My Design Philosophy

My personal likes and dislikes of magazine design will be reflected in the magazine I produce, alot of these preferred 'philosophies' have been altered slightly so they would fit with my magazine's genre, and the design will be effected by indie's ideologies;

Minimal vs cluttered
Although I personally prefer a minimal look on the cover and throughout magazines and the whole idea of 'quality, not quantity' - I think in a magazine, in order to be conventional and successfully sell a magazine, it needs to be pretty full of information in order to attract the reader. For example, 'Ray Gun' magazine by David Carson was iconically minimalist and as a result unsuccessful! I believe my magazine should have plenty of information throughout, but not so 'clutterd' it would be frustrating and hard to read. Although indie genres like the ideology of being original, in terms of Original vs Conventional, I believe that the magazine would definitely have to fit in with typical magazine conventions.

Retro vs Modern
In terms of my indie magazine, I would say that it is a combination of both. The people are young and don't tend to hold on to previous, older artists and they are all about being fresh and different, and they are apart of the modern generation with laptops, mobiles and general social media.  However having said this, they dress very 'vintage' and their instruments would be more acoustic and simple compared to these auto-tuned new musics that are modern at the moment. Similar to this, in terms of Timeless vs Now  I would say this magazine and the general 'indie' movement is something that is very now and is a phase like people used to be a 'mod'. It will probably be looked back on and seem old, and probably won't look as normal as it does now, but who can really know!

Balance & Consistency vs Inconsistency 
This is an important aspect of the magazine, keeping a regular, similar pattern of design throughout the magazine adds familiarity for the reader and keeps interest. It would need to fit 'indie' conventions and you couldn't suddenly switch to something extremely pink and girly for example. Therefore keeping it consistent is a must, as again, 'Ray Gun' failed to fit this convention and the end result was not great as readers didn't know what to look for on the self as it changed monthly. Also in terms of the front cover, the sell lines would need balance and be equally distributed around the main image of the magazine. The use of colour would need to be fairly consistent throughout, however it would need to alter slightly to avoid being boring! Just not too much of a drastic colour scheme change.