Music Magazine Flatplans

Front Cover & Contents Page

Double Page Spread                                                                                   

My Front Cover

This is the final draft for the front cover of my magazine. As always, the bright blue and yellow colours are used to attract my audience; since the cover is what my audience will see when they are looking on the magazine shelves, it is important that I use my bright colour scheme to attract them to my product. Another way I attempt to attract my audience is through my main cover image. An important feature of my image is that my main model is making direct address to my audience; this would gain the attention of my target audience as my model would be a high profile and famous musician and their direct address would entice my audience to read about them. I have also included their name in the headline, in large bold writing, which is also seen when my audience look at my magazine cover; again this is used to attract my target readers.


I used a number of effects on the masthead for my magazine such as drop shadow and bevel to make it appear more unique and to stand out. The word "Cipher" is relevant to the genre of music in my magazine and so seeing it as a masthead for it would attract my specific audience to see what it is all about. I have also positioned my main model with his head overlapping my masthead, I had seen this feature used in numerous magazines and so I felt that to make my product appear more professional I would need to use this technique on my cover.


Additional features such as the coverlines, the puff/plug, magazine date/issue and the barcode were also seen in other magazine covers and so I used them on mine to give it a more professional appearance. The puff/plug, I feel, is an effective way to advertise particular content within my magazine; using phrases like "40 Best DJs Inside!" grabs my reader's attention in an attempt to get them to read my magazine. I have used a purple banner on the top of my cover, similar to that on my contents and double page, which i have used to further advertise my product. I wanted to let my readers see that the information in my magazine is "exclusive" in an attempt to get them to read it and continue to buy it. The coverlines are also used to show what else my magazine contains in order for my target audience to gain interest and read on.

My Contents Page

This is the final draft for the contents page for my magazine. I have used some features from magazine's such as NME and The Source to create the aesthetic for my page. I have used the font Urban Jungle, which I downloaded, as I felt it suited the style of my magazine and the music genre; hip-hop was created in the modern urban environment. As seen in my double page, I also used a banner across the top of the page as a trend which will be seen in all issue of my magazine (see My Double Page Spread post).


The colour scheme is the same as always; blue and yellow to be attractive to my audience and connote a fun and entertaining vibe in my magazine. I have added some red, another bright colour, to my page to separate the articles. Once again, this colour was used to stand out and be noticed by my readers as it is not associated with the scheme of my magazine; I wanted to show some diversity as my audience may get bored of the consistent colour use.


The image I have used takes up the entire background of my page and is a picture of my main model; relating to my main article. I used this to assure that my main article is advertised throughout the magazine pages so that my readers will read it. I copied and pasted the main image and made the copy more transparent; this is where my article titles and features are written. This is so it is easier for my audience to read as the bright colours stand out more on a lighter background.

Other Photos

These are some new photos I took which I will use in my magazine. They will be used on my contents page and my double page spread as either part of my main article or to show what would be in the other pages of my magazine.

My Double Page Spread

This is the double page spread of my music magazine. It includes the same model as my front cover as he is the main feature of this particular issue of my magazine.

The layout and style is the same as my original ideas which is why there is no previous posts on drafts and such. I wanted to use an image which would take up the whole of both pages; I didn't want to use a standard background colour as I wanted my image to not seem as if it was placed onto the page but that it was a part of it. An example of my layout can be seen in my NME case study post where the model(s) are on the side of the page with the article written beside them. The continuing colour scheme of my magazine is blue and yellow, these colours mix well together and are attractive which gains interest from my readers. The colours are also similar to the uniforms of the huge American Basketball team the LA Lakers (purple and yellow), who have a big link to the rap and hip-hop scene; my magazine's genre.  

I placed a blue/yellow banner across the top of my pages; this is a reoccurring feature of my magazine (used on my Contents page). I did not see this used in any of the magazines I analysed, it is an original idea, but I wanted to use it to add more colour to my page and for my audience to see it as a trend in all issues; it is something they will recognise with my magazine style. The font used for the "Mr Nice" part of my headline was a downloaded font (see previous posts). It is an example of graffiti artwork, a very notable and key feature of the hip-hop genre. I used this style to create more relevance between my article and the genre of music my magazine incorporated.

The use of other features such as Twitter tags (@ciphermag), "Exclusive freestyle online" and the "Preview" puff/plug links the magazine to other medias online. This idea came, again, from my NME case study where articles in their magazines were linked to their website allowing their audience to broaden. My use of these features would be to allow my target audience to grow and diverse online due to ease of access compared to the magazine itself.

Masthead Effects

I wanted my masthead to be unique so firstly I downloaded a font from dafonts.com (see other post). I then added some effects using the "Effects" option from the "Object" menu. I added a drop shadow, inner shadow and a bevel and emboss to make my masthead more visually attractive to my audience. 

Cover Image Over Masthead

I decided that I wanted the head of my model to overlap the masthead. I had seen this used in several magazines such as Vibe and The Source who share my target audience.


Firstly, using the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop, I copied the outline of my model onto a transparent canvas. I added my original image onto an InDesign page and added the title. Once I did this, I placed my Photoshopped image over the original image. This made it seem like it was a single image where the masthead is sandwiched between my model's head and the background.