It is important to find out the demographic and psychographic of the people who will be reading my magazine so I can figure out my target audience. The target audience needs to be able to socially interact with and identify with the brand and the content. I need to understand what is entertaining for the audience and what information they care about so that I can strategically plan out the topics of the articles I write and also the advertisements I add in. I will have to use all the right colours, symbols, fonts and techniques to encode the right message for the target audience to decode. If they react positively then it’s a preferred reading and tells me as a graphic designer that I’ve done well.

For researching the different audiences for the different genres, we used the website YOUGOV.com. Sadly it didn’t have any artists in my sub-genre on the site so I went with the closest thing.

Artists and their Fan Base

Dating Profile

Using my knowledge of my choses genre, I created a dating profile for a typical Hardcore Metal fan. I included bands that he listens to, things he does to pass the time and things like his job and general day-to-day life.