Planning for my magazine

Today (27th January) I will be taking shoots of my models for my magazine shoot.

Magazine research

This front cover is not just attracting the attention of hiphop/rap fans, but also fans of Rapper/Actor/Producer Ice Cube.
They use good colours which make Ice cubes face stand out as well as the Subheadings. The background is white and the XXL font (Name of magazine) is in the small red background which is visible. Seeing as Ice cube is on the front cover of the magazine, this makes it a successful music magazine which reaches its target audience because Ice cube is one of the most famous, if not the most famous Hip hop artist to come out of his generation.

I am going to create a magazine very similar to this magazine. Its going to be a hiphop/rap based magazine which has loads of bright colours. My front cover will have a picture of one of the upcoming artists in UK and USA.

My target audience will be hiphop/rap fans who are manly aged between 16-25. (New generation hiphop) So my design will have a lot of life, bright colours and will appeal to those who are 'young wild & free'.

I chose to use these magazines as inspiration because i feel that they portray the style of magazine that i would like to create. They are targeting the audience that i am trying to target whilst still appealing to a wider age-range. However both magazines do not tend to stick with a certain typical layout for each issue, because although they always use the same font and colour. For example, XXL always use a red block with the font in white, and this is the same in every issue. Although Hip-Hip Weekly do not do the same, they use the same font, but each week they play around with different styles and it is in different positions compared to the last issue.

With regards to price, Hip-Hop Weekly is sold for £3.25 in the UK, and so far, i have been unable to find XXL Magazine anywhere in the UK. However the £3.25 for the first magazine is quite a decent price considering that it is an international magazine. They usually use yellow for the fonts of the main article on the cover because that colour usually stands out against all other colours therefore whatever colour used for the background, the yellow will always stand out and catch peoples attention.

XXL has the look of a typical hip-hop magazine, and that is the first genre that would come into your head when you first see all covers of the magazine. Particularly in this cover featuring Nas, the fact that he is not wearing a shirt and all his tattoos are visible automatically attracts hip-hop fans. Also the font used for his name, and the font underneath is quite rough and rugged-looking which associates to the music. The layout of the magazine is generally very good and well-spaced. There is no excess text on the cover, only pull quotes and the main cover story to attract the readers. The lack of text is clearly because the magazine aim to make their cover artist the sole focus of the issue, and therefore the cover represents the spotlight on them.

The close analysis of both magazines will definitely help me with making my magazine; I will take all of this on board when making mine. I now have a bit more of an idea how to target my audience and what I must include on my front covers etc.