Initial Ideas

For my initial ideas I looked at a couple of examples of magazines that are relevant to genres of music that I listen to. I believe that I will focus my magazine on the genre of music that I listen to in order to have a high level of knowledge on it and to have a wide range of interest in that genres articles. For all the magazines the i looked at it was clear that they all had a specific layout and house style. The magazines I looked at were Q, Mojo, Acoustic and NME, these were all relevant to genres of music that I'm interested in - that mainly being indie and acoustic music which I have a preference for to base my music magazine on.

On the front pages of the magazines that I looked at the layout and house style is very clear, making it easy for the audience to relate the magazine issue to a particular magazine brand. For example, the red and white house style of the Q magazine which is widely known for its title and is simply just recognisable for the target audience when buying the magazine. Both Q and Mojo magazine had the title of there magazines partially covered by the band/artist because they are so well known magazines that they don't need to show there title fully, it also makes the artist/band be more dominant on the front page. All of the examples I research used a house style of two or three colours as more than this amount doesn't look any good and draws attention away from the main image. These house styles tended to contain black and white and another brighter colour to stand out. The main image on the front cover was positioned in the centre of the page mainly but if not was at one side with text on the other. For acoustic magazines the artist always had a reference to their guitar or instrument, I would use this in magazine in order to make the genre clear to its audience and it is a typical code and convention of indie/acoustic music. The front pages are mainly dominated by the main image as it focuses on the artist/band but does contain a lot of text too in order to engage the readers attention and interest.