Pre-production work Initial names for my music magazine: 1. Sense= keen intuitive awareness of or sensitivity to the presence or importance of something. I really like the word “sense” for the masthead of my magazine, due to the punchy tone that it has and can imagine it fitting in with my style of magazine very will which is a combination of different music genres. The idea of “sense” reminds me of many connotations when it comes to music, from the easy description of listening to music being one of the 5 senses, but another being an individual having their own personal experience with music and it being a sensational experience which opens up the senses and can make someone feel many different emotions. 2. Fusion= the process or result of joining two or more things together to form a single entity e.g. joining lots of different genres of music together in 2 additions of my magazine. What I like about this word being my masthead for my magazine is the way in which it depicts the many genres of music that will be in my magazine, but also shows how I’m combining them into 2 separate issues. 3. Tune= a melody, especially one which characterizes a certain piece of music. what I like about the word “tune” for my masthead is how it’s very simple and punchy and makes an instant recognition towards music. my target audience of 16-25yrs will instantly recognise the genre of the magazine and the simplistic word can summarise the many things that music is made up of that’s that’s a tune.
Masthead designs (typography, logo, etc) 1.
Although I want to do a masthead which has serifs on which makes it conform to a sophisticated magazine, I decided in one of my designs to go for a capital letter bold 3D approach to capture the audiences eyes. This design connotes fun and an exciting approach to a music magazine. The way in which this design is placed could end up being above the ‘model’ looking like the masthead is springing above them.
2.
In this design for the masthead called “sense” I decided to use serifs to conform to my overall idea of sophistication within the magazine, however, to make this masthead stand out and catch the eyes of 16-25yrs I took design inspiration from my mood board because of the usage of symbols in the writing and thought it made the product have a sense over brand identity whilst conforming to a music magazine, hence the treble clef.
3.
Initially, I would like to take two designs through to my planning and experiments stage in order to play around with colour and to mock them up properly on in design, then from those experiments to then decide which one I would like to be my masthead for both issues of my music magazine. As these 3 mastheads need to target 16-25yrs with a mixture of social groups, I have decided to produce a survey of which I will get students and young adults within the age range of 16-25yrs and in different social groups e.g. ( male, female etc.) to choose which one they prefer and why. This will then help me to deduct one masthead from the 3 options so then I can carry forward the two in which got the most recognition.
For this magazine design of “fusion” I still kept with the sophistication of the serifs and the treble clef replacing the ‘s’, however, I wanted to incorporate the music theme into my design more so that the audience would pick up the referencing to music in the masthead. However, this design is my least favourite out of the 3 mainly because with the 1st and 2nd designs I can imagine them being a masthead for my magazine, whereas for this design I cannot see it being a featured masthead for my music magazine.
Survey: Name Tune
Most liked 6
Sense
3
Fusion
0
Reasons why? 1. “It’s the one that attracted my attention the most. It was very eye-catching and interested me more”- 17yrs female 2. “ it is the one in which I think would look best on a music magazine due to the stylized 3D design”- 17yrs male 3. “ I like the dynamics in the design by the use of the bottom half being small and stretching out towards the enlarged word”-16yrs female 4. “it’s bolder and more interesting”- 16yrs female 5. “It targets the audience” male- 18 1. “ it’s very stylish in the use of serifs and I like the use of a music symbol, it makes it very unique”-16yrs female 2. “it looks neat and perfected, it’s the most aesthetically pleasing”- 17yrs female 3. “I like the music symbol as its very creative and links to your genre nicely”- male 17
After collecting information on this survey, I have decided to take through the ‘tune’ masthead and the ‘sense’ masthead due to the positive responses and most liked. I liked the fusion one, although, it wasn’t a masthead in which I could see myself using on a magazine front cover.
Masthead experiments
From my survey I have discovered that my target audience prefer the 3D effect simply due to the boldness of it and how striking it looks as a masthead. I have now done some mockups on the computer of different positioning of the masthead ‘TUNE’ to see which one I felt looked the most effective in terms of it being in 3D. personally I like the positioning of the green one as its not too overexaggerated and is easy to read, I have changed the design slightly as on a magazine cover I didn’t feel like the stretched wording would fit well as a masthead and would take the attention away from the main image which I want to be my main feature. All the colours that I have used are the ones from my mood board of which I wanted to use within experimentation of my background. Personally, colour wise I prefer either the green or purple, however for the background of my front cover I would prefer a blue or red. From my survey 3 people liked my ‘sense’ masthead due to the simplicity and sophistication that it brings, I like the serifs which fit in with the sophistication as it conforms to a traditional way of setting a magazine, but also has that fun side to it. I personally prefer this masthead only because it fits in nicely with my brief and combines fun and sophistication together. I like how it creates its own brand identity with the use of the treble clef and think it would look nice, sophisticated and simple against my bold colours that I will be using on my front cover so will contrast nicely. First I need to experiment with colours of my main image as whatever I use for that I will incorporate into the masthead, therefore for mock-up purposes I am staying with black so I can see the effect of the idea.
Masthead editing stage
From my results of the survey and the results of my digital versions I have chosen to make this title which is very much like the original ‘sense’ title as for me designing this masthead I have decided that it fits in with the brief and is leaning more towards what Hearst magazine would make, rather than the other masthead ‘tune’. Although from my results I had discovered that the majority of people liked the bold 3d design I then took into consideration of the comments from the other masthead ‘sense’ and liked the comments that they made and to me where the comments and opinions that I was originally looking for in my magazine masthead as I wanted it to be fun a stylish, however also sophisticated like the Hearst magazine mastheads are. Because with my background and model I am using the same colours to create a sense of brand identity, I wanted to include that into the masthead as well, therefore making the front cover stylish and fitting in nicely with my brand of the magazine. However, I wanted to make sure that the masthead stood out to me and the audiences therefore, by keeping the blue, I had decided to outline it to give it that sense of boldness that the audience seemed to like from the masthead ‘tune’. In my next stage I will start experimenting with the colours of backgrounds against the colours of the model’s clothes and will change the colour of this masthead depending on the colour of background I use to see which one works best and which one I prefer.