Diary Entry (Week 1)

Week 1

On my first week of my coursework, I focused on the research into different music magazines and started to become familiar with the different layouts and colour schemes of the different genres of magazines. For example, Q,’s front cover layout is always very similar in design and doesn’t vary much from issue to issue. They keep the title of the magazine “Q” in the top left hand corner filled with a red background and to make it stand out the text is bright white font, they keep the title of the magazine in that position so that the target audience become familiar and recognise the magazine instantly on the shelves amongst the other magazines. Q also stays with the same layout, as they put a large image in the middle of the page with the other articles mainly on the left hand side of the front page. The colour scheme of Q is black, white and red, they chose this colour as they work well together and the target audience can become familiar with the look of the magazine. The NME magazine, whose target audience is Indie, is set out as image dominated because the title of the magazine is obscured by the large image of the latest band or artist, this shows how popular the magazine is as they can afford to hide some of the letters of the title of the magazine. The layout of the front cover is different to Q’s as it isn’t the same layout for the front cover repeated for every issue as it likes to change the look and colour schemes each issue, however it normally focuses on white text and a white bold title for the magazine. Another magazine is Kerrang and their target audience is Rock and their colour scheme tends to be black, white and gold to attract their target audience who are familiar with this scheme. The key convention of the magazine is the title at the top of the page dominantly, which has an effect which looks like it has been smashed in, suggesting the magazine is directed more towards rock fans. The layout of the front cover is normally a large image in the middle of the page with a few smaller images next to articles scattered around the page.

Next lesson I looked at the two different types of contents pages that the magazines use. The two different types of layouts for contents pages are; a blocky look which uses bold and consistent colours and a three colour scheme an example of using blocky look is in the magazine Q as they also like lines to spate text. The other type of layout is imaged dominated, which normally includes text behind or obscured by images and it normally has a centre image, text and stories sidelined, a good example of this is in the magazines MOJO and NME.

 In the final lesson of the week we focused on the different styles and layouts of the double page spread. The magazine Q use a double page spread to show the top 50 songs that you should download during the month with a countdown to the number 1 song. They also maintain their three colour scheme throughout the article, with white being the background, black being the text and the red being the subheadings or filled in text boxes. This appearance helps catch the reader’s eye onto a certain piece of text. Also on a double page spread audiences like to read about the latest gossip and articles, with stylish quotes separated in larger and bold font. NME magazine provide their double page spread with an interview with the main artist/band on their front cover, and have the image on one page and the text set out in columns on the other page.

Next week I will be working on my initial design ideas and my target audience research and at home I will be working on my analysis for my front covers, my contents and double page spreads for homework so I am up to date with my schedule.