Logo Research:

Having already given basic breakdowns of a few magazines, such as their price, target audience and logo I looked back at what I could say about each logo and thought about what aspects of each I could incorporate into my own.

                                                                                         

First of all there was Kerrang, which I saw as being a sloppy out loud celebration of the punk genre and attractive to a younger teen audience. Having already decided that my magazine was to be aimed at a more mature teenage or young adult audience I felt a logo like Kerrang would be a little inappropriate.                                      

I saw Metal Hammer to be halfway between a punchy punk rock logo and the refined smooth 'Classic Rock' logo below. The pointed tips on the edge of the 'H' and the 'R' reminded me of the sharp tips that many Gothic styles embraced. 

 Classic Rock was a brilliant example of a mature, neat and tidy logo that was aimed at an older audience. Essentially the logo is quite simplistic and less violent or eye-catching than Kerrang or Metal Hammer.

Ideas for my Logo:

I decided to incorporate the kind of strong, violent character of Metal Hammer with the more delicate and tidy Classic Rock logo. I wanted to create a logo that stood out from the page, as bold as Metal Hammer but made more into a more ornate piece.

At first I was looking for a dark coloured or black logo, but decided I wanted my logo to have the effect of appearing on fire. This would make whatever font I used more aggressive, making it more suited to a heavy rock or metal magazine.

Evolution Of The Font 'Chaos'

At first I was going to use this font I developed, deciding it worked best as 'Chaos'.

First of all I used VTKS Rock Garage Band font from www.dafont.com 

I chose this font because it fit the two criterion which I wanted: Stand at from the page as an aggressive font while being more ornate and flowing than Metal Hammer or Kerrang.

At the initial stage, the font looked like this.

I then decided to add blur to the image, by using GIMP image manipulator and using a combination of smudge and roughen.

I then used pencil tool and smooth to remove the centre of the 'O'.

Finally I added Gaussian blur to the font to finish it. At last being satisfied with the font, I used it in the front page of my music magazine but not as the title, merely a false label on my guitar.

You can see 'Chaos' on my guitar as a small addition to the front page. I used it to give the connotation that the character on the front page was a member of the band 'Chaos' that would appear later on in the magazine for the double page spread.

Stages Of Editing The Title Font 'Pure Metal':

After I found that Chaos did not work as well as I had hoped for a title font, I decided to start drawing out other ideas for what sort of font I wanted.

 

While I had a whole page of font ideas I had drawn out I selected to include this particular one as it has each letter done in a different style.

I was able to find a font with a serif on the 'R' and 'A' that I particularly liked. The font is called "Scorch Flash Font" and it is once again from Dafont.

To make the font look more aggressive I used the Gaussian blur once again, as before with 'Chaos' and then turned up the contrast. Finally I changed colour settings so that all the shadows were dark red.

The end effect made the font look like it was on fire. I decided I would go with this font on a black background to draw the most attention to the effect. The above image is how the font was used in my Music Magazine front cover.

Plan for Photographs:

Front Cover:

The main image should be like that of the Front cover of the school magazine. A medium to close up shot of a person. However, to adapt to the genre of the Music Magazine the image would need to be more provocative.

In this example from an October 2008 issue of Rocksound magazine, the image comes right out of the page rather than remaining static. The boxing gloves and pose fits with the sub-heading in the bottom right "'Fall Out Boy' Come Back Fighting."

The way I am to achieve the provocative and active front page image is by making use of paraphernalia of the Rock genre. Such items like instruments (chiefly guitar), smoking or substance abuse (the later being perhaps too provocative a connotation for a school project). A photo shoot for this would require an experimental approach to see what was most effective as a front page image.

Also unlike the School Magazine Front page, the image for the music magazine would have to look more posed and beautified (or after effects added) as opposed to the more natural (in most cases) appearance of the School magazine.

Contents Page:

Rather than repeat a central image that dominates the page like in the front cover, I decided to go for more of a collage of shorter, snappier images that showed active bands. This could perhaps link to text on the Contents page, advertising such bands later in the magazine.

The images used could be as simple as casual photographs of a band, like 'My Chemical Romance' above. When images of a similar nature are put into use on the contents page the finished piece looks similar to that of Rocksound Contents page below.

Here, six images are used all on one page. With the main text occupying it's own set area in the bottom corner. Five out of six of the images have accompanying text on them, directing readers to the relevant pages.








In contrast, a very different Rocksound contents page, where only the main image is used. Once again the text is confined to one area of the page, leaving the image to dominate.






As I am going for the first option, of smaller, more collage like images of bands I will need to take a variety of photos of different groups posing in different ways. For example I could have one group of five standing talking, another group of four sitting down, a single artist or two or a small group playing musical instruments. The key to these images is including a lot of people, giving the connotation of lot's of active and very different bands or artists covered in the music magazine.

Double Page Spread:

For this final project, I am going to try using a more artistic and expressive photograph. I felt that the only limitations were to make a solid connection between the image and either the album that it is for, or the band that the double page spread is about.

In this double page spread from Metal Hammer, there is a rather voyeuristic shot of an artist through the trees. The band name being 'Porcupine Tree' the connection justifying an otherwise potentially puzzling image. Rather than separate the two sections of image and text, I would prefer to use an image with dark borders that allowed white text to be written onto the image.

I aim to find an interesting yet practical photograph from a selection that I will be taking as part of an AS photography unit on portraits. This will require intuitive thinking as to set location, and themes that the image will convey. This last photograph should be the most striking and memorable of my Music Magazine.

Proposal Of My Music Magazine:

My magazine will cost around £4.00

My magazine will consist of around 120 pages

My magazine will be sponsored by 'Thomann' guitars

The Magazine will be distributed by 'Future' Publishing

The Magazine will come with free stickers or guitar picks or other 'freebies'

Possible Names:

Rage-Bold Red

Mosh-Steel Grey

Chaos-Undecided Colours

Sludge (Kerrang style alternative)-Toxic Green

Awe

Metal Artist

Metal Virtuoso

RAW

Pure Metal

Analysis Of Music Magazines:

Metal Hammer

Target Audience:Mature Teens and Young Adults

Price: £4:25

Extras: Free CD's Posters and Stickers

Logo: Metal overshadowed by the dominating 'Hammer'
Hammer giving the connotation of metal anyway.
The text is broad, recognizable and not delicate or ornate. A halfway-house between that of Kerrang and Classic Rock.

Kerrang

Target Audience:Mostly teens

Price:£2:20

Extras:Posters and Stickers

Logo: A good characterization of Punk Rock, punchy, sloppy, battered around the edges. Brilliant for appealing to teenage audiences.

Classic Rock

Target Audience: Almost all Adults

Price:£4.50

Extras: Free CD's Posters and Stickers

Logo: Not brilliantly elegant like calligraphy writing, but a much more refined logo than Kerrang. The idea of 'Classic' being unimportant, while 'Rock' stands out on the page is essentially the same as Metal and Hammer. Unlike Kerrang, the logo is sophisticated and tidy, appealing to it's more mature target audience.


Primary Research:

To get an understanding of what the majority content was in music magazines I went through an Issue of Rocksound and made a tally of different types of pages, I then compared this against the total number of pages (131) and turned the data into a pie chart. As seen below:

The pie chart clearly shows that Band interviews and news of upcoming events take precedence in Rocksound and this is something that my Contents page would have to reflect to make it seem more realistic. Below is the table for raw data, giving a numerical breakdown of the statistics.

Band Interviews	58
Reader Submitted Content	14
News of upcoming events, tours and albums	39
Adverts	11
Other (Contents, Posters,Puzzles)	9
Total	131

I then started asking friends, family, peers at school about their music magazine habits and preferences. The statistics and explanation are below.

	Under 13	14-16	17-21	22-30	31-45	Over 46
Age	2	7	19	5	6	1
	Jazz	Classical	Classic Rock	Alternative Rock	Pop	Electronic
Preference of musical genre (first and second choice)	4,9	5,2	8,14	6,1	9,4	3,5
	Never	On Occasion or only special issues	Almost Bi-Monthly	Almost Bi-weekly	Almost Weekly or more
How often do you buy music magazines	3	11	12	6	3
	Under £2	£2-£3	£3-£4	£4-£4.50	£4.51-£5.00	£5.01-£5.51	£5.51-£6.00	£6.00	N/A
How expensive is your chosen music magazine		6	6	15	3	1	1	2	3
	CD	Poster	Stickers	Toy	None	N/A
What freebies does your magazine come with	19	31	27	4	2	3
	Not particularly	Partly	Mostly	Very Much	N/A
Are you generally satisfied with your magazine	1	4	16	11	3
	Total Asked
	35

Some things like a free poster were obviously going to be popular and expected free items to come with the magazine.

Classic Rock and Jazz were shown to be popular second choices for people's preferred music magazines.

What surprised me the most was that 14 out of 35 people said that they either never bought music magazines, or only went for special issues.

Music Magazine Readership: Metal Hammer

Age:

This particular magazine has been in circulation since 1986, but instead of attracting older Metal fans the average age of readers for this magazine is around 22. This age demographic is high enough to bring about expectations of maturity within the magazine, without leaving the magazine inaccessible to mature teen audiences. For example, although the average age is 22, the magazine could be said to be 'appropriate' for readers aged 16-40.

One way that the magazine achieves a large appropriate age range is by covering Metal or alternative rock groups from all different periods and genres.

In this particular front cover for example, Metal Hammer has made this false rivalry of "Slash Vs Avenged (Sevenfold)." As if to include both the slightly older fans of the guitarist known as 'Slash' (who's career perhaps peaked in the late 1980's with the group 'Gun's 'n' Roses') with the much more recently famous 'Avenged Sevenfold' (breakthrough album 'City of Evil' 2005)

Gender:

Having looked through a few dozen front covers for Metal Hammer, I was not able to find a single one with a female artist on the front cover (not to say there isn't one). This is perhaps proof of the male-orientated nature of the magazine. Reflected in it's astonishing audience demographic that is 85% male dominated. 

In the June 2012 issue, Metal Hammer did coverage of the band "Butcher Babies" and released this poster with it.
Needless to say if the audience for the magazine was less male orientated there likely would have been more controversy over such an image.

Another example of sexism on Metal Hammer's own website, with the same offending band. This time being interviewed, while there are no graphic images there is descriptive text which is very blasé about the degradation of women. The link will be provided at the end of this post, but two extracts from the offending texts would be "self-proclaimed slut-metal L.A superstarlets" or "Warning: Contains reference to nipple tape." 

These are the more "extreme" moments of sexism, and the magazine aims more to be humorous or to engage with a targeted male demographic than they mean to cause offence.

Price and Publisher:

The average price of Metal Hammer is £4:25 and an issue is released once a month, with a special issue once a year. This price sits higher than Kerrang (£2.20) or Rocksound (£3.60) primarily because of it's higher quality but also because of it's more mature demographic that would have some source of income (Kerrang certainly is more for teenagers) Metal Hammer is able to charge a higher price for it's product.

According to ABC, Metal Hammer suffered a slight decline in popularity comparing 2010 with 2011. With 41,800 subscribers in 2010, and only 35,200 in 2011. This is a decline of 15.7% and could be quite serious in terms of the stability of the magazine.

The publisher for Metal Hammer is 'Future' (PLC).

Future Publishing is also the publisher of these other music magazines, most of these being steered towards guitarists and rock music genre:

• Classic Rock
• Computer Music
• Future Music
• Guitar Techniques
• Guitarist
• Total Guitar

Advertising and Sponsors:

In a survey, 80% of those that were subscribed to Metal Hammer said they were often persuaded by information in the magazine to go and buy a new or previously released album.
Although ABC reported a slight decline in readership, the magazine holds promising opportunities in it's power of advertising. Nearly 30% of the magazine itself is comprised of adverts. The subject of these adverts are:

• Band merchandise
• Band tours
• Music festivals
• Music Instruments (both secondhand from other readers, or brand new)
• CD's (often covered within that issue, or a later issue or a previous issue to inform the reader)

Metal Hammer is sponsored by several different companies, one of the notable sponsors is Thomann guitars.




Being sponsored by a guitar manufacturer, as well as published by Future an avid supporter of guitarists, Metal Hammer then carries on the implication that the magazine itself is primarily a Metal magazine but with the admiration of guitarists in mind.

The second sponsor to be mentioned is the Heavy-metal enthusiasts favorite music channel 'Scuzz'. The simple reason for a pairing of the music channel and the metal magazine is that they target essentially the same demographics and benefit from the prosperity and popularity of the other.

Summary:

• Average age 22
• First started in 1986
• 85% Male readers
• Appropriate for both mature teens and adults
• 15.7% decline in readership from 2010 to 2011
• 30% of the magazine is adverts
• Costs £4.25 
• 13 Issues a year
• Active website for the magazine
• 80% of readers encouraged to buy a CD after reading
• Published by 'Future' publishers

Sources Used:

http://www.theadindex.com/Advert_Displays/Metal_Hammer__9271.asp?ServicePage=3

http://www.musicweek.com/news/read/abc-classic-rock-readership-slips-12-yoy-metal-hammer-loses-65k/048101

http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/tag/butcher-babies/

http://www.futureplc.com/what-we-do/portfolios/music/

http://magpie-moth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/metal-hammer-butcher-babies-poster.html