In order to create a music magazine that suits my genre and stands out to me, I looked for inspiration and made a slide of the magazines that I found the most captivating. These covers stood out to me in particular, because I found the graphics appealed to me, especially the ones where photo manipulation was demonstrated to make the cover feel like it’s something it’s not. These front covers also appealed to me due to their unique colour palette of pastels, which is the colour scheme of my own genre- indie pop.

When creating any type of magazine cover it is important to use design conventions that will attract your target audience. One way media producers try to attract a larger audience is by including famous celebrities or influencers that may inspire new readers to buy it and eventually become a long term subscriber. For example, this can be seen through the ‘Cosmopolitan’ front cover I included on my slide, where the producers have used a famous YouTuber Emma Chamberlain as their cover model to appeal to a younger audience. One graphic design convention I like in particular is the ‘billboard; cover, where the masthead is written downwards. This stands out to me because it doesn’t look like the other magazines where the masthead is typically written across the top, it adds character and I feel as though if I was to use this technique on my own front cover it would appeal to my target audience. Another front cover which has me captivated is the ‘Bazar’ one, where the front cover model is surrendered by pink feathers. This draws attention to her face and in particular her glamorous makeup. This technique would be perfect if I was looking to advertise a certain makeup product.

Focusing forward, this task has taught me the significance of using certain fonts, coverlines, layout, cover model and colour palette. I now am aware of photo manipulation which I am going to being using in my own front cover because the combining of the elements is unique and will convince viewers.

In order to understand the market for my magazine I need to know who my competitors are. So I researched the background of some magazines similar to what I will be creating and made a piktochart. To succeed in creating a music magazine I need to analyze the type of things my target audience will be entertained by and discover my own preferred reading, so I can have my audience view my text exactly the way I want them to. This task has also taught me the importance of needing to include ‘AIDA’ in my advertising, which includes making sure I consider Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.

In order, for any music magazine to become a success it is important to understand the star image. In media, the first thing your customers will analyse is the front image of your model, from this they will convey a certain connotation which will help them decide if they are interested in your product. To give me a better understanding on this I researched how a particular star from my Indie-pop genre is represented in the media.

How do the media view Lana Del Rey?

Lana Del Rey is adored by many indie-pop fans on social media globally, however she can also be seen as a very controversial character due to her blatant honesty and problematic tendencies.  The fact Lana is so honest means she is iconic and an inspiration to people in the indie community.  Her friendly problematicness can be seen through the tweet I displayed on the first slide. Despite Lana only being 21, she portrays a vintage aesthetic, that is also represented on the same slide where you can see her record and vinyl’s for sale exclusively on her website. This relates to the indie-pop vibe she represents because viynl’s and  records are one of the main source’s that my genre is played one.

Reflection:

To help me come up with ideas for what I would like to dress my model in, I researched what type of clothes, hairstyles and makeup famous indie-pop stars wear. It is very important for my model to look extraordinary and not just like an ordinary pop star because then she will stand out from the crowd and attract our target audience.

Focusing forward, this task has taught me the significance of researching the backgrounds of other famous indie-pop stars and using mise-en-scene to convey the desired message to the audience. It will help me to make my music magazine because now I have a good understanding of the type of fashion I will need to get for my model to wear. I am now aware of the kind of poses I will get my model to do, in order to portray my indie-pop these to my audience.

In order to create a successful music magazine for my specific audience I have to be able to understand them and know the reasons why they are willing to invest their time and money into it. A pair of theorists who considered this idea were Blumler & Katz, they called this theory uses and gratification and suggested that there were four reasons people actively seek out and consume media.

USES AND GRATIFICATION:

• Information
• Personal Identity
• Social Interaction
• Entertainment

To help me discover what kinds of media I need to produce in order to entertain my demographics I did some research on the statics for some famous indie-pop stars. I used a website called ‘YouGov’, to help me find accurate statistics about Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish and Lorde’s audience.

I then created a dating profile in order to discover the type of demographic and psychographic I am trying to attract. The statics I found were useful in creating my dating profile because they helped me decode the characteristics of my person.

To conclude, I found this task very informative because I now know the significance of researching the personal interests of the target audience for my genre. Focusing forward, this will help me in order to be a good producer, because I will be able to identity the preferred reading subjects of my audience and include it to achieve loyal and happy customers.

To help me gain a little bit of a better understanding of my chosen genre; indie pop, I created a word cloud and found words  associated with it. Creating a brainstorm and researching different ideas has also inspired the name of my magazine ‘Vinyl’. I decided this name would be a good fit for a music magazine of this genre as viynl’s main significance is being associated with indie pop, as this type of music is most often played on it.

The reason I chose to do Indie Pop as my genre is because I have an interest in indie style music and often listen to a lot of Indie pop artists, such as Lana del rey and Billie Eilish. I feel like choosing a genre I enjoy will help me to find the research exciting as I will be studying something I personally enjoy and connect with.

My Mission statement:

‘Vinyl’ is a magazine which is designed to help new and old indie-pop fans discover some of the best indie-pop artists, it advertises for many low-key, underground artists wanting to get their name out there. It aims to encourage our readers to go to any current concerts with indie-pop music. We are a community that helps to bring everyone with the same interests together and helps people to discover their own person identity.

Reflection-

I found this task very helpful as it made me realise the importance of needing a mission statement in order to give myself and my readers a better insight of what I will be including in my music magazine. The word cloud helped me to get a good sense of my chosen genre and get to grips with the type of content I will need to include.

Focusing forward, this will help me to make a good music magazine becomes it gives me a better idea on what information I want to incorporate inside. Creating this word cloud and identifying a name for it has also helped me to discover a unique selling point, which will help me to attract my target audience.

Every magazine has a specific audience that they intend to attract when designing their front cover. It is important for designers to have a target audience that they appeal to other wise they wouldn’t be successful in attracting new customers. Usually this target audience is a certain demographic; separated by age, race or gender, however magazine producers also use subgroups within these demographics to attract people interested in a particular subject. These subgroups are divided by a persons particular interests and are psychographics. This is an effective way of advertisement because it can create a customer loyalty.

In order for producers to appeal to their target audience they use specific fonts, images, headlines and language. This can be seen in the magazine I analysed where the magazine producers have written the masthead ‘billboard’ in all lowercase and used a serif font, which is a tactical way to attract a younger audience because the name appears modern and simple, something which might not neccesarily appeal to older age groups.

Focusing forward this will help me to design my music magazine because it has helped me to think about including a certain type of demographic. For example,  I now have a better idea of  what age, gender and type of personality I intend to target. Creating this has also taught me about the importance of attracting a certain psychographic, which is similar to demographics however it is more personal and includes a persons interests, hobbies and aspirations, so I will now be able to link the technical design conventions to the interests of my desired audience.

When making a music magazine it is important to understand the rules, regulations and technical connotations. Analyzing this magazine cover has helped me to understand the importance of including all of the main design features. The key conventions I will need to include are:

• Masthead- another term for the title at the top of the page, or in this case the name of the magazine (Billboard)
• Main cover star- the main picture that covers the magazine, often a celebrity
• Coverlines- these talk about what might be inside of the magazine
• Main cover line- this is the name of the celebrity on the front cover
• Pug- a headline advertising a story inside
• Plug- similar to a coverline and used to communicate what information might be inside with words overlaid on a graphic shape or box to make them stand out

Focusing forward, learning about these conventions will help me to design the perfect front cover for my music magazine because now I know to be sure to include them. I will need to use all of these features when creating my music magazine, other wise my music magazine won’t look like a real magazine, and in order to attract an audience and be successful I need to draw attention to the cover.