My Original Ideas Statement

 My magazine will be a music magazine which focuses on the alternative rock genre. I will also bring elements of country and indie music into the magazine to introduce these similar types of music to the alternative rock fans.

My target audience will be aimed at people around the ages 16-25. I plan on making the magazine reach these ages as I can cover more mature subjects and still have the modern element, so it will have a good range of topics and artists. I also plan on a good mix of a formal and informal house style. This way I appeal to both ends of the age range I have set for my target audience. I want to be able to bring new types of music to my audience’s attention and appeal to large and small fan bases. I will do this by covering different artists, some that people may not have heard of.  Alternative rock can be a wide genre and there are lots of styles that it can delve into. I plan on exploring different ways in which I can use this genre of music to make my magazine unique. I’ll be taking inspiration from magazines such as Mojo and NME as they both reach the kinds of audience I’m looking at attracting. I also could include some television and film content in order to appeal to wider audiences.

The colours I would like to use on my magazine would be more aimed towards the female gender as I want my magazine to be more for a female demographic. I would like to use black and whites with a few other colours that just add to the overall style of the magazine.  

What I've Learnt From The Textual Analysis

From analysis pages from other magazines I’ve learnt new things about the style of the kind of magazines I want to make. I analysed various pages from Mojo, Q, Kerrang and NME which all explore different elements of rock or indie music.

It’s become clear to me that most magazines have a certain three of four colour schemes that they stick too. Q, Kerrang and NME all have used the colour red amongst black and white to stand out, this is something that I want to take into consideration as red is a bold colour and all three of those colours contrast each other nicely.

I’ve also learnt that the magazines that are seen more as indie/alternative (eg. Q, Mojo and NME) all have elements of a formal house style in their magazine. Q is aimed at a predominantly older audience and is more formal than informal. Then you have Kerrang which is aimed predominantly at younger audiences so it’s mostly informal. By looking at these magazines I have realised that I want to make a magazine that reaches out to younger and older audiences so I will want to have a mixture of informal and formal style.

One this that these magazines have in common is their masthead. They all are at the top of the magazine and are in the same colours that they are always in. All of the magazine mastheads I looked at are iconic to their brand. Both Mojo and Kerrang’s were so well known that they can have their main image covering part of the masthead because their audience don’t need to see all of it to recognize it.

The thing I learned about images is that they are probably the first thing audiences notice so I need to use a few relevant ones. Both feature articles I looked at had the main image taking up about an entire page of the double page spread. Audiences don’t want to have to read lots of text and pictures make it very clear who the article is about. They also attract the artists fan base to the magazine.

I know now that I need to feature artists that will be connected with the alternative rock genre. I also know for the images that I take myself I need to make them fairly serious as all these magazines use the idea of seriousness in their photo shoots to connote to the style of music that they focus on. Serious codes of expression connote to serious music.

In my magazine I need to feature three to four fonts to make my magazine varied and to keep the design interesting. I’ll need to vary my fonts from serif to sans serif due to the mixed house style I’m aiming for.

My magazine needs to follow the conventions of magazines. My front cover need to feature a main image that takes up around two thirds of the page. If the image is of a band then I would have to re-think my design though.  Cover lines need to be at the sides of the front cover so they can be seen clearly.

Information On Magazine Publishers

The Magazine Industry

 The Magazine Industry;
In Britain there are more than 8000 titles published in the magazine industry. Each one of these titles is categorised. These categories are to separate the different types of magazine, where you’d find, their target audience and what they contain. There are seven main categories. Consumer is the main category and the most popular. There are over 3,200 consumer titles. These consumer magazines can be general or specialist and can be found in most news agents and online. General titles aim is to entertain and inform whereas specialist are directed more towards a certain activity or hobby. The business magazines are meant for people at work. This is similar to how customer and staff magazines are directed particularly at certain audiences. Customer magazines are given to customers by organizations as a form of marketing. Staff magazines are used in companies to help aid and teach their staff.

Newspaper supplements is another categories, these are the magazines you get free in a newspaper. An example would be a TV listings magazine.

Part works magazines that readers collect to gather a certain knowledge base on a topic. These normally have a set amount of issues. They often have a certain theme and come with a set of objects or free gifts for the readers to collect.

Academic journals are aimed at a target audience of university students. These magazines will be the kind to discuss complex topics that only the university students would understand.

The biggest consumer magazine publishers in the UK are Bauer, Time Inc, BBC and Hearst. These are responsible for the publishing of a vast majority of the consumer magazines. Bauer and Time Inc are the big two both making up 20-25% of the market. Consumer magazines are said to sell £2 million each year.

In average 1.4 Billion magazines are sold every year. This is lower than what it was in 1970, but has increased by 2 million since 1992. 85% of the population now read magazines.

Advertisers also use magazines to reach out to audiences. They usually spend £745 million on magazines in order to do this.

In the past decade around 500 new magazines titles have been launched, however it is said that only around 3 in 10 actually last for more than 4 years.

Full Analysis Of One Music Magazine: Mojo

Magazine Textual Analysis: Feature Articles

Textual Analysis Of Magazines: Contents Pages

Magazine Textual Analysis: Front Cover