Attracting an audience

I attracted my audience by using bright colours, bold fonts and a strong main image for my front cover. I framed my tag lines and enigma codes, on the front cover, around my main image to draw the audience attention towards the artist, her face especially. The eye-line the photograph portrays, makes the audience feel involved in my product and gives off message of confidence from the artist. 
I was very careful of how I addressed and attracted my audience. I made sure the colours weren't gender specific, however as this issue has a female on the cover, I believe it would be primarily females buying it. I created a questionnaire which was filled in by 20 students, to try and help me gain knowledge of my target audience and what they liked and disliked about magazine as well as what hobbies and interests they had.

I used the results of this to base the price, tone, genre and how often a month my magazine would be published. I felt this really engaged my audience and made me aware of their wants and needs. 

I also asked some other media students to give short feedback on my work and how to improve. I contacted them via the social networking site Facebook and these were the responses to my overall magazine;

 "I find the magazine really nice to look at and can tell straight away that the genre is Indie Rock. The colour green used for the Masthead is really striking and catches my attention straight away. I think it would stand out on a supermarket shelf." - Amy Cockton, 17.

"The contents page isn't packed full of information and is simple and easy to understand. I could confidently find the pages I wanted from the contents page. All of the images are really good." -Bethany Cogdon, 17.

"The layout of the double page spread is simple and effective. I like the three black and white photographs on the right page. The tattoo font gives off a real 'rock' image which fits well with the lifestyle the artist leads." - Rachel Ryan, 17.

Target Audience

Profile; 

This is Holly. She is seventeen and lives in Newcastle. Holly is a typical student and spends her free time listening to her iPod and working part time to save up for festival tickets. Holly spends all of her money on clothes, gig tickets and is now looking to subscribe to a trendy Indie Rock magazine. Her favourite bands are The Vaccines, Noah and the Whale, Vampire Weekend and Friendly Fires. She enjoys reading interviews and collecting posters to cover her bedroom walls with. Her favourite TV programme is the IT crowd and her favourite film in the Titanic.

Holly is a typical example of a reader of my magazine. I believe people like Holly would be Varsity's target audience because she's a young, working class girl, who lives in the North East of England. I think Holly would buy my magazine because bands similar to her favourites would heavily feature in each issue. Each issue has at least one poster for her to collect and is full of exclusive articles for her to read. Unlike NME, Varsity is exclusively for the North East of England and will be able to tell Holly what's on in her area.

Media Institutions

My music magazine is very similar to NME, in that the music featured is indie rock. NME, short for the New Musical Express, is published by the UK based company IPC Media. IPC are a really popular publishing company, for both men and women of all ages and social backgrounds. For example, something like 'Pick Me Up' is a weekly gossip magazine targeted at young to middle aged, working class women, whereas 'Practical Boat Owner' is a leisure and hobby magazine possible aimed at middle class, middle aged to older men. IPC  really cover a wide range of ages and classes, giving them a huge audience overall. Regarding my own magazine, I believe IPC would be an excellent publisher. However I doubt they would be willing to take on Varsity as it is so similar to NME, an already popular and successful Indie Rock music magazine. Although, under investigation, I noticed they publish more than one boating magazine who I imagine had the same target audience. I would definitely inquire IPC on distributing my product. If they agreed to publish my magazine, I would consider using synergy, by asking IPC to feature a free copy of Varsity with an issue of NME. I think this could greatly benefit my magazine, as we would share the same audience.

NME is now a very modernised, mainstream magazine. Distribution is much more than the paper magazine itself, with NME setting up their own website, radio, mobile application, twitter account and Facebook page. This reaches out to their teenage audience, allowing them to gain loyalty from all over the world. For Varsity, I would probably set up a website and a twitter account at first, to try and advertise my product via Web 2.0. I could also advertise my magazine in TV and radio adverts, displaying special offers for this issue only. I think this would give Varsity a great head start.

Inspiration

I have chosen to model my artist's image on that of Amy Winehouse's on the front cover of NME. In both front cover images, they have their heads slightly down, with their eyebrows lowered and an eye-line match, a key convention I wanted to keep. Both women are staring at the camera with very serious facial expressions, reflecting the Indie Rock style both magazines have. I wanted my own music magazine to be very similar to NME, but mainly for people in the North East. I think this gives the magazine a real edge to it. The backgrounds of both images are plain, however I decided to turn my image black and white, to make the bright coloured text stand out more. Both images were taken inside, with use of only front lighting. For this I used the flash on my camera and NME most likely had studio lights and equipment to help create it. For make-up, I tried not to 'copy' Amy's signature eye-liner look and chose a much more subtle smokey eye shadow, which I think had great effects in the black and white version of this. To conclude, I think the elements these photos produce represent a young, working class social group. As does, hopefully, the rest of my magazine. Although Rebecca does look like a normal girl, I've used darker make-up and plain costume to give her a rock star edge, possibly making the audience aspire to lead the life she's leading. In her interview I tried to make her life seem as exciting as possible to keep the readers of the magazine interested in her and help her create a wider fan base. 

Conventions

All music magazines have a conventional skeleton of how they should be look and most companies try to stick to this, using and developing conventions on their own magazine and using unique ideas to flesh out the skeleton. Conventions easily allow the audience to know what is expected of the magazine, such as genre and content. From research in class, I have learnt the key codes and conventions of a magazine are mastheads, sub headings, tag lines, main images, 3 colour schemes and necessary information such as date and price. I tried to stick to them as much as I could creatively, adding my own unique style.

Conventions used in Varsity;

Main Image

Main images are important to give the reader a feel on the genre and tone of the magazine and acts as a preview into the articles. The main image of the front cover is a huge selling point and therefore should be as near perfect as possible.

 I believe the main image of my front cover is very conventional as it has a good eye-line match that will engage the audience from first looking at it. An eye-line match allows the reader to analyse the emotions and feelings of the artist and implies the tone of the type interview in the magazine. It helps to narrate the magazine and gives each issue a unique feel to it. The positioning of my main image is good, the even mid-shot with a head tilt shows the artist is strong and confident and suggests the interview is advertising a new single or album. The positioning of the image below is wrong for the style of interview as shows Rebecca looking confused and scared, the opposite of what my article claims. The two must work hand-in-hand to support each other and using this image would have gone against that convention. The image below is not close enough to my model to be used as a conventional main image and that is one of the reasons I chose not to use it. I wanted the main image to be powerful and I think the first image is. 

Other Images

The images in the contents page and double page spread also have to be as aesthetically pleasing as the main image and try to keep similar conventions. Although, in the image below (found on the contents page) I have challenged the eye-line match convention and made my model look down at the floor but with a smile on her face, suggesting happiness and being content. I took inspiration from this Amy Winehouse photograph, which I think holds a powerful message of respect and peace. 

Costume and Make-up

I wanted the outfit of my model to be simple and modern, preferably lacking in colour. I chose a pair of plain black skinny jeans and a white t-shirt with an owl on it (relating to her band, The Tawny Owls) The reason I chose such plan clothing is because I had not yet picked a colour scheme for my magazine. I also wanted to make my model's make-up very dark and eye-catching, as I really wanted an strong eye-line match which I believe the make-up help create in the main image.

Colour Scheme

For my front cover I chose the colour scheme of black, white and light green. I felt the colours didn't clash and gave the cover a classic look, much like special editions of NME. I continued the same colours into my contents page, as I wanted to keep a brand like image throughout this particular issue. For the double page spread however, I created a white, dark purple and colour scheme with black writing. I believe this worked very well with my chosen images and the purple contrasted really well with the orange in the images. 

Font

The font I have chosen for my masthead is bold and really stands out. I gave it a 3D effect on the front cover to make the font stand out over the dark main image and I think it worked really well. I think the title font I finally chose was really appropriate for the Indie-rock genre. The colour green is a statement, unisex colour that I believe will set my magazine apart from others on the supermarket shelf.

The font I have chosen for my title on my double page spread is called 'Tattoo Ink' and can be found on the website dafont. After picking my font, I typed my artist's name into the preview box and thought the style would fit perfectly with my 'rock' genre interview. Whilst in Photoshop I softened it by adding the colour purple I had used for the rest of my text, into the white sections, making the font half black-half purple. 

Written Content 

In terms of the written content of my magazine, I tried to keep the tone informal and colloquial to relate to the young, north-eastern target audience. I chose to use an interview for my main article and used some background information on the artist to make is more realistic and interesting for the reader. It follows the forms and conventions of a typical turn taking interview. It's conventionally structured like this to make the interview easy to follow. The kicker paragraph introduces the article and helps 'kickstart' the interview by giving the reader who might not know the artist background knowledge.

"If I hadn't stopped touring for a while I would of ended up in hospital or on Jeremy Kyle"

This rhyming pun is meant to evoke humour and joy from the reader, warming them to the article and the artist straight away. 

I used the ampersand instead of the actual word 'and' to give the magazine colloquial, friendly and informal feel. I believe this would appeal much more to my targeted 16-24 year old audience. The symbolism is appropriate because a formal tone isn't associated with music magazines, so this shows that my magazine is keeping to conventions and the reader should know what to expect. 

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Subscription 

Most successful magazines give the reader the option to subscribe, making it easier for them as the magazine is delivered to their door. I believe it's a lovely, personal touch and engages the reader into the magazine as a brand. It also increases the profit and sales of the magazine by guaranteeing a certain amount of money per subscription. I created a mini magazine front cover to use of my contents page, to advertise subscriptions for Varsity. 

I also created a mini version of the band's CD cover to advertise the fact their new single is available in shops and on iTunes from later this month. I've personally seen this many times at the end of interviews in magazines, as it gives the artist a chance to advertise new music.  

Necessary Information

I have included necessary information on the front cover such as date, price, issue number and a small bar-code which I found on Google images. This provides the customer to check whether this is the most relevant issue before easily purchasing and is a convention all magazines much keep. I did not
challenge this in any sense.

Overall Composition of magazine

I didn't want the whole magazine to look simple and easily done, so I tried to include as much information as possible. On my front cover, I included conventional enigma codes and sell lines such as 'Exclusive new interview' to make the reader feel obliged to buy the magazine, or they'll be missing out. The word 'exclusive' gives the magazine a very marketable unique selling point. 

I tried not to overpower the contents page with information and page numbers as I didn't want to intimidate the reader, so I have incorporated 4 other images, relating to this issue of Varsity. I think this slightly challenges the usual conventions of a music magazine, as they're mostly full of information and details necessary to the reader. Although I have kept those conventions, to make it easier for the reader to see the full content of the magazine, I made the text small so it didn't overshadow the images. I find it more aesthetically pleasing this way.

In my double page spread, I really liked the idea of a strip of photographs along the top of one page so I created one on my right-hand page and turned them black and white for an old fashioned effect. I have never seen this before in a music magazine and liked the idea of originality.