Luke Leeks discusses his experience creating two magazines - a college magazine and a music magazine. For both projects, he started with limited design skills but learned through trial and error. He improved his skills with each magazine by researching existing magazines in those genres and experimenting with new design software. For his music magazine specifically, he took inspiration from magazines like NME and Kerrang to develop a style that was calmer and easier to read than competitors while still appealing to indie/rock fans.

1. By Luke Leeks

2.  Before this course I was completely
clueless with quark Xpress and
Photoshop and had a limited ability
with publisher. While constructing
my product I have learnt how to edit
things and the basics of all of the
program. I have also spent lots of
time doing trial and error just
learning how to do stuff and I now
believe I have a fairly strong
knowledge of the programs.
Me playing about with Photoshop
My first attempting with
quark Xpress at the
beginning of making my
music magazine.

3.  Since my very first attempt
at my college magazine and Once my college magazine was finished I
music magazine I have began my music magazine, I knew my music
learnt a lot. When I began magazine had to better than my college
on my college magazine my magazine so I spent hours learning how to
mock up attempts looked do things better on a different programs. For
awful, I had no idea on
my college magazine I used publisher but for
where things looked good ,
or how to format or this I wanted to use photoshop and Quark
structure things. Through Xpress to make it look more professional.
teaching and hard work on While using these new professional
the computers trying things programs I learnt a lot of things which
out I managed to do a helped my music magazine look far more
college magazine which I professional compared to the college
was reasonably pleased magazine showing what I had improved my
with. skills.

4.  When studying for my magazine I researched existing products similar to how I hoped mine to
be like, for my college magazine I looked at college magazine that already existed and what
they used in them. Of course most college magazines have a very small budget so I knew none
of the examples I looked at would be amazing, but looking at some existing ones I saw they all
tried to get students really into it, at first I didn’t use students in my front cover but after
looking at plenty I decided to change it to students because I think if the students are involved
issues will be bought because students want to know what other students think of the issues at
there college.
 I also wanted to include cell lines for articles that students would actually care about that
affected them like news on the building going on and what students think of the tutors, the
latter not just as a novelty story but as something they want to know maybe just for conformity
reasons or curiosity.
 In the contents page I kept it simple which many of the magazines had done however I also
took inspiration from home magazines I had read which kept the structure simple and easy for
the people to find what they won’t.

5.  In my music magazine I studied a number of existing music magazines such as Mojo, Kerrang,
NME and Q. Q and Mojo are more main stream so I was looking at them more for structure
rather than content and idea inspiration.
 NME and Kerrang are magazine I read more often and the style of magazine I wanted to copy
with my Music magazine giving it a indie/rock sort of vibe to it. A Kerrang I looked at was very
full on with a lot of things in your face which I didn’t really want however an NME and a few Q
and Mojo magazines I found had the sort of thing I wanted an image and a few cell lines, no
intense images and flashy effects which I felt diverted from the reason they were reading the
magazine for the music, a easy to read music orientated magazine that didn’t get distracted
from the main point. I developed a combination of things I had seen in all of the above
magazines when creating my own.
 I think I challenged your average indie/rock magazine with the way I did it, many of the
magazines I saw with that similar genre were as I said in your face so I changed the normal
convention in that case calming it down to an easy read.

6.  As I said in my last slide I wanted to make a indie/rock magazine. This is a slightly more niche
market however it is a growing area which is growing in popularity.
 The term indie comes from the word independent so many people who are in to that style of
music may class themselves as individual, so discussing big names such as Beyonce or Rihanna
would not be appealing to the social group of people I was trying to attract.
 Indie and rock people normally dress in a certain way as well (skinny jeans, checker shirts etc.)
so another thing I had to do was for my models to wear that style of clothing.
 In my double paged spread I needed to be careful what I wrote trying not to make them sound
to mainstream more independent those acts that retained an outsider and underground and
less testosterone-driven perspective which I think I did.
 Indie and rock is always given a stigma of working class people so, aiming it at middle to high
would not fit the genre.

7.  I did a questionnaire earlier in the year were I asked 50 people
what they liked most people that liked or bought music
magazines were of the ages 17-21 so this had to obviously be who
I aimed my magazine at.
 Indie/rock was the genre of music I wanted to aim at and I would
say most indie rock fans were of that age, so that was another
reason for choosing that genre. My questionnaire also found that
it was both sex’s interested in music rather than a particular
gender.

8.  I had to include musicians that appealed to both
sex’s so for guys a inspirational guy or an attractive
and for the girls a inspirational girl and a attractive
guy which I have tried to include in my magazine.
 If I were to do it again I would maybe include a prize or
gift to appeal to the audience more so but I do not
think it is hugely necessary.

9.  For my college magazine obviously due to the quality and the content it can
only be sold at college but I think that it also would be worth while to have a
online version for people that either may not want to waste paper or who would
prefer to read it at a later date to even refer back to for research.
 For my music magazine it is going to be larger in the print market, I think that
it would be sold in most news agents such as whsmith. However due to purely
convenience and the way media is changing I would have it online with it’s own
website so it is easy to get and I would also make a app for phones to download
for people to look at it on the move.

10. If I was given the chance to do it again I might change a
few things I did. One thing I would change would be
the format of my front cover. Given the chance again I
would move my writing over further to the right and
make it more equal in its size however this is a very
minor thing. Another thing I could change would
possibly be the pictures itself which I would of loved to
of got of existing performers who may have already
made it big.