Feedback

Did do a Skype call with tom wasnt sure how i could post the audio file so here is a transcript:

Me: so man what do you think i could do to improve the front page any positive or negative points? 

Tom: well you obviously need the images but i do like the idea of a fish eye, i think it would really go with the model you picked and the... well genre that you've picked. Ummm well im not sure if its my screen but your background looks a bit grey rather than black, im just saying as i think you wanted black. I love the erm text at the top great use of words to get the "Muse" bit in, little things like that realy stand out to me the black space well i dont think that will be a problem at all once.

Me: yer i was thinking that about the background didn't know if it was just me ether how about the contents? 

Tom: hmm have a look at the color code for it, right lets have a look. Ummmmm..... i really think that the text could co with being a little smaller, not the once on the pictures but the others, as i think professional seem to be smaller and have alot more so add some more man , apart from that just tighten it up a bit especially the second page the gap between the columns just looks to large.

Me: how about double pages

Tom: That rip effect is pretty awesome man love it, your missing the pictures but.... remember add the title to your second double page spread apart from that i like how you used lots of columns rather than just 2 on a whole page. 

Comparison of existing and mine

All magazines need a name that will grab you eye, the font, colour and size can be very important. This can be seen in NME where the font is block and usually quite big, the colours used are black white red, this way when the masthead              is on the FrontPage no matter what the background colour is it will stand out.  Due to this and the genre that my magazine will be focusing on I picked a quite unique font that will always be shown in white font. As for names there is two main types of names for magazines,  acronyms or abbreviations  like NME ( new musical express ) and Q (Q (( cue)) the music) and catchy names like Kerrang!, VIBE.  I decided to mix them both, I made Freat, it’s a mix of fret (part of a guitar) and threat one of the connotations of some rock or metal stars. This way its relevant to the genre and catchy.

Front page components, most if not all magazines have a general layout, being masthead, main image, main sell line, multiple support sell lines, information (date,issue number, barcode). Ive decided to put the information on the external  back page, this gives the main image a lot more space and lets the possibly buyers get a good look rather than seeing some boring text, I have a very large main image that will go on the front cover. Ive decided to have two main sell lines being “some say im crazy” and “A-Z of gigs part one free today]” these have been picked as they would work as a large hook to pull readers in, readers love free give always and a work like crazy will always pull you in to see why there given bigger fonts than the support sell lines.

Contents page layout and content.

All music magazines that I have seen have some sort of separation in their contents, eg : releases  or news, ive taken this into account have come up with the sub heading of News, Reviews, competitions. To stop the contents page being to boring ive added the occasional picture and what you could call pulled story, this is one that is taken out of its original place given a picture and made it stand out with a white box around the black text, also from what ive seen of magazines there is usually at least one image that isn’t a photograph meaning that’s its ever a drawing or computer generated , so I added a silhouette, this combined with the story title should help pull a possible reader in that is flicking through.  Comparing my magazine to a professional I see one key difference, mine is written from a bias angle, this is possible the USP of my magazine, it may make my target audience niche but that will mean I will have a more devoted audience that is more likely to buy a subscription rather than picking up the occasional copy.

Double page spread, through looking at many magazines I have seen how most of them have a whole page of text in 2-4 columns then a full page image, however I think this isn’t very space effective or visually appealing, so I decided to go for text over both pages with 1 long or multiple smaller images, this way the article ( written in 1^st person so has writers emotions) can refer to the images letting the reader look up every few lines or if the writer made a reference to the main image.  Ive decided against using pull quotes as I think sometimes these look tacky depending on the context or the quote used.

Draft Phillip