Conventions of a Double page spread

Before I began work on my actual double page spread for my music magazine. I decided to quickly analyse three current double page spreads that are of a similar design that I am aiming to create.

These are the three double page spreads that I chose:

Conventions of a Contents page

Before I began work on my actual contents page for my music magazine. I decided to quickly analyse three current contents pages that are of a similar design that I am aiming to create.

These are the three contents pages that I chose:

Test shots

Before I began the process of my photo-shoot, I decided to conduct a few test shots to allow myself to see what mistakes needed to be fixed and it also allowed me to get used to environment as I was going to be having a lengthy photo-shoot there.

With my test shots, I have explained my errors and stated what I will do to improve it by fixing the errors.

Music magazine double page spread digital mock-up

Music magazine contents digital mock-up

Music magazine cover digital mock-up

Price

 My music magazine will be a country music magazine, therefore as stated earlier it will appeal for the 14-25 females and males (mostly females), as this best suits the genre. From researching and creating my reader profile for Q magazine, I discovered that the majority of the readers and target audience were actually male. But as Q was the closest magazine to what I was aiming for at the time and  there wasn't any current country magazines to research this doesn't really affect anything. Especially as there aren't many country magazines out in this country. I'd like to think it of my idea being fresh and original. As my magazine will be a monthly magazine, it will be a little more expensive opposed to the weekly magazines as more effort and time has gone into it, making it more high quality. But at the same time, my magazine has to appeal to the younger part of my audience and the students opposed to the older part so it has to be affordable, so the price of my magazine will be £3.75.

Carrie Underwood

The image above is of American country artist, Carrie Underwood. Aside from Taylor Swift, she is another source of my inspiration due to the fact that she has a feminine yet casual image. As she is older in age to Taylor, she will appeal to my older readers like 20-25 as Taylor's music is more suited to teens while Carrie's appeals to a slightly older audience. Carrie rose to fame as the winner of the fourth season of "American Idol". She has four albums out to date, the most recent out in May 2012. She is currently the 2nd best selling and most successful winner of "American Idol" behind season 1 winner, Kelly Clarkson, who only surpassed her recently.

Target Audience

I have finally decided that my main target audience for my magazine will be 14-25 females and males, mostly females. This includes high school, college and university students and other adults up to the age of 25. Socially, I would like my magazine to appeal to the ABC demographics due to the high quality of my magazine as it will be monthly. As this is a country and folk magazine, it is stated that this genre is more popular with females than males. I have chosen this age range as it will mostly be based on current artists and upcoming artists rather than classic artists. Although references to older artists will be mentioned at times to give my magazine diversity.

Final costume idea

From using my lookbook, I have chosen my final costume, hair and makeup for my model. This look will be worn on the day of the photoshoot and will be the one featured in my main images. I feel this look demonstrates the country and folk genre very well while still being feminine and wearable, which is key for my target audience.

Inspiration from a fellow blogger

While I was searching for photos to inspire me for my lighting ideas for the photo shoot, I came across this blog with fantastic pictures that captured my vision completely. For me, this blog as a whole is inspiration for my photos as well as the content and genre of my magazine.The majority of the pictures used in my lighting collage are from this blog. After more research I found out more about the blogger, Felicity, who wrote it and took the pictures for it. I loved the pictures so much I emailed her regarding any camera techniques and editing she could give me to achieve the same look that's in her photos. She emailed me back  quickly with a lot of helpful advice and techniques that I could use. I feel this has now advantaged me for when I do my location photo shoot in a few months and I now feel much more confident. 

Thanks Felicity!

Check out Felicity's blog here, you won't regret it.

Lookbook: Costume

Initially, my main inspiration for my costume is the artist Taylor Swift, due to her feminine yet age appropriate style while still sticking well with her genre of music, country. The pictures above show her transition through the years and how her style has changed due to her age and her music. I will be using both of these styles to create one of my own for the cover star of my music magazine. Taylor currently has four albums, the first picture will show her debut from 2006 and the second will show her fourth and latest album from 2012.

Lookbook: Location

As my magazine’s main genre is country. I decided early on that the location will have to be things associated with “country”. This includes dirt roads, paths, fields, barns etc. The main inspiration for this location was Taylor Swift’s music video for “Tim McGraw” and “Safe and Sound”. After brainstorming, I decided the location for this shoot would be a field and a wood in my area.

Lookbook: Lighting

For lighting, I don’t have too many ideas as the majority of the light in my photo shoot will be natural. But I have thought of some ways to manipulate this lighting into what I want. Which is sun glare. Sun glare is when the sun distorts an image through the use of discolouration. I will use this to my advantage through the use of Photoshop as well as on the shoot where I will play with camera settings to achieve this.

I created this collage online using an application called Photovisi. Which explains the web address being at the bottom right corner. I found all of these images myself specifically to make this collage, and they are all saved separately onto my computer, the majority of them being from various blogs and Flickr accounts. I am just stating this to deprive any accusations of plagiarism. This applies to all of my collages and mood-boards shown.

Music Magazine Front cover draft

Music Magazine Contents draft

Music Magazine Double page spread draft

Uses and Gratifications Theory

The theory of Uses and Gratifications was created in 1974 when Blulmer and Katz brought up the subject on how the use of media caused gratification of the social or psychological needs of an individual. The 4 main areas in which the media does this are Personal Identity, Social Interaction, Diversion and Information.

There are many different ways that the public use the media for personal identity. Characters on TV shows or people in magazines act as models for behaviour therefore supporting the personal ethics and behaviour of an individual. For example, people who read a pop music magazine will begin to dress like and, to some amount, act like the people featured in the magazine. The media is also said to give people an understanding into themselves, this could be by reading an article about a family member passing away and learning how you are expected to react if this same incident occurs in your life.

The public can also use the media for social interaction. Television shows often have exaggerated versions of events likely to happen in real life, which can gains insight into the lives of other people giving the viewer a sense of social empathy with the characters. All forms of media stem questions and topics of debate; this means that they create informal topics for social interaction giving people something in common to talk about. Also, characters in long running television shows and bands and artists featured frequently in magazine interviews give the reader/watcher a feeling that they know them well and become almost ‘friends’.

Magazines and Television provide a change from daily routine. For most people they are a form of relaxation acting as a diversion from real life issues and problems that an individual faces. They show case the issues of other people so for a while you can forget about your own. They also provide emotional release such as crying or laughter, which some people don’t do enough of in daily life that can help to reduce their stress levels.

Lastly, the media can be used to provide information. The news tells people what is going on in the world from day to day and Magazines provide information about upcoming gigs, album reviews and artists, classic and contemporary. This makes the audience feel involved and up to date with what is happening.

Demographics/Grading system analysis

Demographics are key to the creation of a magazine. This system allows journalists and editors to create a specific target audience within that demographic.

Demographics arrange people into six categories or classes.

These are:

·         Age

·         Gender

·         Social Class

·         Location

·         Sexual Orientation

·         Religion

It is said that everybody fits into this Social Class system (above), which ideally places people based on their occupation and wealth.

This is also key to the creation of the magazine as it allows the editors to choose the price and quality of the magazine based on the class they have chosen. For example: Vogue won’t be aimed towards people of a lower class as it is expensive at £4.10 and the quality of the magazine proves this.

For example: The newspaper, ‘The Sun’ aims itself at the working classes, C1, C2, D and E. This is because the newspaper is very inexpensive and the people who read it value entertainment over information. Also, most of the Sun’s advertisements are coupons or special offers that can intentionally save the readers money. These things would not be offered to people of a higher social class so those offers are targeted towards the people of a lower social class.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Q Magazine Reader profile analysis

Q is a very popular music magazine published monthly in the UK.

The founders of the magazine Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were intimidated by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs (which was new technology at the time). Q was first published in October 1986; it set itself apart immediately from other music magazines due to the monthly publication and higher standards of photography and printing. In the early years, the magazine was sub-titled "The modern guide to music and more". Originally it was to be called Cue (as in the sense of cueing a record, ready to play), but the name was changed so that it wouldn't be mistaken for a snooker magazine. Another reason, cited in Q's 200th edition, is that a single-letter title would be more prominent on newsstands.

According to valid statistics*, the majority of Q’s readers are male, with the percentage for men being 66.2%. The statistics also show that 83.8% of the readers are 15-44 years of age. This shows Q’s ability to make the magazine appeal to a wide range of ages and social groups. Q does this by featuring currently popular artists like Adele and classic artists like Madonna and John Lennon, they even feature artists that are disbanded or deceased as some issues are dedicated to

them. For example; to celebrate John Lennon’s 70^th birthday a special cover and issue was dedicated to him. Also, Amy Winehouse had an issue dedicated to her after her death in 2011.

The typical front page of Q magazine always has to have the trademark masthead, a big red box with a bold white Q in it. It is always positioned in the top left of the magazine. The text is always very simple but viewable as it always seems to be in a bold font. The main image of the artist always dominates the front page as the majority of the time no other images are used on the front page. The headline also dominates the front page a lot more than the features due to its sheer size in comparison. In terms of colour, the scheme always revolves around the masthead, meaning all of the text is red, black and white. These are also very eye-catching and bright colours and this make the front cover stand out even more.

*(Sources: Q Wikipedia page, Bauer media magazines website)

Taylor Swift

These images above are of the artist, Taylor Swift. Because her iconic appeal, beauty and success she is perfect role models for my target audience as younger girls need positive role models to aspire to be like. Also, she will be my complete inspiration for my magazine as her genre of music is country and her records are country, she writes all of her songs as well. Plus, as a style icon she is my inspiration as I will be taking bits and pieces from her style over the years as show how it has grown. She has produced four albums to date. Her debut album was released in 2006 and her latest album in October 2012. I have noticed that her style has matured over the course of this. Just from her album covers you can see this. My main aim is to use a variety of things from all of her styles over the years.

Q magazine readership profile

Music magazine double page spread ICT mock-up

Music magazine contents ICT mock-up

Music magazine cover ICT mock-up

Focus group response

From conducting my focus group and the mixed discussion. I created some simple notes on what was said by my sample audience. These will help determine certain aspects to my music magazine. These are listed below:

• Some like Kerrang, NME, magazines of Indie genre
• The things that attract them the most are the features, free posters, exclusive content. Front cover has to be eye-catching
• Even, half of the group likes digital magazines, the other half don’t
• Preferred price to be £2 per week, price doesn't matter. If it’s more expensive then it has better content
• Customer needs input to the magazine as it helps them decide want they want to read.
• Essential features are reviews, free stuff, articles - tour, design, front cover,
• They think that some bands stick to one genre of music, it’s a bit generalised but has a significant difference
• They would change the price and the featutes - more reviews on upcoming bands etc
• You are who you are, people judge depending on what magazine you buy, your choice, magazine reflects you
• Subscriptions are good
• Pay more for monthly than weekly as it has more content

Mixed Group discussion

Focus Group recording

Focus group questions

Q1) What music magazines do you read? And what genre do they fit into?

Q2) What attracts you to buying a magazine?

Q3) Do you think digital downloads should replace paper magazines?

Q4) How important is the price of a magazine to you?

Q5) Do you think that buyers should have more input into what is featured in specific magazines?

Q6)  What features are essential to you to buy a magazine?

Q7)Do you think genres are too generalised?

Q8)What would you change about music magazines?

Q9) Do you think there is a stigma/stereotype to the people that buy music magazines? 

Questionnaire response

After conducting my questionnaire to 15 random people of my target audience, I put the results into separate pie charts so they would be easier to read and analyse. I have inserted these below. I plan to analyse them in the 2nd question of my final evaluation so forward to that if you want to see the detailed study of what these results have helped me decide for my music magazine.

Genre?

Colour scheme?

Most important element?

Price?

Release schedule?

Questionnaire

To get an idea of which audience in particular I wanted to target for my music magazine and how I wanted it to be, I designed this questionnaire for 15 people to answer it. These answers will determine the price, genre, release schedule, colour scheme and content of the magazine. Once I have the answers I will create some pie charts displaying the information.

Inspiration

This music video is the primary inspiration for my music magazine, especially the location. Due to the fact that it demonstrates the country genre very well and shows me the things I need for the mise-en-scene of a country shoot.

Inspiration

Compared to the other music video I posted. This one primarily demonstrates folk music, which is sub-genre of my magazine. The location, lighting and costume from this music video will be taken as inspiration due to the fact that folk gives the magazine a darker side while country is very much happy and cheerful. I did this because this initially gives the magazine much more depth as well as helping it attract a larger audience.

Initial ideas

Inspiration/Moodboard for Music Magazine

Liiar Analysis: Q magazine - Front page/Contents page/Double page spread