Our brief was for us to design extracts for a new music magazine, which would be aimed to our target audience, young people between the ages of 16-24 that are enthusiastic about rock music and hipsters that dress in Native American clothing to express their cultural appropriation. I had to combine rock and indie, which to some extent was challenging, however, we did seek a challenging task. The extracts include; two double page spread that would be an interview or information regarding an indie rock band’s background, contents page and front cover.
The pictures used in our music magazines would be original photography taken by us for the particular extracts to appeal to our target audience. The first step, I took was researching on popular indie and rock music magazines so I could pinpoint out the common conventions. I analysed several music magazine; front covers, double page spreads and contents page and was able to see the certain features that would be appealing to my target audience. The main music magazines I had researched more in depth is the Rolling Stones, Q, NME and Kerrang!This is because the magazines focus is on indie or rock and have similar target audience to mine, which would make it easier for me to see the common conventions, which are; the masthead being easily recognisable by many readers because it’s often in bold fonts or placed in a box, cover lines, straplines, focal image, anchorage and barcodes are visual conventions. The contents page, however, had more features than the double page spread and front cover as it had; a picture and signature of the editor, sample pages and columns. I decided that I would pick a wide range of conventions in order to attract my target audience.
The masthead is RAM, which stands for Rage Against the Machines. I decided that our masthead looking similar or identical to Indie, the music magazine, because the majority of our features in the content page and front cover are having the common typical features of rock magazines that we’ve wanted to make something stand out as an indie. It’s as if this is brand to indicate to the readers that this magazine isn’t rock nor indie, its indie rock. The typography of the masthead is sans - serif because the serif front wouldn’t look appealing to the target audience that I’m focusing on attracting.Sans-serif is more suited for are particular target audience because it doesn’t have the tips and is common in indie and rock magazines. When accomplishing the first step, I had to start interviewing five people that fit in the same category as my target audience.
This is because I wanted to gather more information on my target audience. I was able to gather a wide range of viewpoints and what they liked and disliked. For example, three out of five people liked the colour red to be in an indie rock music magazine. This may be because famous indie rock music magazines have red as the dominate colour, such as; Q and NME.The interview inspired me to include red in my magazine (RAM). The three house colours in the magazine are red, white and black.
I did hand out questionnaires directly to ten people because I felt that the more primary research done the more RAM is going to look like a professional music magazine rather than an amateur one. The questionnaire was beneficial as it helped me decide two more house colours. I prefer a questionnaire over an interview as I was able to get more responses from my target audience and it wasn’t timed liked the interview.From the questionnaire I was able to discover that a number of responses I collected look for exposure of new music, interviews, gig guides or reviews, competition or free merchandise and articles about music- not the artists in the music magazine.
The question on the questionnaire were an unlimited trick question where I gave the opportunity to tick as much as they wanted. The responses gave me a clear knowledge of how my magazine would include. Our target audience falls in the category of C1 and C2 because they are more to be the emerging class.The emerging class is a sociological term to describe the young that have low income, but has high levels of ‘emerging’ cultural capital and social capital. I created a mind-map for the indie rock genre to discuss the stereotypes and the definition of indie rock.
I decided to do this because whilst I was re-reading my genre primary research I was thinking that this would not be enough to demonstrate my understanding of indie rock since it was a foreign music to me. Creating the mind-map was helpful for to understand indie rock even more in depth compared to when I first of it.It’s a shame Idil and I didn’t choose the rock genre and had to converse on indie rock because she wanted to do a magazine about indie. The representation of indie rock wasn’t as difficult for me to do because I’ve listed most of it on the mind-map that all I had to do was write it in paragraphs with more detail discussing the music genre and the target audience. I learnt that indie rock is represented as the ‘good side of rock’ because the bands of indie rock are not arrested or convicted of crimes and aren’t consuming drugs.
Bands like The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, and Death Cabs for Cuties, The Black Keys, Stone Roses and Arcade Fire are portrayed to be angels when compared to other bands and artists. The house colours are red, white and black for the music magazine RAM. This is purely because after analysing many music magazine that specialise in rock and indie rock, I’ve drawn collisions that red, yellow, blue, white and black are repeated several times in those magazines. I’ve chosen the three of my favourite colours from the colours I stated as most repeated. Red is the colour of blood, blaze and rubies.
It is the shade toward the end of the noticeable range alongside orange, and at the inverse end from violet. Since it is the colour of blood, red has verifiably been connected with reparation, peril and boldness. Current overviews in the United States and Europe show red is the shade most generally connected with hotness, action, energy, sexuality, outrage, love and bliss. In China and numerous other Asian nations it is the shade of joy. Black is the colour of coal, midnight, and of space.
It is the darkest colour, the consequence of the nonattendance of or complete retention of light.It is the inverse of white and frequently speaks to obscurity conversely with light. White is the shade delivered by the mix of every last one of colours of the unmistakable spectrum. As an image, white is the inverse of dark, and frequently speaks to light interestingly with murkiness. As indicated by studies in Europe and the United States, white is the colour regularly connected with guiltlessness, flawlessness, the great, immaculateness, trustworthiness, cleanliness, the starting, the new, impartiality, softness, and exactitude.
For example, I would include a competition for a free merchandises from a band or artist on my contest page and include a notion of a latest upcoming gig in the double page spread with an interview. The reply I got really helped me into making a clear pathway for Idol and me music magazine and my double page spread. It even helped me into picking a colour scheme with my partner much more efficiently without looking at the question even. Bottom of Form I constructed a survey in Survey Monkey, which is a website to enable people to submit a quick and easy survey to others for responses.What I liked about the survey was that the responses was already analysed with charts, which made it easier for me to describe the results. I asked a wide range of questions for my double page spread, contents page and front cover draft to know what my target audience thinks of my work.
I had got 16 responses, which is a good fraction what I predicted. The response gave me a wide range of viewpoint and I’ve taken into consideration of what I should do to make my double page layout to standout and look stunning.The contents page was beloved and I’m going to change a few things to make it more appealing to my target audience. I constructed a draft of our contents page and my double page spread by drawing it and colouring in order to get a clear perspective of how the music magazine would look beforehand and not rushing it. This is beneficial as I’ll have a clear path of the music magazine.
I developed a draft of the contents page that would suit the non-mainstream rock kind. From my contents page draft I could right away work out the essential mix-ups I made in the design and numbering of the segments.I created a flat plan, where I numbered and indicated my pages so my contents page doesn’t look like it was it was randomly done. I had to create a border in Photoshop when I was doing my contents page because I struggled with the size of my focal image and text. The border was a guide for me to use. I did construct a double page spread draft with the article.
However, I decided that I would change the layout of my double page spread to make it stand out more and make my artist female.This resulted in me making two double page spreads with a new article because I really wanted to appeal to my target audience and I felt like my original draft was more towards the rock genre rather than the indie rock. The front cover of RAM needed more improvements because it didn’t follow the house colours. This is because the front cover is red, blue, yellow and black when it was supposed to show black, red and white as the dominate colours. My partner and I had to make a few adjustments because the focal image and the masthead are already perfectly done.The double page spread I helped my partner had also needed a few adjustments for the same reason as the front cover.
The final extracts are exactly as I have versioned or even better. I was focusing on having majority of the music magazines conventions for all the extracts because than it would look more professionally done. The contents page is following the house colours, has a column with page numbering, the focal image stands out and is purposely following the house colours by wearing red and black, the masthead is clear and detectable.My double page spread was similar to the contents page as it follows the house colours. However, I used a different kind of layout for it to make it like a profile because from Survey Monkey and questionnaire I discovered that my target audience like posters and profiles so I insisted that I have it somehow in RAM.
I used several original pictures on my double page spread like profile. The article on the double page spread is brief and simple because my target audience aren’t interested in reading long worded essay and something brief and simple to read quickly. Overall, it turned out really well.
