My questions and questionairre results.

I asked people only within my desired target audience. The age of the people who were most popular was sixteen year olds. This is around the middle of my target audience for my magazine.

I chose mostly females to give my questionnaire to. This is because I wanted to create a music magazine mostly aimed at women as most music magazines are aimed at males. I did ask some males because I wanted both genders to buy it.

The graph shows that the most popular band out of a group of 20 people was Muse with 4 votes. 3 bands were the second most popular and they were Paolo Nutini, Lily Allen and Kings of Leon. All the other bands shown on the graph had one vote each.

The most popular colour to be chosen was blue with 5 people choosing it. Because I chose mostly girls to interview I knew that pink would stereotypically come out with a high amount of votes. Red and purple were also popular colours with the people I questioned with 3 votes each. Black, green and orange were not popular with the people I questioned.

Just over half of my sample do not buy music magazine. All of the boys I asked did buy music magazines. The most popular magazine bought was NME. And the least popular magazine bought was Rocksound. One of the people I questioned said 2 magazines they bought so my sample for magazines adds up to 21. Almost all the people I asked only buy one music magazine.

Most of my sample said that they would consider paying up to £3 for a music magazine. Although this is the most popular £2 only got one less vote with 8. Only 2 people would pay up to four pound for a music magazine. I am going to make my magazine £2.50 because it is the value in between the two most popular answers.

This is one of my sample's answers:

What Words do you associate with Music?

The words people said they associate with music were:

• Quaver
• Live
• Song
• Compose
• Loud
• Dancing
• Musical
• Tune
• Beat
• Sound
• Reality
• Sex
• Alcohol
• Rhythm
• Life
• Treble Clef
• Guitar
• Stave

This is one of my sample's answers:

This question was to give me an idea of what to call my magazine. Sound got 3 votes when I asked people, whilst all the other words only got one vote. I am going to call my magazine sound as it was associated most with music.

I asked this question to get an idea of what gift to include with my magazine. The most popular answer I got for this question was a free CD or iTunes vouchers which can be burnt onto a CD. This is the gift I will include with my magazine.

Half of the people I asked said they would expect a music magazine to come out weekly. Only three people said they would expect a music magazine to come out monthly. I am going to make my magazine come out weekly as it is the most popular answer and that’s when people will expect it.

The most popular radio channel was Radio One. But some people said more than one answer. City and Juice, local radio stations, were popular for my sample of people I questioned. Kerrang radio, which is only available on DAB but the person who answered Kerrang radio also said they listen to radio one regularly. I am going to base my type of music on the music played on radio one.

12 people in my sample attend live gigs often. This means that I am going to include pictures from live gigs on my magazine front cover and contents. Some of the bands people had seen were:

• Kanye West
• Mcfly
• Lil’ Wayne
• Jacks Mannequin
• Paolo Nutini
• Take That
• Lily Allen
• Muse
• Say Anything

I am going to try and include some of the bands that link to my magazine genre and put them on the front cover, contents page or double page spread.

What would you like to see in a Music Magazine?

I asked my sample what they would like to see in a music magazine to make them buy it. Here are some of the answers I got:

• A larger variety of bands.
• Posters
• New bands
• Interviews
• Free gifts
• Competitions
• Better music
• Gig guides
• Exclusives

The answer I got the most was interviews. I am going to include interviews in my magazine and maybe use my double page spread to create an interview. I am going to have free gifts in my magazine and try to include new bands.

Almost all of my sample listen to MP3’s apart from one person. This means that I am going to include a free MP3 as a free gift for my magazine rather than a CD. Only one person out of twenty said that they listened to CD’s so I am not going to include one.

Completed Preliminary Task

These are my finished publications for my school magazine.

Research on Magazines

Price: £2.30

Frequency of publication: Weekly

Issue size: Approx. 70 pages

Regular Articles: Gig Reviews

Album reviews

Single reviews

Feature Articles: Interviews

Festival reviews

Price: £3.90

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Issue size: Approx. 202 pages

Regular Articles: Gig Reviews

Album reviews

Single reviews

Feature Articles: Interviews

Music Magazine Codes and Conventions

Music Magazine

Front Cover Codes and Conventions

• Colours aren't as bright.
• Use mostly red, white and black
• Bold fonts
• Always has the band name on the front
• Free things (puffs)
• Picture over the band, not smiling conveys attitude
• Tagline
• Small images often of live bands

Codes and Conventions

Of a Double Page Spread

• Large quote at the start of the article
• Some things are highlighted.
• Large image
• 1 or 2 smaller pictures, these break up the article and make it easier to read.
• Drop capital starts article.
• Quote - by the picture
• 1st line is usually in bold, in capitals or larger than the rest of the article.
• Usually 2 or 3 colours used
• Close up photos
• Picture takes up about half the double page spread
• Title in capitals
• Pictures often bleed across the page as do headlines.
• Strapline or border often used to bleed across the double page spread
• Byline
• Artist names are highlighted.

Front Cover Photoshoot

This is the picture I chose for

my front cover.

I chose this picture to be on my

contents page.

I chose these picture to be on my contents page.

Completed Preliminary Exercise

This is my front cover, it follows most of the codes and conventions of a normal magazine front cover. It has a large photo as the background with a cover line that goes with its subject. It also has a large masthead usually the largest text on the screen as it is on my magazine front cover. It has some of the most popular stories down the right hand side of the magazine cover like mine does, it has usually 3 or 4 stories featured. I could have added more puffs, a price and a date to make my magazine cover follow more of the conventions.

I used Photoshop to create my front cover and used many of the tools in Photoshop to make certain features stand out such as my masthead, cover line and feature stories. On my masthead and coverline I also used an inner glow to make it stand out more. I used the 'lasso' tool on Photoshop to cut out my main images so I could blur the background and put the coverline behind her head.

This is my contents page , it also follows most of the codes and conventions of a contents page. It has a large picture like most contents pages and many small pictures. The pictures all have their relevant page numbers on too. At the top of the page is the title contents which takes up the whole width and again is usually the largest text on the page which my contents page also has. If I were to create it again I would add information about subscription or competitions and I would also add a editorial.

I created my contents page on QuarkXPress. I only used the text tool and the picture tool. I edited my text in quark by chaging the colours size and font type.

Plans

This is how I would like my contents page to look.

This is how i would like my front cover to look.

Codes and Conventions

Codes and Conventions of a Front Cover

• · Titles usually one word.
• · Title usually to the left.
• · A general colour scheme.
• · Main story is the main picture.
• · Puffs
• · Posed photos
• · Photo over the title.
• · Band name printed over the band.
• · Barcode on front.
• · Unique font.
• · Title is the largest text on the cover.
• · One main image.

o Usually band or singer.

o Usually medium close up.

o Not smiling connotes attitude.

o Direct address usually looking at the reader.

Coverlines

• · Main coverline usually 2 lines.
• · Information about contents.
• · Intrigue the audience.

Typography

Consistent throughout the magazine only a few different fonts used.

2 different types of typography

Serif – News times roman

Sans Serif – Arial

Title, positioning statement and price all go together

Codes and Conventions of a Contents Page

• · One large image,
• · Contents at the top as a title.
• · Lists of pages.
• · Colour scheme, often the same as the title page.
• · Plain.
• · More than one image.
• · Editorial, picture and letter from the editor.
• · Columns, 2 or 3.
• · Subscription details.
• · Title of magazine repeated.
• · Issue date.
• · Page number.
• · Content detail.
• · Regular and features.

o Regular – Every issue

o Features – one off articles.