Start Planning

Part A

When looking at music magazines we are able to see that different magazines are aimed at different people, whether it might be men or women, young or old, working class or middle class etc. each magazine has a particular target audience that they try and supply what the target audience want by asking them what they in a magazine in order to sell it, this is when you’re asking the target audience what they would like to sell your magazine. The front cover must be appealing to the eye and competing with all the other magazines to stand out the most, magazines use bright colours or large fonts for the sell lines and large logos with bold images to capture the audience’s attention. Each magazine is individual, it shows and expresses different styles and opinions, which is aimed at different individual people who are looking for certain things in a magazine whether it be about music, fashion, gigs etc. it’s all about the person who is buying it. Magazines must have interesting stories in them, they can’t be dull and boring they must be about something excited and fun, many will be willing to buy just because it’s their favourite band/artist so also magazine companies should be looking for popular artist and bands that get a lot of attention.

A – Attract audience- use of bright colours, image and text

I – Interest- articles and sell lines should entice the audience.

D – Desire-lure the reader by adding competitions, posters or give freebies

A – Act – people to buy your product, motivate them into purchasing, for example, creating a sense of urgency with a limited-time offer or limited supply.

Part B

Front covers must have:

A main image with (not always) a few images which have anchor text about a story that is included in this weekly issue or images to show what is inside the magazine like posters or photos of artists or bands to attract the audience

A logo should be on the front of the magazine usually on the left hand corner to be seen on a shelf with all the other magazines for sale. They are usually eye capturing and at the top of the magazine to show importance, they have bright colours or a different format or font to stand out from

the rest of the magazine.

Sell lines should be included to try and sell the magazine, things that make it feel like it is exclusive to the reader or it is important etc. they tend to have more sell lines on the left again due to rule of thirds and how it will be positioned on the shelf.

Barcode, date, issue number and price should be on the front cover

A larger heading is usually for the main image to show how important this band or artist is to the rest of the artist and bands or shows they are important to this week’s magazine.

Contents pages have:

The logo of the magazine is usually on the content page too to show that its that music magazines contents page.

The title “Content” on it to show that it is the content page Date of the magazine issue to link to the front cover of the magazine Images are usually included to show what will be in the magazine again etc. Page number and subtitles of groups of pages for example it has the title “News” with

a few page numbers that are linked to news in the magazine, this helps the audience find what they are looking.

The Double Page Spread Article:

It has a dominating image that takes up most the page or at least one page of the double page spread

It has a large eye capturing title with it that might link to the image The image usually has the artist or band posing or doing something There is always a sub title that sums up the story of the

double page spread to try and make some suspense for the audience

Summary of Research into genre:

My chosen genre is Indie Rock and I found that:

Indie rock music started off around the 1980s from punk, as a kind of do it yourself attitude bands, indie coming from the word independent, standing for the fact that these indie bands are independent and making it on their own as bands.

Bands such as Nirvana inspired Indie Rock bands in the 1900s, the grunge scene that inspired m any other genres of music too

Bands like Oasis, the smiths, Blur, were part of this Indie rock scene, the alternative label lost its meaning after this.

The term "indie rock" became associated with the bands and genres that remained dedicated to their independent status. Ryan Moore has argued that in the wake of the appropriation of alternative rock by the corporate music industry that what became known as indie rock increasingly turned to the past to produce forms of "retro" rock that drew on garage rock, rockabilly, blues, country and swing. Following indie pop these included lo-fi, noise pop, emo, sadcore, post-rock, space rock and math rock.

Presently there has been a change in indie rock and the sub-genre groups it has, there has been Garage rock/post-punk revival, bands such as The Strokes, an indie rock garage rock band created in new York, the black keys that are indie rock or blues rock that come from the US, Kaiser Chiefs, The Kooks and the Arctic Monkeys. Other sub-genre groups such as emo music bands like panic! At the disco, paramore, fall out boy and my chemical romance. Another sub-genre group is Indietronic, bands such as Klaxons, Trash fashion and Hadouken!

Below are images of my chosen magazine on which I would like to base my magazine:

Covers

Note: the disorder magazines, I only wish to look at the layout, photography, style in which they present their magazine, their music I’m not sure is Indie Rock, it might had some bands in their issues, but sometimes they usually have a mixture of bands.

Content pages

Articles I would like to use as site models

I have also found that for indie photography they tend to have a very vintage look like a Polaroid look to it like it was a quick simple vintage image, sometimes they do have a very professional look to their images, like a white background with the person/ at a mid-close up looking directly at the camera, or if it’s a whole band they tend to have a long shot, also they never seem to edit the bands or artist face in indie/rock magazines, they tend to show the person as they are, with their own clothing, nothing extravagant and outstanding, they keep it simple. Also Indie rock/indie/rock magazines tend to keep their magazines professional looking, if you look at Q or NME it isn’t full of pink and lots of images, and hearts and flowers like little teenage girls would be attracted to, whereas with indie/rock magazines they have usually the colours of red, black and white colour scheme with a main image in the middle and a lot of sell lines around it in the same font. I would like to include these elements in my magazine.

Target audience research

In conclusion, looking at my target audience results I am able to see that the cover should be professional looking due to the fact that a large amount of my target audience are attracted to NME and Q and Kerrang, I wish to be able to create a very indie rock look so I would have to use indie rock music magazines as inspiration and ideas to create my own so that I am able to attract that kind of audience too. I would have to use minimum amount of colours, simple colours like Red, black, grey and white, this creates a moody look that relates to indie rock. I would have to show on the front cover a good main image of a indie band. I would have to have sell lines that would attract the audience to wanting to buy my magazine, include free things and exclusive things inside the magazine so that they would want to buy it, I would want to make my magazine eye capturing but professional at the same time. It should include the date, the issue number, the barcode and price like every other magazine.

The content page should include a title of the content page, it should be eye capturing, include photo/photos of bands that are well known and less well known because when talking to my target audience they felt like the same bands were repeated a lot of the time in music magazines putting them off buying sometimes, also this way unknown bands are getting publicity and getting known a bit more. It should include band information, interviews, posters/photography images, double page spreads, tour dates etc. with the page numbers on the content page, I wish to at least get up to the maximum of 65 pages for a good quality magazine full of information etc.

Articles should have band information, new bands that are new in the music industry or have created a new album that the magazine company think the audience should listen to. There should be a lot of photography in this magazine, with double page spreads of bands or artists. There should be tour dates and festival dates and what bands will be at the festival; this will attract people who love to going to concerts and

festivals. The magazine should include live images and reviews from the live performances, this gives us a feel of what they are like when they are performing and also we are able to read reviews of the band seeing if they are any good or not to others. I wish to include quizzes and things to win, like tickets to festivals or band concerts etc. I wish to get the audience to want to take part in it to have the opportunity to win. My target audience said that they would love to have lots of photos, lots of interviews, and reviews and tour dates, this is what is usually in a music magazine.

My target audience had a mixture of answers, some didn’t buy magazines because they didn’t feel like it was aimed at them, some said it was about the price of the magazine, it was too much for the them to afford when they were only working part time or in education, but some was able to easily buy magazines and did so. I feel like even though there is a mixture of answers I should try and consider both sides, I wish to make sure my magazine covers and makes everyone feel like it is aimed to them if they like indie rock music, I also wish to make my magazine at the price of £2.00 because when looking at prices of magazines they tend to be £2.50 or more for a good indie rock/indie/rock magazine so I wish to make it more cheaper but have a lot in it, this way it might attract more people to want to buy it. I also have to work on attracting my audience, I have looked at magazines like NME and Q that mainly attract males, I had noticed that most my target audience that were female did like indie rock music so I need to include them in this, I need to make my aim at roughly 15-25 and are interested in indie rock music. I looked at both the questionnaire results and my target audience results and put them two together to try and make sure it is aimed at what people really want.

Having summarized these results I am now ready to complete my formal proposal and start planning my own music magazine.