Research and Planning: Kerrang magazine contents page

• Large image taking pride of place at the top in the centre is of a feature not included on the front cover, it is a way of attracting more attention to the reader and making them focus on a wider variety of features.
• Smaller features are placed next to this large image for an identical purpose, to broaden the reader's mind and cause them to focus on even more of the magazine's content.
• The black and yellow fonts which are titles of different categories reflect the continuous house-style of the magazine, as is also seen in the logo. The font is almost identical too, with the only different being the text size, which makes it fit the page and look of reasonable proportion.
• The editor's feature in the bottom left corner is very personal, it makes the reader feel like they have been specifically addressed.
• Every feature has a title in bold, with a small description below it. These are informative of what is included, and where to find it, a generic feature of a magazine.
• The red colours stand out from the rest of the page, causing them to attract attention. They are effective as they make these features seem more important, which means they will be viewed.
• The split in the middle of the page seems to make the information seem like less than there is, this effectively makes the reader find the information easier to digest all at once.

Research and Planning: More Masthead Research

I continued experimenting with fonts using Photoshop and looked at colours. I like the effect of a solid colour on a background of a completely contrasting colour to it. I also like the powerful looking red, white, dark blue and green colours. I like these because they are similar to the harsh, crisp look of other rock magazines, particularly those aimed at a similar target audience so i know it is already a successful style.

Research and planning: Masthead Research

I have selected a number of fonts in on Photoshop to take a look at which I think best suits the title. At the moment I think that the two at the top and the fourth down are impressive. My music magazine will have a similar style to Kerrang and I think that the striking, bold, rough looking fonts would suit it best.

Research and Planning: Music Magazine Target Audience

Here is the target audience for the music magazine I am going to create:

• Age: 13-19 year olds. This is the same audience that already buy music magzines, specifically Kerrang magazine which is of very similar content to the music style included within my magazine, new sounding rock music.
• Gender: Both Genders. Rock music has a very balanced target audience of male and females. Though rock is not the most popular genre in the age group, this is the age group which listens to rock and purchases magazines more than most of the others.
  
• Occupation: The magazine will be targeted at students. This is because students have lots of free time and are already known to be a successful target audience within rock music magazines, they are the audience that buy magazines such as NME and Kerrang.
  
• Class: The target audience will be working class teenagers as they are the target audience for the music created by the artists who will be involved in the magazine so it would make more sense to aim at them since they would like to read more about the artists they listen to. My questionnaire shows that bands intended to be used within my magazine are already very popular with this class.
  
• Wealth: The target is not a particularly wealthy group. It is aimed at anyone with new modern ideas towards music, these people tend to be young, and not particularly wealthy.
  
• Interests: The target audience will have a strong interest in music. The majority of teenagers listen to music almost all the time my results of the questionnaire show.
  
• Outlook for the future: The outlook to the future isn't particularly important, the magazine is designed to be recreational for the audience. It is something for them in their spare time, and it relates to the music they have an interest and passion towards.
• My questionnaire results show that both male and female teenagers from my target audience are passionate about music and most would be happy to read about the artists suggested, showing the style is popular. I also discovered that they would be happy to pay around £2 for a new music magazine even though it is not of the most popular genre within the age group.
  

Research and planning: first podcast

• NME is a magazine featuring information about established Indie-Rock artists and new up and coming artists from this genre. It's masthead is always clear. This is to show exactly what it is. caption below the masthead "NME" is "New Musical Express" which is what the magazine's full title is, but at it has became popular being known as NME it doesn't need to advertise it's full title anymore.
• This magazine is aimed more towards males, and the red and grey colours show this, making it look a bit more rough than Kerrang! This also makes it more suited to the Indie scene of which it belongs to.
• As the magazine is a specialist magazine it doesn't have loads of features and relies on the target audience already having an interest in some of the artists it features to get them to read it. The main feature here is of a very popular band, The Enemy. The feature on them practically dominates the front page, showing the audience that if they aren't interested in that band, they probably wouldn't like the magazine, but if they are interested, then they would probably like the rest of the magazine's content.
• The bold, strong, contrasting colours of red, white and black are similar to other rock magazines to link with the sound it represents. It links with the strong, new, sharp style of music that is rock.
• This magazine cover only has very few images as it is more reliant on the content being wanted by it's target audience than trying to grab it's potential target with stories that stand out like Kerrang does. This is because NME is more specialist towards Indie-rock and Kerrang is more suited to a bold, new sounding style of rock music which is more of a similar audience to the one my magazine will be aimed at.
• Mediam shots are commonly used as the main image on the front covers of rock magazines and here is a medium-long shot. This is to show more of the band member and suits the magazine because it is more about the music and not the looks of the subjects in each image like often is the case with magazines of other genres.
• Other features that aren't as important are listed in a much smaller font at the bottom. These are to show that they are there if interest is in them, and they are not forgotten about, but there is much more content regarding the main features.
  

Research and Planning: Magazine Analysis 1: Kerrang Magazine

• The Kerrang Magazine is a rock magazine designed to focus on popular rock bands and also promotes impressive new bands. It uses the black colour throughout to show that it is related to the rock genre of music. Black is a colour commonly associated with rock music and for a rock music magazine, it makes a lot of sense to use it.
• Like with most magazines, there is a larger central picture, advertising the main story, and smaller stories with smaller pictures either at the bottom or at the side. This is done for a number of reasons. One of these is to show which is the main story and to grab people's attention by using an image of either something their target audience is familiar with, in this case the band YouMeAtSix, or surprising them with a new image, which would most likely be of a brand new band. New bands are usually smaller stories though, as the main articles are for established bands that already have their own popularity and will entice more people to read the magazine if it contains information about bands they like.
• The different colours all stand out with a bold font. Each piece of text looks very strong, reflective of the style of music. The text is of very contrasting colour to its background, again, making it stand out, like the style of music, which stands out from the other genres as it is quite bold itself.
• All the images are either of happy looking band members, or of them looking quite stylish. This grabs the audience, wanting to see more of the band members that they love to listen to. Seeing them either happy, or looking stylish, makes them look up to them, and read more about what's behind the happy or stylish bad members.
• Extra features of the magazine are much smaller, but they are in a different colour to the rest of the text in the magazine. The reason for this is to keep the reader focused on the main articles, which are bigger because they are more important, but also to grab the reader with even more reason to purchase the magazine.
• As it is an already established, and very popular magazine, the bottom masthead is covered by the tops of images. The reason this can be done is because it is an already widely recognized magazine and its target audience would recognize Kerrang! even if they aren't regular buyers of it because it is such a popular rock music magazine.
  
• All over the page there are little pieces of text, in a very clearly coloured, strong looking font, which advertise lots of things that the magazine contains. These are here to show how much can be read about and it also shows that there are so many articles and features, even if there are some not liked, there are bound to be some that are liked.
• The coloured borders around the other features makes them stand out on the page and entices the audience to take a look at what they are, even if they aren't impressed with the main article, as it's different on the page, so it may be different inside, and taking a look at what it is gives the audience the chance to see how similar or different the feature is.
• The magazine is aimed at teenagers and very young adults as these are the type of people who are both interested in the rock scene, and would buy magazines about it. The images are often of male band members because teenage girls tend to buy the magazine, and the male band members images are appealing to them.
  

Research and Planning: Music Magazine Questionnaire Results

I created a questionnaire and asked a few people questions to help me to create a music magazine of of my own. The results are displayed in the pie charts. I now know that I should make my magazine about £2 so that everyone can afford it. I will use bands like Paramore and Thirty Seconds to Mars as the main articles as they are popular, meaning that the magazine would sell more. This also tells me to have a style more similar to Kerrang! than to Q because it has a more similar target to Kerrang!. Also, I will seriously consider calling my magazine Pure sound as it proved to be a very popular name for a rock magazine in my questionnaire.