Rough Designs and Drafts

Original Ideas Statement

The type of magazine I will be producing is a music magazine, however fashion will also be included into this. I will do this by choosing celebrities that have either had previous experience in the fashion industry, or are starting to get involved with the music magazine. My intended target audience for my music/fashion magazine, is young women between the ages of 16-19. The reasons why I have chosen this specific age is due to the fact that I am in the middle of these two ages, and I feel that I will be able to use what I like and what I would like to see into a magazine making it mature enough for my target audience. I have also chosen this specific magazine because I enjoy looking at fashion as well as knowing the gossip on celebrities. You also don’t see enough magazines that include both music and fashion together, I thought that I could produce one mature enough for others to feel tempted into purchasing. However I know that not everyone will enjoy a fashion included into fashion, which is why before making my final decision I asked the public on Survey Monkey what they thought about having fashion included into a music magazine and nearly 100% of them voted that they would like to see fashion included into a music magazine. Which is why I have now decided to music and fashion together, knowing that my target audience will enjoy seeing these two subjects featured together. 

Fonts Mood Board

The reasons for choosing the fonts that I did featuring in my Mood Board, is because I feel that some of them go really well with the music theme of the magazine. However on the other half, I wanted to also incorporate some fonts that would go with the fashion side of the magazine. I feel that I have achieved in this, and I will hopefully use two to go with both topics in the magazine. I did these fonts in black, due to the fact that black is a bold colour. When designing my magazine, I may change the fonts of the main title to suit the image as sometimes black can be too dominate and blend in with the photo. Depending on where the main image is set and how the lighting is set for the image. I feel that I have chosen relevant fonts to feature in my font’s mood board, and I don’t feel that any stand out of place. Each font is different, and expresses a different mood for each one. I also think that I have chosen fonts to also suit my target audience as well, as when I got the public to answer my Survey Monkey the majority of the public said that they wasn’t sure on what fonts. Because of this, I had to choose fonts that I feel would suit my age range that I am aiming my magazine at, but also fonts that would work well with the themes of my magazine. I feel that I have succeed in this, as the fonts are in some way give off a young vibe however not a childish young vibe. 

Colour Mood Board and Analysis

The reasons for choosing the colours that I have featuring on my Colour Mood Board, is due to the fact that these are the 5 main colours that the public decided would attract them more to my music magazine when they answered my survey on Survey Monkey. Instead of just doing one block colour, I decided to do a variety of that one specific colour. For instance the blue goes from being very light to very dark showing how the colours change over a series of blocks, this will be give me more of a variability in that one colour and will enable me to decide which tone of colour goes with what. Examining my mood board now, allows me to decide whether I should keep the colours all the same tone or whether some should be lighter or darker than others. I think that if I use different tones of colour, it will attract the audience to my music magazine even more than if it was all in one tone. However I don’t think that I will use all 5 colours, as I feel that too much will be going on with the front pages of my magazine. I will definitely keep the white column, as it is a neutral colour and works exceedingly well with other colours. I also definitely think that I will also keep the red, as red is a dominate colour and I think will go well with my fashion side of the magazine. I however not certain what other colour I will decide to use yet, I will have to practice to see which colours suit well with the two colours that I have already chosen.    

Questionnaire Results and Analysis

Information on Magazine Publishers

Bauer Media Group is a large European-based media company, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany that manages a portfolio of more than 600 magazines, over 400 digital products and 50 radio and TV stations around the world. Bauer Media Group has a workforce of roughly 11,000 employees in 17 countries. The media company was founded in 1875; the key person in this company is Yvonne Bauer, (Publisher). The Bauer Media Group attained a collection of media brands. This includes heat and Grazia as well as a radio portfolio of national radio brands such as KISS FM UK and Magic, and regional radio brands across major UK cities. In 2013 the company earned that year around 2.4 billion euros.

Bauer Verlagsgruppe has been managed by five generations of the Bauer family. Originally a small printing house in Germany, Bauer Media Group entered the UK with the launch of Bella magazine in 1987. Bauer media group publish many different variety of magazines, they have a mixture of different topic magazine enabling their audience to reach further. This includes Mojo, Q, Practical Photography, Your Horse and plenty more. The magazine company currently sells approximately 800,000 copies a week.

Future PLC is a media company. In 2006, it was ranked as the sixth-largest media corporation in the United Kingdom. It publishes more than 30 magazines in fields such as video games, technology, films, photography, and sport. Future is the official magazine company of two out of the three major games console manufacturers with Official Nintendo Magazine ceased publishing in October 2014. The industry has both a magazine and internet website/magazine, enabling them to reach audiences everywhere. The company was founded 30 years ago; in 1985 the founder of this company was Chris Anderson. The headquarters for this company is situated in Bath, Somerset, UK. The magazine reaches not just to the United Kingdom, but also to the United States and also Australia. The key people in this company are Peter Allen who is a non-executive chairman and also Zillah Byng-Maddick who is the chief executive officer.

In November 2009, Future reported a fall in profits from £9.5 million to £3.7 million (a loss of 61 percent) in the fiscal year that ended 30 September 2009. Future attributed this to problems with their US market, hit by a fall in the general advertising market. The company has been in process of shuttering print media properties in favor of digital media, closing many titles and selling off others. In January 2012, Future sold its U.S. music-media brands, including Guitar World and Revolver, to New Bay Media LLC for $3 million. The current magazines that Future PLC publish are 3D World, Fast Car, Total film, Guitarist and plenty more. There magazines reaches a variety of people due to the different magazines that they publish, for instance the games magazine will interest teenage boys and perhaps girls due to it being a very popular mechanism to play on. Whereas other magazines are aimed at the older generation, due to the way they decide to present their magazine and what the magazine is about such as Fast Car.

Time Inc is one of the world’s leading media companies; each month over 120 million people read their published magazines and worldwide digital properties that attract more than 120 million visitors each month. This includes over 50 websites, and the brands that influence the company includes People, Sport Illustrated, InStyle, Time, Real Simple, Southern Living, Entertainment Weekly and many others. Time Inc publishes in over 60 media brands, for instance NME, Wallpaper, Style of Home, Shooting Times and Uncut.  Time Inc UK was founded 47 years ago, 1968. Time Inc headquarters location is in London, the owner of this well-known company is Time Warner. The leadership of Time Inc consists of many people however the main 2 people of this leadership is Marcus Rich who is chief executive officer of Time Inc UK and also Sam Finlay who is a managing director for advertising. Due to Time Inc publishing a variety of magazines, it reaches all kinds of ages. For instance shooting time would be aimed for a more older/elder audience due to the fact that it’s the type of age that would be interested in this specific topic. Also style of home would interest the ages around 20-30 years, as these are the types of ages someone would either rent a flat or buy a house and would need some inspiration of what furniture to buy or what themes work well together e.g. colour scheme etc.

Advertisers Mood Board

For my advertiser’s mood board, I have tried to incorporate companies that I feel would personally relate not just to my target audience but also to my chosen subjects being music and also fashion. I was also extremely specific with what images I included into my collage, this is because I didn’t want to choose companies that I felt had no relation to my target audience. I wanted companies that I knew would work well with the age range that I have chosen and companies that would stand out the most to those who decide to read my magazine. I feel that I have succeed in this, however many more companies could have been included in this also. After every 4-5 pages an advert could be added into my magazine, to be able to include a variety of different adverts for the readers. Also the advertisers that I have chosen such as costa and McDonalds will be exceptionally easy to offer my audience a wide range of discounts and freebies.

I feel I have included a wide range of different products from food and drink to jewellery, fashion, makeup and self-caring products. This provides more of a chance for the magazine to be brought, due to the fact that not every advertiser meets the same purpose. I have selected companies that are in an affordable price range for my audience, but I have also included some companies which are a little higher than perhaps someone would spend of a specific product as I want to consider others who would want to spend that sort of money also. 

Targert Audience Mood Board and Analysis

As you are clearly able to identify, my magazine will be based on fashion and the chart music which is mainly pop. I have specifically chosen celebrities that have featured in the fashion industries such as Rihanna and Rita Ora, this is because I felt that this linked both the music side of the magazine as well as the fashion side making it easier to include fashion into my music magazine. I chose carefully what I wanted to include in my collage, to be able to make it clear who my target audience is and what they would like to see featured in my magazine. My target audience is teenagers/young women, due to the specific colours I have chosen to include in my collage. This will be between the ages 15-25. I think that the age it is aimed at is clearly shown, due to the fact that I have inlcuded many social media websites such as ‘Facebook’ and also ‘Twitter’ which is what most people use around these particular ages.

The people that will read this magazine will be people who are interested in the fashion industry as well as the music celebrities that participate in modeling the clothes and feature in the fashion shows. I have also included the band ‘Little Mix’ into my collage as I feel people round the ages 15-19 listen to them on radio stations such as ‘Kiss Fm’, this will also incorperate the charts into my magazine. Even though I have included some high end tier clothing lines, I have also kept the high street fashions as well. This is because I know from myself that even though I rarely buy anything as expensive as the lines I have included, I also like to look at them, also it is gives me a wide range of music celebtrities that feature in both of these catagories. Also as the magazine is aimed at women, I have also incorpreted makeup as well as this gives more advertisers in my magazine. Looking at my collage, I feel that the most used and standing out colour on the collage is the colour red, because of this I feel that one of the colours that will be used on my magazine will be red as it is also quite a feminin colours. 

Overview of the Magazine Industry

From researching the top selling magazines, I have found a results table so far of the top 10 selling magazines in 2015 so far. The top magazine from analysing this information table is TV Choice, which have sold 1,276,045 copies since the start of 2015 till now. The magazine company has earned so far £18 million, however their year-on-year change has dropped by 2.1% since 2014. Compared to Slimming World Magazine which they have only sold 496,308 this year, the company has made so far £6.1 million but their year-on-year rate has gone up by 15.0% since last year compared to TV Choice. This means that the public are now becoming more interested in what they are eating and how they can change their eating lifestyle compared to TV Choice which are dropping. In 2014 the Magazine Industry launched 210 new magazines and in 2015 £282m worth of magazine were sold to the public. 73% of Great British adults (15+) consume magazines across print and online, 43% adults over the age of 15 consume women’s monthly magazines. On average mobile adds a 50% audience reach to individual magazine brand prints and 27% of the public consume general magazine monthly magazine according to the National Readership Survey.

The top 10 music magazines for pop music fans are ‘Q’ Magazine, this magazine is quoted by many of the public ‘the world’s greatest music magazine’ this magazine is based in the UK, however there is plenty information in Q for an American pop fan to keep coming back for more as well. Also the ‘Entertainment Weekly’, they release 52 issues each year, and their weekly publications provide the latest news on celebrities, television and films, including sections that recommend the best shows airing on a specific week, and in-depth information about it. ‘Rolling Stones’ is also in the top 10 music magazines at number 2, realising 26 issues per week. This magazine focuses on music, pop-culture, and celebrity. This particular magazine is a well-known source for controversial interviews and also articles. Many more magazines are also listed for instance Billboard, Variety, NME, Sound On Sound, Alternative Press, Premier Guitar, Mixmag and finally DJ.

Music Magazine Analysis

College magazine analysis

I have chosen to analysis this specific college magazine, which is clearly set in the USA due to the cost sign underneath the barcode being $4.99. On the front of this magazine, they have shown a positive attitude of a respectable black student, who seems to be studying law, business and society due to the books he is holding in his hands. Also from what I can see, he seems to come across as religion because of the cross symbolled necklace he is wearing. This college magazine has decided to use 3-4 colours on the front page, green, white, black and pink. These colours represent to me maturity and definitely goes with the target audience that they’re aiming at, which is college students ages 16+. The college magazine has also included a variety of fonts and font sizes to make the magazine seem more fun yet serious about education. From what I can see they have included technology in their magazine, this implies that perhaps technology plays a big part of college life as students regularly check their emails and phones. I feel that the main headline on this magazine is the ‘Dancehall’s Bright Future’ which infers the quality of education at that specific college.

The barcode of the magazine is placed someone where clear and barely interferes with the main image, it also is somewhere which is easy access for shop assistants and doesn’t look like it’s just been randomly placed there. I can also see that above the masthead is the date of this magazine, I feel the sizing of the font for that is at a reasonable size although I don’t think the three different colours used for it works. This is because the background of the magazine is black and they have also decided to put part of the date in a dark grey which makes it hard to read unless you are close to magazine. Like most magazines, this college magazine has also decided to use the style of having the main image cover part of the masthead. I feel that this does in fact work with this magazine, as you’re able to make out what the name of the magazine is because of the type of image they have decided to use on the front cover and also the cover lines give away what the main purpose of this magazine is. The cover lines, I feel are at a respectable font and don’t cover the main image too much which most magazines fail to prevent.  

Analysis of Q magazine

The magazine that I have decided to look into more depth about its history of the magazine is ‘Q magazine’, the magazine has been around since 1986 when they published their first issue. The founders of Q magazine were Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, the reasons why they decided to create Q magazine was due to the fact that they felt media were ignoring a generation of older music buyers. Q was firstly published by EMAP (a British media group) in October 1986, this magazine made sure that they set itself apart from other regular music magazine. By publishing monthly, making photography and printing standards considerably higher for the audience. In the early years of Q magazine, it was sub-titled as ‘The modern guide to music and more’. The magazine was originally meant to be called ‘Cue’ as it means cueing a record ready to play, which made more sense at the time due to what the magazine was mainly focused on being music. However, the name was changed so that the public wouldn’t mistake the magazine for being a snooker magazine. They then resolved into a single lettered magazine, due to it looking more prominent of newsstands.

In 2008, Q launch a radio station called ‘Q radio’ Coldplay were involved with the launching of this radio station. Which consisted of an exclusive interview of them, the station was based in Birmingham alongside the Kerrang, which is now closed. The magazine includes a review section, featuring a new releases page for music, reissues for music, music compilations, film and live concert reviews and lastly radio and television reviews. The magazine also includes star rating (from one to five) of an album and television advertising for the album in the UK. According to previous research, the majority of Q’s reader are male being 66.2%, however the statistics also show that the 83.8% of the readers are from the ages of 15-44 years. This means that the magazine reaches a wider target audience range, than they possible would have perhaps meant to aim for. The pricing of the magazine is £4.20, due to how frequent they release the magazine being a month. Due to how often it is released, makes it easier for the audience to purchase the magazine as £4.20 isn’t much per month.

The styling of the magazine is different from others, due to them only having a one lettered masthead for their magazine. The colours that they normally use in their magazine is red, white and also black. For the masthead, they have decided to use a bold font yet has an unserious feel to it. The masthead being ‘Q’, is normally positioned in the top left hand corner with a bold squared red background to make the font colour stand out substantially more. Normally, the magazine includes their main feature person on the front cover of their magazine. The picture usually takes us the whole of the front cover, however they change how they angle the image for instance the sizing of the image and also how closely they shoot the image whether that being a full body image or just a top section images. I would also say from observing the magazine, that they don’t have much of a variety of fonts due to them being extremely similar to one another on the front page.

‘Q’ magazine also has a Facebook page, for their fans to be able to keep up with their post and releases, they have 104,416 likes on their page. On twitter Q has 116K followers and on Instagram they have 5,117 followers. This means that the magazine also reaches many people on social media websites, such as the ones above.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire

Do you read the college magazine?

Yes	No

How much would you pay for a college magazine?

Nothing	50p	£1	£2

How often would you like the magazine to be published?

Weekly	Every Fortnight	Monthly	Every Half Term

Would freebies encourage you to buy the magazine?

Yes	No

What would you like in the magazine? *top three

Student tips/ Advice	Subject Advice	Problem Page	Gig Guide	Local Events
Technology	Fashion	Film/ DVD Reviews	College Events	Sports News

What image would you like on the front cover?

Student	Teacher	Student Work	Technology	Nature

  

What would you like to call the magazine?

What Colours would attract you to the magazine? *choose three colours

What fonts would you use for the front cover?

Would you like to see adverts in the magazine?

Yes	No

Would you subscribe to an online version?

Yes	No

Would you like a jobs page?

Yes	No

Questionnaire Analysis Results

Questionnaire Analysis

Before collecting my results, I had to design a questionnaire suitable for the topic being a college magazine. After collecting these results I have found out that 90% of the students at East Norfolk said that they do not read the college magazine, this could mean that the product doesn’t work as well with their chosen target audience than they hoped or the product costs a bit of money. From this I asked the students how much they would pay for a college magazine, 85% said between nothing and 50p, this implies to me that the magazine either has to say ‘FREE’ on it at first or the cost of this has to be below 50p. We then asked the public how often they would like the magazine to be published, the results did come out fairly even. However the two top percentages were 35% and 25% for monthly and fortnight. This gives me a clear awareness of how often my magazine would need to be published, which isn’t very often.

Thinking back to my target audience, we had to think what topics would work well with a college magazine and gave the students a wide variety of different topics. The top 5 which had the highest votes were student tips, college events, gig guide, fashion and finally local events, this shows to me that these are the most popular topics to include in my college magazine which will hopefully encourage more students to then read it. I also wanted to know what colours the students would like to have on the magazine, as the colour is the bit which attracts the audience to the magazine. The 5 main colours which the students chose were black, white, blue, pink and purple, this demonstrates to me that these colours is what would attract to the students, hopefully by me including these colours in the magazine it will attract and hopefully convince more students to read the magazine.

Another article I thought would work exceedingly well in a college magazine is a jobs page, for students who are either looking for a job or are just interested at what jobs are going. 95% of the students said that they would like to see a jobs page featured in a college magazine, this could also attract students more to read the magazine. The main image on any magazine is very important, as this also attracts the viewers to look at the magazine and perhaps purchase the magazine. We gave the students a variety of options to choose from, however 75% said that they would like either a student or student(s) work featuring on the front cover of the magazine. The font didn’t have a conclusive answer, so I thought that I would use a more modern font to suit the target audience, being college students. Lastly, we asked the students what masthead of the magazine should be. Most of the students answered with ‘EN..’ then something else with it. This suggests to me that the masthead should include EN in it with something else to go with it. 

Front cover college magazine and contents page