Monday, 19 March 2012

29 - Design Philosophy

When looking at my magazine, it's important to see what my design philosophy is and whether I have stuck to the right conventions and ideas that I wanted to create to maintain the best quality and success when addressing my genre. By analysing what I've created It will enable me to see what I can do better to improve it. 


Minimal Design V Decorative 
I would say that my design is fairly minimal and this is represents the genre I have chosen in Indie. The research I have conducted has allowed me to produce an understanding of a typical indie listener, being quite laid back and a mature taste in music. Decorative design can sometimes begin to show immaturity in the taste of music and magazine for example, some pop magazines. So I decided to keep to a fairly minimal design so it would look good and get the points I wanted to across. For example for my front page I've stuck to a few points and one main image rather than a lot of images. The font and colours are simple and allow them to stand out on the page.


Conventional V Original 
I have gone for a more conventional look when producing my magazine. This is, as I've said, to do with the laid back attitude of the indie genre and how I would like to stick to this. If I created a very busy and original it may not be as effective. However, indie genre is 'individual' so if I had gone against conventions it would have been good although it may have not been as successful. I think music listeners want to get what they pay for and get the factors in the magazines such as festival information and upcoming artists as I've included, too much and too against conventions may put them off buying the magazine as I was trying to hit a broadcast audience rather than narrowcast. If I was trying to create a niche magazine with a narrowcast audience, I may have gone for an original design. However, I wanted to create a broadcast magazine. 


Is my design reflecting the indie ideology?
I feel my design does reflect the indie ideology, after researching into the genre I decided that the main factors would be festivals, upcoming artists, and gigs and festivals. Due to downloads being a main aspect now in music, I decided to include that. Most people prefer to download from iTunes due to ease being only a click away. 


In my magazine I've decided the main focuses will be on festival season due to the summer coming up and the main focus being on this due to it being also a stereotypical aspect of an indie music listener, the main ones being Reading and Leeds. Upcoming artists is important because people who are very interested in music enjoy finding new music so adding upcoming artists allows them more promotion increasing their chances of becoming bigger.


I have also created this by the beachy background and the colours I've used reflecting back on the festival feeling, this is what my focus group wanted me to focus on. For example, the red reflects back to the NME I deconstructed and I liked the way it stuck out on the page but it also creates an earthy feel. Along with the purple I have used and the white on the beach background. I intend to use more browns on my double page spread however, it may make it boring and un-interesting so I may have to have a play around with colours to create the best possible outcome but I like the red a lot in this case. This goes against my original idea of having pastle colours but I feel it works better.


The fonts I have used I also really like because I feel they address the indie genre. 
For example, some of them have a rocky aspect to them, addressing the indie rock side of the genre which I originally began with that has slowly progressed into broadcast areas of the genre. Some are simple and more 'tamer' fonts in a way, that indicate the laidback style again. Here are the fonts I've used throughout. 





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