When putting my masthead on my cover it will need to be the second most noticeable and dominant thing on the page, obviously the main image being first. The masthead will need to represent the genre straight from the start The picture itself will have to be a medium close up. The model on the cover will also be made to make full eye contact with the camera. This is so the reader connects to the men/women on the cover, this technique is very effective. I have decided to keep the background fairly plain using a white/grey/black background. This is so that the audience doesn’t focus all of his/hers attention on the background itself but instead they will focus on the clothes that the model is wearing. This is most important with the front cover as the front cover needs to be especially appealing because this is what the reader will see first. Therefore it needs to attract their attention. The apparel that the model is wearing has to be bold and relate to the metal theme. This is so that the model but will stand out but it will not look out-of-place. The main image will need to relate to the main article, I have done this by having the model wear a Devil Driver T-shirt, this relates to Dez Farara and his main band Devil Driver, Dez was the vocalist in Coal Chamber and that’s how I think the main image relates to the article. It will have to be a consistent house style of up to 2 to 3 colours, consistency is key to keep the appearance of the magazine professional look. All of this bearing in mind, I will have to stick with the rule of left third. The front cover needs to have teasing contents, a bar code, price, date and issue.
The contents page will need to contain sections such as: live reviews, album reviews, gigs, tours, competitions and features. The font size needs to be fairly small such as 10. There needs to be page numbers giving reference to the location of the articles, with the name of them. Main colour scheme needs to continue too. The main image needs to have anchorage as well. There needs to be a few thumbnail images to illustrate various articles too. Finally, it needs an editor’s note.
For the double page spread, there needs to be a large, snappy headline. The name of the artist in large, clear font for a big impact with an introduction to the article with a byline. The article itself has to be written in columns with clear font, highlighted quotes from the article (pull quote) The main image must be dominant with anchorage text. It needs to contain the name of the photographer and a drop cap.
I think my magazine would interest many media distributors, my distributor must be capable of publishing magazines, and probably needs to be a more niche publisher, specialising in all areas and not specifically music, although this would be beneficial, as the magazine does target a focused area. I decided that MusicMags would be the best possible publisher for my music magazine, formed in 1996 by a number of small publishers, MusicMags is an independent publisher that specialises in music magazines, Music Magazines claims to have more value and expertise than most distributors, however this could alter the cost. Magazines are able to be shipped out to houses and can be sold for free or at a cost, for my music magazine I could distribute the music magazine free until it got enough awareness and then charge for the subscription. Music Magazines do a wide spectrum of genres; however they lack conventional rock, which is another reason as to why I chose MusicMags as my chosen publisher. MusicMags will publish my magazine to music specific places, such as record stores, or instrument stores, or venues, this would allow my music magazine to efficiently and quickly target its target audience, people actively interested in music.
The message that I intend to set out with my magazine is that it caters for ‘metal heads’ who don’t listen to ‘false metal’, there’s a lot of confrontation in my audience where people have different opinions of which bands are the most ‘metal.’ There’s a lot of false genres too and what my magazine sets out to do is give the audience a taste of good old fashion metal and destroy the fake. To showcase that I’m fairly serious with this, I will feature bands such as Black Sabbath and Municipal Waste. The message I wish to convey is that ‘metalheads’ are a tough crowd to deal with. The name ‘revolt’ would be appropriate as it sounds rebellious, fighting back against something. This links back to fighting the false metal genres.
The metal demographic are primarily 15-25 year old males. However, it is wrong to say that no one above 25 will be interested in the product. Metal is often a genre of music that stick with a person whatever age they are; it is not purely a phase. Therefore, this demographic is used only loosely, as the metal fan base is too vast to narrow down.It is true, however, to say that the male audience will be targeted more than the female. This is because the idea of metal appeals to the male gender, due to its themes of death & decay, often enjoyed more by males.
I intend to represent the audience in a positive way. The positive way is that ‘metalheads’ are like a big family, they look out for each other in ‘mosh-pits’, in short, basically having fun in getting hurt. There are negative stereotypes that is they all do drugs, consume alcohol 24/7 and have sex constantly. To a degree it is true, but what I want to set out is that it’s all about the music. In a way, I’ll be representing the audience negatively as they wear dark clothing which connotes a threatening persona.
