Magazine Plan

I have planned the target audience, genre and gratifications of my magazine on an A3 piece of paper. I decided that the main purpose for the magazine was to entertain and inform, and to be a diversion from everyday life. The main genre is drum 'n' bass, along with dubstep.
Here is a photo of my magazine plan:

I have chosen to make my target audience male, between 15 and 25, who enjoy drum 'n' bass, or any other music with loud beats. I think the magazine will be most useful to divert people away from the stresses of everyday life as it uses an entertaining writing style, and exclusive pictures. It will also be a surveillance magazine as it is informative about new artists and gig dates. The psychographics of the magazine are radicals, because I think the music is usually associated with lawlessness and people who like to be heard; they are not afraid to go against society. I have tried to reflect this in the layout of my magazine as I believe this will catch my audience's eye. Also, those who read the magazine may be aspirers because they may aspire to be music artists and could take inspiration from these new artists.

Analysis of Front Pages

I decided that to make my magazine front cover relevant to my target audience, I should analyse two front covers with different target audiences and notice the similarities to include in my front cover. I want to do this to broaden my target audience.
I believe the Kerrang! front page is quite packed and contains a lot of headings so the audience can easily see what is in the magazine. This is done to make them want to read it if they see something on their favourite band or artist. If they include a lot of headings, it is more likely that someone will see something they like so I think this would be relevant for my own front cover. The main image is of a well-known artist who many of the audience will recognise and this will make them want to read the magazine as they will be interested to find out why this artist is on the front. It looks as though the demographics for Kerrang! is diversion and entertainment because of the shapes on the front cover, it is grabbing the readers attention and is quite unique and out-of-the-ordinary overall. The colour of the artist's hair and clothes contrasts to the grey background to make her stand out even more. 
RWD's front cover is a lot more simplistic than Kerrang! it only has one image, compared to the four on the front of Kerrang!, however, the main image on RWD is split into three; which links it to the heading as it makes it seem as though Tinie Tempah does "tear" up the photo as well as the music scene. The colour of the title and the headings all match making a colour scheme on the front cover of blue and white, hinting at a male target audience; which is emphasised by the popular male artist on the front cover. The artist on the front sums up the genre of the magazine, and we can tell he must be liked by many because otherwise the target audience would not buy it. The simplistic feel would suggest that this magazine is confident that it's target audience are going to buy it from the start, not caring so much for the look of the front cover.

I included a table to make the similarities and differences easy to see, and it is after the analysis of the two pages.

Masthead Research

We were told to analyse some different mastheads so that we would have more knowledge on them when we created our own for the our coursework, the music magazine. Here is my Masthead research:

 

Blog Research

I decided to research some blogs to see if I could get some tips from those that are popular. Also, I looked for similarities between them and from this I found that I could be unique with my style of blog.

Analysis of Prelim Magazine Photos

We were told to analyse our original photography for our preliminary task, in terms of how it relates to our target audience and how we manipulated them to suit that audience.School mag photo analysis

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I used the picture options to manipulate the photos.

Online Magazine Research. The Fly Magazine.

We were told to analyse an online magazine so when we created ours, we would be able to make it more versatile and cater for a wider audience. Here is my slideshow about The Fly magazine :

The fly – online magazine research

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Preliminary Task. Magazine Front Cover



Before starting our Media Coursework of a music magazine, it was decided that we should make a model magazine front cover so that we could improve on our preliminary work. We had to create the magazine front cover, make it about our school (Acland Burghley), take our own picture for the main image and decide on our own magazine title. I chose to call may magazine The Burghley Bizz, because I thought the slang of 'Bizz' would appeal to the young target audience and the alliteration of the 'B' would make the title more memorable.

We were told to use Adobe Photoshop so that we could develop our skills with the programme and, as a result, make our actual coursework piece better overall. I am not the most experienced with Photoshop, so I liked this idea. Later in the Blog, I will describe the technological skills I learnt throughout this coursework. Our first layer of the page was the masthead, I decided to go for an enhanced shadow behind my green and red striped masthead to make it more bold, so that it would stand out more and catch the audience's eye. I done this with the blending options tool, making the colour of the title two different colours into one which made it look a little like graffiti, which again appeals to the target audience. The next layer is a black background to the title which makes it stand out more, the colours of the title blended well with the background, which made this part of the magazine more unique and memorable. Also, with this layer, I was able to put in a strapline which told the audience what was in the magazine in short form. In the strapline, I included things that I thought would interest the target audience like 'competitions' and 'puzzles' so that they would be more likely to buy the magazine. I created another layer with a background of the same colour as the one behind the title for the bottom of the page, where I added in the web address for the magazine. I thought these two things were probably the most important things to remember for the reader, which was why I used the same background for them both and put in a striking colour and font.

I used a main image of me standing in the playground of our school as I thought that the target audience would be able to relate with the magazine if they saw that the main feature was based in the school. Also, I think the main image is appropriate as I am looking upwards to hint at a positive future, my body language is one of confidence which could inspire readers because the 'ex-student' of their school has made it as a successful music artist. I have written in short form around the front cover so that the reader can get a general view of what's inside from a quick look at the front cover. I think it will also be necessary to put in pictures by the text so that it is easy to tell what the piece is about. I done a similar structure for my contents page, put the headings for the different sections of the magazine across the page and writing details underneath them, aswell as pictures so that the readers can get an easy vision of what the page will look like.

I believe this front cover could be improved by containing more headings around the main image to tell the audience what is in the magazine, because if the headings interest them, they will then be more likely to buy the magazine. It is good that I am learning this now because I can now apply these things into my real magazine front cover.