Planning: Qualitative Data

After gathering my survey results and determining my target audience, I got together a focus group of 8 people from my target demographic to show them my templates and rough designs. Based on their feedback I will make changes to my templates whilst constructing my final magazine.

I wanted to learn what my target demographic thought about my templates so I asked them a series of questions.

What is your favourite feature of these magazine pages?   
Out of the 8 people, 6 said that their favourite feature was the neatness in general and how sleek the magazine looked. The other 2 people disagreed, saying that their favourite feature was the colour schemes and how well each of the colours went together.

If you could change anything about these pages, the cover in particular, what would you change?

Although the most popular feature of my pages was the neatness, all of the focus group said more features had to be added to every page, saying that the pages looked slightly bare and empty. 

Which colour scheme appeals to you the most?

4 out of 8 people said the green based colour scheme was their favourite. 2 said that the blue one was their favourite and 2 people said that the red colour scheme was their favourite. This tells me I should make the main colour scheme should be green based (which I had planned on anyway) but it also says I should feature blue and red at points throughout the magazine.

Would you buy this magazine?

All 8 people said they would purchase this magazine, giving different reasons. Most said that it does not look like a magazine for the music genres I have intended it to be for, but they said they would still buy it. 

After asking general questions about the templates as a whole, I wanted to get into more detail with each page. 

What is your favourite feature about each page?

Front Cover: 8 out of 8 people said they liked how I had set out the "featured stories" section on the red colour scheme front cover.

Contents: 7 out of 8 people said they liked the incorporation of images on all of the contents page templates.

Double Page Spread: 8 out of 8 people said that they liked how I have interwoven the image and the article on all of the double page spread templates.

I then asked them all to pick out their favourite front page, contents and double page spread template. These were the three selected: 

I should keep my final magazine as close to these templates as possible if I wish to gain support from my target demographic. 

Planning: Rough Designs

After making my templates and researching current music magazines I then drew up rough sketches of how I wanted my final pages to look. I know my final magazine will have to adapt from this to look more professional but I believe that this is a fairly accurate presentation of how I want my magazine to look. I have kept many of the conventions and developed some as my target audience are not at the age where they want to challenge conventions yet, so keeping the conventions is a much safer option when constructing my magazine.

Front Cover:

Contents:

Double Page Spread:

Planning: Templates

Before beginning construction I made a series of templates that I could show a focus group from my target market to see what they like about the design aspects/colours used. I made sure all of my templates followed a specific colour scheme that I knew my target market would like (based on my survey results). 

The text on the templates does not reflect that of the colour scheme, I just used colours that were easily visible.

Front Covers:

My front covers are fairly basic but I wanted to keep them quite simple at this stage so they would not look cramped and over-whelmed. I know I will probably change aspects from these templates in the construction of my final front cover but I believe these templates are a good base for them. I made sure I included most of the prominent conventions from front covers in my templates. (banners, mastheads etc)

Contents Pages:

Again I made these templates fairly basic whilst still keeping most of the conventions of contents pages.

Double Page Spreads:

For my double page spreads I was a bit more experimental in the challenging/developing of conventions as for one of the templates I had the article on both pages when the typical convention is that the article is on one page whereas the image takes up the other.  

Research: Annotated Examples of Existing Magazines

To study the conventions in magazines, particularly music magazines, we were instructed to analyse and annotate existing front covers, contents pages and double page spreads. In particular we were instructed to look out for the conventions used and how each magazine challenged/developed them. We were also told to look especially at theories such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the male gaze and the uses and gratifications theory. 

I will be looking at pages from the music magazines Kerrang! and NME as they have similar demographics to me so I feel like it will be beneficial for me to study them in depth.

Front Covers:

'Kerrang!' and 'NME' are both aimed at a fairly similar demographic. Both magazines are aimed at males but NME is aimed at a slightly older audience. Kerrang! is aimed at young teenagers, whilst NME is aimed at older teenagers/young adults. NME is aimed at fans of rock/indie music whilst Kerrang! is also aimed at fans of rock music, but heavier sub-genres such as metal and post-hardcore.

Both magazines have followed the convention of having the main image slightly covering the title of the magazine because it has connotations of a magazine filled with content, subconsciously making people think that the magazine has more content thus making them buy it. NME has slightly challenged this convention though as only a small section of the title is covered by the image whereas Kerrang! has a large chunk of it covered by the main image. 

Both magazines have used similar buzz words to try and attract readers, they have both opted to use terms like "exclusive" and "preview" because this makes readers think that you can only find this information in their magazine, making them only buy that magazine for their music information. 

The main image on both magazines is using direct address, but for different purposes. It has been used in Kerrang! to portray the female (Hayley Williams) as powerful and in control (breaking the male gaze). NME has the three males looking at the camera to try and appeal to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The magazine is directed at males, so they will see this front cover and will want to be like those in the picture. 

The mode of address on both front covers is somewhat similar, both magazine front covers are quite lighthearted and "upbeat." This is because the demographic for both magazines is so alike. 

Contents Pages:

Both Kerrang! and NME's content pages share that they are very unconventional for music magazines. They have both tried to portray themselves as unique and different, in particular NME's use of only two images on the contents page showed this. Most music magazines have small images with anchors on them for every other article on the contents but NME have just two images for one article, with no anchor. Kerrang!'s use of images is closer to the conventional use, including 4 images linked to articles. 

Both magazines have used the colours and shapes to reassert their brand identity, this can be seen especially through NME's contents page, as they have even included their name in the same position it was in on the front cover. Kerrang! have also included their name on the contents page but much smaller than on the front cover, I believe this is more successful at asserting their brand identity as it is much more subtle.

Double Page Spreads:

NME and Kerrang!'s double page spreads have the same rough outline; image on one side, article on the other, small sub-articles on the side, other images etc. Although they both follow the same rough template/outline they are very different. Kerrang! have stuck to their typical red/black colour scheme whilst NME have changed to a blue/white colour scheme. This has been done because they want to portray two bands in different ways. Kerrang! using their colour scheme suggests the band belongs in the magazine and is a regular there, to the point in which they are part of the magazine whereas NME's article on the newcomers shows them as people who haven't been in NME before, using a different colour scheme to show this. 

Kerrang! has not used direct address whilst NME has, this is odd as Kerrang! are featuring a band that have been around for a long time whilst NME are featuring new comers. You would presume that the new comers would not be confident and would be looking away from the camera but it is the band featured in Kerrang!'s article that are made to look submissive. 

In general NME and Kerrang! have both followed similar conventions and have the same rough outline, both of them breaking conventions in similar ways to express their "individuality" and "uniqueness." If I am to emulate the success of magazines like NME and Kerrang! I must do the same, following most of the conventions regarding form but developing some and breaking a few every now and then to make my target demographic feel unique.   

Research: Audience Profile

After collecting my survey results and analyzing them, I made an Audience Profile. This is a document that shows who my target market are and what they like at just a glance. This is my audience profile.  

Research: Quantitative Audience Survey

Before beginning the construction of any pages in my music magazine, first I had to find out who my target demographic would be. To do this I uploaded a survey on to the online questionnaire website QuestionPro. These are the results.  

Preliminary Task

Before beginning the construction of our final music magazines, we were instructed to create two pages from a school newsletter-magazine. This helped us practise using the software needed to make magazines and it also helped us practise using the codes and conventions of magazines. I believe the task was very helpful as I had never constructed magazine pages before so the preliminary task allowed me to get some practise before moving on to my actual magazine. In my preliminary task I followed the rough colour scheme of my school (blue, yellow and white). I also made sure the mode of address (how I speak to my audience) used in the text was accessible for students, teachers and parents.