Initial Ideas
I recently attended a local gig, organised by someone I knew. I decided to take many pictures of the bands that played and the crowds. I plan to use these pictures on my magazine, possibly on a feature article talking about the event organiser. I might even be able to use one of these pictures for the front cover of my magazine. I am also planning to attend another gig organised by the same person. I could also take many pictures of this gig to use in my magazine. An issue that I bought of NME had a picture of an artist on the front of it, the artist was singing into a microphone, and appeared to be a live shot of him doing so. I could recreate this with my own images, and hopefully attract the audience the same way that NME attracted it.
NME Magazine- Full Analysis
NME is the longest published, and the most respected music magazine around. Each week it gives its readers authoritive coverage of contemporary music, with reviews, interviews, and more. The website (http://www.nme.com/) launched in 1996 and has grown to be the biggest commercial music news site in Europe. The magazine is priced at £2.20 per issue, and is released weekly. The magazine, according to NME themselves has around 410,000 readers, and has a higher percentage of male readers compared to female. Male being 73%, while female being 27%. The average age of an NME reader is is 25, and around 73% of the audience fit into the ABC1 social status category. NMEs target market, are males, between the ages of 17 and 30.
80% of NME readers consider music to be an important part of their lives, and over half of them are interested in studying a music related course. 72% of readers, have a broadband connection at home, but the occupation of the average reader, is a little less clear. 34% are working full time, 18% are working part time, and 26% are full time students. This also supports the fact that a majority of the audience fit into social status's ABC1, NME is targeted at primarily middle class people, who will either have a job or be studying, rather then doing nothing. Also, readers appear to attend many festivals and concerts. They claim to enjoy the atmosphere of being at a live gig and that TV just doesn't compare.
The audience are technical enthusiasts, 93% own a computer, 96% have access to the internet, 72% have access to the internet at home. 56% claim to visit the NME website every few days, or everyday.
However, according to the circulation figures, NME has not been very successful, and has lost readers repeatedly over the last few years. According to a source, NME are at risk of cancelling the magazine, although the website would still be up and running. Due to this possible risk, and the dropping in figures, this allows me to potentially steal NME's audience with my own magazine. The audience appear to be losing interest, thus I could create a better magazine that would capture their attention.
80% of NME readers consider music to be an important part of their lives, and over half of them are interested in studying a music related course. 72% of readers, have a broadband connection at home, but the occupation of the average reader, is a little less clear. 34% are working full time, 18% are working part time, and 26% are full time students. This also supports the fact that a majority of the audience fit into social status's ABC1, NME is targeted at primarily middle class people, who will either have a job or be studying, rather then doing nothing. Also, readers appear to attend many festivals and concerts. They claim to enjoy the atmosphere of being at a live gig and that TV just doesn't compare.
The audience are technical enthusiasts, 93% own a computer, 96% have access to the internet, 72% have access to the internet at home. 56% claim to visit the NME website every few days, or everyday.
However, according to the circulation figures, NME has not been very successful, and has lost readers repeatedly over the last few years. According to a source, NME are at risk of cancelling the magazine, although the website would still be up and running. Due to this possible risk, and the dropping in figures, this allows me to potentially steal NME's audience with my own magazine. The audience appear to be losing interest, thus I could create a better magazine that would capture their attention.
Journalism Practise for Music Magazine
To practise writing my article for my music magazine, I wrote two reviews of one product. I wrote about Toy Story 3 in two different styles, one of an informal style that would suite the magazine NME, and one of a more formal style that would be suited to Music (BBC's classical music magazine).
Toy Story 3- NME magazine
June 18th, 2010 and we join our old childhood friends Woody and Buzz for their apparent last adventure, in surprisingly 3D. Good old Andy has finally grown up, and is heading to college, and so do we reach a possible end for all of his forgotten toys? His mum suggests that he give them all to the day-care centre, but Andy, being the sentimental guy, can’t face throwing away his true best friend… He decides to take Woody to college with him. The others, well, they are supposed to get shoved upstairs in the attic. But uh-oh, plot twist… They think they are going to the bins, panic, Woody goes to reassure them, they end up relocating to the day-care box and off his mum takes them and… Well. Basically they all end up at the day-care centre, including Woody. But wait a second? Hasn’t this happened before? I certainly recall Woody and Buzz almost getting left behind when they move house in the first film? And now Woody has gone missing again?! Hmm. So we arrive at the day-care centre. At first, the main character there, some sort of bear called Lotso whom runs the place seems nice enough. We soon learn that the day-care place is evil, and run by the disturbed Lotso bear. The characters attempt to escape, we learn why the bear is evil, the toys want to return back to Andy, a few problems along the way… etc.
On the 18th of June, 2010, Toy Story 3 was brought to 3D screens around the UK. We learn at the
beginning of the film that the character Andy is attending college, and so is packing his belongings. He is unsure as to what to do with his toys, and thus decides to place most of them in the attic, except from his favourite toy Woody whom he will take to college. His mother suggests that he donate the toys to the local day-care centre. Unfortunately, the animated toys conclude that they are going to be thrown away, and so they enter the box dedicated to the day-care. Andy’s mother takes the toys, including Woody who tries to console his friends and tell them to go into the attic instead, to the day-care. Our first impressions of the day-care are marvellous. The neglected toys are supposedly played with each day, and it seems an exciting life for the toys. However, Woody seems unimpressed by the information, and remains loyal to his owner. Woody concludes that he should return to Andy, and sets to leave. Woody is actually taken by a young girl outside the day-care home. He meets her toys, and they converse about the day-care. Woody learns that the day-care is not how it first seems, but that the day-care is run by the corrupt ‘Lotso’ bear. The film continues to show how Woody and his acquaintances escape the day-care, and return to their true home.
Toy Story 3- NME magazine
June 18th, 2010 and we join our old childhood friends Woody and Buzz for their apparent last adventure, in surprisingly 3D. Good old Andy has finally grown up, and is heading to college, and so do we reach a possible end for all of his forgotten toys? His mum suggests that he give them all to the day-care centre, but Andy, being the sentimental guy, can’t face throwing away his true best friend… He decides to take Woody to college with him. The others, well, they are supposed to get shoved upstairs in the attic. But uh-oh, plot twist… They think they are going to the bins, panic, Woody goes to reassure them, they end up relocating to the day-care box and off his mum takes them and… Well. Basically they all end up at the day-care centre, including Woody. But wait a second? Hasn’t this happened before? I certainly recall Woody and Buzz almost getting left behind when they move house in the first film? And now Woody has gone missing again?! Hmm. So we arrive at the day-care centre. At first, the main character there, some sort of bear called Lotso whom runs the place seems nice enough. We soon learn that the day-care place is evil, and run by the disturbed Lotso bear. The characters attempt to escape, we learn why the bear is evil, the toys want to return back to Andy, a few problems along the way… etc.
Overall, it was a pretty good movie. A bit of classic adventure following from the first two, a couple of new characters that are quite amusing. A Spanish Buzz. I have to say though, that the 3D effects were rather disappointing. The only thing that the 3D did was add a bit of depth, it was like looking through a window. If I wanted to look through a window, I would do that for free at home. I suppose that’s just Pixar’s style, but I had certain expectations. The film ended with a Spanish version of ‘you’ve got a friend in me’ which was quite a highlight. I personally didn’t find the film sad, a couple of people said they cried. But really, it was what you’d expect from Toy Story. A pretty good movie, but obviously couldn’t beat the first one.
Toy Story 3- BBC Music magazineOn the 18th of June, 2010, Toy Story 3 was brought to 3D screens around the UK. We learn at the
beginning of the film that the character Andy is attending college, and so is packing his belongings. He is unsure as to what to do with his toys, and thus decides to place most of them in the attic, except from his favourite toy Woody whom he will take to college. His mother suggests that he donate the toys to the local day-care centre. Unfortunately, the animated toys conclude that they are going to be thrown away, and so they enter the box dedicated to the day-care. Andy’s mother takes the toys, including Woody who tries to console his friends and tell them to go into the attic instead, to the day-care. Our first impressions of the day-care are marvellous. The neglected toys are supposedly played with each day, and it seems an exciting life for the toys. However, Woody seems unimpressed by the information, and remains loyal to his owner. Woody concludes that he should return to Andy, and sets to leave. Woody is actually taken by a young girl outside the day-care home. He meets her toys, and they converse about the day-care. Woody learns that the day-care is not how it first seems, but that the day-care is run by the corrupt ‘Lotso’ bear. The film continues to show how Woody and his acquaintances escape the day-care, and return to their true home.
In conclusion, the film had rather a weak plot, but still relates to the audience in a way that we feel like Woody is our toy, and we cheer him on to be successful with his pursuit. The film was released in 3D, in which the 3D effects added depth to the image and made it more realistic. However, this is not as obvious as most of the 3D used in upcoming films, and was somewhat seen as a disappointment. The picture was most definitely not as good as the first.
Music Magazine Cover Analysis
This is an NME magazine cover, I decided to analyse this magazine because this is the magazine I would like to recreate. It is useful for me to identify the particular conventions of this magazine and the type of graphology used for preference on my own magazine.
(Click image for labels)
(Click image for labels)
Institutional Data- Music Magazines
Circulation Figures
UK music magazines, figures to December 2009
Year on Year percentage changes:
BBC Music -5.2%
Classic FM -8.9%
Classic Rock +1.5%
Computer Music -4.5%
Future Music +0.0%
Gramophone -6.7%
Hot Press -5.1%
Kerrang -21.3%
Metal Hammer -16.9%
Mixmag -13.4%
Mojo -2.0%
NME -20.6%
Q -8.0%
Terrorizer -15.6%
Top of the Pops -10.2%
Uncut -13.3%
Word -22.5%
Empire +0.1%
Sight and Sound +0.6%
Total Film -4.7%
July 2010 Circulation figures
Classic Rock +0.0%
Kerrang +1.8%
Metal Hammer -4.3%
Mojo -6.2%
NME -17.3%
Q -10.7%
Uncut -3.2%
As you may see by the circulation figures, NME the magazine I plan to recreate has decreased a lot in the last few years. This tells me that the interest in that magazine appears to be dying out, and even after a relaunch the magazine still fails to attract its audience. Therefore, if this magazine does stop, there will be a gap in the market for this particular audience, which I plan to fill with my magazine.
UK music magazines, figures to December 2009
Year on Year percentage changes:
BBC Music -5.2%
Classic FM -8.9%
Classic Rock +1.5%
Computer Music -4.5%
Future Music +0.0%
Gramophone -6.7%
Hot Press -5.1%
Kerrang -21.3%
Metal Hammer -16.9%
Mixmag -13.4%
Mojo -2.0%
NME -20.6%
Q -8.0%
Terrorizer -15.6%
Top of the Pops -10.2%
Uncut -13.3%
Word -22.5%
Empire +0.1%
Sight and Sound +0.6%
Total Film -4.7%
July 2010 Circulation figures
Classic Rock +0.0%
Kerrang +1.8%
Metal Hammer -4.3%
Mojo -6.2%
NME -17.3%
Q -10.7%
Uncut -3.2%
As you may see by the circulation figures, NME the magazine I plan to recreate has decreased a lot in the last few years. This tells me that the interest in that magazine appears to be dying out, and even after a relaunch the magazine still fails to attract its audience. Therefore, if this magazine does stop, there will be a gap in the market for this particular audience, which I plan to fill with my magazine.
Music Magazine Cover Analysis
'Music' is a classical music magazine, it uses a simple and sophisticated style to attracts it's audience. I decided to analyse this particular magazine, because it is contrasting to the magazine I am recreating. (NME).
(Click image for labels)
(Click image for labels)
Mood Board for OK Magazine
Demographic Profile
The age of the audience for OK magazine is between mid-20 and late 40’s. The gender for the magazine is primarily females, and most probably relate to women throughout the UK. The marital status could be both divorced and married, but for younger readers could possibly be single. The social status of the readers would probably be in groups E, D and C; group E being people with benefits, pensions, widowers, or just lowest grade workers. Group D being the working class, semi and unskilled manual workers, and group C being skilled manual workers and lower middle-class.
Psychographic Profile
The majority of readers will probably be either Mainstreamers or Aspirers. OK magazine is a magazine about celebrity lifestyles and so Aspirers that want the luxury lifestyle will read about it and Mainstreamers that generally have an interest in this topic will also read it.
Lifestyle Subsets
The type of people that would read this magazine are most probably women with children, who are in their 30’s, and are working class and without many hobbies; Stereotypically known as housewives, although maybe not as conventional as once known. For example, they could be divorced or married, have children with multiple fathers, and may have a part time low paid job. This magazine is targeted at people who have a life that needs enriching, with a lot of time on their hands, and whose interests extend to the misfortune of others (mostly celebrities).
In my mood board, I included many images to represent the type of people who this magazine targets, I included the shops that the audience may shop at, the house and car they might have, the products that they might use, and just general information about the type of person, what they eat, what they look like, what they watch, how old they are etcetera.
My Contents page
On my contents page I tried to keep the same colour scheme as the one created on the front cover. The masthead on this page is using the same font, but I made it slightly transparent to show that it is less important than the rest of this text, but added a drop shadow to make it still stand out. Beneath this I added the word Contents to show what the page is about, I coloured this pink to make it stand out against the background and the masthead.
In my questionnaire I found out that only 20% of people would be willing to subscribe to the magazine, thus I decided to create an offer that would entice readers to subscirbe by offering 50% off. I advertised this offer at the top of the page, the text is bright yellow which adds attention, and I also used capital letters to capture attention. The background colour of this text is a pale purple; keeping to the colour scheme and also in an interesting shape to attract the audience.
The 'on the cover' section is conventional of magazines, it allows the audience to track the articles that captured their attention in the first place quickly and easily. Therefore I decided to keep to this trend, and used capitals to make it seem more important than the general articles located at the bottom. The colour I used was pink, and also used an outer glow to make it stand out against the background. I used this same outer glow on the pictures to create somewhat of a theme.
The pictures that I used I think portray college life pretty well, there are a couple of pictures of friendship groups, which can relate to the audience, and also a picture of a college party atmosphere. I used this picture because it relates to one of the articles that I included in the magazine.
The background that I used was a pale blue colour, I used this because I wanted to try and tie the cover and the contents page together through colour scheme, although I do think that I should have used a picture instead, to relate to my audience better. If I was to do this again, I think I would try and make my magazine look more professional.
In my questionnaire I found out that only 20% of people would be willing to subscribe to the magazine, thus I decided to create an offer that would entice readers to subscirbe by offering 50% off. I advertised this offer at the top of the page, the text is bright yellow which adds attention, and I also used capital letters to capture attention. The background colour of this text is a pale purple; keeping to the colour scheme and also in an interesting shape to attract the audience.
The 'on the cover' section is conventional of magazines, it allows the audience to track the articles that captured their attention in the first place quickly and easily. Therefore I decided to keep to this trend, and used capitals to make it seem more important than the general articles located at the bottom. The colour I used was pink, and also used an outer glow to make it stand out against the background. I used this same outer glow on the pictures to create somewhat of a theme.
The pictures that I used I think portray college life pretty well, there are a couple of pictures of friendship groups, which can relate to the audience, and also a picture of a college party atmosphere. I used this picture because it relates to one of the articles that I included in the magazine.
The background that I used was a pale blue colour, I used this because I wanted to try and tie the cover and the contents page together through colour scheme, although I do think that I should have used a picture instead, to relate to my audience better. If I was to do this again, I think I would try and make my magazine look more professional.
My Magazine Cover
The name of my magazine is ‘HGF’ I decided to place this at the top of the page in clear capital letters and in a bright purple colour so that it would stand out against the background and be easy to locate, I also did this because it is typical of most magazines that the masthead is located at the top. The font that I used was a youthful font that attracts my student audience. I tried to remain consistent in the use of font, and so kept it the same throughout. I did however; use a smaller size and different colours for the subheadings to make them stand out. I also used a drop shadow on the subheadings to add attention. The subheadings are arranged around the main image, this is to make them easy to read, and to also keep the attention on the image. I used bright coloured boxes behind the headings to make them stand out against the background, the text isn’t fitted inside the box, to relate to my audience and give a rebellious feel to it. The subheadings that I included on the front cover, are those that were asked for in my questionnaire.
To promote my magazine, I included beneath the masthead the fact that my magazine was new. I used an exclaimation mark to advertise and emphasis this point. The bright pink colour stands out against the blue background. The person on this magazine is making eye contact, this is conventional of magazines. I also included a date line and a barcode which are also conventional of magazines. The colour scheme that I used was purple, pink and blue which are bright colours, and should attract my audience.
If I was to change anything about my magazine cover, I would change the image. The lighting in this picture is not very good and so makes the magazine look unprofessional.
To promote my magazine, I included beneath the masthead the fact that my magazine was new. I used an exclaimation mark to advertise and emphasis this point. The bright pink colour stands out against the blue background. The person on this magazine is making eye contact, this is conventional of magazines. I also included a date line and a barcode which are also conventional of magazines. The colour scheme that I used was purple, pink and blue which are bright colours, and should attract my audience.
If I was to change anything about my magazine cover, I would change the image. The lighting in this picture is not very good and so makes the magazine look unprofessional.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)