Music magazine - audience feedback

Audience feedback from Ben Warneck: the first major thing would be fonts; they're not remotely exciting. The front cover text doesn't scream at me.

The photo on the cover doesn't scream anything
Nice cropping, rendering and potential airbrushing though
Some errors in punctuation on cover
No capital letters

Subtle choice of colours, reds and greys and blacks for a metal magazine.
Yellow? Think again maybe.

Double page spread looks good, but the yellow is hard to read and the top left logo is small and scraggly
"Awsome exclusive"I would suggest not to underline where it says Back and Better than before:
it's icky.I like the varying font and the fact it's bold.

Contents page is very good, Danny Mail has been re sized oddly though. I like the red page numbers,
and the fact each section is clearly, well, sectioned. The choice of colours here is good, but the yellow needs to be eliminated.

Evaluation

Evaluation: LIIAR analysis of my front cover compared to an exsisting product. on Prezi

Evaluation: LIIAR analysis of my contents page and comparing to an exsisting product on Prezi

LIIAR: Evaluation of my double page spread compared to an exsisting product on Prezi

Heavy Metal and Hard Rock is generally considered a male dominated genre, with few female fans, or at least the minority, I used this by showing a male dominated magazine, with my main image being a masculine dominated style, and the surrounding themes I chose what were deemed to be male colours and style, to give it rebellious look. My language used is designed to target the 15-25 year old audience, with catchy, easy to read phrases and text. The title, language and font is used to personify the rebellious characteristics of rock and heavy metal, rebelling against mainstream pop , I showed this by the masthead text which looks gory, to give it the crimson, metal look, whilst using title name of ‘Revolt’ which itself shows revolution, and rebellion. This targets the young, testosterone fuelled male psyche. I feel it also still appeals to older fans such as advertising events like Download. Where older bands such as Metallica, Anthrax and Black Sabbath are playing which caters for them.

Overall, the magazine has a dark look to it. This is showcased by the blood splatters on the t-shirt my model is wearing on my front cover.  This is linked strongly to my target audience as they stereotypically get involved in ‘mosh pits’ where it’s most likely they’ll get hurt or some form of blood spill will occur. So in that way it’s a negative stereotype. However, it’s all a part of the parcel of getting hurt in a mosh pit. My target audience would respect that and wouldn’t allow the people who weren’t involved to get hurt.

The social group I have targeted will find in my magazine the confidence to ‘revolt’ against generic insults (such as mosher, emo etc), lead a rebellion against it, make the genre dominant and heard, yet still have fun.  The social group targeted take pride in the love of metal. As explained in the documentary “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey” by Sam Dunn, metal is a ‘misunderstood art form...a secret club which the rest of the word doesn’t understand’. Metal fans take great pride in their music taste, and so much of their world revolves around it. The thrill of being part of a culture which confuses more than half of the world gives fans a sense of belonging in a true culture system. My media product includes this social group, and reinforces the group’s belief that they are part of something huge, yet so misconceived.

Many people stereotypically associate ’heavy metal’ music as a dark and sinister music taste to have. It has been labelled as having negative aspects to it, and this has linked the genre to social groups like ‘emo’ and ‘punk’, and for this reason some people tend to avoid this type of music as these social groups carry an intimidating stereotypical atmosphere around with them.  My magazine aims to fight these stereotypes and bring the metal heads together as a community. My magazine mainly targets the social classes D, C1 and E as it is most likely that my readers will be between the ages of 16-25 and therefore still in education. My magazine is equal in psycho graphics and demographic as it targets people of similar interests and those who aspire to hopefully be like the bands in my magazine.

I did some research and decided that MusicMags would be a possible publisher for my music magazine, formed in 1996 by a number of small publishers. MusicMags is an independent publisher that specialises in music magazines. MusicMags claims to have more value and expertise than most distributors; however this could alter the cost. Magazines are able to be shipped out to houses and can be sold for free or at a cost, for my music magazine I could distribute the music magazine free until it got enough awareness and then charge for the subscription. MusicMags do a wide spectrum of genres; however they lack metal, which is another reason as to why I chose MusicMags as my chosen publisher. MusicMags will publish my magazine to music specific places. Such as record stores, instrument stores and venues. This would allow my music magazine to efficiently and quickly target its target audience, people actively interested in music. Musicmags also distributes other magazines though such as one for guitar tabs if they don’t wish to purchase revolt. This could appeal to my aspirers who wish to be in a band one day i.e. a bass guitarist.

I decided that my chosen publisher would be Future Publishing plc. This well-established publishing company currently publish the huge metal magazine ‘Metal Hammer’, which means the company have already shown a substantial interest within the metal genre of music magazines. They are also the publishers of other well-known rock magazines such as Total Guitar, Revolver and Classic Rock. Future Publishing plc would give the revolt good links to existing magazines which could advertise the new media product to its targeted demographic.


Those already reading Metal Hammer, Revolver or Total Guitar are very likely to be interested in reading into a copy of Revolt. The age of the magazine would also mean it may begin as an underground magazine, which the targeted demographic appreciate, and often prefer to know about underground products rather than those of the mainstream.  Future Publishing is based in the UK. This could mean more direct support from the publisher and easier production and distribution.  Future Publishing publishes to countries in over 70 different languages, whereas Bauer only publishes to 15 countries...This could enable me to reach a wider audience across the globe if Revolt turns out to be successful.

GoAnimate.com: The audience for my media products. by Dan.T

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!


After my research into what magazines such as Kerrang and NME consider their target audiences to be, I discovered that I also wanted ‘Revolt’ to aim at an audience similar to those magazines, this target audience would be the Male orientated 15-25 age group that I discussed earlier, I chose this audience as I fit into this category, and my personal music taste influenced my chosen genre and artists, then I would be more able to relate personally to the magazine, and I knew what would attract me to buy this magazine, as a person interested in the heavy metal/ hard rock music genre, and what would put me off buying it. My magazine’s audience are aspirers (when looking via psychographics). They are also likely to be people who do not wish to conform to dominant ideology. They went to rebel hence the title of the magazine called ‘revolt’.

I have chosen this because most of the models within my magazine are male which automatically engages that specific gender and the age of the model is within this age range, when a reader looks at a magazine a lot of them look to the model to see if this magazine would be suitable for them for example a children’s magazine would have a child on the front cover, for this reason I chose the models that you see in my magazine. However, it is wrong to say that no one above 25 will be interested in the product. Metal is often a genre of music that stick with a person whatever age they are; it is not purely a phase. Because of this, I feel that my target audience has also grown too. I realised that it could be aimed at older people like for example the age of 55.

My main aim was to construct a magazine that was both individual but also adhered to the structures presented by similar magazines in my genre. I tried to create a magazine that combined the best attributes of both Kerrang and Metal Hammer. I did this because I believed that if I had a magazine that was similar to Metal Hammer it would instantly attract the attention of my target audience as both magazines appeal to similar socio-economic groups.  The demographics for my audience are C2, D and E. I have chosen the price £3 as I think that my audience should be able to afford it. People in the E category are stereotypically found to buy fashion and music magazines. They’re people subsisting on state benefits: the unemployed, pensioners, students etc.  For that reason, I find my audience to mainly be in the E category. Most of my target audience will be students, so they can afford it as they’re most likely to have jobs. If not, they could possibly use EMA if they’re entitled to it. Or simply use some of the money they have received due to benefits.

The model for my music magazine is the vocalist Dez Farara and the look that he is showing is a representation of the typical audience that I am expecting to buy my magazine. My aim is to aspire my audience to be like Dez Farara one day which is my psychographic. By
making my model more like my audience I am hoping that I will encourage the audience to purchase my magazine. If I was aiming for a certain stereotype, the black clothing I have chosen to have my model wear would represent the “Mosher” stereotype that wear predominantly black clothing and listen to rock and metal music which is the genre I have aimed to focus on. He’s also wearing a beanie hat which is head wear commonly worn by the target audience. I chose this specifically as it makes them feel a part of the scene.



The way that I have attracted my male audience is by using male models for the majority of my magazine, this infers to the reader that it is a male orientated magazine, I have also attracted the age range by making that male model look like the age of my audience that I am trying to attract, this is why the model on the front cover of a magazine is so important, because it suggests to the reader whether or not they would enjoy reading the magazine. This does not mean however that all female readers will avoid my magazine; I just mean that the magazine will attract a larger male audience than female and for this reason I should introduce female musicians into my magazine to keep them interested. Another group I have tried to attract is guitarists. The first of which is the props that I have used in my magazine. During the photo shoot I asked the model to hold a guitar for the double page spread image. I did this to make an extra connection within the musicians of my audience.

The language that I have used within my magazine is simple and snappy for the audience to understand. The vocabulary I have used such as ‘devil’ and ‘hell’ relate to the audience as these words are stereotypically seen in metal song lyrics. I have written the double page spread content in an informal language which gives the page and the content a more personal feel which will make my audience more comfortable and more willing to read it. Using formal language generally attracts the older audiences as this type of audience just want facts when they are reading. I am however trying to attract the younger audiences who prefer to read the content for fun and therefore a personal touch; this is showcased by the anchorage text ‘Dez has coffee with his ex Coal Chamber’. This makes the younger audiences have fun when reading it.

The content of my magazine is also very important if I am to attract and maintain my target audience, I have added headlines such as ‘Municipal Waste: From Hell’s Kitchen’ and ‘Trivium: destroyers of false metal’ which I feel that my target audience will be interested in. By using the phrase ‘destroyers’, it’s a more exciting term to use and reflects the genre and the main message I wish to convey in my magazine which is to fight against the mainstream pop. On my contents page I have used thumb nail image guides to my pages and text based which I feel addresses my audience effectively, for example the competition to win a Megadeth shirt. The audience will understand this text as they mainly go for competitions within a magazine; it’s an incentive to purchase it. I have used a colourful and consistent colour scheme throughout my magazine to make sure that it doesn’t confuse the audience or look unattractive; the colour scheme I have used attracts a younger audience as it is bold and younger readers respond better to colour which addresses my target audience.

Before my AS media studies course I had very little idea of how to use Adobe Photoshop properly or any knowledge with making a professional magazine so this course was brilliant for me with learning new programs and techniques. From this course I have learnt how to use a camera effectively in take images at a professional standard. From there I could edit the images through Photoshop which previously I had very little knowledge on how to use. Without knowing how to edit photos, my magazine would have looked terrible and therefore learning these techniques was vital for creating a professional magazine. I started out with basic techniques at first such as the spot eraser tool and the quick selection tool to remove obstructions in my images to create the for my magazine. As I gained more confidence in the software, I did update some aspects of my magazine to reflect the skill level I was on, at the time.

As a class we were taught techniques especially for Photoshop, for example: cropping, resizing and spot removal.

here is a example of applying my knowledge that I learnt in the class. I firstly selected the 'lasso tool'

Next, I would use the tool to go around the subject so that it could remove him from the background. The dotted lines around the subject shows that it's been selected.

I then cut and paste the subject into a new layer, without the background. So now I could edit the subject for as a thumbnail image for my contents page.

I would go to 'edit', 'transform', and then scale.

Here is a print screen showing that the subject has been re-sized, I held down the shift key to prevent the image from being stretched.

Comparing to the college magazine on Prezi

Finally, weighing up the pros and cons. I feel that I did well with my final products, but there are negatives and positives about it - what I would do again. If I had the opportunity to start the magazine again, I would perhaps replace the yellow font with a blue colour. As it's a more darker colour, which connotes the genre well. I would have spent more time making more stylish text to make it scream more, because from audience feedback: it was a bit boring, but was acceptable. For my contents page, I would start it again and replace the band imagery (megadeth and iron maiden) with more people, just more thumbnail images in general. It was difficult to get people to volunteer for photos and of course they had to look the part to fit the genre. So I just improvised with other ideas for images.

Photoshop development of my model's hair

I firstly selected the quick mask tool in the bottom left hand corner. This was so I could use my brush to choose the selected area I wished to change: the hair.

After I finished, I deselected the quick mask tool, this selects everything including the area I chose with the brush. So in order to choose the selected the area I selected inverse

To change the hair colour of my model, I went to layer, solid colour. I then changed the mode to soft light in order for this to work properly.

I then chose a dark brown colour as the metal genre denotates darkness. The reason I didn't choose black was because it didn't look all that right. So I deemed brown as appropriate. I then did this with my other products.

Photoshop development of my masthead

I firstly typed out a selection of text onto the canvas

Secondly, I right clicked on the text layer and selected 'blending options'. This opened a dialog box where I could alter what I please. I selected 'Bevel and Emboss' first.

I then changed the style to inner bevel, increased the size of the bevel to give a strong effect. I then changed the contour in the bevel and emboss to give it a slick metallic effect.

I then applied a colour overlay effect of red because that's the main house style colour chosen.

I then messed around with the strength of shading until I was happy with the end product.

LIIAR analysis of contents page from exsisting magazines

The layout of this contents page is set out quite differently to some other magazines that you would associate with music; I would say that they have set out things quite quirky, even though there is still quite a structured layout. This shows that throughout the magazine there will be a difference with how different things will be set out, for example images and copy. It could also show that even though the genre of Kerrang magazine is rock, they cover a variety of different rock bands and singers.


One generic convention that Kerrang magazine follows is the use of thumbnail images on the contents page. There is one main image, which would suggest that this is the main article appearing in the magazine and it’s what they think will attract the most people. There are then a few smaller images, which give you more of an insight into what else will be featured in the magazine. With these images, they have a page number next to them, but not all of them appear on the list opposite, this is so that they can include more on the contents, to give you more of an idea what’s inside.




The house style on the contents page doesn’t follow exactly the same house style from the front cover, as on the front page the main colours are red, white and black, where as the main colours here are black white and yellow. For the contents page, the house style always stays the same, however for the front page the same colours are not always used all the time. The main colours are black and white, which are colours that contrast and therefore stand out and are colours which you would often see rock bands wearing. I think the use of yellow helps parts of the contents page stand out, for example the important page numbers and the titles of different sections down the side and because yellow is a bright colour, it automatically attracts you to it.




The page numbers on this contents page follow the generic conventions of a music magazine. This is that not every page number has been printed, this allows the reader to scan through and pick out the main pages that they want to look to. The reason that magazines do this is because a lot of articles take up a double page spread, so on the contents page they don’t need to write both page numbers. Also, a magazine like Kerrang has a lot of pages and if they were to all be printed on this page, there would be too many to look at, so it’s important that they pick out the main pages. Finally, a lot of pages are taken up by advertising and these don’t need to be shown on the contents page.




The copy on the contents page follows the same style as on the cover, by the use of a bold black font. Black is a colour that would stereotypically be associated with the genre rock, but also as the background is white, there is a contrast in colours and therefore the text stands out.




Following generic conventions of any type of magazine, in the top corner there is a small, relatively informal section that the editor has written. This changes position in most magazines, so there isn’t one section on the page you would normally see it in. For Kerrang, they have used quite an informal tone when writing this and this is because that is the tone set throughout the whole magazine and it is what appeals to their readers and the genre of the magazine. It makes an extra connection when dealing with the target audience.

The contents page is divided up into pretty much half, with the top half focusing on the review of My Chemical Romance. This is not the headline, but is the focus of the contents page, as this is the next page the reader will look at when flicking through the magazine, acting in the same way as the front page, enticing the reader in. Just over half of the page is filled up with thumbnail images, and the text is split up into different pages, easily making it visible to the reader what pages the articles are on. The page also has a section for the editors note at the bottom left side, with an image of the editor just above, the text going down in a column with the editors signature underneath, making more of a connection between the reader and the magazine, and it shows an insight to the creators of the magazine.

The headine of the contents page stating ‘contents’ is in the left third, it doesn’t take away much of the attention from the main article that this page is portraying. Generally the images are separated from the text, but headings relating to the pictures sometimes overlap the image, making it clear which image it’s relating to. This appeals to the target audience for this magazine as it gives the page a rebel-like and rocky theme. By using the layout as half being a picture, and half being the columns with the features listed in, it means that this page does a similar job as the front cover of the magazine. Even though the picture of My Chemical Romance isn’t featured largely on the front cover, it’s the main feature of this page, so the contents page is promoting more features and showing the reader new things they can read inside that they didn't know much about on the front cover.

The main image features a popular and famous band of the genre of music (rock/metal) that this magazine is targeting it’s audience at, making it a good decision to use this image as it will appeal to the majority of it’s audience. The image of the editor helps the reader to engage with the magazine in a more personal form, and also draws their attention to the note, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have noticed the column of text written by the editor. The mise-en-scene of the vibrant colours used (green, yellow and black) compliments the rocky/rebel mood of this page, and means that it all fits in, rather than looking out of place for being in a clashing colour.

The colour of the Kerrang logo is also kept the same even though it’s next to yellow text in the same font and heading, adding fluency to the page, whilst also helping the heading stand out to catch the readers’ eye. In the bottom right there is a small advert for a subscription for Kerrang directly in front of a known band, connoting that the magazine is up to date and definitely worth buying because of how good the features and who the features are on are.

 All of the headings on the page are in capitals, making the text stand out and seem really important, enticing the reader into reading that heading, and making them more likely to carry on reading the context underneath. The mini subheadings make it clear which picture they’re with, as well as the reason/who’s in the pictures being displayed. The colours that the text is in are in relation to the house style, e.g. the yellow text on the headings.

Target Audience research

NME research


http://www.ipcadvertising.com/resource/hvcjivb3x8p8oqk9bw285ffu.pdf


Core Buyer:

• Males 74%
• Median age: 23
• Student : 42%
• A, B, C1: 68%
• Obsessed with music
• strong user of mobiles
• NME readers enjoy watching films,both in the cinema and at home. They tend to buy a new DVD every month(higher than the national average)

• Readers have a strong relationship with NME and completely trust the brand:
  

NME target their audience by understanding they are keen with mobiles and therefore having their own App, chances to get involved with the magazine by forums etc.


Products they offer:

• Music App
• radio station
• clothing shop
• music videos
• selling festival tickets
• free music emails
• NME blogs,
• NME nightclubs,
• fast music news to your mobile, PSP, Nintendo wii, ipod

Opportunities for readers: write blogs and get involved with forums, nights out especially with other NME fans

Metal Hammer Target Audience - Niche

• Male (64%)
• Median age 22
• Average income of a Metal Hammer reader £22,100
• On average a reader has been purchasing magazine for 1 year 3 months - dedication to mag.
• targeted at people who enjoy NU Metal
• Adverts effective with readers purchasing 59% of products/services advertised
•  46% of readers play guitar and 45% involved in playing music (play for
  pleasure at home, this shows the readers are laid back and that many of the readers would relate to band members playing instruments)

Metal Hammer target their audience by having metal music involved in their magazine, adverts/info associated with this.


Products they offer:

• Newsletters
• Metal Hammer pod casts on iTunes
• Rock metal nights out
• voting polls
• mobile app

Rock Sound Magazine - Facts and Figures

It's cover price is £3.80.

- It is a monthly magazine, therefore being less topical and having a lot more worthy content. It isn't full of rubbish trying to make up pages in the magazine on slow news days.

Every issue comes with a CD with songs from new or upcoming albums from different bands.

As a gift for subscribing to the magazine, readers receive an album for free (the album changes every month).

The audience are seen as; 15-24 years old, 58% female and 42% male. 54% are musicians.


Target audience research for Kerrang:
It's made up of 60% males and 40% females. The demographic is D-C. The predominate ethnicity of the readership is white British with a target population of 16-24 year olds, with the exception of females too. The magazine’s psychographic is defined as ‘people who aspire to be respected among other people and people who wish to have a high paid job.'

Readers are given the opportunity to interact by writing letters and reviews that may be published in the magazine.
Photos, reader’s polls, gig reviews, editorial team recommended entertainment, competitions and the Kerrang! diary of upcoming gigs all give the readers a chance to respond and share their views and opinions.

LIIAR of the music magazine brief.

When putting my masthead on my cover it will need to be the second most noticeable and dominant thing on the page, obviously the main image being first. The masthead will need to represent the genre straight from the start The picture itself will have to be a medium close up. The model on the cover will also be made to make full eye contact with the camera. This is so the reader connects to the men/women on the cover, this technique is very effective. I have decided to keep the background fairly plain using a white/grey/black background. This is so that the audience doesn’t focus all of his/hers attention on the background itself but instead they will focus on the clothes that the model is wearing. This is most important with the front cover as the front cover needs to be especially appealing because this is what the reader will see first. Therefore it needs to attract their attention. The apparel that the model is wearing has to be bold and relate to the metal theme. This is so that the model but will stand out but it will not look out-of-place. The main image will need to relate to the main article, I have done this by having the model wear a Devil Driver T-shirt, this relates to Dez Farara and his main band Devil Driver, Dez was the vocalist in Coal Chamber and that’s how I think the main image relates to the article. It will have to be a consistent house style of up to 2 to 3 colours, consistency is key to keep the appearance of the magazine professional look. All of this bearing in mind, I will have to stick with the rule of left third. The front cover needs to have teasing contents, a bar code, price, date and issue.

The contents page will need to contain sections such as: live reviews, album reviews, gigs, tours, competitions and features. The font size needs to be fairly small such as 10. There needs to be page numbers giving reference to the location of the articles, with the name of them. Main colour scheme needs to continue too. The main image needs to have anchorage as well. There needs to be a few thumbnail images to illustrate various articles too. Finally, it needs an editor’s note.

For the double page spread, there needs to be a large, snappy headline. The name of the artist in large, clear font for a big impact with an introduction to the article with a byline. The article itself has to be written in columns with clear font, highlighted quotes from the article (pull quote) The main image must be dominant with anchorage text. It needs to contain the name of the photographer and a drop cap.

I think my magazine would interest many media distributors, my distributor must be capable of publishing magazines, and probably needs to be a more niche publisher, specialising in all areas and not specifically music, although this would be beneficial, as the magazine does target a focused area. I decided that MusicMags would be the best possible publisher for my music magazine, formed in 1996 by a number of small publishers, MusicMags is an independent publisher that specialises in music magazines, Music Magazines claims to have more value and expertise than most distributors, however this could alter the cost. Magazines are able to be shipped out to houses and can be sold for free or at a cost, for my music magazine I could distribute the music magazine free until it got enough awareness and then charge for the subscription. Music Magazines do a wide spectrum of genres; however they lack conventional rock, which is another reason as to why I chose MusicMags as my chosen publisher. MusicMags will publish my magazine to music specific places, such as record stores, or instrument stores, or venues, this would allow my music magazine to efficiently and quickly target its target audience, people actively interested in music.

The message that I intend to set out with my magazine is that it caters for ‘metal heads’ who don’t listen to ‘false metal’, there’s a lot of confrontation in my audience where people have different opinions of which bands are the most ‘metal.’ There’s a lot of false genres too and what my magazine sets out to do is give the audience a taste of good old fashion metal and destroy the fake. To showcase that I’m fairly serious with this, I will feature bands such as Black Sabbath and Municipal Waste. The message I wish to convey is that ‘metalheads’ are a tough crowd to deal with. The name ‘revolt’ would be appropriate as it sounds rebellious, fighting back against something. This links back to fighting the false metal genres.

The metal demographic are primarily 15-25 year old males. However, it is wrong to say that no one above 25 will be interested in the product. Metal is often a genre of music that stick with a person whatever age they are; it is not purely a phase. Therefore, this demographic is used only loosely, as the metal fan base is too vast to narrow down.It is true, however, to say that the male audience will be targeted more than the female. This is because the idea of metal appeals to the male gender, due to its themes of death & decay, often enjoyed more by males.

I intend to represent the audience in a positive way. The positive way is that ‘metalheads’ are like a big family, they look out for each other in ‘mosh-pits’, in short, basically having fun in getting hurt. There are negative stereotypes that is they all do drugs, consume alcohol 24/7 and have sex constantly. To a degree it is true, but what I want to set out is that it’s all about the music. In a way, I’ll be representing the audience negatively as they wear dark clothing which connotes a threatening persona.