Category Archives: Music Magazine

Communicating my brand – finding inspiration

In Search of Design Ideas

All designers are constantly on the search for ideas they can appropriate (borrow) and incorporate (blend) into their own work.

You need to do the same for your magazine.


A Design Inspiration Process (My Example)

I have decided to make a magazine similar to Kerrang.

Of course I had to understand my audience and what media they consume and use this information to give me ideas for my inspiration search.

I looked at a number of back issues of Kerrang and used YouGov Profiles Lite for artists that appeared on those front pages. I took snips of their audience’s demographics and their media consumption, particularly the other musicians/ artists / bands which cropped up. Here is my research on my audience and what media they’re into.


Pinterest

I then went in search of picture, words, designs as well Photoshop & Indesign techniques I thought might suit my Kerrang styled magazine.

To gather my images together I used Pinterest, which allowed me to pin my ideas to a board I called ‘Magazine Moodboard’. You’ll need to install the Pinterest tool bar button in Chrome in your profile. This will give the ability to ‘Pin’ images you see in a Google search.

I used the following search terms in Google after the band names or artists listed in my YouGov research.

  • ‘Lyrics’
  • ‘Album Art’
  • ‘Logos’
  • ‘Tweets’

I also searched for ‘Design’, ‘Graphics’ and ‘Typefaces’ along with with the following #adjectives, which I associate with Kerrang and the bands / artists which appear on it…

  • ‘Grungy’
  • ‘Urban’
  • ‘Raw’

Use adobe colour wheel for a possible colour palette and include visual denotations and connotations that embody your brand and visual design.

This is a link to my Pinterest board

This is a link to a Pop inspiration board.

This is a link to an Indie Folk board.

Use INSTAGRAM for a source of fantastic images, ideas.

TASK – Get Inspired & Do some Research…

You should follow the same process as above.

  1. Do your audience research on a magazine similar to the one you want to make.
  2. Sign up to Pinterest, install the button in Chrome and create a new inspiration board.
  3. Search the media your audience is into, as well as designs, logos, colours, lyrics, tweets.
    1. After you have pinned about 50 images, go back to your Pinterest board and delete about 10-20% of the pins so you’ve got a board of around 40-45 pins, which seem to have some design coherence.
  4. Explain your pins
    1. It is important that you explain why you have chosen the images and what design features are attracting you. If you look at my board, I have edited the pins to explain what feature I like about them and how I might use them in my magazine.
    2. If you can edit the comments so that they can be seen easily then do so, otherwise summarise in the introduction what you have chosen and why and pick out one or two examples to examine in depth.
  5. Link your Pinterest board in a blog post called ‘Developing the Brand’ and reflect on how useful you found this as a way to gather ideas for your own design, which starts next week…

It’s decision time – YOUR MAGAZINE!

LESSON 1

Task 1 – What genre?

Pick a Genre – probably best to choose a genre of music you understand, like and can be excited about. That said, some genres of music have very specific conventions and might be able to provide you with much more scope for design decisions and copy style. If you are undecided perhaps choose a very obvious genre i.e. punk, heavy metal?

Research various genres – you will be amazed how many sub-genres and sub-cultures there are. These are just a few.

Task 2 – Choose the name of the magazine. 

Use a generator app or a thesaurus for a simple, catchy and relevant name of the magazine. It has to be catchy and relate to your genre and brand – make it relevant to your target audience.

  • Bonus, Fault, Exchange, Storm, Louder, Open Mic, Score, Epoch, Placebo, Audio, Stream, Hustle, Phonic, Whisper, N&U (new and unsigned), Orbit, Swipe, Double Tap, Like, Status, Plectrum.

Task 3 – Brand Wordcloud/Mission Statement – Blog Post

Create a wordcloud that includes all the words that relate to what might be your mission statement  for your magazine.  For example will you magazine feature: new talent, unsigned artists, fashion, concerts, festivals, be edgy, anarchic, energetic?  Address all 4 of the Uses and Gratification that Blumler and Katz talk about to ensure maximising your sales to ensure that your contents will appeal to their use of the text.  Include the name of the magazine in a different colour.

This is an example wordle for a HipHop/Rap magazine called STREETZ.

Blog post:

  • Introduce your magazine and its name.
  • Outline the genre – brief description of the type of music and performers associated with the genre.
  • Embed the wordle and introduce it.
  • Create a couple of lines for its mission statement which will also be part of the wordle on the magazine’s brand.

This is a link to some previous  mission statements – not perfect but a start.

LESSON 2

Task 4 – Dating Profile

Now that you have an idea of what your MAGAZINE is all about, you need to know more about the audience. Using yougov.uk and your imagination, create a dating profile of a typical target audience reader. Keep them in mind all the time when you are designing to ensure you are hitting the target, satisfying their needs and giving them predictable pleasure.

Favourite music, favourite TV, who do they follow on insta?, favourite quotes, job, age, favourite food, best type of Sunday, favourite holiday destination, ambition?

You may have to think laterally to find a similar audience member to search for their profile in yougov.co.uk.

You will have to use your imagination too or model it on someone you know who fits the demographics and psychographics of your typical target audience.  It could be YOU!

Design it on indesign of a google slide.

Previous Students’ work

How will we mark your product?

Please work through the questions in this slideshow.

Complete your blog post on previous students’ work and evaluate the skill evident in one of the examples.

Embed all 3 pages of your chosen magazine in the blog post (front cover, contents page, double page spread).

Write a short evaluation (approx 150 words) on each of the following using the sub headings below:

  • Para 1: The use of camera and Photoshop to take & manipulate engaging images. Variety of Shot distances and framing.
  • Para 2: The selection of mise-en-scene in the photos and the meaning it communicates.
  • Para 3: The choice of words that talk to and engage a specific audience.
  • Para 4: The creative use of DTP (Desk Top Publishing i.e. Indesign) to integrate images and text and  use colour / typefaces.

Remember to describe specific examples from the pages and (if relevant) add specific analysis of what the photo, font, colour, framing, language represents, connotes, conveys etc…….

AND USE THE TECHNICAL TERMS – (when appropriate) – masthead, pug, mid shot, costumes, tone, target audience when describing your examples.

Tour Poster reflection

Once you have finished your tour poster, please save it as a Jpeg (thumbnail) and attach the PDF.

Please take a copy of this document to reflect on the final product and embed in your blog with your poster.

Summarise your findings in the blog post after the products.

Print out a PDF of the final version of your poster and give it to your teacher for display!

Well done – you have nearly made it to half-term.

Your tour poster

This is your chance to shine now. This is your chance to put all your technical skills with Indesign and your knowledge and understanding of how font, colour, images and language can help communicate a story.

BRIEF
A client has come to you with an image of themselves as a performer. Their style of music will belong to a particular genre. They want you to design a poster for an A4 page in a magazine, advertising and promoting their forthcoming tour. You must include the following:

  • Name of artist
  • Name of the Tour
  • Dates and Venues
  • Other information like: where the album can be bought/downloaded, tickets available from and prices etc.

Why not use this tour poster presentation as a start for inspiration or look at the previous presentation?

Consider AIDA – attention, interest, desire and action.

Look at this presentation of CD covers that relate to specific genres and you will see how ‘conventional’ the colour palettes are for each individual genre.  Make sure you too follow the conventions but create an innovative and eye catching poster.

Remember,  doodle, muse and research before you open up your Indesign.

The Basics of Graphic Design

AIDA

Your print work should aim to create ;

  • ATTRACTION
  • INTEREST
  • DESIRE
  • ACTION

There are basic typography rules that you will need to know and basic colour combinations too – red on green?  too many fonts not from the same family? serif or san serif?

Think of composition too and how the eye moves around the page.

Follow the basic rules and you won’t go too far wrong.

DTP and Indesign – mock up magazine cover

Lesson 1 + 2

Serena will take us all through the basics of:

  • PHOTOSHOP – how to cut out an image and ‘improve’ it (find your poster image to practise on).
  • INDESIGN – how to create a poster template, place a photo, add text, change colours etc.

 

Lesson 3, 4 + 5

  • You will be allocated a specific edition of the iconic music magazine, NME (New Musical Express).
  • The aim is to recreate the layout and to recap on the main conventional design features of a magazine cover.
  • Using Indesign – recreate/copy the cover you have been allocated.
  • Each of you will create your own version but you can work with your partner in terms of sharing ideas for fonts etc.
  • You do not need to find the exact photo – any one with a similar grouping of performers or artist will do or in fact you can add in a box with a cross through it if you really can’t find one that will do.
  • The main aim is that you have some fun with Indesign – find the right fonts, play with the sizing, kerning etc and do your best to lay out the cover with a conventional layout.
  • Here are some suggestions for cover photos – see the first slide for caveats on what you will and won’t be able to do with them but it might save you time trawling the web.

Lesson  6

  • Reflect on how you did – find 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses.
  • Set yourself some targets by finding @ 3 self help YouTube tutorials for any aspects of Indesign that you struggled with and embed the videos in your self assessment post.  Make sure you watch them in full this weekend in preparation for your own album poster design next week.
  • You may amend your draft 1, but it is important that you spend time exporting as a JPEG and a PDF, uploading  to your blog.
    • Remember to introduce the content (your mock-up front page)
    • Reflect on what you have learnt
    • Link in the online tutorials that will help you improve your use of Indesign next week.

Here are some examples from last year:

 

Complete Analysis of a Magazine Front page

Task

Complete a thorough textual analysis of the music magazine you have chosen from the previous class slideshow (some of the research will already have been done for you).  Choose a different one from the one  you did an audience profile for.

The analysis should include the following:

1) A description of their target audience.

  • To help you, you should use YouGov profiles lite
  • Another way to help you understand the target audience (of a commercial media product) is to look at the adverts within it.
    • Not the ads on their websites, (those are generate by cookies that help web companies follow you and give you personalised adverts), but the adverts they put inside the magazine (if you can find those).
    • You should also refer to the attached audience segmentation document to help identify a suitable classification for the target audience.

2) You should also explain their brand, which is defined in their mission statement.


(If you understand the audience and the brand this will help you unpick the design. The designers and editors will have had the audience and brand at the heart of their decision making and so should also be at the heart of your textual analysis.)


3) Identify & label the design elements of the front page (see previous post for help).

4) Consider how those design elements are shaped to communicate meaning, which will reflect the brand and mission statement – look for the signs, symbols, colours, fonts, framing, MES, facial expression, body language, language etc that have been used to convey a narrative, to represent a genre, to sell a brand).

Here is an example from a previous student that includes some very detailed observations:

This is the format we would like you to follow and use the sub-headings included. Some of the sections can be bullet pointed or lists, but others will require some analysis to include the terms: represents, implies, suggests, signifies etc when doing a textual analysis.

Use this link so that you can take a copy of the slideshow and insert your own image and do your analysis.