Magazine Design Ideas - Front Cover

Here i have created my first Front cover ideas for my music magazine titled 'The Beat', using my previous research i have decided that i want to use R&B as my chosen genre for my magazine. Knowing this i used popular rap artist Tinie Tempah as my artist to represent my magazine. i also looked at other magazines such as Vibe and Q and used conventions from them that i have chosen to include in my first draft.

Looking at these two other magazines and the common conventions between the two, I started with the artist and how they appear in front of the title of the magazine, so using layers in Photoshop; first i imported a picture of Tinie Tempah from the web onto an A4 sized document, i then proceeded to crop out the background so that i could place my own design behind him. I then imported my maths head into the document and positioned it to behind the artist. Another convention that i used as the advertisement of the artists name on the cover of the magazine, for example on Vibe you can clearly see 'Kanye West' and the same goes for 'Tinie Tempah' with Q, so again using layers on Photoshop in bold text i typed 'It's Tinie Tempah' so that it's clear and easy to see that he's the artist on the front cover of my magazine, which in turn would satisfy my target audience and therefore sell more magazines. The last convention that i used was the colour scheme, as you can see in Vibe the colour scheme is Blue and Pink, suggesting that it's trying to appeal to both boys and girls, you can see a similar colour set used in Q, however i wanted to use orange and white for my colour scheme as they are more gender neutral, therefore appealing to a mass audience. 

Magazine Design Ideas - Contents Page

Here is the initial idea and first draft on my contents page, i looked at Vibes contents page as well as Rolling Stones and looking at the conventions of both of these magazines which incorporated into my contents page. I started by looking at the common conventions which is that both magazines have at least one picture on it, none of them are plan with only text, so again i used Tinie Tempah as my artist, however i followed vibes style more using only one image of the artist, my contents page is still very bland and needs many improvements as it's only a first draft giving me an idea to work towards for my final product. Secondly i looked at the use of background and i noticed in Vibes background is a giant V which represents the company, i liked this style and idea and i choose to use it in my own design by placing a B in the background of my contents page. However i didn't like the black and white colour scheme so i used conventions from the Rolling Stones contents page using white and warm colour (orange) to make the page stand out more and appear less boring towards my targeted audience.

Magazine Design Ideas - Double Page Spread

Last is my double page spread, to create my initial ideas for this i looked at the conventions of double page spreads in other magazines such as Vibe and NME, the first convention of these magazines is that a double page spread always talks about an artist, weather it be about there personal life or career it's on there. So again using Tinie Tempah as my modal i imported a photo of him and uploaded it to a A3 sized document, i looked at how both magazines kept within their style of design on these pages and so did i, i used the same colour scheme as before without it interfering with the text by placing white boxes there. Another convention is that in the corner most magazines put the logo of their magazine so that if someone finds the magazine open hey can still see what magazine it is as well as showing that all information presented was researched by the company so that no one can copy the page and say that they created it. On the double page spread the image is often a heavily Photoshoped image to create a more bold and desired effect and look.

Audience Research

Music Magazine Timeline

Billboard:

Billboard Advertising

Billboard (Originally Known as 'Billboard Advertising') was founded on the 1st of November 1894, by William H. Donaldson and James Hennegan. It was a trade paper for the bill posting industry.
The front cover was in black and white featuring a a photo of R.C Campbell, a advertising executive.

The Billboard

In February 1879 the company made a major change. The magazines new name was now changed and shortened to 'The Billboard', following this the magazine started to list fairs and ads for outdoor attractions which began ti increase in popularity.
At the start of 1961 'The Billboard' was changed to 'Billboard Music Week' as it became devoted to publishing content on the music industry. Before being changed to 'Billboard' in 1963.

Billboard Music Week

Billboard (Modern)

You can see the development of the magazine over the decades, Starting from a simple Black and White cover to a now colorful presentation that's standard in every issue, however as technology grow and developed so did Billboard. Colour Printing allowed Billboard to change their layout, highlighting different fonts and texts, creating conventions that are are standard and used today.
Billboard basically started out as a newspaper, due to the limitation in technology, relying on the text included on the front cover, however as time progressed it's become simpler, now using visual images to attract their target audience that display the content within the magazine.

Tribes

What are tribes?
Tribes are everywhere in the modern world, they define the young generation. But what are tribes, well Channel 4 wanted to explore the mind of teenagers; to see their perspective on life and what's important to them, being their grades or even their social status. They discovered a plethora of patterns within their lives, grouping them into 25 tribes that split into 5 categories.
Theses are:
Alternatives

• Young Alts
• Skaters
• Hardcore
• Hardcore Gamers
• Superfans

Mainstream

• Chavers
• Fan Girls
• Chavs
• Sports Junkies
• Blingers

Leading Edge

• Activists
• Creatives
• Urban Artists
• DYIers
• Scenesters

Urban

• Get Paid Crew
• Stylers
• Trackies
• Wastemen

Aspirant

• Trendies
• Vloggers
• New Casuals
• Hypebeasts
• Hipsters

Who is my magazine aimed at?
My music magazine is going to be aimed at the urban section of the tribes, mostly aimed at the Stylers tribe, this tribe represents status and style, it's about partying, looking good and staying ahead of cool.
Stylers hold strong on the UK Tribes map – innately cool and stylish, the rising influence of Urban fashion and music have made them a hugely aspirationsal Tribe for youth today. As luxe sportswear and Urban high fashion has hit the Aspirants, more young people than ever before are looking like a Styler and aspiring to their luxury lifestyle.

Tribes Pt 2

What do they look like?
Stylers are young urban adults, that like to stay ahead of fashion and trends.



These people are always on the move and in a crowd socializing, in and out of jobs normally part time as they're still in some form of education. They eat a lot of take out food such as pizza as they're always busy; partying or studying. They are innately cool and stylish, the rising influence of Urban fashion and music have made them a hugely aspirational Tribe for youth today.