Production Log 1

This is the first in a series of blogs showing the various production stages of my media production.

The Front Cover

I chose an edgy font for the masthead, which i uses connotations appropriate to my target audience. The bones on on either side of the text in the masthead was a spontanerous thought of mine which i think has gone well with the rest of my magazine so far. As mentioned in the previous blog - http://danbmedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/potential-layouts.html - i have included reversed-out coverlines aswell as normal coverlines.

The Double Page

This double page follows my original layout as seen in the previous blog: http://danbmedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/potential-layouts.html

Although i decided against the circular puff because it distracted the attention away from the main focus of the page, and also was unnecessary clutter. The text shown at this stage is merely "jabber"

This double page spread was made on Quark Express 6.5.

Time Plan

I plan to spend the majority of my time on the double paged spread, this is because i have already prduced a contents and front cover page for my preliminary task.
Firstly i intend to plan the layouts of my magazines and get an idea of what the photographs will be taken of. I need to think of colour schemes and fonts with the help of my research into audiences etc, and then the layour o such ideas onto the pages i am going to create.
I feel as though it is important to take my photographs first beforehand so i can get an idea of what the text is going to be about and use the pictures to encorporate this. What i am mostly worried about is whether or not i can think of a sufficient amount of shots to fulfill the chosen layouts, because afterrall theres only so many photos you can take without over crowding the page. If i can take a really powerful photograph for my front cover, i'll need to think of props and lighting, backgrounds, clothes etc, theres a lot more to an image so it will achieve the connotations you want.

Institution/Publisher Research

A magazine publisher produces lieratute or infomation for public view, these publishers spend a lot of their time buying or commissioning copies. Writers often first submit a query letter or proposal directly to a publisher according to submission guidelines or to a literary agent. Submissions sent directly to a publisher are referred to as unsolicited submissions.

The publisher usually controls the advertising and other marketing tasks, but may subcontract aspects of the process to specialist publisher marketing agencies. In many companies, editing, proofreading, layout, design and other aspects of the production process are done by freelancers.
The publishing process is organised into stages:

1.Acceptance and Negotiation - Once a writers work has been accepted by a publisher, commissioning editors negotiate the purchase of intellectual property rights and agree on royalty rates

2.Editorial, Design, Sales and Marketing Stages - These usually start simultaneously, and are often done by freelancers.

2.1. Editorial Stage - The writer may be asked to improve the quality of the work through rewriting or smaller changes, and the staff will edit the work. and then the staff will copy edit to ensure that the work matches the style and grammatical requirements of each market. Editing may also include structural changes and requests for more information. Some publishers employ fact checkers, particularly in non-fiction works.

2.2. Design Stage - Can be done by freelancers, but this includes the design of the front cover, the layout for each page, images and photograph placements, colour scheme and pretty much he entire look of the magazine

2.3. Sales and Marketing Stage - Publishing companies focus extensively on early sales interest, so as to get a lot of potential customers. When a final text is agreed upon, the next phase is design. This may include artwork being commissioned or confirmation of layout. In publishing, the word "art" also indicates photographs.

3. Printing - Before printing begins, a pre-press proof is created which is sent for final checking and sign-off by the publishing company. This proof shows the magazine exactly as it will appear once printed and is the final opportunity a publisher has to ensure there are no errors in the material. Some printing companies use electronic proofs rather than printed proofs. Once the proofs have been signed off, printing of the magazine begins.

The publishing industry is organised firstly, into the numbers of people or parties who own, control, or influence a given medium; and secondly, the numbers of people or parties who are exposed to, affected by, or influenced by, that medium.

http://www.ipcmedia.com/about/

IPC Media produces over 85 iconic media brands, reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men – that's over 26 million UK adults in print alone. IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio offers something for everyone, with a focus on three core audiences: men, mass-market women and up-market women. This means that IPC influences and affects more people than it is owned by.

IPC is divided into 6 companies:

IPC Connect publishes some of the biggest magazine brands in the Women's Weeklies sector, delivering 2.8 million sales each week.

IPC Ignite aims to be the leading media player in the key men's sector of lifestyle and entertainment.

IPC Inspire is IPC's men's division. With a portfolio of over 50 brands, it ranges from hugely popular specialist titles such as Country Life and Golf Monthly to iconic lifestyle brands including Nuts and Loaded.

Marketforce is the UK's leading newstrade sales and distribution company, successfully marketing 23% of the total magazine category.

IPC Southbank is the upmarket women's division, focusing on the two key markets of Fashion & Women's Lifestyle and Home Interest. Southbank is home to some of the most iconic magazine brands in publishing.

IPC TX is at the heart of British television, TX is home to a market-leading portfolio: What's on TV, TVTimes, TV & Satellite Week, Soaplife and TV easy.

The division into 6 sectors means that IPC is a large conglomerate that is run by Evelyn Webster CEO and a hierachy of business asociates. It was sold to Time Inc. the magazine publishing division of Time Warner.

http://www.ipcmedia.com/brands/brands.php here is a link to all the brands IPC publishes

My thoughts on IPC are that, because there is a vast hierachy within the company, the company is weak becasue the structure is spread out over a large portion. However because IPC have broken down their business in to different divisions it prevents a large hierachy occuring within these divisions and thus strengthens the brand.

Where some companies distribute their products in generic shops, independant distributers distribute their magazines in specific shops where they believe their target audience shops. For instance Vice magazine.

I think that Bauer media would be appropriate to publish my magazine because it has a varied portfolio of music brands that it already produces, and so it has large experience in that area of publishing. Bauer doesn't publish as many music magazines as other publishing/distribution companies, but i think that this is a good thing because it means that Bauer can focus more on my magazine instead of "lots of fingers in numerous pies" (to use the old expression) to put it simply, Bauer can afford to invest more time on my mgazine than other companies.

Potential Layouts

This is my primary double page layout, i took advice given from my cover page and interpreted them to suit my double page. For instance one friend put " i think for your target audience, more pictures are needed" so i took this and as yu can see there are plenty of images on the pages.
These are my 3 ideas for front cover layouts, i showed them to a selection of my friends and the response i got praised number 1 highly and number 3 poorly. some said that number 3 looked to "corporate" and "blocky" number 2 had the circular coverlines which didn't go down as well as i'd have thought. From this research i think that i will use layout number 1 because o the good response it got from my pals.

Audience Research

I showed my mood board to some high school friends, and they all had positive reviews because it included most, if not all, of what they like. The mood board itself covers: films, DVDs, Cars, Converse, Clothes, Guitars, Amps, Musical Instruments, Grafitti, Gaming, Phones, CDs, Skating, Computing, Magazines, Vodka, Concerts/Festivals, the world, all of which are interests of mine and others, and this was apparent when i showed it to others via facebook.
By showing this to my target audience, i now know that my audience likes all of the things shown in my mood board, however one response was that the emo grafitti in the top left corner was too stereotypical, and so i will try to add more colour than just black and monochrome colours, and try not to add too much "emo art".
The people i showed this to like the blues and reds but not too much black.

All the comments are:

"Agreed pretty much sums up Everything, loving the o2 acedemy ;)"

"Hmm .. maybe .. something to do with photography? Or that could just be me :P x"

"gr8 but where is the country tennagers there is no tractor quite franklybut part from tht lovely"

"think you have definately encapsulated the audience you are after. Using a festival is a really good idea because then you have a chance for adverts and competitions giving tickets for 'Download'. You've used a good festival as well rather than a more indie fest like Reading or V-Fest.
The leisure activity references are really well targeted and seems well thought out."

The latter comment (contributed by Mike Paul, thank you) has praised my mood board, his ideas about the competitions are of good value and can be used for puffs, however i am intent on not including adverts, largely due to there being a lack of need to include one.

I also showed a few friends existing music magazines, to my surprise, some of my friends actually read these magazines and had something to say. At first glance one of my friends liked the layout of Kerrang! because it was "simple and to the point" Another said that the Metal Hammer cover " was cool" but it was also said of the Metal Hammer magazine that it was trying to be tough and failing, because of the images of people posing and acting tough.
Rock Sound appealed to all of the people i showed it too. They said it was "simple but not too simple" " has a sense of humour" and "wasn't as patronizing as Kerrang is" Kerrang was seen as patronizing because it used words like "mag" and "awesome" and that came across as too try hard.

From these results on diferent music magazines, i will not b=make my use of language too colloquial like Kerrang, because that was a big turn down for the audience. Metal hammer was full of posers according to some. Rock Sound is the best existing magazine to use as a guru so to speak when creating my magazine. :)