First Draft Contents Page

First Draft Cover

Audience Focus Group

Audience Focus Group

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Time Management

Audience Research

Audience researchh

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Detailed Research into Forms and Conventions

Classic Rock is a Rock ‘n’ Roll magazine aimed at lovers of rock music normally focussed on young adults. They attract their audience by using different forms and conventions. The magazine heading is in a fixed position on the page every week, its colour forms a contrast to the black background and the font never changes in each issue. The colours that have been used on this cover are mainly black, white and gold. This magazine is called 'Classic Rock' and it reflects the content that will be in the magazine because it is to do with rock music and rock bands. The Language used reflects the target audience because it features rock groups and rock singers including Ozzy Osbourne, Guns n' Roses and Jimi Hendrix who have a certain attitude which could be portrayed in the audience. The writing on the front cover is left to a minimum and this is effective with the outline of the front cover. 

Detailed Research into Forms and Conventions

Kerrang magazine is a rock magazine aimed at young teens that enjoy all the latest rock music. They attract their audience using certain forms and conventions. The masthead KERRANG!  is a onomatopoeic word which connotes the sound of an electric guitar, which is an instrument often featured in the magazine and the fact that it’s in capitals shows its importance. The cracks in the title/logo look like shattering glass which portrays violence and it is almost as if the sound that the electric guitar makes has smashed the title due to the loudness.

The white and black create a strong contrast which stands out to the audience and the tattered edges represent the sort of clothes and music the readers may enjoy.

The colour scheme throughout the Kerrang magazine is red, yellow and black. The red portrays blood and danger which reflects back to connotations of the title ‘violence’. The yellow could be seen as a warning or caution to the readers and the black connotes something mysterious as if the music is unknown and unique. This relates to the audience because of their attitude and music interest.

There are many features that you will find in a Kerrang magazine and these are lists and interviews with upcoming bands/singers, new albums and songs also returning bands making their debut. There also will be reviews of music and bands in which they will focus on tours that these bands will be having. Another feature of the magazine is that there will be polls so that the public get to rate the music and a ‘Kerrang! Krossword’. Krossword takes on the K from Kerrang and uses it instead of a C for crossword showing the use of the icon K throughout the magazine and the use of alliteration to gain an effect.

It comes across as a ‘full on’ rock mag but more focussed on male rock stars, you are sort of shown as a hard rocker if you read this magazine. The language is informal and this shows it’s laid back and the audience will be reflected like this. The main focus of the magazine is the bands they show and they show them in full light, however represented to have a bad attitude with smirks on their face which suggests they know their music is good and have a ‘don’t care’ approach as they know people will like them.

The contents page is laid out pretty simply with all that is in the weeks issue on the right and then the main stories in bold on the left of it with pictures to grab your attention and interest you in looking at those particular stories. The contents page is all black and yellow with the white contrast this stands out and the yellow warns you of the content to which the magazine has.

The producer of the magazine is The Bauer Media Group and it is distributed by Frontline which is the UKs leading magazine sales and distribution company. This shows that it is niche and a mainstream magazine.

Initial Research - Genre

There are a lot of different genres for music magazines however there are a high amount of magazines devoted to mainstream 'pop' music which seems to over power any other magazine. I am interested in rock music however I did some research into rock music and discovered that there is a lack of magazines which are referring to a female audience. Therefore I have decided that I will be creating a female rock magazine to focus on female rock stars. I believe that there is a gap in the market for this and I think this could be successful.


There are lots of Rock magazines but they mainly focus of male rock band and artists, because of this I truly believe that music magazines will benefit from the creation of a Female Rock Magazine.                                     
 

    As rock music is becoming more popular with critically acclaimed artists such as Ann Wilson, Amy Lee and Janis Joplin I think that there is a potential market for a Female Rock magazine.

     

    When making my magazine i believe that keeping it simple will attract more of an audience as simplicity is sometimes more appealing and it stands out a lot more than most.

Main Task

Our main task for our coursework is to design and create a front page, contents page and double spread for a new music magazine of our choice.


There are a few deadlines for this project and these are:
Research and Planning - 20/12/11
Production - 03/02/12
Evaluation - 24/02/12

BlogThis!

Evaluation - How did you attract/address your audience?

My Contents Page

Here is my completed Contents Page!

My Front Cover

Here is my completed front cover!

Planning

To ensure that I took my photos correctly I had to plan what I was doing and make sure I had any permissions needed when taking the photos. 

Risk Assessment

Before I could take the photos I had to carry out a risk assessment so that I could see the risks I was taking when leaving the classroom to take the pictures.

First initial Photos

These are the photos I have taken for my magazine, I may not use all of them but these are to give me a rough idea of the magazines image.

Rough Sketches of Ideas

Here are my sketches of my front cover and contents page, I hope to make the final magazine similar to these drawings.

Appealing to my Target Audience

In order for my magazine to appeal to the audience I will need to use a model that fits the criteria of a young student who is interested in music, I will use Photoshop in order to produce a defined (blemish free) image and one that stands out above any other student magazine. They will be posed in a strong fun position holding a guitar or with headphones on both will show it is a music magazine. They will also have a happy face which shows interest in the topic. The audience will be interested in the model as they are a likeness of them and the happiness will reflect onto the reader and show that they will be happy too when reading the magazine. It will be a medium close up and this means a very detailed image.
There will be strong colours on the cover such as reds and blues, these will stand out, I will also use white to go with the colour of the models T-shirt. I will use San Serif font which is bold and I will overlap some of the letters to make it more unusual and different. The layout will be very structured and appealing to the eye as you will be able to tell different cover lines from the next and also the picture boost will stand out like a statement for the magazine. My target audience would be fun and I aim to make the cover look as exciting as possible which will connote the audience. 
The Masthead will be in San Serif and bold with overlapped letters to make a statement to the reader and this connotes strong personality, which the audience will be as they have a lot of will power to do well in music and with their careers. The language will be less formal as its aimed for students who will have a sense of humour and be fun as they like to listen to all sorts of music. This connotes a younger audience and people who come from all different backgrounds, as anyone can play music and anyone can listen to music. The puff will show its the BEST music magazine for students.
The cover lines will be about different events that are happening in music and stories about people who have been successful in the industry, this will interest the reader as they will be striving for that success. Will add some quotes from stories that will shock people, ones that will interest the audience and I will put a cover line that is about buying instruments or add in the top 10 songs of the month. All of the cover lines have a uniqueness about them and will capture the audience's attention.

My Target Audience

My target audience for the Student magazine is Music Students, they would be interested in all kinds of music and would be Aspirers in the music industry. They would be individualists and benefit from uniqueness and their own ideas. Students would feature lower on the Jicnar scale about D or E yet some would be more upper class and play in the orchestra. They would age between 16-19 and would be male and female as music is an interest of both.  They would aspire to be great musicians or have a great career in music whether it be producing or writing etc.. However it could just be a hobby they are interested in. My audience are going to be people who spend their time at home playing or listening to music, they are people who socialise with their friends rather than family. They will enjoy Bob Marley for his musical success rather than anything else. The target audience will be interested in going to concerts rather than watching TV. They will spend their mornings practising a music composition rather than focussing their looks. Unique style of dress rather than following fashions.

Initial Research 2

The conventions of the four magazines are all linked to the student/college magazine theme. The San serif font for  magazine 2 and 3 show boldness and the mastheads stand out more. However the Serif font on magazine 1 and 4 is more defining and this brings out the contrast of the four magazines. The clean cut images of the students are well presented and the audience are well aware of the age range of the students and who the magazine is for. The use of a range of different colours show that it will attract a certain audience and in magazine 3 there is a use of bright yellow and white contrast which draws attention to the huge bold font. Magazine 2 has a picture boost which is very unique and stands out as the model is posing in a much different way to the other models in the magazines. The white and black contrast on magazine 2 will appeal as its striking. Magazine 4 has a image of a man raising his hands like he is celebrating and is relieved.. this shows strong posture and it would interest the audience as they would want to know what he is doing and what the point is in the stance, also who the man actually is. Magazine 1 will attract the students as it looks like a very intellect magazine and the structured cover lines on the side tell the reader what the issue is about in a lot of detail. All four magazines have its own way in attracting the audience and these are unique to them yet they all have appealing models and contents to them.

Initial Research (Magazine Covers)

Here is my initial research of four magazine covers. All magazines seem to have mastheads and cover lines which appeal to their target audience, also the picture boost (model) used interests the reader so that it appeals to them.

Preliminary Exercise

Hello my name is Isobel Hatch and I am studying AS Media Studies. Welcome to my Media Blog. I'll be putting all my coursework on my blog for everyone to see. My first task in AS Media is to create a Student magazine cover and contents page and I will be blogging all the information I find as well as the project.