Target Audience

As I said in my previous blog the target audience for my magazine will be females aged 15 and above who are music lovers of the pop genre. There will also be some bits who might be appealing to teenage boys as well. Using http://www.nrs.co.uk/ I found out the target audiences of the different magazines within my chosen genre.

I had a look at the 'Top of the pops' magazine and found that there were 164 000 readers overall in the period October 2009-September 2010 for which shows the huge amount of UK readers interested in this magazine. The research shows that there were 55 000 readers of the audience ABC1 and 109 000 readers of audience C2DE. This suggests that C2DE which are people in the lower class , pensioners or others who depend on the state of their income and have more free time are the main readers of this magazine. The table shows that there are 145 000 readers aged 15-44 males and females. 20 000 of the readers of this magazine are 45+ which is almost 4 quarters less than the young readers.The total number of male readers is 41 000 and the total number of the female readers is 123 000 which suggests that females are the main readers of the magazine.

The NRS Readership for 'Top of the pops' magazine showing the results from July 2009 to June 2010 estimates that there have been 158000 readers overall. 58 000 are marked as ABC1 class and 100 000 as C2DE which shows that most readers are from lower and working classes such as semi and unskilled manual workers,teenagers and others who depend on the state of their income.

The magazine I am creating will be aimed at females aged 15+ with ABC1 social status as they are more desirable for gossip and will be more interested in buying my magazine.

Introduction to Main Coursework.

For my main piece of coursework I have been asked to design a front cover,contents page and double page spread for a music magazine. My work will be produced using the program InDesign. I have researched different music genres and magazines and decided to make a pop magazine.I have also researched the audiences for pop music magazines and found out that it's usually female teenagers from all ages.The target audience I am producing my magazine for will be females aged 15 and above. This task will be a development of my skills from the preliminary task I did at the beginning of the course.

This is my finished contents page.

I think I could have done a lot better. I could have put a background to make the page more colourful. In this way it doesn't seem that this is a contents page of a magazine. It looks like it's a contents page of a book. I also could have changed the font and the size of the text on the page.

Apart from that , I think it is organised and easy to read. I didn't have much time to put pictures and layouts so I left it in this way.

Evaluation

This is my finished front cover. I think it is quite good because this was the first time I used this program and for this amount of time I think I've done quite well.

There are things that I could have done better - maybe the font of the title and the main sells.The title overlaps with the letters of the background picture. Also the bottom of the front cover looks unfinished and not so attractive. I also could have put another picture.

Apart from this , I think the rest is good. I like the main image I took.

Flat Plans Contents Page

This is my flat plan for the contents page. I have only put the main sells which are on the front cover. And I have also changed the order and the pages info. I have added a new main sell which is not in this flat plan.

I have also added a text box which shows that the rest of the text will be there. At the bottom of the page I have put the Lewes College logo. I haven't put any pictures.

Flat Plans Front Cover

This is my scan for my front cover. This was the first idea of how my front page was going to look like.

Originally my title was going to be in black and bold letters as it shows on the picture.But then I decided my title to be in sky blue letters because there was a text from the picture behind and the letters were overlaping with the title. First I decided to have a tag line but then i realised there will be too much text and the audience wouldnt like my magazine. I changed the order of my main sells and added a new one as there was a spare place at the bottom of my front cover. My scan shows that the layout is red. But in fact I decided that my layout will be from the picture i took.

The only thing I didn't change was the main image.

Photographs

I have chosen to put this picture for my magazine front cover. Scarlett is in front plan so the audince will clearly see the main image.

I think that this picture is quite good as it shows a happy girl and the college logo behind her. You can also see the 'Visitor seating' written on the logo which suggest that Scarlett might be introducing the college life to new visitors.

The picture on her T-shirt is also related to the audience.

Photographs

I have decided not to put this picture on my front cover as Scarlett is too far away and magazine readers wouldnt be able to see her properly from the first look. You can also see other things in this picture like part of the table and the sofa which will distract the audience.

Introduction

I have been asked to do a magazine for Lewes college. We have to do a design cover and contents page of the magazine. My target audience is 16-19 years old students.