My Magazine's Sub-Genre

For my magazine I have decided to use the Sub-Genre of 'Indie', however I have chosen to add a 'punk' feel to give my music magazine a bit of a rock edge.

Conventions of my Sub-Genre (Indie/Punk)

• Bands - The bands and artists featured in the magazine would be mainly rock singers with an edgy attitude, because their fans are the people most likely to buy the magazine and keep buying it.
• Layout/Colours - I think the colour scheme of an 'Indie/Punk' magazine would be quite dark and contrasting (for examples colours like red, black, blue and white). Also the layout would be quite blocky with many boxes with contrasting fonts and colours in it.
• Features - The features in the magazine are mainly about artists, bands, festivals and concerts; howevert here should still be features about other things than music - e.g. Fashion, Technology and Food would all be things to suit this genre.

Audience Profile

For my magazine the audience is very important in deciding the photos to use, the stories to put on the front page and contents, and the type of language to use when writing the article.

My audience profile-

• Gender - Male
• Age -16-30
• Income - ABC1
• Area - nation wide
• Music - Indie/Punk

I have chosen these because i think it would be a challenge for me as i would never usually read a magazine like this.

Market Share

Market shares are different for different music magazines -

Classic Rock - By December 2003, it was selling 43,545 copies a month, it is now selling 71, 242.
NME - By 1973 it was selling almost 300,000 copies a week - Quote from May 2006 "The NME is the biggest selling and most respected magazine in the world"
Q Magazine - Nowadays sells around 94,811 units
Kerrang - Sells about 41,125 units
Classic FM - Sells about 32, 534 units
Metal Hammer- sells 41, 777 units

A music magazine doesn't sell magazines in as many places as other magazine genres (for example fashion or lifestyle), However because many music genres have a large following of devoted fans; a music magazine's readership can become quite large and even expending their brand onto television and radio.

Conventions of music magazines

Front Page:
The front page needs to have a picture of a music artist, they are also usually the focus of the main feature of the magazine. The other cover lines usually focus on different music related stories, however there should be some other stories mainly focused on the audience.
Contents:
This should include a picture of a music artist or music related photo (for example a photo of a concert or festival) - the page usually has features, regulars and maybe a review section - This is to direct readers around the magazine.
Magazine Content:
As the magazine has a music genre, the main features in the magazine are about music, the main articles and interviews are usually with popular artists and bands, there is also a section where they review different albums and videos (and maybe concerts). There are usually competitions within the magazine to draw readers in - these can range from VIP tickets to meet and greets to music downloads.

Music Magazine research - Genre

Genre:
I believe that the most devoted music fans are the ones more likely to buy magazines on their favourite music genre. At the moment the lagest genre for music are:

1. Indie
2. Pop
3. R'n'B
4. Rock

I believe i should choose one of these genres as they are the ones that are most listened to.

Music Magazine Project

For my music magazine project i have to do many things:

• Research of magazines/music magazines
• Research of audience
• Research for my magazine (genre conventions etc.)
• Planning my magazine (shoots)
• Planning of the front cover (mood board, evaluation, feedback)
• Planning for my contents page (regulars, features etc)
• Drafts of my article
• Presentation of front cover, contents and article
• Evaluation

I have started some of these like the different genres of magazines in general and music magazines.

Genres of magazines-

• Fashion (Vogue)
• Music (Kerrang)
• Women's Lifestyle (Cosmopolitan)
• Men Lifestyle (Men's Health)
• Motoring (Top Gear)
• Celebrity (Heat)
• News (BBC NEWS)
• Sport (Motor)
• Children's (Puffin Post)
• Teenager (Seventeen)

As my magazine is in the Music Genre then I will have to focus on different music magazine genres that a could use.

• Hip-Hop
• Pop
• R'n'B
• Indie
• Rock
• Heavy Metal
• Electric
• Classical
• Jazz
• Punk
• Screamo

General magazine conventions:

This conventions are important as it relates to any magazine that could be produced

• Front cover - There needs to be a main photo, a mast head, a main story, cover lines, the date, the price and a barcode somewhere on the page
• Contents - The needs to be the magazine name, relavant photos, page numbers, features and regulars sections.
• Magazine - it needs advertisements which are used to bring money into the magazine, articles which are used to entertain and/or inform the reader on a certain subject, interviews which gives readers an incite into others opinions and experiences, Quizzes and competitions used to interest the reader with anticipation for achieving a goal and finally a note from the editor which makes the magazine more personal to the reader.

Final front page and cover :)

This is my final version of my Front Cover and Contents page :)

School contents page

This is the contents page for my school magazine, i have done a blazer watermark to keep with the essence of the magazine, i have also decided to do a scrapbook style picturing down the side of a few of the pictures i didn't choose for the front cover - to appeal to the younger audience

i also picked my features and regulars very carefully to attract different sections of the school reader - then i added page numbers...there are 54 pages in my magazine of which 8 is a multiple, this is because magazine pages are printed in eights.

i have added a competition at the bottom to try and attract more readers to look at and buy the magazine.

Final front cover page

This is my final version of the front cover, i chose the name BLAZER as i feel it suited the school theme (i also included the date, price and email address at the top, then the bar code at the bottom) - I chose the cover lines that i did to try and appeal to all members of the school community
-model interview appealing the the girls of the school
-the university facts for the students looking towards further education
-the teaching tricks for teachers to read
-the football scout for the boys of the school.

I also have tried to make the masthead and the cover lines stand out using the fonts and colours i have, but also making sure the colour and font of the masthead is different to the rest of the text on the front cover page.

I hope the front page stands out and would attract the right audience.

Front cover mood board

This is my School front cover mood board, these were the best pictures from the shoot that i did with my friend Antonia - this mood board is to put all the pictures on one background so i can analyse them and decide which photo i would like to use as my front cover (all have the photos have been edited in either photoshop or photo editor).

I decided to use the second in from the right, because it was nicely edited, wasn't too serious to use for a school magazine and i think it would make the magazine look more professional.

Haven't posted in a while - UPDATE

Well the last few weeks have been focusing on using things like photo shop, we have done our school magazine front cover and contents (I'll upload pictures of those soon).

Then we have started on our music magazine by doing the research and planning for it - I have decided to go for a indie punkish theme for my magazine, with photo uploads i will show you how i came to that conclusion with surveys and mood boards etc.

Not much to read to be honest more things to look at, coming soon....

Week 2 of Media

In Mr McDermott's classes we were focusing on basic audience profiling - social grade.
- Audience is the most important of all key concepts, media is plural of medium, - acts between two groups, audiences have to engage with media text if it is to be a success.
Niche audience - Carpworld
Mass audience - OK
The different segments of an audience are usually split into the following:-

• age
• gender
• demographics (where they live)
• profiling
• values, attitudes and lifestyles

We then also had to try and think of the worst possible magazine for mothers with young children (crafts etc)...these were dull colours, expensive, unprofessional, wrong model demographic etc...this made us also think what would be good for the magazine.

In other lessons with Mr McDermott we tried to use photoshop as we will need it to customise pictures for our magazines. Our homework was to find a magazine (that differs to our normal tastes) and write a monologue in the place of a normal reader.

Our other lessons we focused on magazines and their front covers...sketching the magazine covers proportionately etc, the we started on a magazine presentation which we will have to finish for homework and present in the next lesson.

I'm actually rather enjoying media studies :)

Week One. first few lessons

First lesson: Our teacher first went over our assessment objectives for the course (AO1-AO4), to make sure we understood what we was going to be doing for the year and what was expected of us. Then she went over the different types of media - from television through to newspapers, and went through the different aspects of a certain poster; for example the copy, images, target audience, purpose, background and colourings. We then had to annotate a magazine advertisement and finish it off for homework.

The next lesson was with our other teacher...Mr Mcdermott...we looked into the sections of a magazine cover (for example cover lines, the mast head and the main image), we were also set homework to annotate 4 magazine covers in detail - the magazines were Carpworld (fishing), Empire (Sci-fi), Q (music) and Woman & home (women's lifestyle). We also were looking into codes; these are how producers communicate through the media, the main 5 codes are:-

1. Technical codes - camera shot, angle, editing and transitions.

2. Symbolic codes - body language, gesture, setting, dress, colour and composition.

3. Sound codes - music dialogue and sound effects.

4. Narrative codes - storyline, plot, structure and characters.

5. Representation - age, gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality and regional.

In the last lesson of the week we did research on magazines in Tesco's, we had to answer certain questions.

1. How many different types of magazines are there?

There were around 17-20 different types.

2. How do Tesco display their magazines?

In rows with large board above or below telling the customer the genre.

3. What were the most popular type of magazines?

Real life/Celebrity

4. Titles?

OK, Take a break, Heat, Hello, Reveal and Closer.

5. What was the most expensive magazine? How much and what genre was it?

Vogue and Bazaar are both fashion magazines and they cost £4.00

6. What do all magazines have in common?

They all have enticing images on the front cover and all of the names of the magazines contrast with the background of the magazine.

7. What differences do all the magazines have?

They all have different colour schemes, different images and different styles of writing.

And that is my first week of media in a nutshell :) xxx