First draft of front cover and critical analysis

This is the first draft of my front cover. 

There are a number of things that are wrong with this draft, including the image. I will need to redesign the whole cover with a new image as this draft does not convey the genre of "dance" at all. The black and white house style has not worked because it looks very gloomy and not appealing to anyone. The sell line "Rudimental's debut album", is in the wrong place as it should be where the sell line "Massive new single from Calvin Harris" is. Also, this sell line needs a picture a their album "Home", otherwise it seems like a pointless sell line and does not really tell the consumer anything. The masthead "Breakhouse" does not look very good as it just employs a generic font that looks nothing like what a dance music magazine's masthead would look like. To rectify this, I need to change the font to one that connotes the genre more, for example: 

These four fonts connote dance music more than the current font I have used. Although, each font connotes a different type of dance music, for example, the second font down connotes current dance music such as that of Calvin Harris, Avicii, etc. The third one down connotes dance music from the Northern Soul genre, such as John Newman's track "Love Me Again", which has an old school feel to it and the music video is set in a Northern Soul club. The fourth font down connotes music from the same era as the third one but it looks more American and retro. It reminds me of fonts that you would see in Los Angeles in the 1960s. I am not sure if this font would work well with my magazine because the target audience is young people so they are mostly fans of music from the likes of Calvin Harris, Avicii and Rudimental. Having said that, the more modern second font is a pretty generic font that many people use so it would make my magazine look amateur. I think the font that would look best out of these four is the third one because it looks less "American" than the fourth font but it is more old school. Although this font is old school, it would work well because the rising Northern Soul/Soul/Pop artist, John Newman, is putting a modern twist on the old school soul style and has been very successful with it so far, reaching number five in the US Album chart.

Font names: 

1st font - Forte

2nd font - Bauhaus 93

3rd font - Britannic Bold

4th font - Magneto

The things that worked well with this draft are the skyline and the promotional banner because they look professional and are in the conventional place although, most music magazines tend to only use a skyline so I will probably either remove the promotional banner altogether, or move it and make it a bit transparent. Although they look fairly professional, they look quite bland because I have only used two colours. This is also one of the main problems with the whole cover, there is not much colour on it, it looks bland and is unappealing, even to me.

Double page spread draft 1

This is the first draft of my double page spread. The main image will be placed on the left page whilst the masthead and main article will be on the right page. I will also have the page numbers  on the bottom-left and bottom-right corners so the reader can identify each page. The main article will be an interview with a new band. The main image will be of the band themselves.

Magazine Information: Name, Colours etc

I have decided to name my magazine "BreakHouse". This name is a play on words with two sub-genres of dance music, "breakbeat" and "house". I feel this is a good name because it relates heavily to the genre and is memorable. Also, this name tells the target audience that it is a diverse magazine in terms of the types of dance music featured because breakbeat and house music are very different from each other.

My colour scheme will consist of three neutral colours: black, grey and white. This is because neutral colours are sophisticated and smart and they appeal to both male and female.

Magazine mood board

This is my mood board of different dance music magazines. These magazines include: mixmag, tillate, bpm and DJ.

All of these magazines use the conventions correctly and are very colourful. This is because dance music is of course associated with clubs so the bright, vibrant colours connote this as they are colourful like the disco lights in nightclubs.

In all but one of the magazines, the subject is looking at the camera.

Each magazines has an artists' name in big font to comply with the conventions and to tell the consumer who it is on the cover.