Neville Brody

I was looking at different Graphic Designers and trying to find one that I would be able to compare my music magazine too and I came across Neville Brody who was the Art Director of both "The Face" and "Arena" magazines. He decided what sort of look both magazine's had and not only did he design magazine, but Brody designed Adverts and Album Covers for different companies and bands. Here is some of his most recognised work:

Brody uses a very plain and simple colour scale, with colours such as black, white, red and grey. These are the same colours I initially planned on using, however the fonts I use may not be to similar as I will be using very simple and bold fonts. In no way am I trying to mirror Brodies work, it has just helped to inspire the look of my magazine. Neville Brody also uses alot of different shapes, in a kind of abstract way and I will also be using different shapes to add and artistic and exciting look. The way Neville Brody also designs his work is very British and quirky, when he started his work it was frowned upon by his peers, but he made a big change in visual media and other people took the same sort of approach to Graphic Design as him as he is such an iconic role model.

Before I started on my music magazine, I didn't even know who he was, yet now I am comparing my work to his and seeing how I have taken on a similar style, it is now influencing the rest of my project.

Final name of my music magazine.

I have come up with the final title of my music magazine and I am going to be calling it; "The Names". I took a totally different route from what I initially declared in an earlier blog post, where I said it will be inspired by something typically british. However I went against this idea because I thought it would be a bit too generic and cliche. With a title like "The Names" it isn't too cheesy and obvious, it just means that the bands and artists inside the magazine are important, that they are the main focus. People buy a music magazine if their favourite artists have a write-up or a double page spread, not because of the name of the magazine. "The Names" is simple and to the point, just how I want the magazine to be. The magazine will still be inspired by British music, film and visual media, it's just the title of the isn't that obvious.

Music Magazine Names

I am now trying to come up with Magazine names to correspond with the unique selling point of the magazine, which is being traditionally british (eg drinking cups of tea, fried breakfast etc...) and to be relative with the modern day music scene. So I am trying to come up with a few ideas, here are some:

• This Is Britain
• Mug o' Tunes
• Tea Over Music
• Old Blighty

I am trying to come up with a name that has a relation with typically British things without being to obvious. I may use one of these names for the title of my magazine but I am still unsure.

Inspirations for the look of the music magazine

I like the look of Black and White as it has the british esque feel about it. and that is what I am trying to get across in my music magazine. Obviously, not all pictures will be black and white but these images will inspire many factors behind the rest of the magazine.
Also the poster for the film "if..." is from 1960's British cinema. I will look to get main images with this tone as well (in the test front cover shot of Tim Hyland I tried to get the tones in that image similar to the "If..." poster and film).
However I don't want to be too obvious with what I am doing in terms of being typically British, I want it to be quite subtle and subliminal so it isn't so obvious.  This will make it fairly quirky, edgy and original.

Initial font ideas

Here are 4 different fonts that could be possible choices for use on my masthead of my music magazine.

These fonts are all fairly similar, I want to get the rockish feel so that it fits in with the type of music and genre of "rock" that the music magazine will mainly focus on with distorted edges and a rough feel to it like I said in the previous blog post. This will be the sort of running theme you are likely to see throughout the magazine be it on the front cover, contents or main article.

Music Magazine Plan

In my music magazine, I want there to be a running theme of british inspired bands, colour schemes and pictures. The bands that feature wont just be British, but they will have the kind of influence you would associate with British music such as Oasis, Joy Division and underground bands such as Lower Than Atlantis, Canterbury etc. The main article and main focus in this magazine will be on a band called Marines, where the front man of the band (Tim Hyland) will feature on the front cover and also in the double page spread where there will be a Q&A where I ask Tim Hyland questions about Marines. I want the magazine to have a "Rockish" feel about it with distorted images and fonts to emphasise the "raw" influence on British Rock Music.
I will be expanding on these initial ideas during the process of creating the music magazine and I will be reflecting on the answers of the questionairre to meet the requirements needed in order to get the best end product I can.

Updated Reader Profile

In an ealier post I put up a Visual Reader Profile, I have now added explanations of what the ideal reader should be like and what different things they should like or dislike. This is it:

Open publication - Free publishing - More reader