Planning the name

The name of my magazine was important to me because if the name didn't fit well then the magazine wouldn't be effective. I had to look at already existing magazine names and see what they had in common. I picked out names I liked and notice a common theme in most of the names, that they were short names, no longer than 3 syllables. This is so they would be catchy and easy to remember.

Already existing magazines:
NME
Rolling Stone
Q
Kerrang
Vibe

From that I realised that the name I had to come up with emulated that in order for it to be successful.

Names I considered:
M.UK (Music. United Kingdom)
Voice
Noise
Lyric

I liked M.UK as I felt it was most effective. It is also the same shape ad size of the NME logo, which is already a popular magazine so I'm glad it resembles it.
On the NME logo it also contains what it stands for (New Musical Express) which I wanted to feature on the logo of my magazine so the reader could understand what it meant, so I was going to try nd incorporate that into my logo.

Rolling Stone double page spread

This double page is very minimalistic, with a very short article it almost looks like a poster. It's completely different to the style of the contents page, as it doesn't seem as structured. Which shows that the double page spread is based around the artist rather than the magazine.

Rolling Stone contents page

The typical Rolling Stone contents page is well structured and straight. It's not the style I would go for but it contains a lot of information with the main articles containing pictures. The colour scheme is fairly neutral and plain so it would fit with any genre that was being shown in the magazine.

Rolling Stone cover

Rolling Stone is another major magazine that I looked at. It has featured huge stars which makes it so successful as people want to read about them. The celebrities they have on the cover of Rolling Stone varies from the likes of Jay-Z and Kanye West to Madonna. I really like this cover as it's different from the typical Rolling Stone cover. I like the contrast of the black and white image with the yellow text. Rolling Stone covers don't usually give much away of what features in the magazine and what the articles are about. They rely heavily on their own reputation and the reputation of the main artist on the cover to make readers want to buy it.