OUGD401 - NME Genre Split Redesign - Planning & Initial Considerations

OUGD401 - NME Genre Split Redesign - Planning & Initial Considerations

The purpose of this project is to create 2 distinctly styled NME magazines in consideration of the increasing use of digital platforms for magazines. These magazines will not only give readers of NME the choice of which magazine to read depending on their style of music, but attempt to entice readers to pick up a physical copy of the magazine. 

When going through the latest copy of NME, it becomes evident that one cannot simply split it in half and use different pages for whichever of the 2 magazines are more relevant. There are some things which must be considered:

The Cover: The cover of each issue shows whichever band or artist has the biggest feature in the magazine. If this feature will be part of the new Rock and Roll Issue, what will be the cover of the Pop Issue?

Advertisements: Should advertisements be split depending on which magazine there’re more relevant to, or should they feature in both magazines?

Recurring Columns/Sections: Like any magazine, NME features columns/sections that recur every week, some of which may be more relevant to one of the 2 new magazines, however some are either relevant to both equally, or contain a mixture of content. For the purposes of the 2 mock up magazines that will be produced, should these sections be edited? Is it worth producing a small amount of content to make up for the content lost to the other magazine? If a section is relevant to both magazines, perhaps it can be designed and laid out differently corresponding to both magazines, however still have the same content.