Main Task: Magazines

The main task that I have been given is to create a music magazine of a particular genre, consisting of a front cover, contents page and double page spread.

In order to achieve this, I need to undergo three different sections, which I need to complete in a strictly kept timeline, to keep my work up to date on a constant basis. Below are the aspect areas I need to cover and the deadlines for which they are due for:

• Research and planning: 8/1/10
  
• Production:12/2/10
  
• Evaluation: 5/3/10
  

Furthermore, I an aware that in order to complete the creation of my music magazine successfully, I need to decide on aspects such as: the genre of music which my magazine shall consist of and my target audience.

Music Magazine Research [OF ANY GENRE]

♫ Magazine One

The Title: The title, Classical Fm connotes that the magazine is about a varied range of classical music, and well known aspects of it, because Fm means radio, and radios play a varied amount of music, but a lot of the time it is famous pieces. The letters are in a serif font, because the edges of the letters stick out and consequently create a very sophisticated appearance to its target audience. The colours that the title consists of, being black, white and red are not outgoing colours and therefore suit the sophisticated theme.

The Audience:This Classical Fm magazine is targeted for an audience of adults because of its genre. However, it is clear the magazine tried to popularise itself more in gaining a wider audience, by having Myleene Class on the front cover, because she is an icon for the younger generation; possibly more so than the older generation. This magazine is for a sophisticated audience, in opinion, because of it's classical genre, which is normally stereotypes of Succeeders, Traditionalists and Aspirers. I think that overall, the audience type would be A, B and C1 on the Jicnars scale.

Main Contents: These are some of the inside double page spreads which I found in an earlier issue, even though this these pages are most recent, and do not link to Myleene's cover page, they still give me the overall style for the magazine.

I have found similarities between all of these magazines:

• They all have blank, white sections, to save money on ink.
• The writing is not bold or "zany," but simple and sophisticated.
• The photos are blown up.

Brand Identity: The brand identity of this magazine is for sophisticated audiences of an older generation. This is because the genre of classical music does not really take to younger audiences, so the magazine has to do everything to try and attract as many of the older generation as it can. In this case, the creators of the magazine have been clever and have put a face of someone young and pretty on the front, to try and attract the attention of the younger generation as well. In the case of this issue, the magazine seems to have promoted itself more so for the famous celebrity rather than its music. This would be a form of synchronisation, because the celebrity, Myleene Class starred in 'I'm a Celebrity Get me Outta Here' and also is the face of Panteene and is a musician. This means that she is promoting many things for being the cover of this magazine, taking the brand identity to a whole new level, by attracting mainstream and individual audiences.

♫ Magazine Two

The Title: The striking white title of 'VIBE' stands out from the rest of the cover page, attracting the audiences to this particular magazine. The word 'vibe' connotes as modern, urban and young; therefore this magazine would be clearly for teenagers and young adults. This magazine is unique because of the colouring scheme which has been photo shopped to have the face of the covers's artist (being Rihannah) as black and white, against the colour of the background which is blue.

The Audience: This magazine is unique because of the colouring scheme which has been photo shopped to have the face of the covers's artist (being Rihannah) as black and white, against the colour of the background which is blue. Further evidence of this is the fact that Rihannah is targeted at this particular audience of the younger generation too. I would say that the audience would be regarded as underachievers on the psychographic scale; because this magazine does not really seem to have a lot going, that is very intellectual about it, as it is very plain. This means that the audience would most likely be classed as D or C2 on the Jicnar's scale.

Main Contents: I could not find any insider pages from this particular magazine. However, there are still aspects on the front cover which could indicate what the inside pages would look like. The list of names on the right hand side of the magazine indicates who is included in this issue, and would make the audience want to turn over and read more because you are not aware of what is featured about those people. It is clear that the main sell, feature of the magazine is Rihannah and Chris; which is capable of selling the magazine alone because at the time this issue was released, that was a very big topic.

Brand Identity: This magazine's genre is pop, because the artist on the cover connotes this. The brand identity would have been created to attract the mainstream audience (mainly consisting of the younger generation), as Rihannah is a well known artist who is particularly known well by young people. The colouring is well adjusted to be able to stand out from other magazines on the stalls and racks.

♫ Magazine Three

The Title: The title of this magazine is "Blender." This connotes as young and 'hip.' The bold sans-serif font attracts a younger audience because it does not look as sophisticated as it would if it had just a serif font alone. The way that the head is over the top of the middle part of the title makes the overall appearance more appealing, because it makes it more interesting. Also, the plain black colour makes it stand out and more bold. The line of white that is running along it creates an 'edge.'

The Audience: The audience would clearly be for a young audience, because this it is a young, famous artist which is on the cover; being Alicia Keys. However, the magazine is slightly sophisticated, because it says that it features other artists such as Madonna and Mariah Carey, which are slightly older artists who sing songs which appeal to older audiences too. (As for example, Mariah Carey sings ballads). Madonna on the other hand, has been around for many years. Also, Kid Rock, John Mayer and Keith Richard's names are on the cover as well. I would say that the audience would be a variety of boys and girls, men and woman from around 15 - 28. This is because there are a variety of genres included on the cover, as for example, Mariah Carey to Kid Rock. The audience would be most likely classed as Achievers on the Psychographic scale, and at stages D, C2 and C1 on the Jicnar's scale.

Main Contents: I could not find the inside pages of this magazine issue, but I am guessing that it would consist of the variety of artists that it had mentioned. The main sell on this issue's cover is Alicia Keys, so the audience would expect for Alicia Keys to be the main feature inside the magazine. The inside of the magazine would keep the same style throughout so as for it to be able to keep the same target audience.

Brand Identity: I think that this magazine's main idea is to attract their audience through a typical method of putting young, pretty, slightly revealing women on their front covers. Personally though, however, I think that this is a bit sexist; as it makes the cover more appealing to men than women.

These other magazine covers by Blender show a clear pattern of girls which are attracting a male audience, even though the music that is said to be featured on the covers suit many different types of people, both male and female.

My Rough Conclusions From This Research: [OF ANY GENRE]

• Young female artists to sell their covers.
• The women wear revealing clothes.
• The main sell is always the main feature of the magazine.
• The target audience is generally for the younger generation.
• Therefore the title is normally in a sans-serif font.
• The inside pages, from what I have found, carry on the style of the front cover.
• All of the cover photos which I have found have been taken in a studio.
  

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Music Magazine Research
[OF MY CHOSEN GENRE, ROCK]

♫ Magazine One

The Title: The title, NME is bold and stands for New Music Express, noting the "New" in the title, which connotes as being for the newest generation, not the older one. The letters are bold and red, which is a basic primary colour, making it easy to catch the audience's attention as it is possibly one of the most striking colours that there is. The font of the title is in Sans-Serif, because that connotes as young and is most easy to read, therefore making it most eye catching. The only other title which appears more noticeable than the masthead itself would be the main sell "Lily Allen Takes on the World." This is because of the reason that this way, the main sell becomes the feature of the front cover, because it is the key subject aimed to be sold to the audience.

The Audience: This magazine is targeted at teenagers/young adults, because Lily Allen is on the front cover, who is a young artist that addresses the younger generation. The target audience for this magazine would most likely be lower down on the Jicnar's scale, being D, C1 or C2, because the younger generation is the audience, meaning that they would not be old enough to have got a decent job or career yet. On psychographic terms, this magazine's targeted audience would most likely be Radicals, (who are people who think of themselves as individuals, against the dominating mainstream culture); or Underachievers, meaning that they are quite well educated but do not have a very high paid job, (this would be because they would be too young to be eligible for needing a high paid job). On the scale of social values, I would say that this young audience would be classed in the *Hedonist, Post-Materialist, Post-Modernist categories.

• *Hedonists are people who wish to enjoy life in this moment.
  
• *Post-Materialists are people who want to be something later.
  
• *Post-Modernists are people who want to have, to be and to play in this moment.

Main Contents: *NME's website does not show insider pages from every issue of their magazine releases. Therefore the ones that I have found are not relevant to this magazine issue than I am analysing, but it is still from the same Brand.

I have noted what all these double-page spreads all have in common:

• Huge mastheads, promoting the topic that that section of the magazine is of.
• The colours coordinate with the writing, meaning that the colour of the writing's font sets the basis for the rest of the colour scheme, as everything is built around it.
• There are many pictures to break up the text.
• The most common background is white, most likely to save printing costs.

This is an example of a contents page for NME. I personally think that it appears rather simple. The masthead stating 'THIS WEEK' brings the attention, and the key colour of this page is black, as the titles and subtitles are outlined in it and what not. Even though this contents page is from a different issue to the NME cover above that I had found, I think that Oasis would have been the people on the front cover aswell, because they appear to be the main feature for this magazine. I like the way that they have simplified the main sub titles, to: News, Radar, Reviews, Live! and Features... with a Plus section too; as these titles are not boring and attract it's target audience (consisting of young people). I have also noticed that they have a subscription policy advertised on this page, which is quite convient because it obviously would attract the audience the minute that they open the page.

Brand Identity: The brand identity is not sophisticated, and the the 'Lily Allen Takes on the World' sign is in black and white letters, in edgy, bold writing. This connotes as 'indie-rock.' The bold, primary colours of red, yellow and black which dominate the page make the magazine stand out, and catch the eye of its young audience. It is trying to compete with the mainstream magazines, but within its own genre of pop-rock, as Lily Allen on the cover sets the genre type for this particular issue. However NME is a magazine about a variety of music genres.

♫ Magazine Two

The Title: The title of this magazine connotes as 'rebellion' and 'youth' with a significant vibe of 'going against the rules.' The title has a smashed effect with lots of white lines going across the ragged letters of 'KERRANG.' The black colour of the letters match the genre of the magazine and the sans-serif font makes the title approachable by its [younger] audience. The exclamation mark which is at the end of makes you shout the title in your head when you are reading it.

The Audience:The audience for this magazine would be aimed at teenagers, right through to young adults, because they would be the "younger generation." The age range would therefore be between 15 - 25 roughly; however, as there are older bands which can be featured in the magazine, such as Matallica or Kid Rock, older audiences may wish to read this magazine too. I think that because the younger generation are sterotyped with rebelling, Kerrang used this to their advantage to help promote themselves; using a variety of different stragegies involving this theme matched with its genre of rock, Kerrang has successfully managed to get through to its target audience - in my opinion.

• The audience would most likely come under the Psycographic scale as Radicals, being someone who sees themselves as an individual.
• On the social value scale, they would come under as a headonist, which is to 'enjoy life now.'
• On the Jicnars scale, the targetted people would be D, C2 and possibly C1.

Main Contents: *Kerrang's website does not show insider pages from every issue of their magazine releases. Therefore the one that I found is not relevant to this magazine issue than I am analysing, but it is still from the same Brand.

The style of this inside page matches the front cover's of my own issue which I am analysing (This makes it clear that every single magazine has the same style, regarding its genre). There is not much writing along the sides of this magazine, as the photo in the center dominates the page. I find that the camera use is very clever, because there is a heavy use of depth of feild, between the singer at the front on the guitar behind a microphone and the man in the background on his guitar. The lights would have been edited in photoshop to appear brighter, making a good use of contrast of hue on the page; and the lights "frame" the page. I think that this type of double page spread is effective and makes something of the space within the magazine. However, the only down side of having a double page spread like this is that the printing inks would reduce the financial costs to generate a mass amount of these magazines in huges batches at a time. In the reality of a brand that is not as rich as Kerrang, and cannot afford that much ink, there would have to be more white spaces to save the money on printing.

This double page spread very much matches the overall style of Kerrang yet again (in regards to the front cover especially). The main colour use on these two pages is red. I have noticed that each double page spread which I have looked at so far in my research all have a key colour which they base their page around. I am going to note this for my own double page spreads. The writing here is split up into smaller sections, so as to make it easier on the eye. The photos here look like cut-outs, which I think adds to the style of rebellion etc.

This contents page for Kerrang is more appealing to me rather than the NME one, because it has more photos and images in general. The key colours here are yellow and black, which is an original choice but they compliment each other well. I like how there are more pictures than words. Once again there is a sub-heading saying 'THIS WEEK,' as there was in NME too. Once again, the titles are quirky and attention attracting for its audience. I like how there are small boxed photo's at the bottom of the page referring to different pages. All of the boxes appear to be sized in their order of importance. Also, there are many white sections of the page which do not have a coloured background, however, it still works because the words ontop of the blank spaces makes it appear framed. Also, this method saves on ink costs etc.

Brand Identity: The brand identity with this magazine is trying to collide rock with the sterotypical "we are young, so we do not care," ideology. I think that this magazine is made to look as though it is going against dominant ideology, but if you look between the lines, it is clear that the magazine is really just going along with dominant ideolgy. They do this to keep a "safe" context within it's pages, but at the same time to attract its targetted young audience in which having a jagged, 'edgy' style which suits the magazine's genre of rock, symbolising 'rebellion.'

♫ Magazine Three

The Title: The title of this magazine has a bland colour that is not very vibrant, but this style still works because it suits the magazine's genre of rock. The images on the main cover are rather bland too, which therefore matches the title. The letters are in sans-serif so as to not look too sophisticated. The letters are rather large which enables a quicker attractment of the viewer's attention, on a magazine shelf, for example. The way that the photos and splashes, etc, go over and under the tile, makes the the title appear more interesting and 'frames' the letters. I like the way that the letters are backed with a lining of black behind them so as to makes the title stand out from the page.

The Audience: The audience for this magazine would consist of older teens and young adults, in my opinion. I am guessing that the age range would be between 17 - 28. This is because this front cover is less catchy than the Kerrang one, although it still is of the same genre. I think that this front cover is more sophisticated that the Kerrang cover because there are not as many ragged splashes etc. Even though the photos of the people are still of Rock bands and singers, it looks more proffesionally produced (taking away that rebellious theme slightly), because the are not pulling faces and they are positioned to look more serious.

• This particular audience would appear as Radicals on the Psycographic list (which is the same as Kerrang's, etc).
  
• On the Social Values sale, this audience would match the post-modernists section, which is to have, to be, to play.
  
• On the Jicnars Scale, the audience would be D, C2, C1 and possibly even B.
  

Main Contents: *Rock Sound's website does not show insider pages from every issue of their magazine releases. Therefore the one that I found is not relevant to this magazine issue than I am analysing, but it is still from the same Brand.

This double page spread continues the style from the front cover, as the shadowing behind the letters on the cover continue onto these double page spreads, as it is shown here. As I had found with the previous magazines, the key colour here is Yellow, which is what the page is based around. The photo on this double page spread once again dominates the page, and the words revolve around it. The main photo is clearly staged, (as I have found with all the previous double page spreads). This page is about a new band called Leathermouth. The letters which consist of this subtitle connotes what the band is like, and what genre they are in; predictably, rock, because of the type of magazine which this is published in. The small introduction before the headline provides the reader with curiosity of the band, and making them want to read on. The language is informal, which suits the younger audience that it is aimed at. 'Rock Sound's' website is next to the number of each page, reminding the reader to go and find them online (providing more popularity and promotion). The way that they are all positioned denotes as the order of importance in which the band members must be. The small red splasher at the bottom right hand side of the page attracts the reader's attention, alerting them - the use of red for this is very appropriate.

In other publications of double page spreads in 'Rock Sound,' I have found that they include sland, such as 'OMG.' This is a key device that I have noted to reach out to a young audience and identify with them. Also, they include refrences to social networking sites such as facebook and myspace, which is what the latest generation use on the interent (known as Media 2.0). This is a clever link to give the readers, because it connects with them; and it is also making a use of the latest craze that young people are having.

This contents page is not from this magazine, but I thought include it anyway because even though it's from Q, it's still from a magazine of the same genre of music. The key colours here are red and black, which is what the majority of this page seems based around. The big photo on this page is clearly a photo of who the main feature is focused on. I like how on this page, they have got a reviews section for various things, because it gives a guidance to the audience. Also, I like how they have numbered the topics.

Brand Identity: The magazine is clearly sticking to dominant ideology, though is a downmarket publication for younger audiences. This is because the genre of rock is classed as 'radical' and goes against artifacts of a typical culture where skinny, revealing girls need to be on the front of magazine pages - as they mostly are in pop/RNB magazines. However, this magazine is mainstream.

My Rough Conclusions From This Research: [OF THE ROCK GENRE]

• The photo of a band/singer on a double page spread usually dominates the pages.
  
• There is always a key colour on each double page spread which the whole page is consequently based around.
• There can be subscription adverts on the contents pages.
• The masthead has ragged letters and is normally in bold, grimy colours, such as black.
  
• The language in columns and on the cover is informal.
• There is almost always a title which says 'THIS WEEK' above the contents topics.
• Every rock magazine is aimed at teens - young adults.
• The people in the photographs are staged.
  
• Reds and blacks are often the main colours on the cover pages.
• The contents pages all have photos sized in relevence of importance to how much of a feature they are in each particular magazine.