Proposal and Flatplan

Proposal

• My target audience for my magazine will be within the age range of 15-30 who are interested in the genre of rock. I have chosen this age range because it means I can use new bands and my target audience will know who they are.
• My magazine will be about rock bands that are new and upcoming. There will be articles about new bands starting in the industry. By using new bands it will educate my target audience which will help the new bands with advertising and it will also give my target audience chance to listen to a new band. 
• For my cover lines I want to be able to draw the reader in and I want to be able to make them want to read the articles. I want my cover lines to be gossip about the bands to entice the reader.
• I havent completely agreed on a title for my magazine yet but I have a few ideas. I may use either Baseline, Treble Beat or 40STM.
•  For fonts I will probably use Arial for the text in the double page spread because it makes it easier for the audience to read and this will be the same for the contents page. For the front cover I will use more gothic fonts to suit the genre of the music and to interest the audience. For all the titles I will use gothic fonts as well. 
• My magazine will be weekly issued so that the audience have something they can commit too and become very interested in. Every week will include a double page spread of a different band so that the audience don't become bored. 
• For the front cover I will use the main band as the background and then add smaller pictures of other bands included as well. I will also include an image of the competition involved in the magazine. The images that are put on my front cover will be taken by myself and produced by myself too. 
• The magazine I create will be normal A4 size. 
• For both the front cover and the contents page, I will use either red or green mixed with black and grey. These are typical colours that will attract my audience to the magazine. 
• To produce my images I will be taking pictures of a new band I am in contact with and then I will edit them on indesign before adding them to my magazine. 

For my magazine to work I need everything to look messy on the page. I need to make sure my audience are completely enticed by the designs so they don't become bored easily. For the front cover I have placed the images around the page, making sure that the background of the band can still be seen but also they are visible. The text has been dotted around so that the audience have to look properly to read all the information. I have made sure the title and the cover line are bold but at the same time not obstructing the background view. 
  

For the contents page I again have dotted everything around so that the audience get a full understanding of what is included in the magazine. The main focus of the page will be the pictures because the audience are going to be more interested if they know the bands involved. So i have decided to use a lot of images to improve the chances of reading the magazine. The text is to one side and in big blocks this is because then the audience can easily identify what page they want instead of having to search so much. The title is out of the way but still bold so the audience know what page they are on.

Finally, the double page spread has been split to make sure that the audience can see all the pictures used, there are blocks of text for the article to be used and the band name will be in bold to make sure the audience know what page they are on and what band they are looking at. 

Research-Music Magazine

Research

Both these magazines are aimed at people that like rock music or metal. The front covers use bright colours that contrast together to make the magazine stand out. The pictures used are of bands or band members that are well known for the rock music, also they are pictures of the main story in the magazine. The font used on the front covers are very grim and edgy. This gives the magazine a sense of danger and attracts its target audience better.

The contents pages have been created to highlight the pictures more and to make the target audience want to look at the pictures and identify the bands better. The content carries on with the theme colours as well making sure the audience are still interested all the way through. 

Furthermore on the front cover both have got competition entries or merchandise offers that are available. By the magazines showing these offers on the front page it entices the target audience to buy the magazine so they can get the offers. Moreover where the merchandise is advertised it takes up over a quarter of the page so it shows this is one of there main strengths in selling the magazine. 

On both magazines the main cover line is about the main band the magazine has covered that week. By doing this it shows the popular band and it means they are able to use persuasive writing to draw the readers in. With the other cover lines they are made to stand out in either saturated boxes or they use the same colour as the main title. by doing this it shows what else is on offer in the magazine and it also shows that all the other bands are still just as important as the main story.
With the content pages, the text is the smallest part. Although the text is important, it is the smallest because they have so much to pack it. Also the readers wont take much notice of the text they will mainly scan it and look for the information they need. By keeping the text small they are able to enhance the pictures and interest the reader more. On the content page it is more about how it is all laid out instead of the design. The theme is simple, still making sure it attracts the readers attention but also gets its point across without distraction.

Overall these magazine represent their themes well and they portray the music genre through colour and pictures. When creating my magazine I need to make sure I am able to do this so that the reader is clear on what the magazine is about and so I attract the right target audience. I need to make sure I have a lot of pictures to show and that the type of text I use keeps to the theme as well. 

To help with my research I created a questionnaire to find out how many people buy magazines and how often they do. Once I had created it I handed it out to 30 people and recorded the responses. I found that no matter the age range, not many people are buying magazines at the moment because of the internet availability. If people where buying the magazines it was mainly the genre of rock that was bought. This i found positive because this is the genre my magazine will be designed as. Furthermore, in the final question the main answer tended to be bands. This answer will help me the most because it will help with the design of my magazine and what to include in the production. 

Magazine Questionnaire

This questionnaire will help design a new magazine with a genre of metal and rock. 

Please circle one of the answers for each question.

1-   Age?

a.   13-16

b.   17-20

c.    21-25

d.   26+

2-   Do you read magazines?

a.   Yes

b.   No

3-   If yes, how often?

a.   Everyday

b.   Once a week

c.    Once a Month

d.   Rarely

4-   What genre of music do you look for?

a.   Pop

b.   Rock

c.    Rap

d.   Indie

e.   Classical

5-   What do you look for in a magazine?

a.   Bands

b.   Articles

c.    Merchandise

d.   Advertising