House Styles

For this task, I had to create a proposal for my magazine, a design for my layout, and a design for each component of my magazine that I was going to create: a front cover, a contents page, and a DPS.

Proposal

Ps23 is a CCM magazine - Contemporary Christian Music - focusing mainly on rock pop and some heavier rock. We hope to include artists from both sides of the Atlantic, from American hard rock bands such as Casting Crowns to British folk-rock bands such as The Rend Collective Experiment, and propose regulars such as reviews of albums and singles, annual reviews of CCM festivals such as Soul Survivor & Momentum and Big Church Day Out, and interviews with new artists. It is also possible that there may be a regular section for those aspiring to be worship leaders themselves. Ps23 is unique as there is currently only one CCM magazine available in the UK, and even this is difficult to buy, therefore there is a gap in the market for this type of magazine.

The ideal target audience for Ps23 is Christians aged 16-30 living in the UK. Our audience will likely be those in E and D class (though some of our older readers may be in C2 class) and we aim to appeal to those with a taste for more contemporary music inspired by the Christian faith. The ideal publisher for Ps23 would be the Bauer Media Group, a publisher who already publishes two music magazines (Q and Kerrang!), both of which cover the genres that Ps23 will feature, in their secular form. We expect that Ps23 will be the Christian version of these magazines, and therefore feel that the Bauer Media Group would be the right publisher for the magazine.

Masthead Designs

Front Cover

I have decided that the main image on my front cover will not be from a studio shoot, but a location shoot, where the artist will be depicted among Creation. This will continue the theme of Christianity throughout the magazine and will also appeal to my target audience, as in my Preliminary Task I received positive feedback for having a location main image on my front cover.

The colour scheme flows from the masthead, like it did in my Preliminary Task, and this layout fits the ideal layout of my front cover more as the coverlines are neatly placed together instead of randomly placed over the cover.

The front cover is also inspired by my Newsstand Task, as the left third contains the masthead and the minor coverlines, as well as the splash about the month's featured reviews, which compensates for the newsstand layout. In my Newsstand Task, I found that some newsstands are set up so that the top quarter of the magazine, not the left third, is the most important part of the magazine, as this is the part that the audience sees. Therefore I have used skylines to show some other articles within the magazine and have also placed the masthead in the top quarter as well as in the left third.

Contents Page

I have decided to make a double-page contents page for my main task instead of a single-page contents page, as in my Preliminary Task I had some trouble fitting everything on to one page, especially when I had written my Editor's Letter. Also, in my Case Studies Task, I found that Q had a double-page contents page; therefore it would not be so far from convention to use more than one page for the contents page.

In my Preliminary Task, I used rectangles on my contents page to separate the different categories, and I received positive feedback for doing so. Therefore, I decided to do it again. I have also taken inspiration from my Case Studies. Q magazine had a section for just the cover story with the regulars, and I have taken inspiration from this so as to fix a problem that I had in my Preliminary Task, which was that my cover story lost importance on the contents page by a lack of description and no image to complement it. These have a blue background with green writing, which is the colour scheme of the masthead reversed to continue the general colour scheme of the magazine, which is also what I did in my Preliminary Task. The font - Rockwell - is a clear font, and differs from the masthead so as to make the masthead unique. This font is the font that shall be used as the main text in the magazine as it will show how the house style flows from the category titles to the main body text.

DPS

The general layout of my DPS is inspired by NME, which I studied in my Case Studies Task. This can be seen because there is the image on one side, and the journalism on the other. Also, NME had a little profile of the artist in the corner of the page with the image, which I have also done. Finally, the position of the pull-quote was also in the middle of the column of journalism in NME.

I also took inspiration from Q for my DPS, as I have a short description of the interview (where it took place, etc.) before the Q&A style interview begins. Also, in Q magazine the date and masthead was repeated at the bottom of each page of the DPS. Here, I preferred to keep the masthead and date at the top of the page, but it is still inspired by Q.

Please fill in my questionnaire on these house styles to help with my audience feedback:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/887TVST