My Front Cover Ideas

The initial plan for my magazine.

From browsing news agents and a small amount of research  I have gathered a little bit of information about competing magazines which are already on the market, these have given me some basic ideas about my own magazine, this has led me to make some decisions about certain things.

Price: £3.50

Average Issue Size: 110 – 130 pages per magazine

Frequency of Publication: 12 per year/ one new issue every month.

Feature Articles: All the storied that appear on the front cover, an example is ‘Recent awards/music festival coverage, possibly some behind the scenes gossip.’

Regular Content: New song Releases, Top 50 Rock tracks, Launch of new albums, Free Gift ect…

Publication Plan.

Title: 619! I am working on ways that I can develop this name further.

Rationale:  The approach of the magazine is looking at Rock and Metal music in the world today, there will be an offer of articles that range in opinion and the content for the musicians will focus on what people that like this type of music are interested in.

Style:  Informal style, the magazine is aimed at music fans in their late teens (18+) onwards. It will contain humour and some of the vocabulary will be complex but only when necessary and paragraph length will vary depending on the article, but it will use terms specific to the music genera.

Regular Content:

·         Editors letter.

·         Fans letters.

·         New releases, such as number one songs or albums mainly focusing on the positive achievements.

·         Music festival/awards/tour cover, focusing on performances, head liners, stage outfits, reviews.

·         You’re Manager, a section where people can report and comment on artists/songs as well as look at positive and negative achievements of the band and give their opinion on everything that they are doing.

·         Flash – coverage of everything the readers will be interested in using pictures.

Feature Content:

·         Interview with slipknot (interviews with recording artists will become a regular feature).

·         Interview with ‘my act’

·         Download highlights

·         The story behind Avenge Sevenfold Tours.

·         Who is where? Which acts are headlining at which festivals this year.

·         Evanesce new album story (new album coverage will also become a regular feature). 

House Style:

Cover Lines: 'Brand New Avenged Sevenfold Album!' 'Download Headliners' 'Drowning Pool, new album. the state of rock? what went wrong'

Headlines: Franz Ferdinand, System of Down, Steel Panther, Ed Sheeran. 

Standfirst:

Captions:'LADY GAGA? What Has She Done Besides Wear Meat'? Mutiny 

Features of first paragraph: An enlarged letter in a Gothic front to give it the Rock theme throughout the magazine. On occasion it may also be in a different colour. 

Body Text:

Colour Scheme: Red, Black and White. 

For my front cover I have taken inspiration from these magazine covers and mixed it with my own ideas and come up with a set look for my front cover image.

- I have decided that I want a female on my front cover, as I am doing a magazine on the music genera of 'Heavy Rock' and it is uncommon to find a magazine cover for this type of music with a female.

- I am going to take 2 sets of images, one with just a single woman; she is going to be a solo artist. The other set of images are going to be with a female lead singer with the band in the background, as I am unable to decide which one I prefer I am going to look at the images I get from the photo shoots and decide which is better.