PRELIMINARY EXCERISE/PLANNING...

Preliminary excerise

Flat plan

These two images show the flat plans for my magazine. As you can see I plotted out where I would put all the features, images and advertisements in the magazine. The Publisher of my magazine would be; "Bauer Media Group". Through out the magazine I have showed that there was been a lot of advertisement features, I chose to do this because the greater the amount of advertisements you have in you magazine will help to contribute to the cost of the magazine as advertisements fund towards magazine creation. With this is mind I had made the decision that my magazine would cost £1.99, this would  attract my target audience because its affordable to purchase on a monthly basis, and mainly their parents wouldn't look too pricey.

PLANNING...

Front cover image


I have chosen this image to use as my front cover of my magazine. I chose this for a number of reasons which include; firstly, she is looking directing at the camera, this creates a strong sense of eye contact with the audience and will definitely contribute to the appeal of the magazine.  From my analysis of a current music magazine on the market now it came clear to me that having eye contact with the camera is a key factor, that must be met when choosing an image for my cover because with direct eye contact the reader engages with the person in the image and gets lured in.

Secondly, it is a medium body shot, which reinforces the conventions of typical front cover images on music magazines. Thirdly, the picture is of an attractive, feminine upcoming new Pop artist. She is wearing a pink dress and she has old brown curly hair. She reinforces the stereotypical image of females and represents young teenage girls and thus will attract girls because she is relatable. 

From the image I had chosen I had to make a few changes in order to make the picture stand out more and be effective and efficient enough to grab people’s attention. This was done by using Adobe software "Photoshop" to brighten the background to white, to make the artist in the image be the focal point of the picture and make her stand out more. Moreover, I had to take away the shadows and air brushed her body to give her a health even glow. 

RESEARCH...

Masthead


Through my research of other music magazines I noticed that all the magazine mast head’s and title's where very catchy and simple. For example; "shout","kerrang" and "NME".   Most of the names of the magazines were reflective of the genre of music, for example; "kerrang" cleverly used onomatopoeia to create a title of a magazine which symbolised the sound of hard rock in a simple iconic phrase.

For my magazine I experimented with a range of different words and phrases to use as the mast head for my magazine, which were representative of the genre of music focused in the magazine. For example these are a few of the phrases I can up with; “Spice”, “Beep”, “Pop rhythm” and “Bubblegum.” I wanted to come up with a unique title which would help to draw people’s attention.  I also had to keep in mind that my target audience where primarily young teenage girls, therefore I wanted to create something that was understandable and relatable to them.  Finally I came up with; “Popolicious”.  This stood out to me, the most for a number of reasons. Firstly, it addressed the genre of music clearly “Popolicious” which would allow it to easily attract the target audience by clearly staging the genre of music it focused on. Secondly, I asked a number of different people if the name was catchy and appealing to them and I gathered a good, positive response. Finally, I believe that the “Popolicious” sums up my magazine effectively; it’s fun, girly and engaging.  

Development of Maskhead...

Once again I went through a range of different fonts and desgins of the Mask head, before I decided on one which was most suitable for my magazine. I wanted to have soft, round font which was inviting to approach but still eye catching.

I decided that my colour scheme would consist of only 4 main colours. These are; pink, yellow, black and white. I wanted to keep the colour scheme simple because if I had too many different colours on the cover it would make it look messy, unprofessional and there would be too much going on. The colours chose all feminine colours that are eye catching and targets teenage girls.

 Popolicious

POPOLICIOUS

Popolicious

RESEARCH...

During my research I wanted to analysis various different resources which would enhance my knowledge on the layouts of pop magazines; use of language and the amount of information and images I should provide in my contents and double page spread.

During my research on Pop magazines on the market today, I found it difficult to come across a Pop magazine that reflected my criteria and aimed to advertise to a younger audience. For this reason I began to analysis other reputable music magazines on the market today, which ranged from different genres.  I analysed at least three different music magazines, such as; “Q Magazine”, “Kerrang” and “NME”. Whilst analysing the music articles it became evident to me that all the music magazines, asked open questions and all the questions in the interviews ranged from 16 to 20.

Although it was difficult to come across Pop magazines during analysis I did come across various different online Interviews of famous Pop artists and I used them to help understand the language to use in my magazine.  For example, I had found an interview with Hannah Montana and throughout the interview they used specific words which aimed towards the target audience.  Phrases such as; “Pretty amazing”, “so awesome”, “pretty fantastic” and “Wow” where used repeatedly, this was clearly done because this use of language is relatable to the way in which younger people today speak and is commonly used in their dialogue. Moreover, the questions and languages in every interview I had come across which aimed towards a younger audience used simple English and this made is easy for the audience to understand and relate to what is said because it is written is a familiar, straightforward way.

RESEARCH...

Through my analysis of a music magazine I have learnt that it will be easier to target a niche target audience who are interested in one type of genre. This is because it’s more difficult to produce a magazine that meets the needs of a wide audience and rather than struggling to produce a complex music magazine, I’d rather focus on a particular genre of music and audience, so that it will more effective and have more depth and quality.

Identification of target audience

Definition of pop;

Wikipedia defines “Pop Music” to be; commercially recorded music, often oriented towards a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple love songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. Pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a genre is particularly associated with the rock and roll and later rock style

Target audience;

Pop music includes artists such as; Miley Cyrus, Justin Beiber and the Jonas brothers. They are all fairly young musicians (aged 14-21) who are idolised but the younger generation. They appeal to range of younger audiences who watch Disney channel and want to read more about their favourite pop stars.  Through my internet research I found that the majority of pop music magazines on the market now mainly are aimed to target young teenage girls.  “Teenage boys, like adult men, usually buy magazines related to specific activities that they are interested in, such as motor vehicles or, sports,”  For this reason I will probably specifically target young teen girls. The age range varied from ages 10 to 16, girls who range from just approaching early teenage years and studying a high school.

From my research on Pop magazines it had become clear to me that there is a clear lack Pop magazine’s which aim towards targeting young teenage girls. This means, that my magazine could be successful in the media industry as there is a gap in the market for this kind of magazine. I would like to produce a magazine which will mainly focus attracting the younger generation of teenage girls’.

The genre is will focus on is Pop and I will feature a young new upcoming Pop artist whose aim is to positively influence young teenage girls through her music.