Proposal

Tamsin

Tolfree

I will make a cover, contents and

double-page spread for a music

magazine based around idols, a

sub-genre of Japanese music, as I

am interested in this genre so I can

write a lot on it and also it is

different from typical genres and

fills a gap in the market as there

are no other magazines, especially

in Europe which covers this

particular genre. As such, I think

that it would be popular amongst

English-speaking idol fans as such

magazines are hard or expensive to

obtain especially in English, and

the unique style may also interest

others and make them want to

know more about it.

What I’ll Do

Wikipedia:

“In Japanese culture, female idols 

(アイドル  aidoru) are media

personalities in their teens and

twenties who are considered

particularly attractive or cute and

who will, for a period ranging from

several months to a few years,

regularly appear in the mass

media, as singers for pop groups,

bit-part actors, TV personalities

(tarento), models in photo spreads

published in magazines,

advertisements, etc. But not every

young celebrity is considered an

idol: young celebrities who wish to

cultivate a rebellious image, such

as many rock musicians, reject the

"idol" label. The current situation

in the Japanese idol scene is called

"Idol sengoku jidai" (アイドル戦国時

代 ; lit. Idol war age).”

Idol

Seiko Matsuda (24 Consecutive Oricon

number 1 singles, Record holder for 22

years, Oricon poll Number 1 Idol of all

time. Coined the 'Forever Idol')

Pink Lady (Had a streak of nine number one hits from 1976 to 1978, with five being multi million selling)

Morning Musume (Longest running female idol group, holds record for most consecutive top 10 singles (54) for any Japanese artist.)

AKB48 (Guinness World Record holder for being the "largest pop group“)

Inspiration

Morning Musume – Kare to Issho ni Omise ga Shitai! (I want to open a shop with him!)

AKB48 – Gingham Check

°C-ute – Tokai no Hitorigurashi (Living Alone in the City)

S/mileage – Yattaruchan (Miss ‘I Can Do It!’)

Examples

My research using a survey

online found that the

majority of idol fans are

Females between the ages

of 18 and 24 that like the

colours pink, blue and

purple. The most popular

idols were also found to be

Morning Musume, ℃-ute,

and AKB48. To appeal to

this audience, my magazine

will use those colours and

have articles related to

those groups which will

interest that audience.

Target

Audience

For the magazine I will need

to organise:

• cover lines

• the masthead (what the

magazine is called)

• the colour scheme

• the cover image and other

images

• the layout

• the puffs and other shapes

• the subject of the double

page spread

Achievi

ng the

Results

I Want

To do this I will use Adobe

Photoshop CS5 and Adobe

Indesign CS5 as these will

be best to use for making a

magazine because they are

industry standard and as

such will create the best

results.

Programs I’ll

Use

The cover page will draw

inspiration from magazines

like Top Yell, KERA, UTB and

SHOXX, which are

magazines that feature

idols and music and as such

cover the same genre. It

will be a standard layout

similar to these, with the

model or models in the

centre of the page with the

masthead at the top, the

cover lines surrounding

them and the headline at

the bottom.

Cover Page

As I know no Japanese girls who I can

use to model for my magazine, I can use

English girls and as such centre my

headline and double page spread on the

idol boom worldwide, especially in

places such as the U.K, the U.S and

France. The magazine can also focus on

this side of things in terms of obtaining

music, merchandise and also how to

meet the idols (either at home or in

Japan) which could also appeal to the

target audience.

The models I have chosen are three of

my friends who are aged 16 and so

while they are not the age of the target

audience, they are the age of the

average idol and as such this will suit

the magazine more. They can wear

clothing similar to the idols and be

presented as a new, English idol group.

Cover and

Picture

Model

English

Idols

and Idol

Fans

As the magazines I used for ideas

for cover pages don’t have

contents pages (with the exception

of UTB, which I will be using), I will

use contents pages from music

magazines which show similar

groups from the U.K and the U.S,

such as We Love Pop.

It will be similar in that it will use

puffs to present the text, have

images of things within the

magazine (with page numbers on

the images), a picture of the cover

and also a welcoming message

from the editor. The pages will also

be separated by whether they’re

on the cover or not, as the pages

on the cover will have priority.

Content

s Page

The magazine’s double page

spread will be quite reliant on

colours and images I take of my

models, and these will fill up most

of the page. As they were the most

popular in the market research, the

double page spread will probably

be an interview with the group I

take pictures of, and also profiles

on them so that the reader can

learn about them. The interview

can cover idol fandom abroad, and

also the rise of the Western idol. It

will probably use a lot of page

furniture in the form of puffs and

sticker-like images, as pages seem

to be more reliant on this rather

than actual text within the genre.

Double

Page

Spread