Ride with *Name* *Name* Up In The Air *Name* Volume/Chapter 1 On Collision with *Name* *Name* My Kingdom *Name* Unplugged *Name* Hold The Throne Front cover headlines

11. Layout Mock-ups (Hand-drawn) This a mock-up of a possible front cover layout that we have created.

12. Layout Mock-ups (Computer generated) Magazine Name Barcode (Price within the barcode area) Issue No. Date Main Image E.g. ‘The U.K.’s brand new music magazine’… Features included Artist name + headline Feature included + possible image Feature included + possible image Issue No. Date Barcode (Price within the barcode area) Magazine Name Main Image Artist name + headline Featured artist • Featured artist • Featured artist • Plus Feature included + possible image Feature included + possible image

13. Other details The questionnaires we conducted revealed that our audience would be most willing to pay from £1.00 - £3.00 therefore we will price the magazine at a sensible £2.80 which is affordable for our audience as well as allowing us to make profit. Our magazine must include a date (this will be in a certain format; for example ‘Feb 2011’) Possibly have the main featured artist positioned in front of the magazine title. Our magazine must include a barcode and an issue number.

14. Colour boards We have created a series of colour boards in order to see what colour scheme work and how different features/images can relate to our magazine. The main idea was to find different variations of typical colours and see how we could incorporate this into our magazine provided they look good- thus the idea of making the colour boards in the first place. The ones we chose to produce included blue, red, purple, green and yellow.

15. Colour board - Blue

16. Colour board - Red

17. Colour board - Purple

18. Colour board - Green

19. Colour board - Yellow