Front Cover Plan

I've created a plan of what my front cover could look like. It's not definite, as it can change depending on the photos I take, however, it shows the basic layout I'd like to acheive. When I come to making my magazine cover in Photoshop, I will be able to refer to this plan which will make it easier and I'll also experiment with different layouts.

Photo shoot Storyboard

To prepare for my photo shoot, I have drawn and annotated a few shots that I'd like to take, including the location, props, lighting and proxemics. When I come to taking the photos, I will experiment with different shots and poses - these are just a selection of ideas. This will help me with my photo shoot because I'll be able to recreate each idea, giving me a variety of shots to choose from for my front cover.

Acoustic Music Magazine Research

As my chosen genre is acoustic music, I thought I would search online for some existing magazines that focused on acoustic music. I came to realise that there are not many magazines at all within this genre. However, I found a magazine titled "Acoustic" which seems to be quite well-known. This particular issue caught my attention because it features the artist James Morrison on the cover, who seems to be popular with my target audience, as I found out from my questionnaire results. This magazine cover is quite basic with a simple layout and little variety in fonts. I think it would appeal more to a male audience because the blue colours connote masculinity. As my target audience is primarily females, I will use a different layout and colour scheme to this magazine.

Questionnaire Results

Above are 9 out of the 11 questions within my magazine questionnaire. I've displayed the data in pie charts, so the largest percentage of votes on each question is clear. I mainly asked teenage females, as they are the main target audience for my magazine, but I also asked some males as well to get a wider range of opinions. I firstly asked whether acoustic music interests them, and got mainly positive feedback, which supported my chosen genre of music to include in my magazine. Next, I asked which of the masthead names sounded best for a music magazine aimed at ambitious musicians. Aspire was by far the most popular choice, and I think it's the one I like best too, so I'm pleased with that result. Most people were willing to pay between £1.50 and £2.50 so I will bear that in mind when displaying the price of the magazine on the cover. I also asked what type of article people preferred - some liked reviews but most preferred interviews, so I think for my double-page spread an interview is the most popular choice. Similarly, most people are persuaded to buy a magazine if they have articles on artists they like, so I will try and make my double-page spread as appealing as possible, to make people want to read it. Another important feature which lures people in are the images, so I will take care in taking my photos, to ensure they stand out enough to gain my audience's attention straight away. The most popular magazine cover was Rolling Stone. It had an image of Taylor Swift with a guitar and the layout was very simple. I'm pleased that this was the most popular choice because it was my favourite too and I plan to use a similar layout on my magazine cover. I wanted to find out people's preferences on which artists to feature in the magazine so I gave a list of artists within the acoustic genre to choose from. The most popular choice was Taylor Swift, but James Morrison, Jason Mraz and John Mayer were also chosen as people's favourites.

Lastly, I asked which font was the most appealing. The results revealed that the following two fonts are the most popular:

I prefer the first font, but I will experiment with both and attempt to make a mock-up of a front cover.

Acoustic Style Music

I've added a few links to some songs in the style of music that my magazine will promote. These are by some artists that I want to include in my magazine...