Flat Plan Audience Feedback

I asked my peers to assess my magazine flat plans for my front cover, contents page and double page spread and collected their responses. The critics noticed that I did not have a variation of models and that every one of my images featured the same model. When I create my final product, I will ensure that I use a variety of different models and have a variation of props, locations and poses.
My peers also noticed that I did not have a variation of the sizes of font which I will change by giving each piece of font an appropriate size. For example, the text in the sky line is larger than the text used in the masthead which is a negative factor as the masthead usually needs to be larger than anything else to promote the magazine and enhance noticeability. When I create my final product, I will ensure that the sizes of my text are appropriate.
The main image on my contents page is considerably smaller than the usual main image and there is a lot of wasted space, therefore I will ensure that - when I create my final product - I will use a mid-shot of the model so that less space on the front cover is wasted.

Primary Target Audience Research

The images above are examples of a front cover, contents page and double page spread from Q magazine which my peers evaluated.

Questions

• Who do you think the target audience of this product would be?
• What genre of music is this magazine and why?
• What do you think of the choice of font and language for this magazine?
• Does this magazine make you want to read it and why?
• Is there a consistency between the front cover, contents page and the double page spread?
• Does the model relate to the content of the magazine and do they make you want to read it?
• Is there anything about the magazine you don't like?

Rebecca Harrison answered my provided questions on my three magazine examples and said that she thought they would be aimed at 25 to 35 year old readers and that the genre of the magazine appeared to be indie or pop. She also said that the font was appropriate because it is understandable and 'not awkward' and that 'it is really easy for people to read'. She said that text used on the examples I provided would make her want to read the magazine because 'it's very appropriate and good'. She also noticed a consistent theme between the front cover, the contents page and the double page spread as they used the same colour scheme and the model is the same throughout and the model relates to the content of the magazine because the double page spread article is about the artist shown on the front cover.

Angelique De Rafaelle also answered my questions and said that she would imagine that the target audience would be in their 20s and that there would be more female readers than male readers. She also said that the genre of the magazine would be mainstream and that the choice of language is suitable for the target audience because 'it's quite intelligent and mature' and the choice of 'font is consistent throughout which keeps it together.' She also said that there were not many bold articles showing on the front page to let the audience know the content of the magazine and that 'there is definitely consistency between the front cover, contents page and the double page spread because it's all laid out in a very similar way' with a red, black and white colour scheme. She also expressed that the magazine should incorporate more pictures to make it look more exciting and said that the lack of articles does not visually attract you to the magazine.

Lucy Beveridge noted that the target audience appears to be female because 'it's got 100 greatest front men but also male because the [female] model is wearing appealing clothes.' She said that the genre of the magazine appears to be indie, pop or alternative. She said that she likes the font because it uses 'not too much of a variety' so that it does not become boring to the reader. She also said that the magazine does make her want to read it because she is a fan of the featured artist - Florence and the Machine. She also noticed a constant theme between the cover, the contents page and the double page spread because the colour scheme is red, black and white which is used consistently throughout. She said that the model does relate to the content and that there was nothing about the examples she did not like.

Research Into Reader Profiles

This is the link through which you can find the following reader profile:
http://www.ipcmedia.com/brands/nme/
Date visited: Friday 20th January 2012

The publishers of NME created this reader profile for their target audience and to make brands want to advertise in their magazine. It allows us to see what kind of people read NME, how many people there are and it helps products to decide if their advertising in NME would reach its potential customers.
NME present their reader profile in three main sections.
Section one: According to the reader profile, their audiences go to gigs and live events; they spend £152 on footwear per year with the total readership spending £46m; they spend £532 on clothes per year with the total readership being £189m; they spend £1229 on audio equipment per year and the total readership spend on audio equipment is £326m; 52% of readers own a digital camera; £170 is spent on digital cameras per year with the total readership spend on digital cameras being £4.6m and their customers buy an average of 5 DVDs per year, spending £66 with the total readership buying 1.3m DVDs a year, coming to £18m on DVDs.

Section Two: The second section tells us that 94% use the internet and 76% have broadband; their audience spend an average of 2.4 hours per day which amounts to almost 19 hours a week; they spent £197 on consoles in the past year while the total readership spends £45m; they spent £108 on games while the total readership spends £18m and 84% receive digital TV or satellite channels. The reader profile says that NME readers agree that they spend a lot of money on clothes (45%), it is important to be well informed about things (92%), it is worth paying for extra quality goods (71%), they like to try new drinks (75%) and that it is important to them to look well dressed (71%).

Section Three: The third section tells us that 69% of readers are male and 31% are female, the average reading age is 24, 52% work full time and 7% work part time. It also tells us that 29% of readers are still studying and 65% are categorised as ABC1. The circulation is 40,948, the readership is 369,000 and there are 4,454,983 ABCe unique users.

My target audience will be young readers aged between sixteen and thirty. I am targeting this group as they are the largest age group who buy magazines.

Ideas and Feedback

This video is a recording of myself explaining the ideas I have decided to use when I create my magazine with regards to my target audience, what kind of bands will feature in my magazine and the magazine genre.

Research Into Institutions That Distribute Similar Products

Research into music magazines

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Research Into Similar Products

Print Brief

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.

Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.
All images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate, minimum of FOUR images per candidate.