Brief
Create a Front Cover, Contents Page and Double Page Spread for a music magazine.
Research
For my chosen brief I chose to create a music magazine aimed at 16 -25 year olds. I created a front cover, contents page and double page spread in an indie style. The magazines key demographic would be for all music lovers but particularly those interested in the indie/electro genre. The magazine is non-gender specific and could be read by either males or females. The price of the magazine reflects that of similar magazines in circulation, which would mean the magazine would fall into most people’s price range. I chose the target audience of 16 – 25 year olds as, as I fit into that particular category myself, so I would be able to relate to the target audience better, surely making my magazine ideas more successful.
Before I began the actual production of my magazine I researched the different types of music magazine available and which were the most popular and successful. I also analysed what features made them successful and certain design features of the front covers. I researched a wide variety of magazine including, Kerrang!, Mojo and Q, but I decided to analyse three magazines in detail. They were NME, Rolling Stone and Clash. I chose to study these magazines in detail as they reflect the style and ethos of the magazine I wished to create well. I thus decided that my magazine would focus on an indie style similar to that of NME, but also incorporate a varied mix of genres similar to Rolling Stone.
The magazine I finally chose to base my magazine around was NME Magazine. It is a youth music magazine. It covers everything from electro to rock and indie music. Its youthfulness is shown via the use of bright and bold text on the cover and its different approach to layout, with its main headline often being centre page etc. NME also changes its colour scheme and layouts on a regular basis. This however is what makes NME such a diverse and popular magazine because by changing its appearance regularly it appeals to a wider target audience. Yet it is still able to maintain its brand image via its well known logo and layout style. NME magazine has the same target audience as my magazine. This is one of the major reasons I have done a lot of research into NME and similar music magazines.
Planning The Production
In planning my magazine I had several factors to think about including the style of layout, the colourscheme and what would best suit the target audience's preferences. I also had to plan my time/manage my time effectively in class, when I had access to Adobe Photoshop and other media software.
Evaluation
I feel that my music magazine 'BoomBoxx' has used and developed the conventions of real media products. It has followed a similar style to magazines such as NME and Rolling Stone yet has developed its own sense of stylistic features.
My media product is representative of a couple of social groups. The first being music conscious teenagers aged 16 and upwards and the second being younger festival/music event goers aged 16 - 25. A reason for this is that the magazine has a distinctly young and fresh feel given the interesting fonts and layouts and the refreshing colourscheme. The front cover image also displays a young band yet again emoting a sense that the magazine if for a young adult audience. Also the magazine is relevant to any gig/festival goers as it covers a wide variety of genres and events. The magazine is based mainly around popular music with an indie theme, similar to that of NME. The magazine also has features relating towards festivals and gigs.
The kind of media institution that would be most likely to distribute my media product would be IPC Media or Wenner Media Inc. IPC Media distributes NME, and as my magazine bears certain similarities to NME such as target audience and the types of music focused on in the magazine, it would be ideal. Wenner Media Inc. distributes for Rolling Stone magazine. BoomBoxx and Rolling Stone are similar as both include a wide variety of genre's within their pages.
The audience for my media product would be as stated previously, teenagers aged 16 and upwards and possibly music fans up to the age of perhaps 25. I would predict that there would not be a male of female dominated audience and that figures would be approximately equal with perhaps a slightly more male dominated target audience. In all my magazine is aimed at the youth generation of readers who are interested in music and everything that comes with it.
I attracted my target audience in several ways. One of the ways in which I did this was by using a youthful band as the front cover image. Youth relate well to youth, so that is the reason I chose to have a young band. The target audience were also festival/gig goers also so for that reason I included a feature on festivals and incorporated stories about gigs and tours on the cover. The colourscheme was although professional it was not a simplistic grey colourscheme. I used vibrant colours in parts in order to give the magazine a more youthful/playful feel. Another was the way in which I did the layout for my double page spread. I used a standard three column layout but I also added slanted text boxes and interesting titles to give the magazine an alternative feel to that of one someone aged 30 would read. I also split the page into several different sections, so that the page was not just blocks of writing. Youths are more engaged if the page is not just simply writing.