Target Audience: Questionnaire

To find out what my target audience would like to see in a music magazine, I created a questionnaire to find out what appealed to them.

After asking how old people were, this was the result:
This shows that the majority of these answers will be from 16-20 year olds so will have an effect on the answers that I get. I need to keep this in mind when actually creating my magazine as I would like to have a larger target audience than 16-20 year olds, so I need to make sure it is appealing to everyone.

The answers to this question shows that mainly females answered took this questionnaire, which could possibly suggest that mainly woman are interested in magazines. However, I would like my magazine to appeal to both genders so I will make sure that I do so.

From these results, I have found that people agree that a price between £1.99 and £3 would be an ideal price. Due to these results, I have made the decision that my magazine will be £2.50 as it is inbetween the two prices, so would be the most reasonable price.







Lastly, most people agreed that the second magazine cover was the best one because of the it is bright and most people liked the artist on the front. This shows how effective a symbiotic relationship is when creating a magazine, as it would catch more peoples attention with an artist a lot of people like on the cover.











I conducted this questionnaire to get an insight into what my target audience would be interested and now that I have got the results, I have a greater understanding as to what they would look for in a magazine.

Organisation: Blocking

For my photoshoot, I was thinking about having two models stood together in a casual way, as if they were walking towards the camera (similar to this), for my magazine front cover.I will have the 'lead singer' at the front of the duo, to show that he is the lead singer and to show that he is seen as the leader of the band. I will then have the second member of the band slightly behind him. I would like them walking towards the camera because I think that it would make the band look casual and cool, which would then reflect the philosophy of the band itself, as I see the band being a band that sound like Arctic Monkeys or The Strokes, to help fit in the philosophy of an NME style magazine.

Drafting and Planning: Draft Layouts

I have started to draft my contents page and double page spread for my magazine.

I have chosen this layout as it can clearly show the contents of what is included within the magazine and can show relevant photographs that further show what is included. I have based this layout on NME's contents page as I think it is an effective contents page. I think it is an effective contents page as it's simplicity shows everything that a reader would need to see within the contents pages. When I actually come to make the contents page, I think I may scatter some images around the page instead of having them only around the side and the top because I think it would look less structured and more free. I want it to look free as a magazine should be fun and casual and not formal and structured, and that is the type of message I would like to give off to the reader.

From my research of double page spreads (1 & 2), I have observed how double page spreads are usually set out in a similar way to how I have drafted my own. I like the idea of having a large image on the left page because it showcases the artist that is being written about and can also help set out a house style for the article. By having a quote from the article enlarged in the middle of the article, it draws the reader into the article as they would like to know the context of the quote, so would pull them in.

Organisation: Tracker Feedback

From this tracker, I know that I could improve my work by doing more posts that discuss target audience and organisation. I can do this by looking at the blog suggestion list to see what blog posts I could make to gain more marks. I can look at things such as blocking and props and also look at the target audience of magazines that I am basing my own magazine on.

Drafting and Planning: Remake Remodel Feedback

My peer assessor told me that my barcode is too big and I need to improve my photo manipulation skills, so to improve I will use smaller barcodes in later work to make it less obvious and take up less space on my cover and I will practice using magic wand and the eraser on various images to improve my manipulation skills. These improvements will help me in my final piece as I will be able to use page plus and paint.net properly and will know the right proportions of different conventions for my magazine.

Organisation: Effects

For my photos for my music magazine, I will use high key natural lighting with a black and white filter to make the photos look bright. I want to use these effects as I like the look of photo shoots such as early Joy Division shoots (image 1 or 2). I like them because they are very mysterious and can stand out on a news stands as they are simple but effective. I want to use this for my own magazine as it could help to show the philosophy of the band that will be photographed.

Drafting and Planning: Re-make Remodel

Here is the magazine that I made to show my skills.

 

I chose to use NME as my basis for this draft because it is similar to the magazine style that I want to do for my final piece as it's content is based on 'indie' music which is what I am personally interested in.
Here I used black, white and red as the house style as it is the usual colour scheme used by the actual NME magazine so shows my understanding the magazines ethos. These colours also compliment the photo as the cover star is wearing a black t-shirt. 

I also took a few photos, so that I had a variety of different shots to choose from. I chose the photo I did because i thought

that it would be able to fit more conventions around it and also shows the philosophy of the profile of the band that I made up; upbeat, happy, indie.
I used the same font style throughout the front cover to keep it consistent and complementary. I also used a quote as a cover line to draw the reader into the magazine to read the article. 
I included the mention of bands such as Arctic Monkeys and The Smiths to create a symbiotic relationship between the magazine and readers with interests in these bands. The price is also included, which is cheap, so would also attract more readers to actually purchase the magazine.