BY DAMIEN ASHTON-WELLMAN

HOW DOES YOUR MUSIC MAGAZINE REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

In terms of income and finance the socio-economic group I aimed my magazine at is between C2-E on the social demographic scale which ranges from skilled manual workers like plumbers, electricians, taxi drivers to unemployed, I chose this audience because they have the characteristics associated with the genre of rock I have created. On the psycho demographic scale rockers are normally associated with the rebel group who don’t conform to society and can be anarchic and antiestablishment in their outlook. I chose a specific music tribe within the genre of rock for my target audience, this sub music tribe was emos.

SOCIAL DEMOGRAPHIC SCALE A: corporate CEO’s, bankers, politicians and heads of state

B: lower managerial positions, executives and layers

C1: teachers, doctors, social workers

C2: skilled manual workers [plumbers, electricians]

D: semi skilled manual workers [taxi drivers, bus drivers]

E: unemployed, retired and disabled

WHO WOULD YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE BE

AND WHY?

The target audience for my magazine are rockers and emos, I chose them as the target audience because when I did my music tribe research, I found that many of my survey group knew a lot more about those genres that other kinds like pop and R’n’B, hence they identified for me, a market. To target my readers I used the types of articles that would appeal to them, for example interviews with bands of the same music tribe, so in my magazine I have a review of the emo band my chemical romances new album, as you can see on my contents page. I also created my own band, though they look like a heavy metal band, they are actually an emo band, another way of broadening the appeal to encompass my target audiences. I based my magazine style and mode of address on kerrang magazine, although kerrang’s target audience is a lot wider covering most the sub genres of rock, they also use the types of articles to get their audiences attracted to their magazine.

WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MUSIC MAGAZINE AND WHY?

Through my media institution research I found that the company that would produce and distribute my magazine could either be emap who own publications such as kerrang, they would be a great choice because they could use cross publicity from kerrang by marketing it as a niche brand, similar but specifically different to the central indie/rock genre of kerrang. The other choice would be Timely Warner. They would be one of the best companies to produce my magazine because they have a world wide influence in the media industry.

Time Warner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.timewarner.com/corp/

For more information on time Warner click the hyper-links, the first will take you to the Wikipedia file on the company and the 2nd will take you to there official website.

The Warner group would be great because with marketing, the company covers most of the sub genres of media the magazine could be carried from the magazine to a TV show, a Radio show and even CD’s as well as adverts for the actual magazines, although emap could of done this, kerrang is an example but you would have to be very big and earn loads of profits, with Time Warner because it is an American company, there's a bigger chance of covering the different genres to a global market.

Click video picture to hyperlink to a YouTube video of the Warner brothers intro.

HOW DID YOU ATTRACT AND ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?

The colour scheme was one of the most important way off attracting the target audience, I created a a poll to see witch colour schemes were popular, as you can see opposite the most popular choice was purple, black and white, these colour’s as well as being the target audiences favorite they are colour’s associated with the genre of rock and roll so instantly the audience identifies with the magazine. I chose a very basic audience in terms of age- from their teens, to young adults and I used the mode of address most recognizable by the socio-economic groups because my target was working and middleclass youths so the language would not be as sophisticated as it would be in other magazines and of course I had the rebellious, anarchic tone to consider as well.

I tried to not use elaborate words and keep the language short and precise, I did this to try and get the text to resemble kerrang, which I tried to model my magazine on, because I wanted the same feel /mode of address that it has, as you can see from looking at the 2 of them side by side. Also my free gift would draw the audience as it is FREE! It also acts as a band promotion and as the institution may well be behind the band promotion it is an example of cross pollination of advertising and promotion.

The main font style font style I used for effect was Charlemagne std, I used this because it looked very gothic which was what I wanted the magazine to look like as the gothic look is associated with rock and emo. The choice of main article was an interview with a band of the same music tribe as the target audience, I did this so the audience would be attracted to the magazine because they would identify with the article as its about the type of music they like. I chose the writing to be white against the purple boxes because it was easy to read and so the text stood out to the readers, making them more likely to read it, it also perpetuated the gothic atmosphere of the product. For the contentsThe contents was based on the layout of Metal Hammer, with the text and title on one side with the main image next to it. I chose another rock magazine to look at so I could see what other magazines within the rock genre looked like and there mode of address. As you see I took the layout as a basic guide but added my own personality.

I chose to have my mast head within a box, both to try and get the same effect as Kerrang and so the shadow would stand out from the back ground.

I also chose to have my side article on the left third because this is a great place to put things you want people to see as when the magazines are stacked that’s all that is showing

LEFT THIRD LEFT THIRD

I wanted the text to match the style of Kerrang, so I used a short mast head and added statement as the sub text.I wanted also to have a free gift on my magazine

because it helps sell a magazine, I placed it like Kerrang in the left third so that readers see a free gift first and therefore are more likely to buy it.

Lastly I placed a bottom strip like Kerrang only I used my one as a competition were as Kerrang used it as a menu.

I wanted to repeat the mast head 0n the contents to keep the house style flowing over from the front cover and to keep the structure of the Metal Hammer magazine.

I also added a main image to my contents page, I kept the structure and placement of Metal Hammer but instead of using lots of images I used one single main image.

For the text the position was the same as Metal Hammer as well as using 2 different font sizes and styles, but with mine instead of having 2 columns of information I only had 1 and added three icons at the bottom of the text box.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF

CONTRUCTING THIS MUSIC MAGAZINE? Well, from creating the music magazine I

learned a lot about InDesign, how to change the margin widths and lengths and I got to learn how to add effects to box’s and to pieces of text, which made my magazine look more realistic and 3D as well as it helped to show all the different layers. I also learned a lot more about Photoshop than when I did the school magazine, I found out how to use the magic eraser and back ground eraser tool, this came in handy to make the pictures edges look more real and not as if it had been cut out, this made the back ground look as if it really was behind the modals. I also understand how all the tiny elements combine to create a final, unified product that must be fit for audience and purpose to attract its audience and be a major success commercially.

LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE POGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

Well as the product went on I learned the codes and conventions in great detail and how they make magazines look realistic, for example exclusives, these are interviews with people or coverage of an event that no other magazine has, they make more people want to buy the magazine,though I don’t have front page exclusives in my magazine I do have a lot of the codes and conventions. I chose to give away a free gift as my exclusive instead. I have mast head which is the title of the magazine, a headline this is the title of the main article, a strap-line which is the sub heading for the main article, and I have a splash which is my main article it usually is occupied by the largest font on the page. On the main article I have a by-line which is who wrote the article and on the contents I have a menu of the listed features so the readers no what's inside. The other main thing that have learned is about the house style, I only had a limited knowledge about what went into it, from the whole project I learned that it did not just consist of the colour scheme, but also the styles of font and photography. I also learned that the house style does not just cover one issue but all issues to make the magazine look more professional and make the readers want to buy the magazine and ultimately make the publisher and institution behind the finished product a profit.

When I first had an idea for the magazine I wanted to create a type of kerrang magazine but as the project went on the magazine took on its own identity, still incorporating some of kerrang’s designs but also using very different styles for the final product. From using different pieces of software I learned that photo shop is the best to edit photos and can give a basic look for a magazine but if you want a professional standard InDesign will give a more realistic look, both pieces of software were good for their jobs but both give different options for the final look. From the research tasks I learned how to get a better standard in my planning that when I did not give the research as much preparation and that the planning was just as important as the actual product. An example of this is the music tribe research, before I did the research I didn’t know how many sub genres and different types of music there were, from this research task I got to know more about the target audience for my magazine, so I could shape the magazine more around them.