Target Audience: Colour Scheme

Colour Scheme

 As I have decided, my target audience will have an age range of 15 to 22. This age range was inspired by music magazines such as NME and Q. 
 Bright colours grab attention however they are childish and immature. Colours such as black, white and red are perfect to use as house colours for a music magazine that has a target audience of 15 to 22 year olds. I have previously analysed a cover page for VIBE magazine. The main cover star was Nicki Minaj and the editors based the house style on Minaj's bright orange hair, to me that looked amazing. It was done so elegantly and with so much taste, it definitely would also appeal to my target audience.
Here is a link to that cover:
http://amateurpeople.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/similar-products_24.html
 However music magazines such as NME and Q very rarely use such bright colours. Their house colours are mainly black, white and red. Here is an example of such a cover:

It can be clearly sen that the only colour present that stands out is the red from Florence's hair.

Organisation: Photo Shoot

Photo Shoot

I am planning a photo shoot with a friend, Felicity, who is also taking this course. The photo shoot will take place withing the next two weeks and will happen at my house. We will use my camera to take the pictures and the props that we use will be clothes, a guitar, glasses and other accessories. The point of this photo shoot is take potential cover photographs for  our music magazine. I am doing an indie/soft rock music magazine and so therefore I will have to coordinate the background and props to create the best environment to take a photograph that will suit the ethos of my music magazine.
Felicity will be the main cover star for the time being, which means she will be the fake artists that I have made up. However I may change my mind and decide to create a band in which case this will be practice for the real photo shoot.

Target Audience: NME

NME Target Audience

I have done research into the type of audience that NME and target. I have found out what gender they predominantly target and the age group they target. This is the information I found:

• The average age is 25 
• The magazine targets men ages 17-30
• They are predominantly male with 73%
• 73% belong to the social grade ABC1
• The majority of NME readers enjoy new entertainment
• Well educated – 34% working full time, 18% working part time, 26% full time students
• The readers of this magazine are very modern, young and trendy who, enjoy films and technology.
• Dedicated to the magazine
• Audience Demographics:Age: 25• Gender: Male• Employment: Full time job Geographics: Lives in the U.K.

As my magazine will be similar to NME, with similar bands and articles, I have to suspect that my target audience will also be similar. Therefore, I have to create a fictitious band that will suit 17-30 year olds and also the articles have to appealing to that age range.  

Self-Assessment

Self-assessment of Codes and Conventions Task

1.Have you justified your decisions on your blog? How could you enhance these blog entries?

To practice using codes and convention, I have created four fake magazine covers that use the Masthead and style of real magazines. This task helped me get used to adding the basic codes and conventions on magazines such as the date and bar code. This task also helped me gain knowledge on what conventions give off certain messages to the audience. For example a music magazine that is similar to Pitch would not have Justin Bieber or Nicki Minaj on the cover, it would have an artist like Marilyn Manson. Gaining this knowledge will help me when I am creating my own magazine and using the generic codes and conventions to send off the correct individual message to my audience. I feel like I justified my decisions on my blog effectively however my friend Katie has given me feedback on the Codes and Conventions task and gave me a broader view of my work and how it could be improved so that my final product can be done to the best of my ability. I was told that to improve my skills I should get rid of the negative space on the cover pages so that the magazine doesn't look so empty. I could have also discussed why I used secondary images for M with Drake on the cover. 

2. How do you plan to use these in the future?

Through the process of creating these music magazines, I have gathered skills that will stay with me and this knowledge about codes and conventions will help me make my final music magazine look more real. One of the feedbacks that I got from Katie about the Codes and Conventions task is that my magazines look only semi-real and are not completely persuasive as a magazine and this task certainly helped me get over that. I also plan to use this task in the future in my Research into Similar Products as I have learnt how to manage the photography, cover lines, bar code and other conventions to make effective use of the space and make the magazine look real. The knowledge gathered also showed me how to use fonts, photography and colours to send out the correct message to attract a specific Target Audience. In terms of Organisation, I now know how to position my cover star so that the artist shows off their attitude and successfully appeal to my chosen Target audience and

Drafting and Planning: Band Names

Band Names

 In my magazine, I need to create a double page spread about a fictional band that I have made up. As I have decided the Band will be soft rock/indie, the name has to be simple yet thought through, and preferably beginning with "The." For inspiration I turned to my some of my all time favourites, including Bastille, Arctic Monkeys, The Lumineers, Two Door Cinema Club and Haim. All of these band names are strange yet elaborate and completely and effortlessly define the band. 

 Haim is a band that is made up of three sisters and they used their last name as the band name. It is a pretty cool band name. 

 Two Door Cinema Club has an interesting story behind it which led to the inevitable discovery of their band name. There was a cinema named "Tudor" in the area where the four band members lived, one day one of the band members said the name of the cinema weirdly and it ended up sounding like "Two Door."

 I also had an idea to instead of creating a fictional band, I would create an artist. That artist would still be in the music genre of soft rock/indie. The artist would be an upcoming one that had to break through obstacles of life to make his dreams come true. For that I was thinking "Man with the Guitar", "Adam Adams" or simply a due called "Double Denim." their image would be just plain ol' fashioned denim. 

Drafting and Palnning: Codes and Conventions Task

M Magazine (Drake on cover) 

Market - Mass market as people of most ages, and both genders would buy this magazine.

Genre - Hip-hop, R n' B

Main Cover Line - How many more times will Nicki Minaj turn him down?

Reasoning 

I have kept to the colour scheme of the music magazine which is red. The name of the main cover star is written boldly on the cover page for attention grabbing. I have added in secondary images as support for my main cover line to really appeal to a wider audience. 

M Magazine (The Welsh Rarebits)

Market - Mass marketing

Genre - Indie

Main Cover Line - A Welsh band that took over America and is headed for the UK

Reasoning

I did not follow the red colour scheme of the masthead as the red font blended with the background and was hard to read. Therefore, I chose the clothing of one of the main cover stars to base the colour scheme on. It looks fantastic, the cover lines really pop and break out from the black background of the cover stars clothing.

Music_X 

Market - Niche, appeals only to a certain group of people with a common interest

Genre - Indie

Main Cover Line - Breaking all the stereotypes

Reasoning

As the main cover star is shown in a 3D way, I have adapted to the red and blue blur and based my colour scheme on it. The cover lines are really showed off on the black background and the name of the cover star is the first thing a person notices as it stands out so much.

Pitch

Market - Niche, appeals to cults or groups of audiences with an interest for this music

Genre - Heavy Metal/Hard Rock

Main Cover Line - Why be a Man when you can be an Animal?

Reasoning

This has to be my favourite cover page, not because of the cover star, but because of the really unique colour scheme that goes with this cover page. Red, white and black really showed off the cover star's personality and also are really attention grabbing.

Sound

Market - Mass as appeals to most people of both genders

Genre - Rock/Indie

Main Cover Line - Live like Kings, Bathe in Glory

Reasoning

I have added a pug to this cover page as I thought it suited the magazine and especially the photograph. I have followed the main colour scheme to appeal to the audience and to make the magazine follow the codes and conventions.

Drafting and Planning: Name/Genre

Music Magazine 

Name
 I am to create a music magazine and with that comes the obvious task of providing it with an appropriate name. I did use the help of the Visual Thesaurus to come up with a name, like my teacher suggested and I got these responses that I will definitely consider: Esthesis and Sensation. I also had some idea of my own which were: Harmonious or Harmony, Urban or Urban Sound, Vocalization or Vocal.

Genre
 The most popular music magazines in the U.K. are NME, SPIN, Kerrang, Q and Mojo. Suprisingly all of these music magazines are of the same musical genre. The most notable music magazines of the British history are rock and indie magazines which mean that if I want my music magazine to be successful in this society, it should be a rock magzine or at least soft rock/indie. Kerrang features artists such as My Chemical Romance, Blink-182 and Nine Inch Nail, which are not soft rock bands but still, Kerrang is one of the most popular music magazine. This does not change my mind I do not listen or enjoy such forms of rock.

Questionnaire

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BF6LP59

Response To Tracker Feedback

I have focused a lot of my energy and time into Research Into Similar Products, as it can be seen in my tracker, because I wanted to have a lot of research ready for when I am creating my magazine and so that was my strongest section. I wanted to create a range of different indie rock magazines so that I can either follow or challenge the generic conventions they use. I haven't decided on my Target Audience yet and so I am lacking in my blog posts in that area - that is my weakness. I have to refer to my research so that I can create more blogs about my Target Audience. I haven't come across many Organisation opportunities for photo shoots, gigs or concerts and so one of my weaker areas was Organisation. To improve my blog I have to arrange a photo opportunity with my main cover star to make more blog posts. Drafting and Planning was also my weak section as I have not began to think about the layout or contents of my magazine. To improve, I have to refer to my research to gain some ideas.

Target Audience

  Now the time has come for me to start progressing into the phase of establishing a target audience for my music magazine. My music magazine will definitely not be appropriate for elders (60+) as I doubt they even still buy music magazine. It will be an indie/soft rock magazine and that is usually a genre that youngsters listen to. It will also not be a music magazine aimed at children (younger than 14) as it will not be written in such a simple language that they might understand however superior proper English will also not be used as that would not suit a music magazine.
  My target audience would have to be teenagers and young adults that belong into the 15 to 22-23 age group. Younger people are the ones that usually enjoy music on a daily bass and regularly attend a gig or concert. and therefore it will be easier to appeal to them. Creating my music magazine based on the genre of indie/soft rock music will be even easier as there are so many popular bands that youngsters listen to, there are even more upcoming ones which proves that younger people are "into it."

Drafting and Planning: Fonts

I definitely do not want seven million fonts parading and wasting space on the cover page of my music magazine as it will look unorganized, terrible and just cruel to humanity. I want to keep it simple, like The Fly magazine which in its simplicity looks so complex. No crazy and outgoing fonts will be used, because simple really is better. I did an exercise some time back where I had to choose the best font for a cover. This really helped me as I got to see what goes with the cover star and what doesn't. (Link to the post: http://amateurpeople.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/this-is-magazine-cover-page-created-by.html)

I did a template to try some fonts out.

My favourite one has to be the first one, New Times Roman. It is simple and yet catchy enough to suit a magzine. The one I dislike the most has to be the 7th one, Franklin Gothic Medium, and Comic Sans - none of them will help me create the look that I.m going for with my music magazine.

Drafting and Planning: Publishing Plan

Publishing Plan

Drafting and Plannning: Publishing Companies

As I am to produce a music magazine, I need to research potential publishing companies. I've decided to look into my favourite music magazines and see what company publishes them. Firstly, NME is published by Time Inc. UK. This company is also responsible for publishing magazines such as InStyle, which is a fashion magazine for women, and also a lot of sport magazines such as Yachting World and Rugby World. All these magazines are similar and they don't break out into the carnivalesque approach. As I will not be following into the footsteps of magazines such Kerrang, that scream for attention, Time Inc. UK is a great publishing company for my magazine.
On that note, Kerrang is published by Bauer Media Group. Q is also published by this company, which is strange as Q does not have a carnivalesque approach to attracting the reader's attention. Therefore Bauer Media Group is an interesting option.

Organisation

I needed ideas for the cover photo of my music magazine. My friend was having a gig at the O2 Academy and I took some amazing pictures. These were just practice and I won't be using them for my cover page.

 The lighting at the event was amazing. I love how the subjects where in front of the light and it seeped through, creating a great effect . It also creates a great rock band look.

Target Audience: VIBE

Target Audience: VIBE

VIBE is another one of the magazines that I decided to research. I am creating an indie rock magazine and so it should have been an obvious choice to research, however VIBE has a wide target audience and by using two different genres of music, I might be able to appeal to a wider audience. My main target audience is similar to NME's as I mostly an indie rock magazine. VIBE has lively colours and interesting stories which persuaded me to also research into its background and target audience.

VIBE's target audience:

• Out of the audience, 50.5% of them are males, meaning the other 49.5% are women. The ratio between the 2 genders is almost exactly equal, meaning that Vibe is aimed towards both genders. This means that the audience for Vibe would be larger than for something such as NME, which is mostly aimed at males. A larger audience means increase in success for a brand like Vibe. 
• 18 to 34 year olds are the usual reader, with 71.2% of the audience being this age range. This means that the content featured within the magazine should be aimed at younger adults.
• Education is not necessarily a strong point, as only 50.7% of Vibe's audience have ever even went on to advanced level education. Only 19% are currently in higher education. Therefore, the content should not be aimed at educated individuals, there should be features of slang and should not include any text of higher standards and a lot of photography.
• 71.3% of the audience is made of African-Americans. This therefore means that to appeal to the majority of their readers they will present their culture. Including African American artists presented expoiting their usual attitude.  

Research Into Similar Products

Whenever I see Nicki Minaj on a cover of a magazine or if there is an article about her in a music magazine, there is always so much colour and so many differnt fonts are used. I have learnt that when I see pink inside a magazine, there is a 97% that Nicki Minaj is the main subject.







Layout - This article is solely about one subject, Nicki Minaj, who dominates the double page spread. This was done to attract the fans of Nicki Minaj to purchase the magazine and have a chance to learn something about her, in this case her Gospel. Her name takes over the page to, again, attract the fans of Nicki Minaj. The writing is in shape with the subject's figure and doesn't over lap her. This is done so that nothing distracts from the main subject, instead all the attention is focused on Nicki Minaj.
Font - "Nicki Minaj" is written using s big, bold, thick and pink font to grab the attention quick and notify people who the article is about. Pink and black, the colours used for most of the fonts, complement each other and Nicki Minaj's outfit.
Photograph - The subject, Nicki Minaj, is showing off her ring that says "ICON", this fits in perfectly with the article as she is sharing her "Gospel" with the reader and also giving advice to the public. The subject is boldly placed at the centre of the double page spread and takes up most space. This approach quickly grabs the readers attention. The subject is also making eye contact with the potential customer to create a bond and encourage them to purchase the magazine.
Colour - A big and colourful font is used to write her name in because it also reflects her personality: it's outgoing, crazily colourful and bold. The colour scheme is pink and black, just a whole lot of pink and black. This colour scheme was picked after the photo shoot, the editors must have thought that pink would complement Nicki Minaj's photo.
Text - 6 rules are given from the "Gospel of Nicki Minaj"and each one is explained in a smaller font. For the subheadings, old English is used to eemphasizethe fact that it is a Gospel and should be followed. There must be plenty of detail and explanation which provides instructions to how be more like the main subject - Nicki Minaj.

Drafting and Planning: Investigating Typography

This is a magazine cover page created by my teacher, they are all the same except the cover story is written using different font styles. Each font sends a different message about the cover story. The one I dislike the most is style D because the old fashion font style doesn't match the message that the story is sending. It is also hard to read and does not match the urban demographic of the magazine. Style B was the one that I prefer the most above all because the emphasis that was put on the first letters adds clarity to the magazine and because of that it is easy to read. Style A to me is a bit messy as two fonts are used which, to me, creates chaos. Style A and F are quite flat and don't create clarity for the reader, they are also unflattering and unexciting. Style C uses Comic Sans and that was a huge mistake. Comic Sans is an immature font for children and not for professional music magazines. Style E reminds me of a thriller font and that does not suit with the urban message of the magazine.

This task will help me in the future as it helped me to distinguish between different types of fonts. This task also showed me that fonts are very important as they add to the theme of the magazine and help create a great outlook of the magazine. I realized that fonts have to be especially chosen and the typography for the magazine has to be thought through so that the magazine sends out the correct message to the audience.

Research Into Similar Products

Layout - It can be easily noticed that this double page spread of a music magazine focuses more on the figure than the actual contents of the information in the article. Florence, the main subject, is taking up more than a half of the double page. This technique is used to really grab the customers attention when they are flicking through the magazine, especially when potential customers are in a rush and the decision whether or not to buy the magazine depends on their favourite artist having a special article. "USA" is written in large and bold letters to emphasize who "got the love." This can also appeal to the more patriotic side of the reader.
Font - The words "got the love" are in a separate font to the rest of the writing to differentiate it from the rest as it is the name of a very popular song that was performed by the main subject of this double page, "USA" is written in a bold and large font to show what place this article focuses on. The fonts don't distract from the subject, but complement Florence is a subtle way. She is wearing black and the font colours match to create a pleasant effect.
Photography - The subject of the photograph is making eye contact with the reader to try and spark up a relation and persuade them to purchase the magazine. Florence's gaze is focused solely on the reader so that a potential bond can be created.
Text - The text is minimal, the editors wanted the focus to be mostly on the subject of the photograph. There are only three small columns of writing, from which can be gathered that the subject of this article didn't have much detail to write about.