Lifestyle Questionnaire Results

I asked four people to take my lifestyle questionnaire: two girls and two boys. These are the results I got:

1) Which of the following age brackets are you in?:

      (16 and under)    (17 - 20)   (21 - 26)    (27 - 30)   (30+)
2) Do you or have you ever owned an iPhone?
       Yes             No
3) Do you invest money in good quality headphones?
       Yes            Sometimes         No
4) How many concerts/gigs would you say that you attended per year?:

       1 - 5             6 - 10            11 - 15       16 - 20        20+

5) Which genre of music out of the following do you prodominently listen to?

        Pop            Rock         Metal         Classical        Hip-hop/Rap

6) How many hours per day would you say you listened to music? :

       0 - 1hr        2 - 3hrs       4 - 6hrs         7hrs+ 

7) What do you think of the name 'ACID' for a metal magazine?

       Terrible         Bad             Okay          Great         Excellent

8) What do you think of the colour scheme of this cover?

       Terrible         Bad             Okay          Great         Excellent

9) What do you think of this issue's cover photo?

       Terrible         Bad              Okay         Great         Excellent

10)  Do you think that the price of this magazine (£2.50) is fair?

       No             Maybe            Yes              

Girl 1: (16 and under), Yes, Yes, 6-10, Rock, 4-6hrs, Excellent, Great, Great, Yes
Girl 2: (17 - 20), No, No, 6 - 10, Rock, 4 - 6hrs, Great, Great, Great, Yes
Boy 1: (21 - 26), No, Yes, 11-15, Metal, 4 - 6hrs,  Excellent, Great, Great, Maybe
Boy 2: (17 - 20), Yes, Sometimes, 6 - 10, Classical, Great, Okay, Great, Yes

From this information I can tell that Boy 1 is within my target audience.

Contents Page

Analysis of a magazine contents page

This is my analysis of a metal magazine contents page, I liked how it was so clear and still looked well designed and visually pleasing.

I really liked that it had two columns, one for the features and one for the regular pieces, that's something I think I would like to put into my contents page. Something I wasn't too keen on was the amount of photos in it though, I liked that it was visual but the contents page isn't an area where people want to look at photos, it's more of a reference page.

This is my contents page. I didn't like the look of having too many photos but I made it slightly more visual by adding the design in the background and one photo. I found it difficult to think up all the articles but the professional contents page I looked at was helpful, so I used the same kind of format.

Double page spread plan

As you can see my plan for my double page spread is extremely simple. While looking through professional spreads I tended to find that they were mainly constructed of visual elements and large wording with the text crammed into the bottom of the page.

Double Page Spread Research

The give me a greater insight as to what the conventions of a double page spread are, I decided to look at a couple.

This one is a double page sread from NME:
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And this one is Kerrang!:

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Photos

Here are the photos I was choosing between for my magazine cover:

This is the one I ended up choosing; I liked the pose, the face and the space around the model.

This one is at too much of an angle, the head is where the masthead would be and most of the body would end up having to be cropped out. I like it as a photo though, and it may come in handy for my double page spread.

I think this is an interesting photo but there's too much of the model. It would have been better if it was zoomed out a little bit, but for a cover photo I don't think it would have worked, the face is very important.

 I want to use this one for the double page spread but it's absolutely no good as a cover photo.

Lifestyle Questionnaire

This is the lifestyle questionnaire that I will have some people answer:

1) Which of the following age brackets are you in?:

      (16 and under)    (17 - 20)   (21 - 26)    (27 - 30)   (30+)

2) Do you or have you ever owned an iPhone?
       Yes             No

3) Do you invest money in good quality headphones?
       Yes            Sometimes         No

4) How many concerts/gigs would you say that you attended per year?:

       1 - 5             6 - 10            11 - 15       16 - 20        20+

5) Which genre of music out of the following do you prodominently listen to?

        Pop            Rock         Metal         Classical        Hip-hop/Rap

6) How many hours per day would you say you listened to music? :

       0 - 1hr        2 - 3hrs       4 - 6hrs         7hrs+ 

7) What do you think of the name 'ACID' for a metal magazine?

       Terrible         Bad             Okay          Great         Excellent

8) What do you think of the colour scheme of this cover?

       Terrible         Bad             Okay          Great         Excellent

9) What do you think of this issue's cover photo?

       Terrible         Bad              Okay         Great         Excellent

10)  Do you think that the price of this magazine (£2.50) is fair?

       No             Maybe            Yes              

Magazine Cover Initial Ideas

The theme of the magazine is going to be phscology, and the way people think. I want people to view it as the brink of insanity, a kind of calamity and sadness. I want people to feel sorry for the cover model. I also want to look at emotions: anger, frustration, etc. So I think the colour scheme should be black and white, and I want a white background and prefereably a midshot of my model.

Magazine Cover Plan

Here is the plan for my magazine cover so far, I have yet to take my photos but I have thought about the design. Things may change around once I take my photos.



I'm quite happy with the font of the masthead and the design of the puff, and for the time being the arrangement is fine. The one thing I definitly will change is the price, I think it's a little bit too expensive. I think £2.50 would be better.

Magazine Name Brainstorm

As part of my plan for my magazine cover I need to come up with a name. So far I am set on the name 'Acid': it's short, easy to remember and easy to say; it has an association with drugs which fits in well with heavy music; it is also linked with chemistry and toxic experiments, dissolving or extreme temperature which was something I wanted to get across.

I was also thinking about 'Metal Mania' which I thought was too long and didn't fit well with the nature of the magazine, 'Elements' which I liked but I thought it was just too obscure. I think the name 'Acid' is the way to go.

Designing the name is proving to be quite difficult. I want something clear to read but I want it to be eyecatching.

Out of these fonts I like the first one, the fourth one and the fifth one. The second one is too simple and not quite bold enough, and the third one makes such a simple word quite difficult to read. I really like the fifth one but I'll have to wait an see whether it's able to stand out among lots of text and images.

School Magazine Cover Photos

The main thing that I think goes into a magazine cover is the image, it's always in the centre of the publication and the first thing the eye lands on, so it's important to try and get it right. I took a few pictures of a sixth form girl at my school to use for my cover.

The image has to be a mid-shot and I have to allow room for the masthead and some coverlines so that they do not overlap the image too much. I initially like number 29, but I think that the angle is a little bit too high, and I think I'm going to rule out all the images where her legs are in the shot, which is the majority of them. I think that the one I am most likely to use is number 27.

I think this one is good because it leaves enough room for the masthead and the background, though in focus, is not too distracting.

Mock-up Front Cover of School Magazine

Taking the real school magazine into account, I created a basic plan to create my own.

To create this I used some typical conventions used by the media, for example having puffs on the cover and making coverlines to make people want to read the publication, but I did not use a barcode or make space for a price as I know that this not a magazine that will be sold.