Magazine Research

My next step is to create the double-page spread. In preparation for this, I have looked at the various layouts of different types of magazines.

My first example is from the Kerrang magazine; very relevant, seeing as this is also a music magazine:

To the left is a double-page spread on My Chemical Romance from an issue of Kerrang. The first page is completely taken up by a picture of the lead singer of the band. This is an effective method of attracting readers to the article if they are just flicking through it. They will look at the guy and think they recognise him, of think he looks interesting, and will read on. The colour scheme is very basic; a black, white and red. Additionally, all the photos are also black and white. There is a certain art to laying out an article, and this is done effectively. There is not much text on the opening of the article, and this is the very think that will draw the reader in. Once they get immersed, they may continue to finish reading on the following pages. The key to it is making people want to read it, and this is done through the composition of pictures, paragraphs, titles and other items to generate the required response from someone just glimpsing the page. On the right of the page is a small information box. It is separate from the rest of the article, but it is relevant, as you can see. This is a clever way of including more information in a page without it seeming like too much at a glance. Statistics do, in fact, show that the average reader will only take the time to read something that doesn't look like an essay. This fact will come in handy when I go about creating mine. Another point about this page, is that it shows personal opinions of the band in conversation. Readers may generally be interested in things like this, so this adds to the attraction effect, amplified by the tactical and strategic placement of the items on the page to provoke a response.

To the right, we have a picture of a double page spread from a review of Clash of the Titans in the Empire magazine. Again, the whole of the page on the left is taken up by a full-body view of the main person involved. In this case, it's Sam Worthington dressed as his character Perseus. The main title is a catchy idea of what the article is about, and it is in big, fancy letters, coloured gold to match the colour scheme of the film and the rest of the page. There is not much text to begin with: a technique used before in the Kerrang article. There is a smaller picture at the bottom, crossing over to both sides of the page. It has a caption, and this is meant to draw the reader in further and get them interested in seeing and readin more about this film. The background on the left is dark, in contrast to the white patterns of the background to the right. Contrast is a clever method in attracting the eye, with white and black being opposite. Above the word 'Monsters' there is another short summary of the article in bold and italic. This will, again, attract the attention of the reader. The layout of the page is interesting, with a massive gap from the top before the article actually starts. This is a stylish way of setting it out, and it is a method I may consider when making my own double-page spread.

Newspaper Ad Research

In this post, I will be looking at various types of newspaper advertisements and analysing their qualities, similarities and differences, in order to get an idea for my own style and layout when making an ad.


The image to the left is a newspaper advert for an ironing service. It's pretty basic, as far as adverts go, but I suppose it has to be basic in order for it to make sense on the page. It also has to stand out from all the other ads. So that's one thing I can try to accomplish. At the top, there is a big bold heading, in the form of a rhetorical question, directly targeting the reader. The rest of it just consists of minor details about the ad, and some pictures to make it look more attractive. At the bottom are the contact details for those interested. The font is very plain and boring, but readable.



To the right is the second advert. It's for a vinyl record and CD shop, just putting their name out there. The top holds the name of the shop and there is a mascot to the left. A mascot would be a good idea for mine, so I may consider it. It may make advertising easier. The slogan is centered fairly catchy. It relates to the reader, unlike most other adverts. More ideas for me. Again, at the bottom are the contact details. This seems to be a convention of them, as the ads are generally read from top to bottom. I will probably follow these codes and conventions when making mine, because they have proven to be effective. Changing things around might prove to be a bad decision. The font here is understandable, but it isn't that plain. It's a sort of curly handwriting font.


Now here's an old advert that I found. I thought comparing old with new would also be a good idea, so we'll see if there are any similar traits for the old ones. It's a Disney ad, and it clearly contains a lot less information. But I suppose just the fact that it is a Disney ad would be enough to attract the desired readers. It seems to be for a boat ride, a family event. And the date and time information is at the bottom. Centered and taking up most of the space is a cartoon picture of the boat and the captain, inviting the reader. This would be the first thing you'd see on a newspaper page, really. Looking at it, it would stand out among other ads. This is both good and bad; you can fill your space with an attractive picture to gain attention, but at the expense of losing space for extra text showing the details. And the details are important for me, so I'll have to take this into consideration. The font here is very cartoony and interesting for an old advert, but not surprising, seeing as it's Disney-related. Still, it's a good idea to mix around the look of the text.


Finally, to the right is a comparison of two newspaper ads. One is for a movie called 'Jennifer's Body' and the other is for a TV series called 'True Blood'. The images are similar, which is why I thought it would be a good idea. The Jennifer's Body advert is just a big picture with the title and some additional information. The lips and blood would be what attracts the eyes of the reader. Reading further down, you would then see Megan Fox's name and then the movie title. This would be all that was needed to successfully advertise it for now. But that is just relying on the power of Fox's name. I would need a lot more information on mine, so I might look to the above posts for ideas. The True Blood ad is extremely similar to the Jennifer's Body one, as it also just consists of the lips, blood and additional information. Because this is a TV show, it has the date and time included, but in the American format. The tagline is also visible. Taglines seem to be a necessity. Both adverts have information on the creators, mentioning successful projects they worked on before. Jennifer's Body is from the makers of 'Juno', another successful film; and the creator of True Blood also made 'Six Feet Under'.

Overall, it seems that a mixture of images and text would be ideal. Information on TV shows, such as dates and times are useful, with the channel name/logo, like the HBO one on True Blood. Additional information on the show would be relevant, and maybe I could have the tagline at the top, to be the first thing read by the viewer. Looking into ads has been a good opportunity to get ideas that may be successful.

Time Plan

Below is my fancy-looking time plan for the work ahead. It all has to be finished by the middle of February 2011, so prepare for a lot of posts.

Sticking to the time plan has been difficult, but I believe I am getting the work and research finished according to plan. Any changes I need to make will be minor tweaks in recent posts, as well as the future posts. I believe I have included enough information to give me ideas, and to give YOU an idea of what I'm on about. If you look through everything, I think you'll agree that enough detail has been included so far. I think if someone else were to develop my site for me, I'd expect them to follow the time plan relatively accurately and I'd expect them to complete everything well and in detail, on time.

Site Plan

Here is an image I created from shapes and lines in Word showing the type of layout I'm looking at for my navigation.

As you can see, the logo will be at the top and it will be clickable as a way to take the user back to the home page. The navigation bar will be at the top and will consist of around 10 tabs with drop-down boxes for each, consisting of sublinks to various pages. Underneath the navigation bar will be the page content. Nielson's usability guidelines will be used, hopefully, in all the pages. I want the site to be easy to navigate and simple to comprehend. I don't want it to be too complicated. I want someone to visit the site, looking for something, and to find it quickly. I think this is why a search bar will help.

The pages I am planning to have linked are the News, Competitions, TV, Downloads, Music and Games pages.

Teen site research - Conclusion!

I have concluded from this research that all sites have common elements and they are usually elements that a site cannot work without. They are for convenience and to improve the layout. There should be bright and attractive colours in my site, with a possible drop down box for the navigation tabs, to make it all look hi-tech. I won't include too many tabs in the navigation bar, so I may stick to around seven or eight of them, as that is the sufficient amount.

I will split my home page up into sections and each section will be a summary of the different tabs in the navigation bar. For example, on the home page, there will be a small box labelled 'news' and it will show the top 2-3 stories, with links to the full articles. By clicking on the 'News' tab, the user will be taken to the full page with all of the stories, not just the top few. I may make some working links for the top 2-3 stories, just to expand on the site a little.

The other sections of the home page will show things like what's showing in the channel, downloads such as mp3's and wallpapers, videos and maybe an image gallery. I am considering not including the images. Either that, or I will not link a page to the image tab and just have it there for show. I don't think images are relevant and any images I use would violate copyright law, since I can't exactly take pictures of my friends and I, and include them.

I may take some information on the current music chart at the time from a site like MTV, in order to get accurate results for the finished site. I will also include different genre charts on the Music page for the people who don't like the charts and think that it's all corrupted by R'n'B... *sigh*

So there will be some Rock, Metal, Country, Rap, Hip Hop, R'n'B and other music genres to attract a wide range of users to the site...

I'm thinking of names for the site and right now I'm liking the name "Ben FM". Yes, it's ridiculous; yes, it's stupid... But I think it has a ring to it and I like it. Other names I have been considering are "Epic Radio", "Awesome Radio" and "The Ben Channel". I am thinking of mixing the names to either get "Epic FM" or "The Awesome Channel."

Weebl's Stuff

Weebl's Stuff is another teen site, but it consists of animations and games. Its purpose is comedy and some of the rude and crude animations are entertaining. Weebl's Stuff is well-known for its famous Badgers, Magical Trevor, Amazing Horse, Cat Face and the silly short sketches by Weebl & Bob. Weebl mostly makes songs out of current events and the media, sometimes using celebrities, and his site has built up as he has gained success.

The picture to the left shows the navigation which is a colourful bar of tabs with drop down bars showing sub-pages. There is no magazine for the site. The font is simple, but clear and effective, and the colour scheme is also basic. It is easy to navigate and everything is laid out well with a useful search bar at the top. On the right is some merchandise being advertised. This would be handy for my site, even though no merchandise will be made.


On the right is the bottom of the page with some shortcut links to some of the new and popular stuff on the site, and the copyright information.






This is an example of the pages for the videos. I have used the Amazing Horse video as an example. Below the video is some related merchandise. There is also a video navigation to cycle to the next, previous and latest videos. A synopsis of the video is included and there is a link to the iTunes download of the song.

Next post is the conclusion.

BBC3

BBC3 (www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree) is a division of the BBC channels, along with BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, BBC HD, CBeebies, CBBC, BBC News and BBC Parliament.


To the left, you can see once again that the site has a slideshow of new pages to catch visitors' eyes. The navigation tabs are clear and bold, which is a good feature. Again, the top of the page consists of the main elements of the site which can be expanded, with the listings and news.




On the right, you see the bottom of the home page, which has a colourful background connecting all of the small boxes down the page to a hotel via pipes. This is to do with a promotion for a show that was on at the time I visited the site. Below the hotel is a list of the BBC sites and some external links, like there were on MTV.


For the last site, I will focus on the previously mentioned Weebl's Stuff (www.weebls-stuff.com), which is a site for older teens and again, possibly adults. It consists of animations and short comedy sketches all animated by "Weebl", who is famous for his Badger, Badger, Badger animation: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/badgers/ and Amazing Horse: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/Amazing+Horse/

Be warned: there's some content inappropriate for younger teens.

Anyway, see the next post.