Whats to come... (Organisation)

On Sunday i will finally take photographs for my magazine, before that  i will do another draft of a contents page as well as a page dedicated to one of the contents.

 The page i will dedicate to one of the contents was going to be a double page spread but i have decided to include an advert which will replace one of pages for a double page spread i have included one advert draft already and plan to include more in the near future.

Magazine Influences (Research into similar products)

I have researched into similar products that include cover-page factors for influence, these include catchy cover-lines with alliteration and creative typography/designs.

Hopefully from this research i can bring more creativity into my magazine

Cover-page draft review (Drafting and planning)

This is another draft preparing me for my final piece, improvement still needs to be done it will be done in time for the final draft, for example more unique cover fonts will be used and the magazine will be more creative because from this draft i have just stuck a picture on and placed font over it.

 I need to make the picture and font combine to create something unique and creative that'll attract people.

Cover-Page Draft (Drafting and planning)

Photo opportunities (Organisation)

In the next few i will be going on a trip to take photos of essential landscapes for my magazine These include:
Bullring Birmingham Library
St Phillip's Cathedral
St Chads Cathedral
 Centenary Square
 Bullring Bull and more...

Advertisement draft review (drafting and planning)

I believe that this draft is well presented it advertises a upcoming song contest in short and sweet fashion. Have i chosen the right colours to attract everyone and not a particular group? i believe so but in future drafts i need to be more certain on my colour choices because readers will completely ignore the advert if they believe the colour is aimed for them. I also have very limited information with just a link to a website for more information, next time shall add the date of contest and(or)venue of the event; something like that will make the advert that little more informative and successful.

Advertisement draft (Drafting and planning)

Advertisement Ideas (organisation)

For my magazine i plan to create an advert that attracts most of my readers, i believe adding a advert of a new restaurant or a drink will be the most likely in terms of interesting a large number of people of different ages and backgrounds

Photo Planning (Organisation)

Over the month i plan to take various photos suitable for my magazine, these will be photos of famous or popular landscapes in the city and items i view as suitable for graphical effects. These may include the following:

Cover-page ideas (Drafting an planning)

Most regional magazines feature a landscape within its region or town/city on the cover page, i had that idea on my draft but aerial shot is near impossible through original photography.

Possible alternatives include Selfridges, The Town hall or The Library having them combined into a photo collage would be great, but having one individual picture means that the main headline would have to be linked to the picture.

I don't have to follow the procedures of having a landscape cover photo, i could follow the Brummagem magazine route of having ancient pictures in a photoframe and in greyscale or could have picture of an item like a flat cap which has come back in fashion because of the peaky blinders series which is originated in Birmingham which is alone another possible topic.

Here are different types of regional magazines:
 

People featured in 'Talk of The Town' (organisation)

Although i have displayed drafts of my magazine that include celebrities and unoriginal photography this cannot be the case in my final piece; therefore i will have to take all photos myself of features whether it is a place or human.

When adding features to my magazine i do plan to have a band, place, event and other stuff featured, the magazine will be likewise to previous drafts but everything will be original photography.

In my next draft i will now include photo's that are able to be recreated, i did have an aerial shot of the city in one draft on the front cover but i will now come up with more realistic features.

Magazine Layouts (Research Into Similar Products)

Life in the Big City

The Quizzers

Free at last

Here are a few well designed magazine layouts, they are all unique in their own way and i believe looking at how magazines differ in layout; i can create my own unique touch to 'Talk Of The Town'.

Life In The City- This magazine appears to be a regional magazine of Birmingham also, hence the picture in the background of landscapes within the city. The thing i admire about this layout is how the picture fills the middle of both pages; spreading across the centre rather than being pushed to a corner. The background in the picture is yellow, the same yellow tone used as the double page spreads header; this shows you a relationship between the two conventions because as you first look the page the first two things you notice is the heading and then the picture. It guides you across the page also because the first thing you will see is 'Life in the Big City' followed a picture of the city which shows you what city the title is referring to.

The Quizzers- The magazine featuring this page has gone creative by putting a paragraph inside the giant Q which is part of the page-heading, because the heading is called the quizzers; i guess that's why there is a picture of people in a thinking pose. The background of this magazine is plain white and there is also numerous paragraphs compared to 'Life in the city'. This shows that 'The Quizzers' is for a more serious reader or older age group because they don't need to add colour and creative pictures to attract their readers. 

Free At Last- In terms of the plain white background 'The Quizzers' is similar to 'Free at last', 'Free at Last' go a bit more further though as the heading takes up a lot of space on the page, with text boxes covering pieces of the letters a creative outlook has been bought in.   

Advertisements (Research into similar products)

Adidas Predators

Coca Cola

Herbal essences

Nike Air Max 90

These adverts all have their own styles in order to attract viewers, the Adidas advert uses the term  "Every team needs a spark"in a font reflecting to the title because "Spark" is in a long and sharp type of format. The Adidas advert has fair amount of word on it meanwhile the Nike advert just has an advert title.

The Nike advert is focused more on the actual product without including much text, this advert tells you all you need to know; they're the Air Max 90's so if you like them buy them. The advert displays the trainers in three different colours to show you that there's more than enough colours to suit your style.

The Herbal Essences has detailed text, advertising a hair product requires more than just a picture to persuade to readers; you can't see smell and the smell is the most important thing for this product.

Coke advert has a simple quote " the coke side of life" the word Coke in the sentence stands out; it is placed in a Coca Cola bottle where it usually would be placed (and in the original font ), whilst the rest of the quote is in red. The effect of having the word Coke inside the bottle brings a connection between the brand and the bottle; it also helps you notice that the bottle is a Coca Cola bottle.

These adverts have their own ways of communicating with readers they have different techniques as expressed, i can use some of these techniques for future drafts or if i am adding an advert alongside my magazine.

BBC Radio West Midlands (Research into similar products)

BBC West Midlands is a local radio station for the West Midlands; it provides TV coverage for regional news and sport. As well as the West Midlands the station covers for North Warwickshire, Worcestershire as well as South Staffordshire. It was launched in 1970 and was originally known as BBC Radio Birmingham.

BBC West Midlands broadcasts at ‘The Mailbox’ in Birmingham city centre and has been since the deconstruction of its previous Pebble Mill studios in nearby Edgbaston.

The Radio is versatile in that it covers a range of topics, this includes sports talk and commentary usually for teams within its broadcasting region it was also hosts casual chat shows and plays music.

I believe BBC WM would be an ideal radio station for me to advertise my magazine on, the BBC alone is one of the largest Media Broadcasters in the world and attracts a range of ages and cultures; it has a number stations for different cultures and ages therefore it will already have a lot of respect from citizens and more people would tune into the main local BBC Radio Station (e.g. BBC WM) for news gossip etc.

The Mailbox

Pebble Mill Studios