Jordan Swan

My Finished Music Magazine

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products? The genre of my music magazine was 'New Wave Rock' I chose this genre as the market for this type of magazine is less saturated than markets for other genres such as Pop, and Metal

This also meant that I had to rely more heavily on my audience feedback and questionnaires, as there weren't many magazines, in publish, that focused heavily on New Wave Rock

For my magazine I wanted a strong colour theme which would be evident and easily recognisable by the target audience. Britain was one of the world's leaders in the emergence, and development of New Wave Rock during the late 70's, and 80's(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_music)

Because of this I wanted my magazine to have a certain British feel to it, I decided to try Red, White, and Blue as my colour theme (colours of the Union flag)

Colour Theme/House Style

I conducted a survey to see which colours, my audience thought, best suited my magazine. And which colour theme fitted in best with the rest of the magazine's style and genre. From my survey I found that my target audience preferred the colour theme: red, white, and blue

My results ->

I liked the Strong colours of the union flag, so for my magazine's house style I used a similar colour theme ->

Like almost all magazines on the market, I wanted my magazine to have a unique and noticeable house style. I wanted to follow this common convention to add consistency to my magazine, and make it instantly recognisable to my audience

Whilst designing my magazine cover, I followed common conventions from other magazine covers, so that I could emulate a real product which you could easily imagine being on sale in a store

I achieved this by studying the layouts of other popular music magazine covers, such as 'Q magazine' and 'Record Collector' //Link to research//

I liked the main Image of this front cover, as I found the close up very appealing and striking. The fact that he is looking straight at the camera instantly connects with the viewer, as they make eye contact and feel personally engaged

Also following the common form and convention of Q magazine, I placed all of the cover lines in the 'left third' as this is where the viewer will look to first

Although I wanted to follow the conventions and practices of real media products out there, I also wanted to try and stretch some of the boundaries, and bend the rules a little in order to give my magazine a unique and rebellious feel.

I studied the contents pages of other magazines such as Q magazine, NME and Record collector. One obvious convention which these magazines had in common was the colour scheme used on the contents page. With all of these magazine, not much colour was used, mainly a plain white background with simple black text. I wanted to try and expand on this convention by adding a lot more colour

How does your magazine represent different social groups?

My media product was aimed mainly at an older, male audience. The period in which New Wave was most popular in Britain was in the 70's and 80's, so original fans who were interested in New Wave would now form an older, more mature fan base.

Taking into account all of the above, I did not want to single out younger fans of New Wave, who were not necessarily alive during the emergence of New Wave. I did not want to exclude this proportion of my audience, so I tried to adapt certain features of my magazine to appeal to a younger viewer. I added content which led viewers online (Facebook/Twitter address, and Interview Extras) as I thought this would appeal more to younger viewers who are commonly portrayed as more technologically capable

What kind of institute might distribute your product and why?

Given that my target audience is mainly older males 40 – 60, I think that my only way of distributing the magazine would be in a hard copy, as studies show that older clients are much less likely to pay for something digital.

However, in an attempt to widen the audience to younger customers I think that selling my magazine in a digital format online may increase sales and create a wider, more diverse fan base.

I think that my magazine should be sold as a hard copy in independent newsagents, supermarkets, and high-street stores. The kind of high street stores that would stock my magazine are places that already distribute music, magazines, and music related products. For example HMV would be a suitable distributor as they already have a well established career in music distribution.

In addition to this I think it would be wise to try and sell my magazine in specialist record shops, as this would give my magazine direct contact with my target audience.

In an attempt to appeal to younger viewers, (therefore widening my target audience and boosting sales) I would also prepare the magazine for sale on the digital market.

Online distributors such as 'Issuu' could distribute my magazine digitally. This would also open up a gap in the international market. It would not be viable to prepare physical copies of my magazine for foreign markets, as the market would be too small, and would almost certainly make a loss. But with distributing the magazine digitally, foreign buyers would still be able to download the magazine without a risk to our profits

In order to successfully market the magazine online, We would have to create a huge marketing campaign. We could advertise online, combined with use of other media formats (such as Facebook, and inside the magazine itself), for additional, low-cost advertising

Online piracy could be a negative factor and dent sales, but with recent closures of illegal distributors such as 'LimeWire', and 'The Pirate Bay', I think that online distribution is still a good idea which will be positive for marketing the magazine

Who would be the audience for you media product?

The target audience for my music magazine is working-class males, around the age of 40-60. I chose this as my target audience, as these people would have been young and free when New Wave emerged 30-40 years ago. I hoped that by marketing my magazine for this type of audience, I could simulate positive feelings from their youth which would instantly engage them into buying and reading my magazine.

This is my audience profile, which shows the main views and interests of my target audience

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract my target audience I used a lot of black and white images which had a more vintage feel, and would take the reader straight back in time to when black and white cameras were more widespread.

The articles advertised were also mainly about past bands which had had their most success in the 70's and 80's. Most of the articles were somehow related to the previous few decades, as this is when New Wae was most popular.

Alot of the imagery used in the magazine is black and white, to simulate an 80's camera