Target Audience Profile

Age; Mainly aimed  at ages 16-20 as the content in some of the music that I would like to be featured in my magazine is explicit and unsuitable for younger readers.

Gender; Predominantly females as there is significantly less rock magazines existing that are aimed at a female audience however it will hopefully also appeal to males.

Sexuality; All sexualities, I don't think this would make a difference for my particular magazine.

Race and Ethnicity; All races and ethnicities as I do not see this influencing my magazine and there is many types of people would enjoy this type of magazine.

Class; I think my magazine would be better if it was aimed towards middle or working class people as they will have more money to spend on magazines monthly and this entitles me to make my magazine a higher quality e.g. making the cover out of thicker card.

Lifestyle; The audience obviously needs to have an interest in music, especially rock music with some spare/down-time that will allow them to read the magazine in peace while they relax as my age group will either be at college, university or work throughout the day and so will need some time to themselves.

Culture; The audience will need to be modern as my magazine will feature mainly modern and upcoming artists/bands. They should also appreciate the more classic rock bands (maybe through their parents listening to these bands) as they often have reunions or maybe just an article about them in modern music magazines.

Fan Bases; My magazine would appeal to people who are already fans of bands like Bring Me The Horizon, Pierce The Veil, PVRIS and Paramore as they are the types of music that will be featured in my magazine and bands that are similar to these will also be in there as suggested music.

Interests; People that I think will like my magazine will be people who are interested in rock and punk music, rocky and rugged clothing with dark make-up and an all round punk/rock type of personal style.

Hobbies; My target audience should be people who are more pop punk. People like this will mainly shop at places like Pulp, Asylum Industries, Hot Topic and Rock Clothing Company as these sell more band merchandise type clothes and accessories and more dark/ripped/leather clothing that is often linked to a rock genre. These people are also more likely to go to concerts, even small indie rock concerts that many people will not usually attend as this is more their style than pop fans. This target audience is more likely to go see films which are not so much aimed at children, more different genres, as stereotypical as it sounds they are more likely to watch horrors or psychological thrillers as this is closer to the rock genre.

Target Audience Slidely

Target Audience Slidely by Slidely Slideshow

This 'Slidely' slideshow was created to show photos which represent my target audience, every image on this slideshow represent one of the points on the word cloud I created to show my target audience.

Target Audience Word Cloud

This is the word cloud I created to describe my target audience for my punk rock magazine. These words are words that I think could relate to my target audience in some way, to start with I typed these words into a word document and then copied and pasted them into the word cloud website and screen captured it to post on my blog.

My Initial Treatment

Q Magazine Cover Analysis

In this lesson we studied the theories of Laura Mulvey, Stuart Hall and Richard Dyer.

After analysing the key aspects of this Lily Allen Q Magazine cover, we wrote whether this cover agreed or disagreed with these theorists.

I think the cover disagrees with Laura Mulvey as her theory was 'the make gaze' and while the model is an attractive woman, she is not posing or styles in a way that women typically would be and it is not normally considered attractive, therefore defying her theory.

In contrast the cover, in my opinion agrees with Richard Dyer's theory of 'a star is an image not a person' as this is not the usual style of Lily Allen, she is more pop and slightly punk sometimes but in this magazine she is portrayed in a way which suits the style of the magazine, not who she really is.

Finally the magazine also contradicts Stuart Hall's theory of stereotyping as Lily isn't showing a typical female roll, she looks very punk rock, independent and strong and is rebelling by breaking and kicking the microphone which is not stereotypical womanly behaviour.

Finished Annotation Of My Front Cover

Teen Vogue Analysis

This Teen Vogue cover is one of my all time favourites, it almost made me change the design of the magazine I am going to create as the colours look so aesthetically pleasing together, especially with the fonts and structure used.

The house style of the masthead is iconic and creates that well known feeling as this is a very famous and widely read magazine. The colours used in the masthead are also linked to the colours used for the other articles featured, for example the pink of the 'Teen' is matched with the pink from the 'Hot Holiday Style' and also the 'Exclusive" this would be because these are the two main articles and so they need to create a bold and bright attraction to divert the readers attention to these points. The pink could also be used as the magazine is mainly aimed at teenage girls and pink is commonly known as a more feminine colour.

The blue background could be used to widen the target audience and attract males as blue is a more masculine colour, or it could be contrasting with the feature about Hot Holidays which creates an image of sun and heat, whereas blow is a much cooler colour. 

The model, Louis Tomlinson from One Direction, is looking straight into the camera, creating synthetic personalisation which would definitely appeal to teenage girls as he is a well loved, very attractive member of a very popular boy band and many girls are attracted to him. In this shot the model looks very relaxed but also very effortlessly good looking. He is pulling a pose which suggests he is a little bit rebellious which links to the article quote from him which says "we are often a little bit mischievous" which creates a bit of a bad boy persona which would further attract the target audience.

This particular magazine issue is obviously mainly aimed at people who are fans of One Direction and so they are offering a One Direction dream giveaway which would appeal to the fans and make them more likely to buy the magazine.

Target Audience Research - Flickr

To hopefully try and collect feedback for the photographs I took for the front cover of my magazine, I uploaded them to the Vale Media Flickr group so that my peers and teachers could give me feedback on the three photographs I had chosen as my most successful. I found this really helpful as I could understand the views of the other college students on my work which is who the magazine is aimed at and it told me what they would most like to see.

Magazine Cover Research

This magazine features a lot of white space in the background. I feel like this makes it seem a lot less creative, just a simple coloured background would have made the magazine that little bit more aesthetically pleasing, this is why I want to have a coloured background as opposed to white as it looks boring and like there was no effort put in to creating it.

The articles are mainly in the top half of the cover and although this makes the top half look better and lessens the white space, it makes the bottom look even more bare and it looks odd with one end cluttered and one barely covered. After seeing this I will make sure my articles are more spread out over the page.

The masthead is the only large serif font as the rest are sanserif and smaller. The main feature title is Sarah Chang and this is very bold and bright to show it is more important than the rest. I will use this in my magazine by making my main story title slightly larger on my cover page, but not too much bigger as it looks strange.

I feel like the colours used are a bit of a mess, the white and red work together, and the colour of the models dress looks more vibrant against the plain white background but all together the colours don't match and along with the wood colour of her violin, it looks unorganised and careless. For my magazine I will endure all the colours work together much better than this.

I feel like this magazine really adapts the theory of 'the male gaze' by Laura Mulvey as the model is using a seductive look into the camera as well as looking feminine and pretty to attract the male audience.

Magazine Cover Research

I chose to analyse this magazine cover as it is different to the other covers I have researched but it looks very sophisticated and if I chose to do a genre that could relate to something like this for my music magazine I would take some inspiration from this cover. 

The background used is simple but effective, it isn't the main focus but it is still bright and classy and it matches the chosen theme of the magazine (classical as the name suggests.)

The model is the main focus of the cover as she is featured in the main feature article, the article title is almost as big as the masthead is and so it shows how important the article is to have that much space. In comparison the other article titles are rather small and quite unnoticeable which I would not include in my magazine as it doesn't make it easy for the reader to see them and if the main article doesn't appeal to them it would be harder to see if one of the other articles could catch their eye if it was on a stand across the aisle in a shop.

The white, sanserif font is highly contrasted with the golden background and the models black skirt but it matches the models shirt, tying the look together. The gold background makes the magazine look more sophisticated and expensive which links to the classy/classical genre of the magazine.

Analysis Of Magazine Contents Page.

This lesson we analysed the contents pages of two magazines. Below you can find the two contents pages and the grids we use to analyse them.

In the tables you can see the differences between the two and the details about them both. I very much prefer the Q Magazine contents page as it has more synergy to the cover which makes it more iconic with the theme. It is also much more aesthetically pleasing with the pops of colours in the puffs showing the page numbers and is also laid out in a really nice way and i think this style would appeal to my target audience and so has influenced my contents page.

Contents Page Analysis 2

This magazine contents page is a lot louder than the last page I analysed which I thought would be a good thing but this one is too busy for my liking and it would not look good for the music magazine I want to make as it looks messy and unorganised which may fit the theme of this magazine but would not fit mine well.

The colours used are the typically iconic red, white and black that NME are known for using, I'd like to use the idea of the same colours in my magazine cover and contents in every issue as it creates an iconic and memorable image and it makes it so they can retain their current audience.

There is only two photographs used in the magazine contents as it is mainly text or white space. The text used is the same sanserif font all the way through apart from the housestyle masthead, it is just different sizes and colours with some of the more important text in bold.

This text is organised into three columns. I think the Band Index is a really smart idea as it directly shows the reader where to read if they are solely interested in the band section of the magazine. I'd like to incorporate something like this in my magazine to create a tidier contents and a more organised magazine.

The main article takes up a lot of the space of the magazine contents (about one third) and this is because this feature is the main selling point and putting it very large and obvious is going to help the reader which is very helpful.

Along with these features, the contents promotes ordering more issues of the magazine and even offers a discount if you subscribe to the magazine, this is something I am going to include in my magazine as it will retain the audience as they will save money and enjoy the magazine.

Contents Analysis

The first thing I noticed about this magazine is the amount of white space in the background of the contents page. I do not want a lot of white space in on my contents as it lacks creativity and it makes it less interesting. This has made me want a coloured background for the contents in my music magazine. The three sections are a really good idea, especially the Regulars one as it creates a sense of formality and this will soon become a convention of this particular magazine.

Only four of the articles are paired with pictures but this means the pictures can take up more space and there is more space to be able to explain the articles which would mean the reader is more likely to follow on and read the article instead of skimming past it.

The same two colours are used throughout the contents (gold and black) due to the high contrast of these colours with the plain background. These colours are also known as elegant and so this gives the magazine a more expensive look. 

This expensive look contrasts with the look of the models who are dressed in very casual and laid back clothing, mainly hooded jackets and hats (beanies/snapbacks) which creates the image for the type of music these artists produce. This indicates the target audience who will be people who like these types of music. The pictures of the models also add pops of colour to the otherwise rather land contents page.

The same sanserif font is used all the way through but in different sizes. The titles of the articles are more bold than the descriptions are so the reader can decide if the article appeals to them.

Theorists And What I Have Learnt...

Representation Theorists

Richard Dyer

Richard Dyer theorised the idea that 'a star is an image, not a real person' which suggests that celebrities are not portrayed as who they want to be, they are shown as what the producers want them to be, they are shown as what sells. This is why so many celebrities lose their sense of identity as often it is taken away from them, only very few, very famous stars get to be who they want to be and it does not come without a fight.

Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey's theory is often referred to as 'the male gaze' which implies that woman are presented, or act, in a certain way to appeal to men. This theory is largely opposed by modern theorists and modern day feminism as it is very sexist and stereotypical. This theory denies women human identity and reduces them to mere objects to be admired for their physical appearances.

Stuart Hall

Hall emphasises the importance of visual representation, and describes representation as 'the process by which members of a culture use language...to provide meaning' from this we can see how he also says 'representation cannot possibly be a fixed unchangeable notion' as different cultures will see things in a different way, and also culture and language will continue to evolve and so the same must be said about representation.

My Magazine Contents Page

This contents page shows pictures which will link to my articles and therefore they will create synergy to the front cover and the articles in the magazine. There is pictures of the schools new build to further enforce that this is a magazine for the Vale Sixth form.
The title Contents is in the same san serif font that the masthead on the cover is written in.
I have left lines for the article titles and information as I do not know everything I am going to include yet so leaving blank seemed like the best option for now. The page layout is supposed to be neat and organised yet modern and appealing to the target audience- college students.

A Magazine In Tesco I Like...

Kerrang! 19th September 2015 Issue

I saw this magazine in Tesco earlier this week, it immediately caught my attention due to the large 51 in bright yellow font. I love how the background colour and the font completely oppose each other but they work so well together, I'd like to do something like this with my magazine as it really catches readers attention.

This magazines genre has always been very rock centred, the bands can vary from 5 Seconds Of Summer who are more pop rock to Black Veil Brides who are very heavy mental rock.

The masthead is the same as it always is, the same font and in the middle at the top of the magazine, in this issue the masthead is red but the colour can vary depending on the other features of that weeks magazine.

In this issue they have used the same colours (blue, red, yellow and white) throughout all the features.

The banner at the top is black which contrasts with the light blue background from the rest of the cover. This is paired with large white font to make the text readable and noticeable.

The target audience is mainly teenage males with this issue, as inferred by the colour scheme of the blues and reds, this is also shown by the main band, Blink 182, who's fans are predominantly males of aged 20 or above but they do also have female fans which the pictures of Hayley Williams from Paramore and Jenna McDougall from Tonight Alive will appeal to as they are more 'typically female' bands and many of the girls who buy 'Kerrang!' will find these girls fashionable and some sort of idol.

The magazine uses direct address to create synthetic personalisation (a relationship with the reader through the language) by saying 'The soundtrack to the best summer you ever had.' This creates a sense of the article links directly to the reader making them feel more connected to the magazine.

The banner at the top of the magazine shows another of the main features, Iron Maidens back story and how they became such a legendary band. This article would widen the target audience as older males would be more interested in that article as the band are quite old.