Week three

In week 3 we studied a variety of magazines for inspiration which resulted in me having a lot of ideas for what I could focus my main article on. I considered a Britpop reformation theme with props such as union jacks and mentions of bands such as Pulp and Suede. I thought this would appeal to a wider audience as that music genre consists of a variety of musicians and there is a lot I could have spoken about within the double page spread. Photo’s would have been a slight issue however because although it would be simple to interpret a Britpop look, I wouldn’t be able to find any body who looked similar enough to the actual musicians. I also considered a feature on The Cure because they have announced a headline slot at Bestival and there is alot that I could have spoken about for them. Although they have a trademark, recognizeable look as well, the same issue would have occurred with photographs. This also got me into thinking about a festival issue but because there are so many to choose from and I had a slightly limited amount of existing portrait photographs I realised it would be simpler if I first considered who I know that could look most like a musician and would also be willing to model for the photographs. With this in mind I decided to choose Hole because I know somebody who could resemble clear similarity’s with Courtney Love. This will be easier because she also has blond hair and I think we will manage to re-create a similar look. During the rest of the week we also practised analysing front covers by discussing the feel and colours of some existing examples through discussions and research in preparation for our own analysis of existing magazines. Finally, at the end of the week we also created a questionnaire to ask our target audience about such magazine features as layout styles, the font of articles and the location of images. This will help to gain a deeper understanding of how to create our own front cover, contents page and double page spread by asking what our target audience look for and enjoy reading already. It will help me especially to narrow down some of my ideas and gain a clearer perspective of what people want and therefore how I can achieve that. I have posted my questionnaire below and have also started to ask people who I know read music magazines to answer it.