Initial ideas for layout, the research questionnaire and photoshoot planning

Firstly, i came up with some intial ideas which i would then develop into my final magazine. I started by creating three different drafts for my cover page. I planned where the title, images, headlines and barcode would go differntly in each to see which layout i liked best. I used no colour or actual images, i just simply wrote 'headline' where i wanted a headline to go, for example. I did the same thing for both the contents page and double page spread.

I created a questionnaire to gain feedback from my chosen target audience in order to make my magazine suitable to them. I asked ten people altogether, 4 of them being aged 16 - 20, 2 of them 21 - 25, 2 of them 26 - 30 and 2 of them 31 - 35. I asked 5 females and 5 males to answer the questions in the questionnaire. I found that over half of the poeple asked read magazines on either a weekly or monthly basis but i found that over half of them read music magazines very rarely. The majority of these poeple said that photos were mostly likely to draw them into a magazine cover and that they would be most willing to pay £1.00 - £1.99 for the actual magazine. 10 out of 10 of the poeple asked said that it was important for the magazine to have a catchy title. The colours black, white and blue were most likely to catch the eyes of the audience this age and draw them into wanting to read the magazine. The majority of the poeple asked said they prefered Indie music to any other genre which was the genre i wanted to aim my magazine towards. Most of the people said that the expressions on the poeple's faces in the images should by casual and natural. I found that it was prefered for the people in the images to be wearing casual clothing and that a colour scheme in the magazine is very important. A running template is important and the image on the cover should go with the main headline. I found that these poeple preferred other images to be present on the cover and that a number of images should be situated on the contents page. It is very important for a number of images to be situated on the main headline pages and that this article should have a catchy headline to draw readers into wanting to read it. It was preferred for the article to be an interview and the majority of the poeple asked liked mixed bands. The mainheadline should be in the biggest font on the cover page and the headlines and sub-headings should be in different colours to one another to make them stand out. On the contents page people preferred for there to be a list of contents as well as images to support them and it was agreed that music magazines should be aimed at both sexes. I took all of these things into account so that my magazine would be suitable for my chosen target audience.

I then made plans for my photoshoots. These included: the names of the models involved, the locations, the equipment used, the costumes required, the props required, the dates and times the photos were taken and shot types and ideas for content. I filled each of these things out 5 times in order to show the different images taken on certain dates. The plans were accompanied by the final images to show how they matches my intial plans and what i was going to use in the magazine. I tried different angles, shots and locations in the images to give me enough choice on what to use in the magazine and which ones would more suitable than others.