Preliminary Video

Audience Survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5ZWD6H2

This is the link to my survey that I have created for my target audience to gain results about what they would like to see feature in my music magazine. I have included questions such as how readers would like to contact the magazine, what they would like included in the main article and even the magazine's name.

Audience Profile

My Target Audience:-

My target audience will be mostly females due to the style and content of my magazine however males may also purchase my magazine as the genre of music I include will apply to both genders and there will be bands/artists that have a target audience to both girls and boys. The ages of my target audience will vary from 15-28 ages as there will be aspects of my magazine that include information about concerts and gigs which will appeal to these ages as they are old enough to attend these events however they are not too old to have no interest at all for festivals. My magazine will be targeted at particular groups of people who are into indie and alternative music, for example bands such as ‘Bastille’, ‘Imagine Dragons’ and ‘Of Monsters And Men’. Some of their general hobbies may include socialising with friends (for example going to parties), shopping and attending certain music events as well as listening to music at home on their stereo or iPod. As NME includes what particular shops their readers attend in their own audience profile, I also thought it was necessary to include this information in my own. Therefore the type of stores my readers typically shop at will be 'Topshop', 'Urban Outfitters' and 'All Saints'.

Typical User:-

Katie is your typical blonde teenager. She is 17, attends college and is very into her music. She cares passionately about the music industry and enjoys hanging out with mates, going to local gigs and purchasing the lastest music via itunes or at her local music store. Her typical daily routine consists of getting up early each morning to do her hair and make-up, going to college and socialising before heading home where she will sometimes read, write, listen to music or work on her coursework. At the weekends, she spends most of her time catching up with her mates rather than staying at home watching TV. She is also has a part time job where the money she earns will go towards tickets for concerts and festivals as well as fashion. Katie's second passion is her clothes as she enjoys keeping up with the latest trends and also finds this a way of expressing her individual style. She likes to be a bit 'out there' and also has a wide variety of favourite music. She enjoys listening to urban/indie music as well as rock songs and upcoming bands also interest her as she loves hearing about new artists before anyone else.

Facts & Statistics:-

-The average age of my target audience will be 22 (young adults who still enjoy taking part in social events).
-Around 40% of my target audience will still be in some form of education such as college or university while the other 60% will already have a job.
-Again I would say 65% or target audience will be females, the other 35% males (keeping the target audience quite even).

Preliminary Task Evaluation

 For my preliminary task, I started designing my magazine by importing pictures I took around the school that I wanted to include. I imported these images by using the place button and then scaled them down to appropriate sizes. For my front cover, I made the image quite large to stand out. I then added rectangle banners using the shape tool at both the top and bottom of the page. I thought it would look effective if I added text over these so this is where I wrote the title and my main sell line. I also imported another image of the haydon school logo to make it clear that this was a magazine designed for the school and therefore will be read by students and teachers. To make my front cover look more interesting I also added a circle shape on the front for another sell line : 'exclusive! Results revealed inside!'
 Moreover, for my contents page I imported more images that I thought would make exciting features. I placed these around the page and also used the column template to write in my pages. I also created sub-headings using the text tool to put my page names into specific groups. This made my page looked more organised, therefore easy to read. I also stuck with the same type of colour scheme (blue and yellow) to link to the school's colours and my front cover.

Articles

Production Diary

Preliminary Task Contents

Preliminary Task Front Cover

Proposal

Proposal

 My magazine will be based around the indie genre, expressing a more stylish layout like ‘Q’ as I want my magazine to look more mature rather than to look busy, hectic and unprofessional. Although I will include more original and unusual photos, I will keep the design pretty simple and straightforward as I want most of my audience’s attention focused on the images. Plus I believe most successful music magazines tend to stick to a plain format. For the colour scheme, I want to go with something pretty funky such as a type of green or red - these colours will stand out and help attract different types of readers. I think my magazine will prove to be better than other music magazines out there as I will talk about and promote more new and unseen artists, rather than just popular icons - this will also make my magazine more unique. This will link back to the indie genre as indie is quite original and many unknown artists are a part of this type of music because there is a wide range and the indie genre isn’t specific.

 In my magazine I will include many different features such as exclusive interviews with new and upcoming artists, quizzes to help the audience get involved and many reviews as I think this is an important part of any music magazine as they help the audience base their decision on whether to buy or listen to music. There will also be reviews on the latest shows around the city - explaining what different artists are like live. Readers will also expect to enter competitions for a chance to go on tour with their favourite artist or in fact win a meet and greet with them. These types of competitions will be included in every issue and promoted on the front cover as my sell lines. Other competitions may include the opportunity to win festival tickets as they are also very popular.

 As an extended part of my magazine I will also have my own tour dedicated to the artists included in my product. This will be a small tour around the United Kingdom based around upcoming musicians. Not only will this be an amazing way to promote my new magazine, it will also be a great way to promote new artists. As my target audience will be a mix gender of 16-30 year olds, concerts will be a great idea because people of this particular age are more likely to go to festivals and gigs. Other aspects of my magazine that will attract my audience are reviews about new albums/singles as this will give them a better idea of what to purchase and listen to. My magazine will also include lots of opportunities to connect with social media as young adults and teenagers use these types of websites a lot. My magazine will also represent social media groups as it will focus on groups that strongly care about the music industry and that are into new interesting bands (particularly bands that no one has heard of before).

 I expect my magazine to be published every fortnight, allowing the audience to find out about information quickly as my magazine will be expected to compete with the internet. Although my magazine will have it's own website that will be frequently updated, I want to include as much new information in my magazine as possible as the idea of new artists is a big aspect of my magazine. I will launch my magazine by promoting subscriptions offers and chances to win tickets to gigs. I will also take part in the viral campaign as I will have my own Facebook and Twitter accounts for my magazine, perhaps persuading bands and other artists to tweet about my new magazine to further inform my audience.

Production Diary

22/09/13- Starting To Think About My Own Product

 For this week’s work, I carried out different research tasks to start thinking about my own magazine. I looked at three different magazines and took note on the layout and content of the front cover and the contents page. I discovered that the three magazines I decided to research (Q, Kerrang and TOTP) were all very different with their designs. This gave me a better idea of how I wanted to create mine- I want to make my own front cover stick to a particular colour scheme and include many sell lines such as the artists included. For the content’s page, I particularly liked the idea of having a main image to link to the front cover as well as many other images of different artists included. I also thought the use of an editor’s letter would work well as it makes it personal for the reader plus using a different title apart from ‘contents’ would be much more interesting and appealing (this has been used in ‘Top Of The Pops’ where the contents page is in fact called ‘Inside the Mag’).

 

 Other ideas I have also started to consider is the type of genre I want my music magazine to be based on. At the moment, I like the idea of either having an indie or house style kind of music magazine. To get me thinking about the type of model I would include for my photo shoot, I started looking up different style that link to indie and house…

Contents Page Research

Research Front Covers

Production Diary

16/09/13-  Creating My School Magazine

 This week I worked on my preliminary task which was to create a school magazine (the front cover and the contents page). First of all, we took pictures appropriate for our magazine. In lesson, we took photos of certain school buildings and fellow students to appear on our pages. I took a range of different photos including ones of the new school canteen (which I thought would be useful for one of my main storylines). I also placed a quick sketch of what I wanted my preliminary task to look like on my blog. I also gave reasons for my designs and how they would attract the audience.

 When it came to creating the magazine, we used Indesign which gave me an idea of how I would have to create my music magazine for my coursework in the future. I got to use specific tools that I hadn’t of used before including the way we could select colours and save them for future use. I learnt how to place images on the page and also how to work with the text tool and create an outline.

 If I were to improve what I did, I would add colours to my design to make it look more appealing and it would have also given me a better idea of how to create my magazine. Throughout this product, I intend to look at a range of different magazine to give me an idea for mine. I started to this during this week as I looked at front covers and also read through an issue of ‘Kerrang’.

Preliminary Task Design

 This is my design idea for my preliminary task. I sketched a basic idea of my cover page and my contents page and also wrote down notes below to discuss why I will include certain aspects. I thought it was important to explain why I chose this design to discuss why I thought my design will be effective and successful. I made sure I included the school's logo to make it clear about what my specific magazine will be about. I also thought it was vital to include what sell lines I would have on my cover page and what what headings I would use for the contents page so it would be easy to create it later on.