Contents, Cover and Double-Paged Spread Analysis

Colour Mood Board

My color mood board contains mostly neutral colors such as greens and browns as to reflect the stereo typically passive nature of the target audience as well as their stereotypical love for the organic and natural such as plants and growing, commonly associated with greens and browns. Furthermore, the purples and dark blues of my color mood board could be used to express the spiritual and slightly mystical nature of the mind exploration associated with this group of people.

You will notice I have not included any bright pinks or similar colors, this is because I believe they would be too garish and rather than attract the target audience could repel them.

Original Ideas Statement

Original Ideas Statement

I intend to make a music magazine based around the genres of psychedelic rock, stoner rock, progressive rock and other musical paths that relate to these. It will not just include music but information about merchandise, clothing and apparel stereotypical and popular with followers of these types of music. It will also contain information on events both musical and cultural at the interest of the target audience.

The intended audience is mainly 18-30 men and women who don’t fit the mainstream and take interest in exploratory tastes and the equivalent lifestyle; People who would attend camping outdoor music and entertainment festivals and enjoy spiritual and mindful experiences.

I have chosen this particular type of magazine as there seems to be nothing else like it for these kinds of people and I also have some personal interest in this field, adding to its potential for success and increasing the chance of the content being genuinely interesting and wanted.

Font Mood Board

Some of these fonts such as doodle gum and floralies include patterns drawn from the stereotype of psychedelic rock culture created around the time of Woodstock in the late 60s. Other fonts like blank eye and surfing capital tend to express the more alternative and less decorative side of the stoner rock and psychedelia through less decorative and more warped letters.

Lots of these fonts like wizard’s magic and Oliver appear to be of the fantasy genre which links to the outlandish ideas and music of the target audience I am trying to reach along with some of their appearance in a visual sense.

Another reason I chose the fonts that I did is because I thought they would be attractive to the eye and help to draw attention to the magazine during distribution online or physically. I thought fonts like floydian would be especially attractive to the target audience as they would recognize the font from pink Floyd’s logo and be intrigued to pick up the magazine and at least consider a purchase.

Advertisers Mood Board

I have chosen to include the charities Greenpeace and PETA as my target audience will more than likely be interested in helping these organisations and be passionate about their goals. Since recreational drug use and smoking are associated with the listening to of psychedelic music and stone rock i have included Raw cigarette papers in this mood board. These people are also thought to go to festivals such as glastonbury and latitude which appear here and drink cider such as brother, also on this mood board.

Knotty boy, a hair care product for dreadlocks also features here as the hairstyle is strongly associated with hippies who listen to psychedelic music, along with Earth Henna, another element of style associated with the target audience. The inclusion of HMV, Marshall and apple refer to how the target audience may purchase and listen to the music the magazine will provide information on, possibly the most direct advertising link included here.

The vegan society and quorn may also advertise in this magazine as it is another association that hippies who listen to such psychedelic music are more inclined to be against eating meat or dairy products through strong beliefs often expressed in the music.

Informtion on Magazine Publishers

Bauer

Bauer is a large European media group situated in Hamburg, Germany. Heinz Bauer is the owner of the company but his daughter, Yvonne, is the chief executive, taking the majority of control over the company at his father’s wishes. The company has been managed by 5 generations of the Bauer family and the entered the UK publishing market in 1987 with a women’s weekly, Bella.

Bauer own and run over 238 magazines in 15 countries including the music magazines Q which is now not only a music magazine but a radio station and a television channel. They also produced Kerrang magazine which, like Q, has become a radio station and television channel.

Bauer also publish popular women’s weeklies such as take a break and Closer, along with a film magazine Empire which is now published in 5 other countries including the USA and Portugal. As well as these genres Bauer publish motorcycle and car magazines not forgetting their men’s weekly ZOO.

Bauer media have also recently launched a digital, online voucher service called dabbl, a multi-platform product. They also have a 50% stake in the company box television which run lots of music television channels including 4Music, Kiss and Magic; some of these channels are also available as radio stations.

Overall Bauer has around a 50% owning of the magazine industry, with all of their magazines having social media pages such as twitter and Facebook accounts, increasing their online presence along with their official websites or pages within Bauer websites.

Future PLC

Future PLC was founded in 1985 In Somerset, England by Chris Anderson, in 2006 it was ranked as the 6^th largest media corporation in the UK with over 200 print publications, apps, websites and events.

They have a website which offers all of their magazines for sale which from a musical perspective include total guitar a monthly magazine based in the UK first published in 1994 which is Europe’s best selling guitar magazine. They also own Rhythm, a monthly drum and percussion magazine, the leading UK drum magazine.

Future PLC have recently launched a bookazine series for its technology portfolio of which a digital copy will be available free with each copy. These bookazine’s offer guides and how tos in fields including mobile phones, operating systems and business creation schemes.

Their popular gaming magazine ‘PC gamer’ hit recording breaking growth with not only page views up 64% but up 93% mobile page views as well, showing popularity on multiple platforms. These Games magazines included official brand magazines Xbox and play station, two rival consoles.

Their film magazines include SFX and total film, the latter of which has social media pages on Facebook, twitter and tumblr; there is also a total film forum which has been online since 2004 and has some loyal regular users. The focus of future plc, according to one of their websites myfavouritemagazines.co.uk, is consumer technology, games, entertainment, music and photography. In a month, their websites collaboratively receive over 57 million users.

Time Inc. UK (IPC Media)

Time Inc. (know previously as IPC Media) is the leading publisher of digital and print magazine content in Britain. Globally, they have a monthly audience of over 120 million people from their print services; they also reach an audience of another 120 million through their digital properties, which include over 50 websites.

IPC Media was formed in 1963 as the parent company of all business interests of Fleetway, Odhams, and Newnes (all media companies at the time). It then became Time Inc. UK in 2014 after its purchase by Time Inc. in 1998.

They also host events which received collectively ‘hundreds of thousands’ of people. These events included fortune most powerful women summit, this celebrated women in powerful positions across the globe, and got them together to make connections with other female leaders.

Time Inc. UK own the music magazine NME, who have deep roots in the English music industry although their sales are falling recently with their current circulation at just over 15,000, a ludicrously low number considering their past success. They now plan to make the magazine free in order to save it from completely dying.

They also publish sport and fitness magazines such a cycling weekly, which although down 3.8% in circulation in 2011 to 27,406. It dropped again towards the end of 2014 down 9.7% to 25,135.

Some of their other magazine brands include Horse & Hound, TIME magazine and centurion, all of which have an accompanying website for reader information and subscription.

Target Audience Mood Board

In this mood board i have decided to involve parts of nature, such as trees, clouds and walking bare foot as they help to make up the stereotype of the audience I am aiming to reach; coined 'hippies' they are listeners of psychedelic and stoner rock which is what my magazine will be based on. I have also included some bands such as pond and gum which are of the psychedelic rock genre.

Although a taboo area, partly because of its illegality, i have included some drug symbols and paraphernalia as these are also associated with listeners of these kinds of music. The finished product will almost definitely refer to such substances either through interviews or analysis of lyrical content. I also involved solar panels and the peace symbol considering the stereotype has a wish for world peace and a love for the Earth, thus harboring its energy instead of damaging it creating our own.

The mood board also includes an acoustic guitar and a poncho which listeners of this genre will be likely to own and a campfire which they will likely enjoy sitting around and enjoying nature.

Overview of the Magazine Industry

Overview of the Magazine Industry

Currently the magazine industry is in an absolute abundance of women’s weekly magazines, which take 6 of the spots in better retailing’s top ten magazines. Also taking 3 of these spots are TV listing magazines with Radio Times taking the top spot at 1,276,045 sales, leaving room for a health & parenting magazine at spot 4.

According to ‘media week’ there was not 1 solely music magazine in the top 100 in print magazines! Although about entertainment shows that this genre of magazine is not lost with a top 10 list, with Q magazine at the top who claim to be ‘the world’s best music magazine’.

Although generally there are some disgustingly large falls in magazine circulation across all genres, for the second half of 2014 there was a combined average circulation of 33 million.

With these falls in circulation, magazines are being forced to try other methods, which has proved for many to sell their issues digitally to a more technologically advance audience. As far as these sales go the economist takes the lead with 49,976 digital sales at the end of 2014, a 77% increase in a year! With the next best digital seller (T3) at only 17,791.

Print is expected to receive around £2.5bn on advertisement this year by strategy analytics. This money will come from advertisers placing their adverts in magazines and newspapers. The UK is expected to be the first country with at least half all money spent on advertisement being spent on digital advertisements, taking money from print advertisement.

The internet is said to have drawn the amount of money we spend on print publications to spending on online based media between 2007 and 2013.

Complete Analysis of a Music Magazine

Complete Analysis of a Music Magazine

(New Musical Express) is a British music journalism magazine which was born in the March of 1952 after the purchase of Accordion Times and Musical Express, which name was changed to NME. It offered a variety of information on music typically in the genre of rock, alternative and indie. It was the first British paper to include a chart for the most popular singles, which it began in November of the same year.

During 1972 and 1976 it was considered a very self-involved reporting paper, before becoming more associated with the punk rock scene through the writers Julie Burchill, Paul Morley and Tony Parsons. NME gradually shifted from a newspaper format to one with a connotation to that of a magazine during the 1980's and the 1990's, eventually scrapping newsprint altogether in 1996.

The target audience of the New Musical Express is generally teenager and young adults with an alternative taste in music, offering a way to keep up with new music that fits to their preferences, outside of the mainstream.

During the 1960's the paper’s circulation peaked under Andy Gray and the Beatles and Rolling Stones were often featured on the front cover. The paper developed close competition with another weekly music magazine ‘Melody Maker’ although sales were still good.

In the 1970's NME's sales began to fall behind that of Melody Maker and they came close to closure by their owners since 1963. Alan Smith was made editor and was given a short amount of time to revive the magazine or it would face closure. He did this by recruiting underground journalists, making NME the first place to hear about all the new underground music, such as glam rock and punk.

In the 1980's the magazine became the most important of its kind in Britain and released tapes of up and coming bands to its readers at low cost. During this decade there were internal arguments about whether the magazine should focus more on the new genre hip-hop or stick to rock like it always had.

The 90's brought grunge music to the NMEs attention and they covered it up until Kurt Cobain’s death, when they started to concentrate on ‘Brit-pop’ a term they coined to classify bands such as blur and oasis, in a time when, because of the blur-oasis feud, their sales were high.

During the 2000's, NME made the same mistake they had earlier made with covering hip-hop, which they quickly drew to a close when their sales began to dwindle; a clear sign of their error.

Now NME is set to become a free magazine due to the huge lack of interest in our current day economy.

College Magazine - Contents Page

College Magazine - Front Cover

College Magazine - Questionnaire Results Analysis

Questionnaire Results Analysis

The results of the college magazine questionnaires show that 90% don’t already read the college magazine, showing us that it is currently not reaching or engaging the target audience thus falling short of its purpose.

Our survey also showed that the top 5 colours were white, red, black, blue and purple. This gives us a pallet of colours to use when deciding on the design of the front cover and contents page.

80% of questionnaires said they wanted to see a student or student work as the main front cover image, ruling out ideas like nature or technology for this position.

75% of people surveyed said that they would pay between 50pence and £1 to buy a good quality college magazine. This gives us a good idea of what an acceptable price would be to sell the magazine at.

The top 5 subjects that students wanted to be covered in the magazine were College events, technology, jobs, gig guide and films. This tells us what content to include in the magazine.

Many of the questionnaires which submitted a name suggestion for the magazine included east Norfolk or the abbreviation EN.

85% of questionnaires stated that freebies would entice them further into buying the magazine, suggesting coffee vouchers and food vouchers could be a good idea to add.

It was a 50/50 split on whether there should be an online version of the magazine, suggesting that if we did include one, it could certainly gain popularity.

College Magazine - Questionnaire

College Magazine Questionnaire

1.     Do you read the college magazine?                  Yes/No          

2.     Would you subscribe to an online version?      Yes/No           

3.     Would freebies/vouchers attract you?              Yes/No           

4.     Would you subscribe to an online version?      Yes/No           

5.     What colours attract you? (Top 3) 1.                2.                3. 

       

6.     What fonts attract you? (Top 3)     1.                2.                3. 

        

7.     What would you like to see in a college magazine? (Circle 3)

       #College Events        #Gig guide                #Subject Information

  #Technology               #Problem Page         #Job tips                 

       #Puzzle Page               #Fashion Page          #Film Page                  

#Sport Page

                 8.     What would you like the main cover image to be each issue? (Circle 1)

#Student                    #Teacher                  #Student Work

           #Technology                                              #Nature                       

9.     What should the title be?                                                        

10.   How often would you like it published?                                 

                     11.    How much would you pay for a good quality college magazine? (Tick 1)

 #50p                         #£1                       #£2

College Magazine - Analysis

This college front cover has a main image of a young, clean man. Highlighting from the offset that the magazine is aimed at young people.

The cover lines are of different sizes depending on their importance and level of interest. Increasing in size the more shocking or exciting the cover line is

The large masthead takes a whole chunk at the top of the page, making it clear to see and (in a larger font) easier to differentiate from other text in the page. The font used is also one associated with American college and is used for the numbers on the backs of football teams shirts.

The date, location intended and issue number are located in much smaller text just underneath the masthead in a white font, this ensures they can be seen but do not draw from more important things on the front cover.

The bar code is placed neatly in the bottom right hand corner as not to draw attention from the main image, however the price tag linked to it is in gold possibly to emphasize that it's free.