Monday 5 December 2011

Research and Planning: Textual Analysis of a Magazine Front Cover

      
The magazine called NME focuses on a genre, which is music.  The central image is large and fills the whole page. There is no other images on the cover which means that this is a big and important. The main colours used for the writing are red and white which helps make the magazine stand out and very eye catching. The background is black which helps the image and the text stand out. It also help show that the image is important. At the bottom of the cover there are cover lines, which shows that there are more topics inside other than the main topic to get readers interested, which is printed small. The masthead includes a quote from a celebrity in an interview to draw more readers in to find out more. The front cover also includes different font styles to make it more eye catching.  The colours for the masthead are red and white and the font is large and bold which makes it stand out. It has a barcode in the bottom right hand corner. It also has a price, which targets people who earn enough money as it is £2.40.

Action Plan

WK1- 21 Nov
Introduction to brief
Analysis of magazines and how they target audiences
1. Set up blog
2. Put action plan on blog
3. Complete textual analysis of one magazine and post on blog

WK2-28 Nov
Analysis of school/ college magazines
Research of target audience
1. Complete textual analysis of school/ college magazines and post on blog
2. Post research of target audience on blog and review findings
3. Begin to take photos for own magazine

WK3-5 Dec
Produce a mock-up of front cover and contents page
Begin to design front cover and contents page
1. Post mock-up blog and provide commentary

WK4-12 Dec
Designing of front cover and contents page
1. Post final front cover and contents page on blog

19 Dec-4 Jan
Christmas Holidays
2. Work on evaluation questions

WK5-4 Jan
Complete evaluation
Final Deadline For Preliminary Exercise- Friday 6th Jan
Introduction to the Main Task
3. Post evaluation on blog

Introductory Blog Post




For my As Media Coursework, the brief asks me to create a front cover and a contents page for a college magazine and a double page spread for a music magazine. I will do this by using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop. I will be using this blog to record my planning and research, which should help me design and create an appealing magazine.