The front cover shows a female artist relevant to the indie/alternative genre. I chose a female that would appeal to the target audience and positioned her so that she appears inviting and slightly shielded by her arm so that the audience feel compelled to open the magazine and find out more. I chose a female because of the increasing success for female artists in this genre.

• ‘Notion’ means an opinion, view or belief. I chose to call

my magazine ‘Notion’ because it relates to the audience’s

interest in the genre, their views on it and their belief in

the artists and lyrics. The colour matches the colour

scheme. I chose it because in my primary research, the

target audience said that they didn’t like bright colours.

In my questionnaire

results, I asked the

target audience to

chose the magazine

cover they preferred

from a choice of 4.

This cover was the

most popular. I used

many characteristics

from this

cover, along with

conventions of NME

layouts.

• I used photos of 3 artists on my contents page. In the image of the artist also on the front cover, I used Photoshop to edit her sweatshirt so that I looks like she is wearing different clothes. I used another female to support my idea of success for female artists and finally a male to even out gender and prevent my magazine from appearing biased

To make my contents page easy to use, I

separated my contents into two categories.

The ‘every month’ section contains regular

features that updated with new and

interesting content in each issue. The ‘this

issue’ section lists the features exclusive to

this issue. I

decided to add descriptions

to the contents so that

readers can navigate their

way through the magazine

and find the articles suited

to them.

I stood my artist in front of an

interesting image and

photographed her to the right so

that text could be laid over the

other side. To ensure that the text

would be clear, I added a gradient

to make the background less

busy on the left. Because the

genre of this artist is indie-

electronica, she has a feisty,

rebellious personality. To portray

that, I gave her a cigarette and

lighter. As with the image of this

artist on the contents page, I

altered her sweatshirt again so

that she appears to be wearing

something different.

To portray her fierce style and genre of music, I arranged

the letters of my artist’s name at different sizes and angles.

Then, to make it stand out against the background, I added

a purple glow. I chose purple because it is a colour that

features in the background. The bold, black font shows the

loud, bold sound of my artist.

The text begins with a bold sub-heading. I made ‘venom-fuelled sound’

purple and alternated the size of the letters. This shows the

indie/electronica underground sound of the artist’s music. The main

body of the text is divided into 3 columns to make it clearer. I also

added an advertisement for the releasedate of the artist’s new

album because the

article would make the

audience want to buy it. I

made key quotes in the

article bold as they are

important in recognising

the theme of this artist.