Research

Front Covers
From looking up music magazines on google I have found a variety of different types of magazines based on genre and the target audience.

Initially I wanted to produce an Indie/Rock magazine as that is the type of music I am most familiar with, but due to the amount of previous students that have produced this type of magazine I wanted to try something different.

These magazine use a lot of colour and fonts, and the front covers are very busy. Also this genre of music is made up mostly of bands which may be hard to recreate when producing my own. I prefer simpler house styles as I think they look most dramatic and effective. However, the target audience, being an older teenager/student is appropriate for what I am looking to do as creating a magazine for a different age group than myself may be difficult.

From researching magazines I was drawn to "Blender Magazine" as the style is simpler, and bold. Also, I like the idea of a solo female artist for the front cover and feature of my magazine. These magazines all use around 3 colours, mainly black/gray and one bright colour which I find really effective. Also, I like the use of transparent font on the artist name like on "Alicia"which is something that I could use in my own work. The fact that this magazine company taregets women artists appeals to me, and therefore could be something that I could incorporate into my own work.

Contents Page
By using Google alone to look for images of magazine contents pages was difficult as there was only a few to choose from. However, these examples have helped me in understanding the layout to magazine contents pages.

However the first two examples don't fit the look I am hoping to achieve in my magazine, as well as the "Heat" contents page isn't from a music magazine therefore may not represent what I am going to produce. The thrid contents page is from "blender" magazine which has the look I am hoping to achive, however I am not keen on this contents page.

Double Page Spread
Again I found it difficult to find many images on Google of examples of double page spreads;

I like the layouts and content of both these double page spreads. The one on the Left is in a diary style with shapshots of different places, this would be inaproprate for my magazine as it doesn't tie in with the solo artist theme I am going for. However, the My Chemical Romance spread could be something similar to what I choose to do as it is on set of recording their new album.