1st Draft of my Feature Article for my music Magazine

This is my basic layout for my feature article. When looking at already established magazines I found that I preferred a layout with the main image being an A4 page, I think this makes the feature article looks sophisticated.

I will have the title of my article in large writing at the top of the left page, the I will have  a kicker to kick start the article and get the readers attention. I will use a drop-cap because when looking into the magazine I found that most magazines use this technique. I will also use a pull quote directly form the article. I will also have a box in the left hand corner with another mini story which links to the article but doesn't carry on with the exact story.

When constructing my magazine the layout may change slightly, however, this is the general layout I will use.

1st Draft for Contents Page for my Music Magazine

This is my first draft for my contents page that will feature in my music magazine, the title for this page will always be at the top of this page,  however, the rest of the page may change composition depending on what layout looks beat when I start creating my magazine.

As most magazines do, my contents page will feature Editors Notes, this is just where the editor will introduce this weeks magazine and will welcome the reader. I may have a picture of the editor with the notes, or I may use have the notes, it will depend on how crowded the page will look at the end.

My main image for this page will be in the top left hand corner, it will be of something that will feature in the magazine, the photograph will be taken by me, and will of something that relates to indie-rock fashion or music.

I will also have a box in the bottom right hand corner where it will be offering the reader to subscribe to this magazine which will hopefully boost sales and profit of this magazine.

The numbers will be larger than the text when creating my contents list, this will grab the eye  of the reader and will make it clear what page the article is on, also the layout of the contents list will be about 'this issue' and also a separate one for music specials.

1st Draft for Magazine Front Cover

This is my first rough draft of my front cover, for my music magazine. This will be my general layout, however, due to this being my first draft it may change where the cover lines will be placed.

However, I will have the mast head to the top as this is what most high and upper market magazines use, so I believed that if the mast head works well at the top for all other magazines, my should fit in with that general layout. I think that having the mast head at the top of the cover works particularly well because you can see the mast head when it is stacked in a newsagents or supermarket.

With my cover lines I will allow the to cover the main image, however, I will not allow the cover lines to continue onto the face of the person, as the person featuring on the front cover will be lose behind the righting. The main cover line will be larger than all the other cover lines, however, it will not be  larger than the mast head.

I will probably only use one image on my front cover, as my main image, this is because if I have more than one I think the cover becomes too busy and loses its sleek and sophisticated look. The main image for my cover photo will be taken by me, and will reflect the cover images of Vogue and Glamour.

Initial Idea for my Music Magazine

Target audience:

A magazine that has been slightly edged towards females but still approachable by male, between the ages of 16-19.Teenagers that are interested in Indie/Rock based music and those who follow Indie and Vintage fashion style, which some call a ‘Hipster’ market. This target audience will be attracted by some upper-class brands such as Starbucks which are commonly associated with the ‘hipster’ market; however, being of a young age they will not have a high income.

Price point:

The price for my magazine will hopefully be around the £2.50 to £4.00 mark, being quite a high priced magazine it makes it slightly upper market and it will be specifically marketed to those who have a passion and general interest for vintage fashion and indie rock music, so in view of this they will be willing to pay more for something they are passionate in, however, this could change depending on more research into my target audience.

When:

This magazine may be published fortnightly or monthly depending on more information into my target audience, however, if it was published weekly I think it may be too expensive for my target audience, being slightly upper market the price would stay a little high.

Overview of the Magazine Industry

A brief look into the overall Magazine Industry and I found that there are more than 8000 magazines published in Britain. These 8000 titles can be broken down into categorises, one would be ‘consumer’ titles, both general and specialist, which would be normally sold in newsagents and most of the time are available online. Another category would be ‘business’, which includes trade, professional and people at work. ‘Customer Magazines’ that organisations give to their customs as a form of marketing. Staff magazines are given to employees to inform the staff about their company. Magazines that you receive free as part of a daily or Sunday Paper, is another category called ‘Newspaper Supplements’. Another two parts of the magazine industry are ‘Part works’, a set number of issues builds up an ‘encyclopaedia’ on a specific topic, and ‘Academic Journals’, which are for university-level discussion of all sort s of arcane topics. However, out of all these sub-sections of the magazine industry the Consumer magazine makes up the bulk of the titles for sale in the newsagents. These vary to general titles such as ‘Elle’, ‘Loaded’ and ‘Radio Times’ which are entertainment and aim to inform, or they can be consumer specialist titles which are more specific and aim at particular interests, magazines such as ‘Car’, ‘Gardeners’ and ‘Total Film’.

By 2008 sales revenue in newsagents the biggest consumer magazine publishes were Bauer Publishing with 25%, closely followed by IPC Media with 20%, then BBC with 7.8% (Immediate Media brought out BBC magazines in October in 2011) and National magazine company are at 7.3%.

Today in the United Kingdom there are over 3,200 different consumer titles which is a dramatic contrast to 1980 where there only were 1,383, so we can clearly see that the amount of choice of magazine you can have has increased. 1.4 billion magazines are sold each year, and 85% of the UK’s population reads a magazine. In 2008 Advertises spent £745,000,000 on magazine! And, consumers spent £2 billion on magazines yearly! However, in the current market only 3 out of 10 titles survive for more than 4 years!

But magazines that are huge and are the top 5 women’s monthly magazine of 2013 are Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Yours, Women & Home and Good Housekeeping. And the top four for Men’s lifestyle were Men’s Health, Nuts, FHM and GQ.

Colours Mood Board

These are the main colours that will feature in my music magazine.. The colours are often associated with females which is what my target audience mainly is made up of. The colours are very complimentary and I may have more colours that I consider later. I have put all of the tones on this mood board because it will depend on my main cover photograph as to what tone and shade I pick of the colours to see what looks best and compliments the image.

Although these colours links stereo-typically to females they are also what are seen on most high class music  magazines, I tried not to go for the really bright colours as the indie-rock target audience that I am aiming for are often wearing colours that are not really bright.

On my front cover, contents and feature article I will also consider using black and white to add really contrast, and these colours are very popular in the magazine industry.

Typography Mood Board

These are some of the fonts that I will consider using on my music magazine, I the reason to why I choose these fonts is that they look quite sophisticated and are not childish, which will hopefully reflect that my music magazine is one of quality, also I choose these fonts because they look quite feminine, especially the Bodoni MT, looks like the typography that you would see in the pages of Vogue and other top designer magazines. Times New Roman was also chosen because I think it is easy to read and looks very smart. All of these fonts are easy to read and suit the type of reader that shall buy this magazine, it shows sophistication and reflects my female target audience.

Advertisers Mood Board

This mood board reflects the type of advertisers that will pay to have there products and brand names advertised in my magazine, so that my readers will see there advertisements in my magazine and will buy there products.

I choose these companies to put on my mood board because these are the sort of companies that my target audience will buy from, for example I have shown brands of shoes that my target audience will wear, such as converse and vans. I believe that my target audience wear quite individual things and things that are branded as 'indie', this also reflects the type of music that they listen too, as my music magazine is aimed at an indie-rock crowd. I have also put shops onto my mood board, shops such as 'Zara', 'Asos', 'Oasis' and 'Monsoon' which are not too higher market for my target audience, as the females that I am aiming this at are quite young and realistically wouldn't have a really high income to shop at upper market shops such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Christian Louboutin, however, I believe that as a female audience they may perhaps buy some products such as perfume from shops such as Ghost and Chanel.

I have also shown Reading and Leeds festival, Latitude, and guitar marker Fender and Gibson to show how passion my target audience is about music that I believe that they would camp out to see there favorite bands and that they would also want to play music as well, most common of these musical instruments that they would want to play is the guitar, which is quite stereotypical of the indie audience. There are also places where they can by music shown on this mood board, place such as sound clash, HMV, and how they can listen to music, with Beats, Skullcandy's and Sony. Also this takes up the majority of my  mood board it reflects how  much music takes place in my target audience life.

I have also show where my target audience would perhaps eat and drink, places like Costa, Starbucks and Pizza hut which again are not upper market stores and are realistically cheap so that my target audience can shop there as they are young and do not necessarily have a high paying job as yet.

Target Audience Moodboard

This is my mood board for my target audience. The overall thoughts to my target audience, were that they were female, were of a young age, listened to indie-rock music, and were into vintage and indie fashion. This mood board hopefully reflects they interests and things that my target audience.

I choose to put 'Latitude' and 'Woodstock' festivals on my mood board because, my target audience listens to the type of music which is played there, such as, indie, rock, alternative music. I also put the festivals on there because it shows that my target audience are the type of people that are really passionate about there music and they are willing to spend a lot of money to see them. It also shows how they are okay with camping and 'getting in to' there music, also shows how my target audience are very sociable, and will meet people at these music festivals.

I also added fashion items into this mood board such as 'Van's' shoes and 'Converse' shoes, I also put a drawing of vintage fashion on the mood board. This is to reflect the type of clothing that my audience will wear, it links in with the indie and alternative theme, as they generally wear items of clothing that are not 'mainstream', as they do not follow the crowd. I have many clothing lines logos featured on my mood board, some of them include; 'Zara', 'Topshop' and also 'Beyond Retro', Zara and Topshop generally sell clothes that are branded indie and retro, however, Beyond Retro is a small boutique that sells authentic vintage clothing, which my target audience will be interested in.

Other things that I have featured in my mood board are things like, a pile of books, the twitter logo, Facebook, Tumblr, doctor who, a guitar and an iPhone. These are the types of things that my target audience will be interested in outside of music and fashion. It shows that my target audience will be educated, are into social media sites, have smart technology and I have also put a camera as very often indie listeners are into photography.

So, a glance at my mood board and you should be able to tell that my target audience are generally female, who listen indie-rock music, who are passionate about music and are interested into vintage fashion.

Cover Page Analysis

QQ, a photo by Emma's Media on Flickr.

Cover Page Analysis

Kerrang, a photo by Emma's Media on Flickr.

Cover Page Analysis

NME Cover, a photo by Emma's Media on Flickr.

Contents Page analysis

karang_contents, a photo by Emma's Media on Flickr.

Contents page analysis

adele-contents-page, a photo by Emma's Media on Flickr.

Feature article analysis

kerrang-double-page-spread-12, a photo by Emma's Media on Flickr.

Feature article analysis

funfunfun, a photo by Emma's Media on Flickr.

Publishes Research

IPC Media

A selection of brand names that they publish are;

·         Chat

·         Golf Monthly

·         Look

·         NME

·         Women’s Weekly

·         Yachting World

·         House to Home

·         Rugby World

IPC Media publicise over 60 iconic media brands, which covers from magazine, print, tablets, online, mobile and events, IPC Media publishes brands that we see in supermarkets and in everyday life. In fact, it is such a large company that it engages with twenty five million users globally every month, with their online websites, and engages twenty-six million adults through their magazine brands.

IPC Media is then broken down into three subsections; IPC Connect, IPC Inspire and IPC Southbank. IPC Inspire has a range of brand names, that generally follow the themes of wealth, leisure and lifestyle, these brands are mainly all aimed at men, such as; Country Life, Decanter, Nuts, NME and Mousebreaker. IPC Southbank is quite upmarket and is mainly aimed at women, with fashion, luxuries, and homes. Brands include; Marie Claire and House to Home. IPC Connect again are aimed at women, with brands such as Chat, Women and TVTimes.

IPC Media was founded in 1958, and the headquarters are in London.

Bauer Media

A selection of brand names that they publish are;

·         Closer

·         Golf World

·         Mojo

·         Q

·         Steam Railway

·         Landscape

·         Kerrang

Baer media is only a small part of Bauer Media Group. Bauer is Europe’s largest privately owned publishing Group, this is an empire with over 300 magazines in 15 countries. Bauer Media Group is a multinational media company headquartered in Germany, it was founded in 1875. However, the magazine heritage goes back only as far as 1953, it originally started with Angling Times and in 1956 of Motor Cycle News.

The type of brands that Bauer Media covers is very wide and varying, from things like Golf and Railways to mother and baby and closer. Bauer Media publishes for both genders and all range of leisure activities. So the target audience for this publishing company is very large and includes almost everyone, with a media product for everyone.

The company is so large that in 2010 the turnover of Bauer media was 2,129 million euros.

 

Conde NAST

A selection of brand names that they publish are;

·         Vogue

·         Glamour

·         Easy Living

·         Vanity Fair

·         House & Garden

·         GQ

Conde NAST is a small part of Advance Publications, its headquarters are in New York. The company was founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast. Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr. is the chairman and CEO of Advance Publications. The company attracts more than 164 million consumers.

The brand types that Conde Nast publishes are quite up market, and are mainly aimed at women; this is because the magazines are mainly about fashion for women and for the home, such as magazines like Vogue, which is fashion for women, and magazines such as House and Garden which is fashion for the home.

Q Magazine Analysis

Q Magazine Analysis

 

Q magazine is ‘the biggest UK music magazine’ which covers a range of music genres and is said to have the ‘ARBITER OF TASTE’. The circulation of this magazine is roughly 88,420 between July and December in 2010 according to the Audit Bureau Of Circulations Limited. Also in between July and December of 2010 it was recorded that the magazine had a readership of 473,000. However of this readership 75% of them are male, and 25% were female, collectively they have an average age of 29. Q magazine is distributed monthly, and 97% of there readers rate this magazine as a ‘quality’ magazine, showing that this magazine has reached their target audience and is successful as a media product. In my opinion, I would say that Q magazine’s target audience are quite varied, as the magazine features lots of different types of music, I also think that the target audience are people who perhaps have a high disposable income, and people who want quality and a more sophisticated read, my reason for believing this is because the readers of this magazine are generally older.

The publisher of this magazine is Bauer Media, who are major publishers and also produce magazines like; KERRANG, MOJO and they also have name that aren’t music magazines that they also publish such as; STEAM RAILWAY and MY HORSE. Bauer Media also publish TV, Radio and Web magazines, showing that Q is a very small part in this major Media Outlet.

Q magazine was founded by Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, its first issue was published in October 1986, however originally it was called ‘Cue’ (as in the sense of cueing a record, ready to play) however it was confused with a snooker magazine so it was changed to ‘Q’. The magazine has come a long way since then as the ‘Q’ brand has been extended and now has as Q Radio, with an audience of a staggering 246,000 listeners weekly! Not only that Q magazine also has Q TV, which as an average of 293,000 weekly watchers. Also, www.Qthemusic.com has been launched with 655,000 unique users, 1.8 million page impressions, 18,000 email subscribes and 19,220 followers on twitter. All of this proving that Q is no longer just a magazine, Q is now the brand face for their magazine, TV and internet success.

The mast head itself of Q magazine is a white Q on a red background, which is also placed in the top left hand corner of the magazine. The reason why the Q is in the top left hand corner, I think, is because then when the magazine is in the magazine rack in a supermarket, you can see the red and white Q brand at the top of the front cover. I believe that the background it red because red is the colour that the eye is most attracted to, and I think it standouts compared to most other colours. Also, by having a white Q the two colours, red and white contrast very much.

College Magazine Contents Page

College magazine Front cover

College Magazine Analysis

Analysis:

This is a college magazine and the main image shows a happy young man, of the correct age carrying a ‘Law, Business  and Society’ book, suggesting that this man is intelligent promoting that if you attend college you can become intelligent and learn about a wide range of subjects, you gain a good education.  Seeing the man smile and look relaxed and happy is the college promoting itself and saying that you will become like him. Around his neck he wears a religious cross which leads me to believe he could be a church attender and that he has good moral, also the clothes he wears are quite smart and it looks like this young man has wealth, it is a very positive outlook for this young black man, considering all of the slander that young black men get. 

The masthead for this magazine simply says ‘COLLEGE’ showing that this magazine is aimed at the young college audience. The colours of the magazine are bright yellows, white, pink and black, which gives the magazine a smart and professional look, also most of the colours are quite happy colours, like the yellow, giving the magazine a positive feel.

The cover lines on this magazine are about; music, sport, technology, fashion and finance, which are supposedly all the things that a college student are interested in. Showing that this magazine has thought about what their target audience are interested in. 

Overall, this magazine has a positive outlook for their college and student life, as this man is happy and has an intelligent influence with the books and he is smiling giving a positive feel.

Questionnaire Analysis

Questionnaire Analysis

They people that completed my survey were aged between 16 and 19, 50% were male and 50% were female. One of the questions was to find out who reads the current college magazine, and I found that a staggering 95% didn’t read or didn’t know about the current magazine, suggesting that the college magazine is not working as only 5% knew and read the media product. It is important to know when to print and make your media product available, so I asked me target audience, and the majority with 40% said that they would like to read it every half term, however, it was closely followed with 35%  wanting an issue every month. Seeing as these time periods are quite far apart, I thought the students might want to pay a small fee to improve the magazine; my results were that 45% of the students would pay nothing for it, making it free, but, 35% said they would mind spending 50p upon the product. In response to this question I asked whether freebies/ discounts/ special offers would tempt you into paying for the magazine, and 90% said yes. So, with the new media product I can get the students to pay for the magazine as long as some sort of discount or freebie is included.

Question 6 asked what they would like to see featured in the magazine, for this question I got a range of results, but the top scoring categories were Art, News, Games, Sport and a Problem Page. So, the new magazine will have these topics featured inside and have cover lines on the front cover, to tempt the students into buying it as this is what they want to read about. Colours that attract the target audience are blue, yellow, red and black, so upon the front cover; these colours will be featured, as well as white as that was a high scored too.  

Upon the front cover I found that the college students would like to see either students/people and or student work on the front, with 40% of people wanting to see students/ people, and 35% of people wanting to see students work, this could been in future issues there could be students work upon the front cover.

75% of people would like an online issue so a web address can be featured on the front cover. And, 30 % of people would like to contribute to the college magazine.

College Magazine Audience Questionnaire

College Magazine Questionnaire

1.       Are you male/ female/ other?

2.       Do you read the college magazine?

3.       How often would you like it produced?

        Weekly

        Fortnight
        Monthly
        Every half term
        Every term

4.       How much would you pay for the magazine?
        £0.00
        £0.50
        £1.00
        £2.00

5.       Would Freebies/ Special offers/ discounts encourage you to buy this magazine?

6.       What would you like to see featured in this magazine?
        News                                                   Problem page
        Reviews                                              Sports
        Games                                                Competitions
        Fashion                                                Art
        Culture                                                 Finance
        Food                                                   Other

7.       What three colours would attract you to look at the magazine?

8.       What would you like to see on the front cover?
        Students/ people

        Technology
        Nature
        Students work

9.       Would an online version encourage you to read the magazine?

10.    Would you be interested in contributing to the magazine?

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