Music Magazine Project: 2013

I decided to do my article on my folk magazine 'Offbeat' as I felt that I had more photos of a better quality with more than one location and use of dress codes, which would make the article more sophisticated and interesting for the reader. I also think that my folk magazine is a unique product and very different to other magazines currently on the market as the target audience and genre are not conventionally combined.

The front cover my feature article is for.

The audience my magazine is aimed at is girls aged 13-20 who are interested in folk music, and their audience values are fashion, attending music concerts and playing music themselves. They may be interested in current music magazines such as The Fly and We Love Pop.

In my feature article, I used images with props such as an acoustic guitar to help target my audience as it is quick to put across the style of music that the magazine features. While pop acts tend to use bright sets, I used the natural location of a forest with a colour palette of greens and browns which is conventional of articles about folk, indie and acoustic acts, as I found in this article featuring Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift is similar to and aimed at a similar target audience as my artist so this article provided help as to the style of photos I should be using.

However I made sure that my model wore some bright colours as well to target the younger audience of 13-20 age range it is aimed at. The dress codes my model is wearing binary oppose the pale background, drawing attention to the images which is important as I have found that young audiences prefer images rather than large amounts of writing. As younger audiences are stereotypically interested in fashion I made sure that she had dress codes that fit with current fashion.

Friendly gesture codes and binary opposition between background and dress codes.

For a young audience, I also found gesture codes to be extremely important. While magazines aimed at an older audience such as NME magazine which I analysed were able to feature intimidating and serious facial expressions, all of the magazines I looked at which were aimed at a teenage target audiences were very different. The Top of the Pops article with Little Mix is a good example of this; they show smiling facial gesture codes and ditsy poses making the audience feel as if they know and can identify with them. This links to Maslow's hierachy of needs in terms of social needs, as the reader feels as if they fit in with the band and belong as a fan. I tried to recreate this in my magazine as many of the images feature my artist smiling and laughing and this makes the magazine look welcoming. I also used some silly pictures of the artist posing as the audience can identify with her (personal identity) and find it entertaining. (both part of the Uses and Gratifications theory by Blumler and Katz)

NME's article on Green Day featured stern facial gesture codes.

On the other hand, Top of the Pops with Little Mix used grinning and joking poses.

As I took most of my photos in an outdoor, public location rather than a set the only problems that occurred were due to practical reasons. For example, it was hard to control the lighting and framing of shots as well as making sure no members of the public were in the background. To overcome this, I used a tripod to ensure the camera was stable and the framing was correct, and timed my shoots for earlier in the day so there was enough lighting. I also found that it was hard to cut around the model's hair on some of the white background shots. However I am pleased with how my images turned out and I think they are a strength of my work. Compared to images in NME which I analysed, my images on location are similar to theirs while my indoor photos are more similar to the style in We Love Pop aimed at younger audiences. Therefore, I think I have got a good mix between the style of music and who the article is aimed at in my images.

The natural colour palette and lighting in this The Killers article in NME resembles the style of my images on location outdoors.

This We Love Pop article featuring The Wanted uses similarly styled 'green screen' images over a pale background which I featured in my article.

When I asked for feedback, my audience have commented on the quality of the images being good and looking professional as well as liking the photos in the forest in particular.

My audience particularly liked the photos taken in the forest.

For the layout of my article, I tried to follow the conventions of music magazines aimed at younger audiences which I analysed such as We Love Pop. I found that they spread out the text as much as possible, used a lot of pictures, had large gaps between columns and other features as well as the main text. I used all of these features in my work, for example instead of just the main article I did interactivity features such as quickfire questions, an online video and a competition. This again links to Maslow's social needs as the reader will feel as if the are being included, as well as the uses and gratifications theory in terms of integration and social interaction. From the research I have done, I think a young audience will like this as I found that they prefer to have other visual features in a magazine and don't like big blocks of text.

Small interactive features such as quickfire questions break up the text.

I also used many conventions of music magazine articles which I have found in my own article. I used box-outs to add interest and more colour to particular pieces of text, and model credit quotes to pull out parts of the interview which will appeal to the target audience. I added links to online features such as twitter and facebook which I found many more magazines doing now, and this particularly works for a teenage target audience who are stereotypically known to be prominent on social networking websites and apps. I also tried to create a strong house style following on from the front cover, using the same fonts, colours, image styles and box-outs. This makes a clear brand for the magazine which the audience will remember and I think I was successful in doing this.

I used conventions such as box-outs, interactivity features such as social networking, model credit and a house style.

I can further apply the Uses and Gratifications theory to my magazine article, as it includes both information from the interview itself and entertainment from the photos and some of the answers and these make a text successful, as well as social integration features such as the twitter, facebook and youtube links to include the audience and make them feel like they are part of the magazine.

Uses and Gratifications theory - Social interaction and integration

Spreading out text and making my article look appealing and not as if there is too much text is something which I thought was important when I designed my layout. I began typing in size 10 font over 3 pages, but I decided to add another page so I could make the text bigger and add more images as the text didn't look easy to read. I also spread the columns further apart and this also really helped. A problem I encountered when creating the layout was fitting the text around some of the different shapes of image, but I think I worked this out by trying lots of the text styles while editing and found one that worked. When asking my audience about my layout I found that although most liked it, some of the younger people in my target audience found that there was still too much text and not enough breaking it up, so to improve this I could add more box-outs and images.

This example from Bliss magazine shows the small paragraph lengths, large gaps between columns and lots of images to counter the text.

I think that the content in my interview targets my audience as there is a mix of serious and light hearted questions, from help on how to get into the music industry to comments about Disney. I think this makes the interview interesting and helps to target people who like different things. Readers who want to get into music will like the advice, readers who like watching music live will like the information on upcoming gigs and readers who just listen to music will like the recommendations and gossip on other artists. This show's that the artist and magazine has a wide range of ideologies such as hard work, giving advice, fun and fashion. According to Dyer's star theory, this means my magazine will appeal to a large range of people who have some of the same ideologies, meaning they feel like the magazine is targeting them and are more likely to buy it. The star in my magazine is also an opinion leader according to the two step flow theory, with the readers of the magazine more likely to follow advice, opinions or buy products recommended in her interview.

In this article from Q magazine, Ed Sheeran acts as the opinion leader in the two step flow theory.

I found it quite hard to get started on writing the content, but once I had started I think it flowed quite easily. I found that other music magazines aimed at younger audiences such as X Factor magazine also printed their interviews as question and answer rather than a report of the interview and I used this style as it breaks up the text more and gives an opportunity to add more colour. When I asked for feedback, my target audience said they liked the small features in my magazine like the quickfire questions.

X factor magazine followed the Q&A format.

Overall I think that I was successful in making my article as I finished making it on time, it looks quite realistic and my target audience were very positive when asked about it. I really enjoyed the task particularly working on my editing and layout skills and being able to use creativity to come up with ideas for photography and content.

For my classical magazine photoshoot, my model has sophisticated dress codes of a black dress, fur coat and red lipstick as the magazine is aimed at an older audience than my folk magazine. The location is an old fireplace in a country house with iconography of the fireplace, wood and vases. This connotes calmness and fits with the style of music itself, and this setting may be something the audience themselves aspire to live in. There is a colour palette of warm browns and reds, fitting with the snug homely atmosphere. The use of the violin fits with other classical magazines I have looked at (Gramophone and Classical Music) which often use the instrument the artist plays in the photoshoot. Here are some of the photos I have taken: