Mood board

For my mood board i have used a variety of random images from different music artists that attract my interest. For example i have used pictures of Eliza Doolittle as i love her unique quirky style as she attracts a lot of the female population age i am looking to target at. She has a use of pop art on her album cover that is different and fun, she is also known as a big fashion icon which i also want to include in my music magazine. In contrast i have used pictures of Jessie J and the saturdays as they have a more modern stylish style in a more serious but still attracts many of the female population i am looking at. I chose the picture of katy perry as she is holding a massive ice-cream prop, i love this as it is unique and again attracts the readers attention. I found that i was attracted to more images that were very colourful as i want my music magazine to have a good variety of colour scheme. A few fonts have been added to my mood board of my music magazine name as it gives an idea to what types interest me. I want to produce a music magazine that is unique in its own way and is also very different from what is available at the moment.

Feedback 9.2.11

Well done Abbie. You are making good progress here. Please ensure tha planning tasks are complete for next week as blogging will not be permitted in lessons. Next week you must write your article and take your photos so please ensure that oyu book the studio. Any problems then please see me.

Mrs A

Audience questionnaire

In order to help decide what name I want for my music magazine I have created a questionnaire. It consists of five questions and i asked eight different people to fill it in, the results are shown below.

1. What age are you?
13-||||
14-
15-
16-||||
17-

2. What is your gender?
Male-
Female-||||||||

3. Which name would you prefer for a music magazine?
LOUD- ||||
Rewind-||
lyric-|
rhythm-|

4. How much would you spend on a music magazine with a genre of pop?
£1-£2:||||
£2-£3:||||
£3-£4:

5. How often would you buy a music magazine of this genre?
Weekly-|||
Monthly-||||
Every now and again-|
Never-

The results from the questionnaire have helped me with further research as now i have more of an idea what to name my music magazine. With female population between 13 and 16 years old they chose 'LOUD' as the most popular music name and would spend from £1-£3 at maximum. This suggests they do not want to spend too much money on it but will do for a better produced music magazine. However they also said that they would buy a music magazine of this genre weekly-monthly which is a good outcome for a new magazine.

Ideas for music magazine names

• LOUD
• Rewind
• lyric
• Rhythm

Technology and equipment used

To produce my music magazine i will use a variety of equipment and technologies such as:

• Adobe InDesign CS3
• Adobe Photoshop CS3
• Camera
• Studio
• Studio lighting 
• Tripod 

Target Audience

After researching a lot into target audiences and their preferences, i have come to conclusion of what age to base my music magazine on. A lot of my important research has come from my questionnaire i did previously.

Demographic Profiling: For my target audience i have placed them in two C bands, C1 and C2. To put my target audience into demographic profiling i have to chose a band. I have chosen C band because the SEC will most probably depend on the readers parents as most of the buyers are too young, students or do not have jobs. Therefore depend on parents which is why i chose C band. Although if some of the readers are employed they will most likely to be in segment D, but the majority of the readers this may not apply to them.

Psychographic Profiling:  I have decided that the audience for my magazines are a mixture of Aspirers and Mainstreamers because research has proven that the genre pop is the most popular. This suggests that some will buy well known brand names and others will follow the trend buying high brand names to achieve a status and maintain popularity.

Age: 12-16
Gender: Female
SEC (Socio Economic Status): Student
Race: All races

Audience questionnaire and identifying target audience

I produced a questionnaire asking six questions to seven different people to find out further research to help produce my music magazine.

1. Are you male or female?
Male:
Female: |||||||

2. What age are you?
14:|||
15:|
16:|||
17:

3.How much do you usually spend on a music magazine?
I dont buy them: |||
£1-£2:||
£2-£4:|
£4-£6:|

4. What type of music genre do you like best?
pop: ||||
indie:
rock:|
r&b:||

5. What attracts you to buy a magazine?
bright colours:||
celebs:|||
music:
fashion:
music & fashion:||

6. Does direct address make the magazine front cover appeal more to you?
yes:|||||||
no:

This shows that from all seven females aged from 14-16 years old their interested in more pop genre but a lot do not buy music magazines. This suggests that they do not buy music magazines because there is nothing to buy for them in the pop genre. Question 5 'what attracts you to buy a magazine' had a few popular answers for example, bright colours, celebrities and music& fashion. This research has made me come to the conclusion that i will create my music magazine to be bright and colourful with a use of music and fashion as well. Direct address was the most common answer, therefore i will use direct address on the front cover of my music magazine. This questionnaire has helped me to establish my target audience and produce the best for my music magazine.

Finding an Institution

IPC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men – almost 26 million UK adults.

I think that IPC would be the best option to produce and distribute my music magazine because they already produce well known products for example, NME music magazine. I believe they would be interested in a pop music magazine as it would be a very popular product but also different from what they do already which would interest them. It would become as big as some of the leading magazines today because of its uniqueness and different from what's being produced today. However, i have not chosen EMAP because I do not feel they would produce and distribute my product of a pop genre music magazine as well as IPC could.

Band images/album covers

This album cover is fun, bright and colourful and has a use of pop art which reflects the artist 'Eliza Doolittle' herself. The young girl Eliza is a pop music artist that is targeted at young girls from 12 years of age up to the age of 20+. She is a well known and very popular artist that loves to have fun and is an inspirational role model to many young girls. The front cover has varies pop art images that represent a lot about herself. It shows she's fun and also very unique as not many artists are like her. The bright and colourful images and her quirky outfits represent well to her target audience for music but also as a fashion icon as well.

This album cover of a girl group 'Saturdays' is again fun, bright and colourful. Their music is targeted towards an audience of people who like the pop genre. Therefore includes many people of different ages and also both boys and girls. Again like Eliza Doolittle their also seen as fashion icons as well as inspirational music artists. The normally always consist a front album cover with a variety of bold, bright colourful colours which represents their target audience.

Top 40 UK downloads

Recent charts show an increase in three main music genres. For example, the top 40 UK downloads show that pop, dance and R&B is taking the main population of music genres. Taking no.1 is kesha with 'we r who we r' this shows that pop is at top of the charts. This suggests that there is a gap with no pop music magazines specifing for teenagers, making it a great oppurtunity to create one. However, if mainly music magazines are mainly rock music magazines for example, kerrang and do extremely well selling and their music is not in the top 40 uk as much as pop, this implies that pop music magazine would be excellent idea.

Circulation Figures for music magazines

Music magazines (percentage changes are year on year)

Q - 103,017 (-21.6%)
Mojo - 100,507 (-5.4%)
Uncut - 87,069 (-4.3%)
Classic Rock - 70,188 (4.1%)
Kerrang! - 52,272 (-32.1%)
Metal Hammer - 50,269 (9.7%)
New Musical Express - 48,459 (-24.3%)
Rock Sound - 20,011 (-13.1%)
BBC Music Magazine - 45,144 (-4.2%)
Classic FM - The Magazine - 35,751 (-13.7%)
Gramophone - 34,628 (-5.9%)
RWD - 77,050 (131.6%)
mixmag - 30,159 (-15.8%)
Terrorizer - 13,786 (-7.8%)
Word Magazine - 34,280 (3.2%)
Rhythm - 9,472 (-4.5%)
Total Guitar - 42,171 (-13.4%)
Guitarist - 31,917 (8.5%)
Guitar Techniques - 22,387 (7.0%)
The Guitar Magazine - 11,994 (3.0%)
Future Music - 10,860 (11.0%)

From the list above we can see the circulation figures for music magazines within the UK vary widely. Looking at these sale figures it shows that there are many music magazines based on genres of rock. This shows there is a large population based on males and less music magazines specified for women. This also suggests there is a large gap in the music magazine industry for women and also pop music. This is also a really excellent oppurtunity for me to create a magazine based on pop for girls.

The figures from above show that Bauer Consumer Media's weekly rival to NME, Kerrang, was the biggest faller in the market, losing 32.1 per cent of its circulation year on year, down from 76,937 to 52,272.

Music monthly Mojo closed the gap with Bauer stablemate Q at the top of the circulation table. Mojo's headline circulation in this period was 100,507, a decline of 5.4 per cent.

It now stands just 2,510 copies behind Q, which fell 21.6 per cent in the same period with an average monthly circulation of 103,017 - down from 131,330 in the previous year.

Analysing the journalistic style and structure of an article

Every magazine has a double page spread/ feature article with a famous artist in many music magazines. To be one of the top leading music magazines this has to consist of a really good journalistic style and structure. I think that due to NME being a more popular magazine choice i feel that the style it is written must be more superior and popular with readers. Therefore, this would be a good model to look at more closely the journalistic style and structure of the article below.

This feature article is from the music magazine NME, which is not the type of genre i want to do for my magazine but i like the style and structure of the article. It catches the readers interest from the title as it is in a large font with blue coloured background. The colour blue is used in the colour scheme and is associated with key/important parts of the text, for example 'NEED TO KNOW' at the bottom left of the page is used to attract the readers attention and to read it, again which has a background text box coloured blue.

This quote catches the readers attention to both male or females as it is funny and is something that interests readers of this age. The journalist has placed it in the middle of text which makes it stand out from the rest of the text. The text and quotes are made easy to read for the reader. 

The picture dominates the magazine and uses direct address making the magazine look interesting as they are situated in a bedroom, led on a bed. This is a typical stereotype of boys which also links to their band name 'teenagers'. There is a good use various fonts on the double page spread, to make it visually interesting and eye catching. On the right side of the page is quotes from the band members informing readers about other bands they like and find interesting. The quote 'young, dumb and full of...filthy tunes' suggests they are a typical boy band and is structured to interest typical teenage readers. The style of the article is well presented and the structure is used efficiently to make it look attractive and easy to read at the same time catching the readers interest. 

Unique Selling Point

For my USP i will be creating a magazine with a genre of pop. It will be different from the rest of the magazines that are already out on the market for music magazines as it will be creative, bright and eye catchy. After browsing through the top 40UK it clearly shows that pop is one of the main biggest interest in types of music and is lacking this type of music magazine for a certain age. My music magazine will feature a front cover, contents page and double page spread. I will base my target audience on a age of 12-16 years old.

Analysis of a feature article

This feature article is something i would like to create my double page spread similar to. The image featuring in the double page spread is very suitable and fits the content and the target audience. The picture of the well known celebrity takes up one full side of the page and the other side is used for text. The headline/title is massive and is placed behind the picture, this catches the readers attention. Blue texted is used to highlight key parts, for example her name 'Florence Welch'. It also has the first introduction which catches the audiences interest for example, 'she's 2009 biggest success story, with America at her feet'. The famous music artist is featuring in the magazine to help promote her new album release. The double page spread is used to fill every space possible leaving it full of text or pictures to grab the readers attention. 

Analysis of a contents page

This contents page is similar to one i would like to create. It uses side of the page with catching images and page numbers linked to it and a main picture splitting the pictures from the text. The picture is bright and stands out from the page showing it is unique and different from other music magazine contents page, which is one other reason why i like this contents page. The contents page could be a bit more colourful which is something i would change and do differently to my contents page. The images dominate the music contents page and direct address is used as well. The list of contents is placed down the left side of the page making it clear and easy for the reader to read which i also want similar.

Analysis of a music magazine

I have annotated a front page from a music magazine called 'Billboard'. I want my magazine to have a similar genre with attention grabbing headlines and a eye catching front cover picture like the one above. It has a simple but stylish colour scheme and uses attractive fonts that work well with the front cover. I want to create my front cover similar but still have different features to it.