Research for AS Music Magazine

I have looked at three different magazines in particular as an inspiration for my music magazine front cover. The magazines in question are Classic Rock, Total Guitar and Rolling Stone. All three of these magazines cover generally similar musicians.

What I like particularly about this Classic Rock cover is the sultry and darkened tone. To me it suggests sophistication, as if the magazine holds deeper messages and not just the pop, brightly coloured, ‘celeb news’ of a lot of magazines. It is also a very simple front cover, it has the subject directly in the middle of the page, a large white title . All the subsequent titles are purple/ pink and writing in white. This style is very simple, it doesn’t require much effort to take in (owing to its darkened tones and straightforward font and colouring). The image used, as well, is very simple, there is a sole figure (Axl Rose) taken at a mid-shot. The picture does, however, stray from the usual conventions of a magazine cover, which is usually well lit and bright, and has Axl half shrouded by shadows. The subject matter concerning Axl Rose is quite dark, which is connoted by the strapline ‘Machine guns, LSD and ‘Ayatolla Axl’ as well as the dark picture and black background. Up in the top left of the cover there is a small promotional offer, on what is made to look like a post-it note, offering a free CD. On the same side of the cover but below the main title is a red circle on which it advertises a ‘lost issue’. The red circle stands out against the black background and the fact it offers a ‘lost issue’ makes it seem as if the audience member reading is reading something exclusive and never before seen.

There is one thing in particular that i like about this Beatles edition of Mojo magazine and that is the fact that two of the titles on the page seem to run together whilst also working independently. In large white font it says ‘The Beatles’ then immediately to the right of it is a separate title saying ‘101 greatest songs’. The effect this causes is that at a glance (how most magazines would be viewed in a shop) it seems as if it says ‘The Beatles 101’ denoting a deep examination of The Beatles with extensive coverage, information and perhaps interviews (old or new with surviving members). Again, as with the last cover, I like the fact that the font is simple large white font with straplines in grey. This doesn’t overwhelm the reader with colour or a confused looking front cover full of writing. It also has a dark background, like the last one, which again denotes, to me, a sense of sophistication.

Audience Feedback from research

1. Should the magazine cover have loud, vibrant colours or duller or darker colours?

Brighter – 16                  Darker – 4

At this point I asked an open question and will briefly summarize the general response.

2. What about the front cover of a magazine first grabs your attention?

I put forward a few ideas to help move the conversation along and prompted with ‘is it the colours? the pictures? the text?’ To which a lot of people said the pictures were the most important thing. They said that when they first glance at a magazine they generally stop and look because they see a celebrity they like and then from there they take into account the text and colouring. From this the general consensus was that the picture was most important.

3. What is the best option for the text font?

Bold – 20                Plain – 0            Handwritten – 0         Cartoon – 0

The previous question was an unanimous answer made by the audience, they all felt the other three were not appropriate for a magazine front cover

4. Is a consistent colour scheme important to you as a reader?

Yes – 14                 No – 6

5. Should the language in an article be

Written in an interesting way – 12                        Used only to further the topic at hand – 8

This last question may not seem clear, what I meant by it is should the language in the article be used only to drive along the topic of the article itself, thereby the information is what is interesting and the linguistic style is unimportant or should it be both, i.e. provide the same information but be written in a less direct and more ‘flowery’ or interesting way.

 

Research

This picture started my idea for my magazine cover. I had the idea that I wanted to use an inanimate object rather than a person as I felt it could A. say more than a person could and B. Went against the generally assumed codes and conditions of a music magazine. My inspiration came from an album cover rather than a magazine cover, though this idea was subsequently reinforced by magazine covers, the album cover in question was Paul McCartney’s most recent solo album ‘Memory Almost Full’

I really enjoyed the stark contrast of the black chair against the white background. I felt it gave the album cover a distinct feeling of sophistication whilst the purple font signature gave it an air of repressed excitement.

With the original picture I started with (see top) I cut around the Amplifier and guitar, leaving in the wires on the floor. I did this to create an air of abandonment as if the guitar had recently been played but then left suddenly.  Whilst I was aiming for a minimalistic approach I felt the guitar and amp solely against the white background did not look very interesting and so to combat this I copied the picture, enlarged it and put on a motion blur and then placed it behind the original. This gave a good shadow effect, drop shadow I did not like as it had been used on the font, and it also gave a sense of time and of age, which I liked.

I did a similar thing when it came to changing the front cover and my use of a model. I took the original picture…

Then I cropped it, just to fit around the models upper body, making sure to leave in the guitar head and his hand on the neck. I then cut this out and pasted it onto a pure white background then copied the image, enlarged, added motion blur and placed it behind the original as I did with the previous front cover.

Background Information

The main influence for my magazine was Rolling Stone magazine. I liked the sometimes blatant disreguard for codes and conducts of magazines and for their simplistic and iconic front covers.  Rolling Stone magazine was named after the Muddy Waters song of the same name, rather than the band, and was founded in San Fransisco in 1967. It is based in New York City now and is only published in English. It has a circulation of about 1.4million and is headed by Jann Wenner and Will Dana. It covered largely the big rock acts of its time and would also delve into serious political debate and pop culture with writers such as the infamous Hunter S Thompson at the wheel.  It detoured from this in the 90’s to much controversy and focussed more on pop acts, it has since come back to involving politics and having serious debates and has thus seen an increase in sales again. It is a bi-weekly magazine and is owned by Wenner Media LLC.

The other magazine that I took inspiration from was Total Guitar which is a UK based magazine and is the best selling and biggest guitar magazine in the UK and Europe.  It is a monthly magazine headed up by Stephen Lawson and published by Future Publishing. It currently has 52,646 copies in circulation and it started back in 1994. This magazine, obviously, s not quite as big as Rolling Stone which is sold throughout most English Speaking countries but this magazine is sold within Europe and the UK.

Similar

I thought this was an amazing cover by Rolling Stone magazine. It broke the codes and conventions of most front covers by not showing the musician/musicians facing towards the camera in a mid shot. It instead shows a more artistic and thought provoking picture. It also used elements of minimalism, of which I was keen to experiment, by not having any wording and putting all focus on the picture itself.

I liked this contents page, despite being in relation to a different genre of music, as it clearly has different sections e Music, Tech etc. and each of these is marked by being in a different coloured box. I liked this as it made the page more eye catching and also look more organised and so less confusing to a casual reader.

I liked this as a basic template for an article in a music magazine. It is old and not quite as eye catching as some more modern magazines but it follows a very simple format that seemed appealing to me, as minimalism was my theme. It has a page dedicated to an image but then there is a lot of focus on writing, rather than the modern ideas of placing pictures all over the place to keep readers interested. The emphasis is on the quality of the article rather than style, which seemed perfect for my minimalistic and rather uniform intentions.

Distribution

I’d like to believe that since my magazine is based on Rolling Stone magazine which has a huge following (1.4million in circulation) that mine would be of a similar vein, however assuming this would be naive. I’d therefore say that it would be most appropriate for my magazine to take a place in the special interest area and would most likely be stocked by shops such as WHSmiths or Borders. I’d choose an independant publisher to begin with, one such as Blue Ocean Publishing which work with you to help publish anything you have. I would release, to begin with maybe 100 copies into circulation at various outlets and if popularity increased I would pump more into circulation. I would ideally then choose a larger publisher or even, if enough money had been generated, start an independant publishers of my own so as to have free reign over my product allowing my utter control over numbers etc.