Product Planning

For my planning I am looking and researching the important areas that I need to consider before I start designing my magazine, such as: Names; Colours and Images. These things are important and I will use similar themes for all of them throughout the magazine-like the colour scheme will be used for the whole magazine.

My magazine’s genre is rock so I want my names to clearly represent that, it also needs to be short, catchy, unique and memorable. The ideas I have had so far are: R&R! Rock the Roll! Roll on the rock! Freak out! Revolving Rock and Pulse! These are all very clearly related to both the rock genre and the music industry. For many of them I have based them on the saying Rock and Roll, yet I have altered them slightly so they are memorable, because audiences would relate them to that saying, and they’re catchy. However, Freak Out and Pulse are not so easily related to the rock genre. I like the name pulse because it makes the audience think of loud music ‘pulsing’ through their body which may also remind them of times they have experienced loud music-like clubs or gigs-so they will have a positive felling from the magazine and be more likely to buy it. R&R stands for Rock and Roll which is quite clear, but it is a original way of putting it, also it is short so it will be good on the front cover of a magazine because I can make it stand out (like Q magazine has a very short names). Revolving Rock is an interesting idea because revolving is another way of saying roll, but also rock is like a stone so it could mean both Rock and Roll and Rolling Stones (which is a famous rock and roll band).

Colour schemes are very important because they have to attract the right target audience and reflect the genre, it will be used throughout the magazine in everything from photographs to article titles. The colour schemes I have thought about using are: Red, black and White, Green, black and white, Purple, black and white. Red, black and White are very typical of the rock genre so these would be a good one to reflect the genre, however most rock magazines use this colour scheme so my magazine wouldn’t stand out from the rest. Therefore I want to use the basic colours-black and white (which connotates death, danger, power and purity), but I want to chose a different main colour, so it will stand out from the rest and catch people’s attention. Green and Purple are good because they are both quite sophisticated colours so would attract a wide target audience of different ages and genders. Green connotates: goodness, money, and wealth, which people often relate with the music industry. Purple connotates royalty- which may be suitable as in the music industry artists are often called music royalty or the King/Queen of Rock/Pop.

Next I researched the image on the front cover, I decided I want a photograph of a female, females are often use as it appeals to both men and women; men look at it in a sexual way, whereas women look at is to try and relate to I and imagine themselves as that girl. The girl will be wearing clothes that relate to the colour scheme although you won’t see much of the clothes as it will be a close up or medium shot so you can see her expression. She will be looking directly at the camera to engage the audience. She will also be the individual that the double page spread is about so there will be more photo’s of her. Any other photo’s I use will be in a similar style to the one on the front cover.