Magazine - Costs

A single Kerrang issue usually sells in the UK for £2.20 and a NME magazine costing the same. Therefore I know that these magazines are affordable to my target audience as the age range is around about the same. I've decided that my price will need to be cheaper because it is mainly orientated around smaller and up-coming bands, so the target audience won't want to spend the same amount of money on a magazine that has bands that could be very unknown. I was thinking that the £1.60-£1.80 mark would be an effective amount because this will be affordable for students and cheaper than the two named above.

Audience Profile

I decided to ask my friends about their preferences to gain an understanding of my audience. I decided to ask a male and a female to gain an understanding of what my target audience is like.

Liam Cooke is a teenager aged 17 who is currently a student at Lutterworth College. He studies English Language, Media and R.E whilst also having hobbies involving football and music. His bedroom is littered with posters of his favourite musicians whilst also having gig tickets that he has collected whilst going to see his different favourite bands. He is very interested in finding new talent within a rock genre, whilst also liking larger more known bands within the genre. He appreciates all music genre's if the artists are naturally talented and have worked hard through the music industry but his overall taste for music is within the indie rock - hard rock genre. His favourite magazines are Kerrang and Rocksound along with NME which is appropriate to my magazine as I will be looking to create a magazine that crosses NME with Kerrang. Therefore I think my magazine would be suited to this person, because it offers new unknown bands within the indie/rock genre.

Louis Taylor is a teenager aged 16 who is currently studying at Leicester College. She takes a general course including "Maths, Physics, Biology and Psychology with hobbies including astronomy and music. Music is one of her biggest hobbies with her playing piano and going to see her favourite artists. She likes rock music also enjoying more indie and pop artists also, so she frequently reads magazines such as NME, Q and Kerrang and differentiates between them dependant on the main artist being advertised. She likes seeing new up and coming bands which would be relevant to my magazine. Her walls are also covered in pictures and posters of her favourite artists, which shows what my kind of audience like, and what interests that age group.

Overall I think both people would be interested in buying my magazine and the magazine would be useful to them,  also having important relevant information to do with their hobbies within music to make them feel like the magazine relates to them.

Magazine Audience

My magazine audience will be aimed at people aged 15-30 but most customers will be be aged around 18-20, old teenagers to young adults. This is because my magazine (as an Indie/Rock magazine) is more focused on new and upcoming artists, therefore people aged 25+ will start to only be interested in their bands. Also because my magazine's genre of Indie/Rock will be frequently on the boundary of full rock and alternative rock (close to indie) my audience will be of a higher percentage of male readership. This does not mean my magazine wont offer stories to gain a female audience, because a female audience would be essential to promoting smaller more indie orientated bands.

Pitch

Name Of Magazine

I wanted the name of my magazine to be distinctive whilst also being inspired by musical terms. Some of my early suggestions were:
Beat
Interlude
Rhythm
I found these musical terms seemed to fit with pop culture references, so more musical terms related to rock indie genre's would be more effective:
Plectrum
Interlude
Encore
Tuning

I've decided to call my magazine "ENCORE" because it usually means "extra performance", so this on the front of the magazine will tell the audience, this magazine has "extra information". Its also bold and has the strong "cckk" sound which relates to the strong sounds familiar in rock e.g. Kerrang!

Style Of Magazine

My magazine will be an indie rock magazine that covers a large amount on niche artists whilst also covering the hottest new talents in the genre world. It aims to advertise small bands making their way through the music industry whilst creating  informal reader friendly humorous articles, which make the target audience much more interested and comfortable with the magazine.

Magazine - Contents Page Analysis

Magazine - Double Page Spread Analysis

Magazine - Front Cover Analysis

Mood Board

Magazine Inspiration - Front Covers

Huck

I like this front cover, because the magazine has allot of white space and is very simplistic. This makes the magazine easy to read and to understand, comforting the traget audience. The Mathshead is in lower case, so its allot more relaxing and informal whilst the large image has a sepia tone, which relates to the target audeince, of retro californian skateboarding.

RollingStone

This magazine is influencial to me because it sell's itself to a slightly different audience through the image. As Rolingstone is an iconic font and name, people do not need to say the whole mathshead to know what the magazine is about, therefore putting this artist of a slightly different music genre on, intrege's a new audience. I particular like the line of symmetery that runs through the centre of the peice, which makes the text stand out from the background.

WIRED

I like the use of colours on this front page because it makes the magazine stand out and with the rest of the colours being black, white and grey, it attract the audience, and makes the writing inside stand out, which in this case is the headline (main story) of the magazine. It also uses these bright colours (cyan, magenta, yellow and green) within the text (sub headings) which colour specific text to make it stand out, so these words highlight an important part in the magazine.

NME

I really like the contrast of colours on this magazine front cover, as the red stands out on both black and white layers behind them, and the white stands out on a black background, which in this case is the image of the two musicians, which is placed to the right. I also like this magazine because it uses the 'F' layout which has bold capital text sub-headings, to intrege the reader. It also uses a qoute, which stands out under the headline, which incopperates a joke, which the traget audience would understand, therefore related to the reader. I think this is a very clever technique which intrege's the target market to red on because they feel the magazine suites them.

Analysis Of Magazines - Glossary

Masthead – The name and logo of the magazine.
The Lead – the introductory paragraph of an article. Usually written in bold or capitals.
Body copy - refers to the text of your written articles, which should be produced as a printed presentation to accepted industry standards, e.g. correct use of language, font size, word limits etc. Usually written in columns.
Serif font – fonts like Times New Roman, or Baskerville Old Face, which have little bars (serifs) on the end of the letters.
Sans serif font – fonts like Impact, or Agency FB, which do not have little bars (serifs) on the end of the letters.
Drop Capitals – Really big letter, which start off an article.
Cross Head – Small sub-heading used to split up a large block of text.
White Space – white parts of a page other than text or pictures.
Mode Of Address – How the magazine talks to the audience.
Sell Lines – Text on the cover that helps to sell the magazine to the audience. Kerrang!’s sell line is “life is loud”.
Banners – text, which stands out because its on a coloured background.
House Style – a magazines distinctive design that distinguishes it from its competitors.
Borders – the gaps at the edges of the page.
Gutters – the gaps between the columns of text.
Leading - the space between lines of text.
Kerning - the space between letters.
Strap Lines – a smaller headline, printed above the main headline.
By-lines - name of the person who wrote the article. Picture Credits - where did the photos come from, or who took them.
Anchorage – The way in which text helps to pin down the meaning of a picture and visa versa.