Mood Board

These pictures on my moodboard were all put together with intentions from my market research. I choose a selection of images that were relevant to the genres that proved most popular. I found that the images related to dance were filled with bright colours (mainly neon), the writing is very 'square', unlike that for Hip Hop which has writing following a graffiti style, the swirls and arrows on one of the images makes it look stylish. I found that with the chart music images, there were mainly iconic stars and celebrities representing the music, and helping to create an image for the genre of music. They too, have bright colours. I found with the Indie genre the images were based around guitars, which connotes that the music is relaxing.  I also found that the disco ball, and DJ decks were relevant to the dance music section.

I used the multi coloured glittery background to represent the fun and colourfulness of dance music. All of the images I choose were to help me with the style of my magazine. I have realised that I am going to have to use bright and colourful images and fonts, that are very busy.

Market Research

To research the market I developed a questionaire which included questions to find out what people wanted to read about. To make it easy for the people doing my questionaire I tried to make the questions simple. I asked a selection of people to answer the questions and made it so they could circle answers. I used a group of teens, between the ages of 16-18 with mixed genders and sexualitys, this is going to be the target market for m y magazine. Some questions provided them with the opportunity to circle more than one answer, and some just one answer.

1)What genre(s) of music is your preferred choice?

This question gave people the chance to circle more than one answer. I decided to do this so I could get a wider view of which music styles are popular. As we can see from the graph here, Chart music is the most popular, with Blues, Reggae, Jazz and Heavy Metal being the least favourite. These genre's were not my first choice for my music magazine and from these results, I can see that they wouldn't be succesful, so there isn't a gap in the market. This is the same case for Classic pop/rock, and although it is slightly more popular than the other genre's I still don't think there would be a gap for a magazine here either. Indie and Hip Hop came next, with double the amount of votes than Classic pop/rock, these were shortly followed by Dance music. These are the sort of genre's I was considering looking at using for my magazine and I can see that there is a bigger market for them than Blues etc. Chart music, which proved most popular suprised me because through previous research I found that there weren't any current magazines of this genre. Due to the amount of people interested in this genre I feel there is a gap in the market.
2)From the current market which music magazine is your favourite/would you most prefer to read?

For this question I specified that my target market gave one answer so I could get a clear idea of which magazines are popular.  NME proved to be the most popular music magazine out of the selection of people I asked. I think this is due to the fact that it has been around for 58 years and has earned itself a big name. It features a lot of Indie music within the magazine and as demonstrated in the pie chart for question 1, it is clear that indie music covers a wide range of the music people like to listen too. With Q magazine shortly following, again a magazine featuring Indie music. Although it does include different music, and is known for its vast aray of different genres featured. MOJO has the least votes, this is because NME is from a larger media group and has the ability to provide itself to a larger target market.
3)What are you most interested in reading about from a music magazine?

For this question I gave people the option to circle more than one answer, to give me a wider idea of what people want to read about, and to give me ideas for my double page spread. The answer that provided the biggest result was festivals. I wasn't suprised by this as it is a topic that appeals to many people. It suprised me that current bands/artists was less popular than new bands/artists, but this has influenced my ideas for the double page spread. I wasn't suprised that people didn't want to read about Music TV shows (such as X-Factor) as it is the sort of thing you buy a celebrity magazine such as OK! to read about. The response to the other sections were fairly balanced and to include these in my magazine, I'll include these as 'featured articles' on my front page and contents page.

4)How often would you buy a music magazine?

The results from this question clearly show that a weekly magazine are not desirable. My audience were asked to select one of the answers, and because weekly was not choosen by one person, I know that the contents of my double page spread is going to have to include an atricle that will be re-readable, as the magazine isn't going to be highly disposable and has longevity.

5)What name do you prefer?

To gather these results I asked the volunteers doing my questionnaire to provide one answer only. Clearly Pause is the biggest choice, followed by Emerge, followed by Volume. I didn't limit this question to three choices, i also had the names of Thrash, Composition, Playlist and Alternative, except these choices ot no votes, therefore I choose to leave them out of the pie chart to make it visably clearer which was more popular.

From my market research I have gained knowledge about what my target market want to read about in a music magazine, I have also learned about the genres of music most popular within my group of volunteers. Every question was designed with the ability to influence my choices when it comes to doing my photoshoot and designing my magazine.

Existing Front Cover Recreation.

This is my recreation of a current music magazine. I choose to do an issue of ‘VIBE’ magazine. To start with I choose a head-shot of a famous singer. I then had to cut it slightly using the magic wand and make it greyscale. I then added the title onto the image. To do this I typed them out and found a font that replicated the original to the best possible quality. I used this technique for the rest of the writing on the cover. I cut the speech marks from the original cover and free transformed them until they were the size I wanted.

This is the original front cover I based my recreation on. I used the same colour scheme, although I couldn’t quite get the same shade of red. I also found it difficult to match the fonts and the font size exactly. Because of the different shapes of the images it was hard to recreate the equivalent layout . I appreciate that my magazine front cover does not look exact to the original but the experience was good for my Photoshop skills and I now feel more confident about doing my front cover.

Magazine Research

The first choice of magazine I have decided to research is Q Magazine. I have decided to research this magazine as it is a music magazine, and that is the genre I am going to be creating in the exam. I like Q Magazine as the genre of music it focuses on each week changes, it looks at bands/artists from Mettalica to Madonna, Foo fighters to Lily Allen, The Killers to The Ting Tings, and Lady Gaga to Prodigy. I think this USP (unique selling point) makes the magazine interesting and the variance in bands/artists gives it the edge to magazines like NME and Kerrang! as it doesn't stick to one genre of music it provides a magazine to listeners of a wider range of music. Q Magazine is produced by Bauer Media Group which specialises in magazines, with over 300 more magazines under their belt, with titles like FHM (For Him Magazine) they know what they're doing. They also specialise in Radio and own stations like Kiss.

Another reason Q Magazine is so favourable is that it focuses on higher standards of the photography. The issue shown below is Lily Allen posing topless with two panthers. As well as this they have been focusing on higher printing standards, using professional photographic paper. They also have the layout trademark colours of red, white and black. This gives an element of style, that other magazines don't have. 

When Q magazine was first developed it's target market was the people who were interested in buying CD's. ASlthough, times have changed and there is newer, more popular forms of technology available which allows people to download music, such as Itunes. I believe that the audienceof Q magazine is variable and ranges from male to female between the ages of 18-25.  

http://www.qthemusic.com/

The second magazine I have choosen is OK Magazine, it takes celebrity life and exagerates and manipulates it for good reading, and in such a way it can change somebodies opinion on a said celebrity. OK! magazine claims to be 'first for celebrity news' and follows the lives of soap stars, TV presenters, such like Holly Willoughby, film stars like Jennifer Aniston, Polititions; for example Sarah Palin, Red Carpet celebs, to teen celebs, actors, and even Heiresses like Paris Hilton. OK! magazine gathers over 30 million readers in over 20 countries making it the biggest celebrity gossip magazine. It's typical audience is that of women between 18 and 30.

Below is a front cover from summer 2007 and it's feature article is about the wedding of Holly Willoughby. OK! magazine specialises in following the superstars weddings and buys the rights to be the only paparazzi there to get the best story. The picture is striking and gives he feeling you are there alongside the bride and groom. The fact that there is more than one picture on the cover suggests that this is deffinately a feature of the magazine.

The masthead is positioned so it is easy to see and is recognisible, and the offer os '3 mags for the price of one' is also located so it would be one of the first things that would catch a readers attention if it was in a magazine rack alongside competitors at a newsagents. The colour scheme of pink and yellow is a layout trademark of the magazine and is recognisible to the audience.

OK! magazine is published by Northern and Shell Network LTD. The publishers are also responsible for newspapers such as the Daily Express, the Sunday Express, the Daily Star, the Daily Star Sunday as well as the magazines New! and Star. As well as this the own the TV channels: Channel 5, Channel 5* and Channel 5USA.

http://www.okmagazine.com/

There is a huge amount of differences in the magazines I have choosen to research, and very few similarities. For starters, Q magazine has much wider range of audience due to it's versatile content, where as OK! magazine is aimed purely at women due to it's gossip style content. The covers of the magazines differ greatly as OK! magazine's cover is busy, eye catching and crammed with head shots of celebritiesas well as mid-shot pictures, while Q magazine has a stylish, photographic shot, which although catches the eye it is a posed for shot and is not in a naturalistic setting, unlike OK!

the quality of the magazines is highly distinctable through picking the magazines up. OK! uses cheap, tabloid paper which creates a disposable image of the magazine, and provides the reader with a 'cheap fix', it also suggest that the magazine isn't to be kept, it is flimsy, with thin pages, although Q magazine provides it's readers with a sturdy magazine that has photographic paper and a sheen effect. The content of Q magazine is useful, and the magazines could easily be kept and re-read. As OK! features news stories, it is unlikely to be re-read at a later date as the stories won't be interesting at a later date.

Both magazines feature A-Listers on their front covers, although OK! will include actors, heiresses, but Q magazine will include musical celebrities.