Question 3

BAUER MEDIA
One publisher that I looked into was Bauer Media, which I found publishes a huge amount of popular magazines of all different genres. These include women's magazines such as Closer, heat, GRAZIA and more!. Then there are the men's magazines, both entertainment and lifestyle: Empire, Kerrang!, Q and FHM.

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/home




IPC MEDIA

As NME magazine has been the most inspirational magazine in the process of creating my own, I looked into it's publisher. I found that it is IPC Media, a company who produce over 60 media brands inlcuding other magazines such as Marie Clare, Look, Now and many more.

http://www.ipcmedia.com/

When I think of what I consider to be the most popular magazines, they all seem to fall under these two publishers, and therefore I believe that either of these would be willing to distribute my magazine. These companies obviously know how to successfully promote and sell products, and have supported many of the most read magazines in the country today, making them a clear asset to have when looking to distribute a magazine.
Although they already house a lot of magazines already, the amount that they publish shows that numbers aren't necessarily a factor, and neither are similarities in the magazines. My magazine may have a few similarities to the likes of NME and Kerrang!, however I have tried to make it as unique as possible. That is, however, in relation to British magazines, not US ones. I have taken a lot of inspiration from Rolling Stone, so therefore I believe that they would help me gain a foothold within Britain and where Rolling Stone is a sort of hybrid of genres, fusing politics, fashion, art and music together- it started off solely as a music magazine, suggesting that eventually, I could aim for the same sort of thing.

Taking this into consideration, if either of these companies were to see my magazine and notice how unique it is, they would hopefully publish it alongside their existing magazines. I don't see it as competition for any of the current music magazines as it is attracting an audience who haven't really been catered for, and therefore won't have any effect on current sales, eliminating one of the reasons a publisher may turn my magazine down.

DISTRIBUTION

Once magazines have gained a publisher, there are many ways in which the actual product can be distributed. The main one of these for a magazine being in stores such as local newsagents and supermarkets. Depending on the type of magazine, they can be given away free in their relevant stores such as ASDA magazine which is simply given away in order to advertise certain deals available in the store. However as my magazine is a music magazine and isn't made along side a radio station like Kerrang!, it needs to be sold in mainstream supermarkets and newsagents.

Another form of distribution which has only come about in the past few years is magazines in the form of Apps. For example, NME have an iPod/iPhone app that can be bought through Apple. Having an app would broaden the audience of my magazine, and would also gain readers. The NME app is only 69p to buy, and requires no further payments. This is a very small price compared to many other apps, and therefore I think that it is frequently bought and used, with iPhones being one of the most popular phones to have around the world. If I was to have an app I believe that once purchased, it would give the buyer a taste of the magazine, and would hopefully persuade them to go out and buy the real thing.

This is me talking about where my product would be distributed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4_x5-rMvUU&feature=youtu.be

Evaluation Question 2

 

Rolling Stone is the magazine which I took most of my inspiration from, as it had the look I was going for, is a music magazine and is also of the same genre which I was aiming to achieve. Above I have chose three covers of Rolling magazine featuring bands similar to my featured. The cover featuring the artist Bob Dylan is similar to my structure, in terms of layout. Although this image may be different, the image on the Rolling Stone cover is slightly easier on the eye than mine, and his is an unnatural pose while sitting down. 
This is where the NME cover featuring Arctic Monkeys comes into play. I took a lot of inspiration of the entire band shot because it suggests unity. I feel like this summarises the feel and adds hype on the fact that they are a BAND and not a group of separate people. This is a good indicator of setting an image up for a band and when you look at my sell line 'Best Band In Britain', it suggests that they are new on the scene and this creates an identity. When you relate this to my target audience and theme of my magazine, I feel like I meet a convention because I try to sell the idea of British Guitar Rock- and when you look back into the past, the most successful ones are the likes of Oasis, Blur, Arctic Monkeys- all who are bands.
When you relate my cover to the one of Maroon 5, they suggest unity also. Although their lead singer has drifted off onto the American version of The Voice and sings on Slash's solo effort, before the past couple of years, they have been very much a proper band, with none of them really stealing the limelight. This cover here is from November 2012 and although he had began to garner some fame by this point, this image suggests that they still want to be viewed as equals. When you look at the pose, Adam Levine is standing at the front and is the most dominant of the characters- which may play to Rolling Stone's target audience of being interested in the All-American ideology as he is standing there looking like a confident metro-sexual male. 
My cover is portraying a group of young 'lads' all with vacant expressions which is relational to a hegemonic form of masculinity; this represents a young, male social ground, one who will likely appreciate British music of working class topics and look for bands who they can see as inspiration or respect them. I feel that my cover is quite arrogant and they look like they are portraying hegemonic characteristics- in showing no emotion. When you look at the one of Maroon 5 they look confident but not arrogant and actually look like nice blokes. This is relational to my audience because I feel that they will likely be working-class and although there is an obvious crisis in masculinity, they also still hold the attitudes of traditional masculinity, it is more the superficial exterior that has changed into a more feminine role- something I have met as they all have well-groomed hair and are dressed in smart-casual attire with a Topman sort of stylisation. The Arctic Monkeys one has a similar pose to mine, suggesting a jack-the-lad attitude. I think when you look at males, the stereotypical "super smiler" is very much only for women who are trying to appear confident. Men are expected to reserve their emotions.

Here's me talking about that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-JXDns3-Ck&feature=youtu.be

Question 7

This is my preliminary college magazine which I called Bede Times. Despite the fact I did this at the very beginning of the year without any help from my teacher or any further knowledge of the conventions of magazines, it's probably the stuff you'd expect to see from a primary student. It's awful. However, compared to my final product, my preliminary task is made to look very amateurish as I feel that my final product is of a quite good standard compared to what my abilities were at this point.

When you look at my final piece, it is of a much higher standard and there's literally nothing in common between the two at all. This is a good thing when you look at the original though. It looks sort of like a free newspaper with the biggest ink bill known to man. The fact I coloured the entire background in blue needs no words.
If I had to try and find similarities, I would have to look at the colour scheme which is majorly blue and white, which you could argue is relational to my red and white colour scheme on my final piece; it is clear that I have taken much more consideration into the layout. By studying different magazines that are already on the market, I was able to gain knowledge of certain music magazine conventions, and ensure that I included them in mine.


Looking back on the contents page of my college magazine I can see that I had very little knowledge of magazines and how they should look when I create that. It is very simple and very basic, and comparing it to the likes of NME magazine it isn't a magazine contents page at all. It is obviously that I have definitely learnt my way around magazine conventions, and what is needed and expected of a magazine in order to give the reader as much information as possible. The contents page looks professional and actually has images on, unlike my college magazine's contents page which simply has 4 pages of content listed and nothing else.

One of the most striking things that is made known by comparing my preliminary task and my final product is my widened knowledge of new technology. I created the preliminary task in Microsoft Publisher, and hadn't even considered using Photoshop as my knowledge was very limited. However now I have created a successful series of documents using Photoshop which are all consistent and have a very professional feel to them.

Overall, I feel that I have made huge progress from my preliminary task to my final product, and I have used my resources and feedback from the first task to my advantage to achieve a good final product. 

Question 6

In order to create my music magazine, Verve, I had to learn how to use certain technologies, and make use of pieces of kit that I already had. All of these things contributed to my end product of a cover, contents page and DPS for my magazine which had a professional appearance and engaging content. 

CAMERA - photography

One of the most important pieces of kit which aided the creation of my magazine was my camera. It is a Nikon Coolpix S3100, which is a 14.0 megapixel camera with a '5x Wide Optical Zoom'. This was the camera that I used to take all of the photos for my magazine.

COMPUTER

The other most important piece of kit in the creation of my magazine was the computer. This image shows my personal laptop which I keep at home, but obviously this wasn't the only computer I used to complete my magazine. The work which I completed in college was done on the standard PC that was available to me. Once I had taken any photos I needed to using my camera I then uploaded them to the computer using the SD card slot on the side of my laptop.

PHOTOSHOP

As well as using physical equipment to create my magazine, I also used the software on the computer in order to both edit and create my magazine. The main program that I used was Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.5 which was the edition which was accessible to be at college. At home on my laptop I have a different version of Photoshop however it was still compatible with the work I had done at college. I used Photoshop for two reasons: to edit the photos for my magazine, and also to create the actual documents.

Editing Photos

A lot of the photos that I took had background which I didn't want to be visible in my magazines, and therefore these images required cutting out. To do this I simply transferred these images from my 4GB SD card onto the computer and then saved them in a separate file. I made use of three tools to cut out the images: Magic Wand, Quick Selection and Eraser as shown to the right.

Creating the Magazine

As well as editing photos on Photoshop I had to use it to create the actual magazine. This required a lot more skill and I had to make use of more tools in order to make the pages successful. I placed the images that I had edited into an A4 International Paper sized document and used tools such as Text and Shape to add boxes and my main bodies of text to the pages.

BLOGGER
Using this blog has been the means with which I am presenting my planning, progress, finished work and evaluation, therefore it has played a key part in the whole process of making my magazine. By actually talking through each thing that has contributed to my magazine has helped me in the evaluation of my work, and has also helped me see what it was that I was doing wrong, in order to better my work and improve my grade. 

Question 5

COVER AND DPS MODEL
One of the ways in which I attracted my target audience was with the cover model. I use the band as a whole to create unity. None of them are really too over the top or unreal to look at they just look like your average lad. This is something I wanted to do because I felt that in order to create empathy, they had to be there to relate to and with the cover models I have, they just look like someone you would pass in the street. I feel that this image bends the rules a little bit and doesn't portray a musician as over the top and the mundane works as a tool to increase potential sales of my magazine. I wanted them to look confident, as they do; but only in terms of your tradition masculinity- that men are winners. And the fact they show no emotion suggests the traditional, hegemonic stance.

THE USE OF FAMILIAR ARTISTS
As well as including an up+coming newer artist on the cover of Verve, I also wanted to incorporate artists who would be recognised by the readers. I included Noel Gallagher and Bruce Springsteen, both of which have been a huge influence in the music industry over the years and have had many hits with the public within the field of rock and with Noel, British Rock- a key theme of mine. I only feature their names because gathering images of them would be impossible to use to a standard so good. The use of famous and old yet still current artists will give the reader a sense of familiarity, instead of them seeing a new magazine which only caters for the unknown and unsigned. In this respect I try to meet half way with new and old and these two artists represent that.

GIG GUIDE
On my front cover I offer up a gig guide. I do this to try and entice my audiences into buying my magazine. Then once they have bought the magazine, they'll likely read the content and there's always a chance they'll like it, which could garner a larger audience. I also place it within a golden star because that pushes it on the outside of the colour scheme and makes it something visible.

When you look at my contents page, I also mention the gig guide as being on page 6 and in the Specials part of the contents. This is me trying to emphasise to the audience that they should look at this because some people may only be buying the magazine for that reason, and it just makes it easier for them to follow. This way, they may return back to my product.

REVIEWS COLUMN

Speaking as a teenager, I know that when I have money, I want to spend it on things that I need, or that are worth while, and therefore I tend not to buy as many music albums as I used to. On the occasion that I want to buy some new music, I would much prefer to read some reviews about the album, and see what other people either my age or older think about it before I spend my money. I usually rely on NME magazine's 'Reviews' section to set me on the right path, and that's why I thought it would be necessary to include a 'Reviews' section in mymagazine. When someone picks up my magazine and flicks to the contents page to see what will be included, they will find that there are a number of reviews which will inform them of which albums are rated highly by professional critics and whether or not to spend their money on them. In my magazine Contents, I call the review second 'Hype' to create a buzz around the release of this new album.

SPECIFIC GENRE

As previously mentioned, the audience that I was trying to attract was teenagers who are into Indie/Alternative music rather than generic pop music. In order to do this, I had to model my whole magazine on this genre, as this audience wouldn't be attracted to a bright pink magazine with a pretty pop girl posing on the front as they aren't as interested in that genre of music. I took inspiration from NME and Rolling Stone magazine primarily; one of the Rolling Stone special editions. To introduce these newly designed covers, Rolling Stone issued a Jay Z special which was all I needed for inspiration. Their simple layout and sparse coverage caught my attention, and I really liked the way only red and white was used with his clothes working as a third colour, unlike Kerrang magazine which I find oppressive.

I haven't replicated this cover exactly, but I have only used the main colours on the cover of my magazine, although I have used a selection of different shades of this colour. Like Rolling Stone, this opens up an opportunity to change the colour of each edition by either matching or contrasting this colour to the costume of the cover model. This simplicity of my cover won't over-face the reader, and will allow them to take it all in without finding the cover too full.

Question 4

I feel that my target audience would be within the demographic of 18-25. If I had to separate it according to class and gender I would aim towards meeting a Working to Lower Middle class and a slight bias towards males. I feel that this is a good idea because when you look at NME, although it focuses on the same genre as me, I emphasise the 'guitar' aspect- the sort of The Jam influence with left-political lyrics that are there to meet and empathise with the working class. When you look at my cover art throughout, I feel that I emphasise males- not featuring a single female character. I do this because not out of sexism but the reality is that bands like that rarely feature female artists and those that do have influences with Punk were usually commercially sound- the likes of Blondie come to mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXewIR7Y7cc

In terms of the kind of person I am actually talking about, here is some examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE1ct5yEuVY   The Jam- Going Underground

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzrDeceEKc Oasis- Wonderwall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK7egZaT3hs Arctic Monkeys- I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor


This is someone in my class discussing what kind of person would like this. I feel that it works because although it is a female, she is of the target age that I speak of and the right music genre:

 

This image shows her at a festival which is instantly an alt/indie sort of cliche. The pint in her hand represents drinking culture explored by the working class;

This image is of her music tastes according to her Facebook page. These are some of the artists she has liked- all of them being male and of a left-wing lyrical stance. This to me suggests that although she is female, her music tastes appear to be primarily male with sort of masculine topics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qwv8egValc&feature=youtu.be&safe=active

I think that my audience are very likely to buy my magazine, as music is a huge part of their lives, and from personal experience, many teenagers can play an instrument and attempt to create their own music, relating to the idea of them being inspiration. I therefore feel that the content of my magazine is up their street, and that they would definitely create room in their budget for Verve.

Here is me talking about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38_irJB2Wbw&feature=youtu.be

Evaluation Question 1

http://animoto.com/play/GDZ4W1kHCGd3tqQRUp01cA

My magazine meets conventional themes in numerous ways, however, it also bares differences. I will split this analysis into four parts, so I can analyse each section of my magazine to see how they challenge or fit norms of other music magazines.
After I have done this, I will section my magazine into 9 parts to show how it meets conventions in more o

Overview
To summarise, my magazine is aimed at an Alternative/Indie audience. I handed out questionairres in my college class asking each student what kind of music they most liked. It was a divide- on most parts- between Indie/Soft Rock and R&B. The fact I have a preferance to the Indie Rock category, I decided to choose this as my USP. I already had an idea of what I was to do with this in terms of normal conventions and concepts (retro styling and choice of bands), whereas with R&B, I knew nothing other than the basics of what I have seen in interviews and music videos but in terms of R&B magazines, I knew nothing.

Front Cover
The masthead fits into the top right for one, which is an obvious and necessary choice as it gives a magazine its identity. The masthead must stand out so it requires attention to detail. Personally, I believe the masthead is the most important feature of a magazine in its first stages as it helps audiences recognise the magazine's identity when it's on the shelf. Look at Rolling Stone, their masthead is infamous. It is so well known that the traditional maroon-like colour has changed numerous times depending on who is gracing the cover and the colour pallette of that edition and people still recognise it. It is traditionally an American magazine but even in England, everyone is aware it exists even if is not sold usually sold in your local newsagents (you usually need to get it in a supermarket or a national chain like WH Smiths). Here is an example of how Rolling Stone can chop and change things but the magazine still maintains identity. Their font plays the part as it is pretty unique so the colour doesn't matter so much.

               
Traditional style                                                  Different colour pallette to fit in with certain concept  .                                                                   (emphasise Pitt's face on this piece- playing on his sex appeal)

Masthead

My masthead is similar to Rolling Stone, it used a Royal Acidbath font in a maroon colour. I used this this font and colour scheme to stand out against a white background and make my magazine look distinguisalbe from other Indie magazine around (NME, MOJO). NME is an abbreviation for National Music Express but instead of using something similar I decided to find a title with ties to music already. The word 'Verve' was what I decided on as I felt it summed up what I was aiming for in my magazine. It was a bit of a pun for its definition of showing "energy and enthusiasm in the expression of ideas, mainly in art", which is what I wanted to achieve, aiming for a raw and live appeal in bands I used. The other reason I used this word is its ties with the Britpop era and the band The Verve who were fronted by Richard Ashcroft and have anthems of the 90's such as "Bittersweet Symphony" and "Drugs Don't Work". The 90's were the pinacle of guitar music in the modern world, the closest we have been to the mass hype of the 60's and bands like the Beatles. Guitar music is labelled as a dying breed, but the 90's are evidence that trends have a tendency to come back around: the 80's were full of synth songs and the period of the New Romantic subculture where the 90's were a time when live bands, people playing real music was acknowledged and took artists like Oasis to heights that have only been reached by the Beatles, and are unlikely to ever be reached again. Therefore, to conclude on my choice of title, I chose this word because I felt it shows hope that guitar music will flourish again, which is a major theme of my magazine and it is contextually accurate.
  The reason I chose the font was to tie it with American music magazine, Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone is infamous and its masthead is probably the most well known of all magazines. To tie my magazine, visually, to something as large as that would be a major benefactor for sales. I believe that my content is different and I explore themes based solely around music so I would have a different market, however, in England there is a mass place for something like that. NME's sales are declining so they are forced to feature rap artists which will take emphasis off of their Indie section, so if my magazine found the best of the genre, I would have an instant audience. The masthead would sell my product because, although Rolling Stone features all manners of stories, it will always be remembered as the magazine that featured artists like the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Guns 'N Roses which will instantly appeal to my target audience. My reasoning behind this is that, although the genre of Rolling Stone is a variety, some of the bands and artists featured will appeal to my audience, infact quite a lot will as the artists featured usually have a certain charm about them that makes them global superstars. I suppose what I'm saying is that my masthead is a cultural marker and a British alternative to the Rolling Stone franchise.

Cover Image
The cover art also plays an important role. If an image stands out and appeals to a certain audience, it is likely that they will become curious and purchase the magazine. An example of this could be an infamous image of Roger Daltrey holding a Union Jack, this suggested a British Invasion band when that that phenomonon was in full swing... and in personal opinion, a British band of epic proportion.
The art can give identity whether that be through obvious means or the mise-en-scene; for example, if a band is standing in an Adidas jacket, a pair of jeans and some trainers on, it suggests that they are just your average teenager, however, if they are standing against a brick wall or a desolate site, it could suggest that they are working class teenagers and speak to that audience. It is all about recognition.

  As I chose to give my magazine a genre of Indie/Alternative I tried to use models that have originality to their style. My main image, posed as the band “Marlboro” have a very Indie look to them. The black and white effect used reinforces my intentions to make a 'retro feel' to my magazine and also fits the conventional colour pallette of dark and arguably bland colouring. The shot I use is a medium shot, this was for two reasons:

1) So that I could fit the band's attire in and allow it to work as an empathetic tool for my audience, who might see their dress sense and think it not too different to their own. This could instantly hook them to my magazine or at least allow them to give it a chance and depending on other factors such as sell lines, persuade them to invest within it.

2) The second reason was to enable emphasis on their face. Their age can be shown with the black and white tool, even accentuating it. I chose against using the airbrush tool as I wanted to show their adolescent spots and what not. Why? Because that's my target audience. I am trying to sell the fact that they are young, up and coming and worth the buzz my magazine is giving them. Not only that but within the Indie scene, I feel that if someone looks too well groomed, it sort of works against them, despite the irony in that sex sells within the music business. I think the music business is a big place, sort of like a web. It has all these different lines coming off it, each with their own characteristics. Within the rock one, I think grit works best. It sort of adds an element of mystery and hegemonic masculinity- a key element of working class identity (with men). Being too groomed could be viewed as feminine, something that isn't what my particular target audience respects in general; although it naive to say none of them do, I am talking in general terms and the majority view is where my USP is at.

Main Sell Line
By using descriptive phrases like “BEST BAND IN BRITAIN” and “Crisp vocals” (said in my Contents) I tried to subtly hint at the audience of the kind of music featured in my magazine- raw yet powerfully emotional. The band Marlboro are signifier of this. The fact they are my cover image and their Sell Line is in 'Palatino Linotype' font at 85.5pt, something that is symbolic of the emphasis I put on their story arc and how it is relational to the theme of my lexical choices used (as mentioned above) creating an overall atmosphere for my AS piece. The gold-ey effect that I create is to contrast the black and white effect used on my cover image as well as creating a majestic feel towards them, something relational to the lexical choice of 'BEST BAND IN BRITAIN' as if they are the kings of the Indie scene and my magazine is emphasising that. This is relational to other magazines as I am finding my USP and playing on that. With a lack of a serious Indie magazine out there anymore, I believe that there would be a market for my product that could be exploited.

Secondary Sell Lines
Another way that I attempted to make my magazine appear like a real magazine is through using technical vocabulary and vocabulary of a certain semantic field of British rock, examples such as “Exclusive gig guide”, “tour” and “Festival” which all have the connotations of a music  attached to them. 
Sell lines are also a major feature on a magazine. They tell you more about what to find inside. If your favourite band has an interview inside, you are likely to want to buy it to see what has been said. Sell lines also give away a lot about a magazine. If a magazine featured stories on Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys and Oasis, it would suggest they predominantly focussed themselves on British Indie bands which would be there USP. Recently, however, it has been in a grey area instead of a simple black and white; NME used to focus on Indie Rock bands, however, due to decline in sales, they have had to feature Rap artists in cover stories just to pick up sales. This suggests that music nowadays is more varied and a person can listen to all kinds of genres with general interest. This makes it harder to find a USP. That said, I still believe that there would be a niche market for Indie bands, so long as they were relevant to society and its changes- for example, in today's world we have just got out of a double-dip recession and face huge cuts under a Tory government as they refuse to spend if they can avoid it so for the Working Classes, it is hard times suggesting that a working class band who spoke of themes similar to their situation would be influential. It's become a cliche that sex sells, however, I would argue that it is empathy that sells. That saying was forged in the 60's which was an entirely different culture. What sells to an audience is empathy, empathy of the times they are living in.

Website
My front cover states that my magazine has an online site. This is because despite their being a market for my music and some people still buy magazines, the market is drastically larger when you take into account the online sales. I will take newspapers for example, a lot have had to rethink their business model to keep up with the changing tides of technological advancement. It's difficult to pigeon hole which way is the right way but it is worth a mention that the future could arguably be all internet based if the changing patterns continue.
Here are the figures of The Sun in terms of tabloid sales& internet views:

Print: 7,244,000 adults. (14% of the adult population)

However, that has declined by 250,000 in two years (June 2010 to June 2012)

Internet:3.3 million online consumers a month

Although still a strong following in terms of print, there is a growing market for the internet readership and it could be suggested that things will continue to follow that route. This will give my audience a stronger following. It is also worth noting that my average audience will be 18-25, suggesting that the readership online will be a lot stronger within that demographic as they are more technological literate. The Sun may not be the best example as there audience is majorly 45+

Artists That Feature
At the bottom of my page I have numerous artists that feature, all within the field of Alt/Indie, which maintains my genre throughout the front cover. Not only this, but featuring all artists on the front cover (no matter how small their part) could appeal to my readership as all it takes is for you to be curious about one of those artists. For example, if ever I buy Q, it is usually because there is an artist advertised who I am interested in and although there part in the magazine may be marginal, I read that first then have a look through the rest of the magazine and this is one of the ways I introduce myself to new music- if something another band or artist speaks about.I feature these artists with a sequence of grey, red to emphasise each one and maintain the concept of my colour scheme, remaining easy on the eye.

Band Name
The name of the band 'Marlboro' has obvious connotations with the cigarette brand in the US. It is the biggest cigarette brand in the world- relational to the sell line I have created as 'BEST BAND IN BRITAIN'. Smoking is-perhaps a little less than once- a symbol of masculine culture. It started as an elitist thing, however, over the years it has come to represent working men's clubs and was prominent throughout industrial period. If you look at old films such as Rebel Without A Cause, the protagonist is a smoker, something that has come to partly represent a rebellious culture- something that could be relational to an Alternative genre in the music industry. Also, Marlboro is a different spelling for Marlborough, a place that was defended from the Spanish by a John Churchill- a second name relational to British pride resistance during hard times. The fact it was from the Spanish could be appealing towards a modern audience due to the problems within the Euro Zone and how it is threatening the economy of Britain.
The actual design of the name has a gradient of a white overlayer on top of a dark yellow. This creates the gold effect, suggesting majestic connotations. I then added an inner shadow and drop shadow to emphasise the gold effect created- which takes away the interest in the bottom of the cover image that the text is on top of.

The Star (not sure what it's called)
I have chosen to feature this as I felt that I should emphasise that there is a free giveaway. The reason I have chosen to give it away is not only because it is conventional for a magazine to do so but it maintains my theme. The '12 page festival guide FREE' maintains my theme of an alternative audience as it meets the demands of their hobbies. Down Leeds festival, its demographic is an Indie rock/Alternative audience, featuring mainly only bands (this year is the first Eminem-a rapper- will play a headline slot) suggesting that my market is similar. Showing all festivals will potential entice my audience into buying my magazine.

Sky line
I have a sky line featuring at the top in the form of an award: 'INDIE MAGAZINE OF YEAR 2012'. I chose to capitalise this because I felt it was a strong statement towards the integrity of the magazine- that it's views has been acknowledged within the critical world and that the artists featured were genuinely worth being there. The lexical choice of the fictional award 'Indie' instantly indicates to my audience that it is addressed to them. The font used is a simple Myriad Pro, a formal font indicating that the award won is a formal one too.