Target Audience

My target audience is both males and females between the ages of 16-25 who are interested in the Electro/Pop genre of music. I decided to research into my genre a little further; researching current artists, the background of the genre and influences of the current revival of electropop.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BwxYNy6Gbf9BNDBhNjU3ZGQtNmQ0Yi00N2M3LThjZmYtMzg1NmU3NjNlYWU1&hl=en

A typical reader of my music magazine would be someone in their late teens, like a student, who enjoys listening to music which is less mainstream and more experimental then ordinary music. The magazine will include bands and artists which aren't as well known and probably aren't in the charts as well as very well known artists.

The Demographic factor I need to consider is the social status of who my magazine is aimed at. I think it would appeal to audiences in the BCD social status. This is because my magazine will not be cheap but I think people will be willing to pay more as it is a niche/specialised genre and there is no other well known magazines for this genre just yet. Also as it is aimed at the student age group and teens, they have a larger disposable income because of parents giving them money and at that age some teens have got part time jobs. This means my target audience would be able to afford the magazine.

I have looked on http://www.nrs.co.uk/ at their media packs for magazines with a similar genre of the magazine I am going to make. I looked at the target audience and reader figures for NME magazine and Kerrang!. Although the two magazines aren't quite of the same genre music that my magazine will be, they do feature bands that I will feature in mine.

In this table it shows the general week periodicals for lots of different magazines. It shows that NME have around 388000 readers on a weekly basis and Kerrang! has around 417000. Both magazines have more readers in the ABC socio economic classification group. This assures me that my magazine will appeal to my target audience as my magazine will be similar to these. Although both these magazines are unisex, both magazines have a larger audience from boys. Less then half of readers of Kerrang! are girls and less then a third for NME.

After researching on NRS I then went onto IPCmedia.com to see if their figures were the same as NRS. On IPC I found a reader profile for NME readers.

These figures back up the points I made earlier about NME's readers but also shows that the magazine is read more by full time employees then people who are still in education or working part time. I wanted my magazine aimed more at students which possibly means that NME is priced to high. This helps me to decide a price for the magazine I will produce so that it appeals more to students and part time workers.

Introduction to Main Coursework

For my main coursework task I will have to design and make a front cover, a contents and a double page spread for a music magazine. The genre of music I will be focusing on will be electro music and the target audience for my music magazine are males and females between the ages of 16 - 25.

This task will be a development of my skills form the preliminary task of making a college magazine.

Evaluation

I think my college magazine has been quite successful. I have managed to stick to my flat plan design very well and I think this magazine cover, if I made a few small changes, would appeal to the art students at Lewes, which was my target audience. I asked my friend, who is an art student at Lewes and he really liked my choice of fonts and how I have used lots of different styles but he thought my photograph could have been more art related, which I agreed with as at the moment it has no relation to my target audience.

If I was to do this again I would spend more time on my picture choice and make it have an appropriate background so it appealed to my target audience. I would maybe choose a photo from the art department of someone painting or some pictures from one of the art exhibitions. However, because of the time of year this wasn't possible and I couldn't interrupt a lesson to take photos. My picture has also become pixelated when I stretched it to cover the space on my front cover, this was due to the camera I used but in the future I will make sure I use a better camera so that it would not go pixelated. I would also change how I presented the main sells on my front cover because at the moment they have white backgrounds which overlap my picture and this looks messy.

I am very happy with my contents page but the alignment of the numbers with the writing isn't quite straight and would need to be sorted if I did it again. I would also change my idea of a white background as I think that the contents and front cover are maybe too simplistic for an art magazine.

Apart from these, I am very pleased with all the other elements of my front cover. I am especially happy with my title on the front cover. I think it looks artistic and would definitely appeal to my target audience. I also like my layout on my contents page as I like the contrast between the contents and the front cover. I enjoyed searching for all my fonts and taking my own pictures but I did not enjoy using In design as it felt awkward to use as I am unfamiliar to it. Also I felt you couldn't do much artistically because there wasn't enough options to do so. I would have preferred to have made the magazine in Photoshop as I was more familiar with the programme and it has a much larger variety of options and tools to be creative.

Flat Plans

Before I drew up my Flat Plans, I made a spider diagram of ideas and sketches for what I could do. This included ideas for the name, logos, the title, the contents page, the fonts and ideas for what the magazine could include. This helped me choose the title for my magazine and the layout I liked. I chose the name The Martlet for my magazine because a Martlet is a bird that is on the crest of Sussex and it also has the word 'Art' in it, which corrosponds with my target audience.

For my title I chose to use a diferent font for every letter, each very different but with an artistic feel. This would draw attetention to the title and would appeal to the target audience of Lewes Art Students. My medium close up picture will be in the right of the page and will take up a majority of the front page. I have chosen three main stories for the front cover which are; "Fresher Party Pictures", "Student Elections" and "Art Trips 09/10". I thought these would all appeal to the target audience. I have drawn a sussex downs logo in the bottom left hand corner but because I will not be able to get the permission to use it in time for the hand in date, I don't think I will be able to use it. I have written. I think this should appeal to the art students because of the large picture, the artistic font and the main sells at the side of the page.

For my contents page I have planned to make the layout contrast with the front cover. The title will now be down the side in a large block font. The name of the magazine and the issue number will also be displayed at the top of the page, but in a unfancy font which I havent decided quite yet. For the typing on the page I will write it in a sans serif typeface (Century Gothic) and make the first letter of each word to be in normal type and the rest of the word in capital letters. This is just to intrest the target audience as its different and quirky. The page numbers will be written in in a block type print aswell but not the same as the contents print.

Photographs

For my front cover photograph I had to take a photo of a student. The picture had to be a medium close up and I chose to take the photo face on for simplicity and because low angle shots make the person look intimidating and high angle shots make someone seem inferior. I took two photographs with different frames (landscape and portrait) as I was unsure at the time of how I would design my front cover.

My picture was taken in the main hallway of the college as it is a well lighted area and also because I wanted a college logo in the background of my picture. Although I have the logo in the background, I also have other things which make the background seem messy, (the poster, the top of a table and chair), and if I was to do it again I would photoshop out parts I disliked or would have chosen a tidier background. I would also look for a college logo without any writing below it, as I feel this would make the picture smarter and more about the college as a whole. I didn't dress up the person in my photo because I wanted them to look natural and I also had her smiling as it made the front cover more cheerey. I experimented with whether to have the photo portrait or landscape, as I wasn't 100% sure at the time on the exact layout I was going to do for my magazine.

Introduction

I have been asked to design a Lewes College magazine for a target audience of my choice. I have to design the front cover using a photo that I have taken myself and a contents page. My college magazine will be aimed at Art Students at Lewes.