Focus group

In this video  I talk to two teenage girls about what they think about three music magazines(which I featured in my 'What Draws Me To A Music magazines' post). From this I am able to see what a focused audience like and dislike about certain magazines features, I will be able to use this to help me later when creating my music magazine. I choice to ask them about appearance and contents so I could find out what attracts them to music magazines.

To conclude I feel that from my research I am sure that I would like to create a indie music magazine, as I feel I have gathered a lot of information from my research about the history, fashion and music to create a final product. From my marketing research I have found two important things, one being that indie artist have a very strong look to them that applies to their music, fashion and album art the second thing I have learnt is that indie music magazines use simple covers that look pleasing to the eye and that symbolizes indie as a genre. From my audience research  I have discovered that the majority of people do not like busy front covers and this(along with other audience comments) has helped me to build an image of what I want my magazine to look like and what I want it to hold.Something else I have learned from the audience research was that many people want the magazine to involve a scene of theme that runs through all the pages and that in involves well known artists.   

Music Magazine Survey

I created a survey on SurveyMonkey that outlined the research in which I needed on the sales of music magazines and why people may or may not buy them. This really helped me to see what people wanted to have in a music magazine and how I can put their feedback into making a good magazine. 

 

Q1) I asked this question as an intro to get an understanding of how many people read music magazines and if they don’t read them the rest of the survey allows me to see what would  get them to read a magazine.   

 From this questioned I found that 81.25% (13 people) of the 16 people who took the survey do not  read music magazines, this shows me that I must look in depth into the what people want to see in magazines so my magazine will be desirable to people who don’t read and those who do read music magazines.  

 

 

Q2) I choice to ask this question so I could see what music people were most interested in

The results show that 57.14% (8/16) of people who took the survey listen to Indie music, which is the genre I have chosen to do. This will help me when creating the magazine, as I will be able to know that many people enjoy this genre and will be able to link to it.

 

 

 

These results will also help me when I come to designing my magazine as I now know that many people listen to indie music so I will give my magazine an indie theme and involve indie fashion and lifestyle into the music magazine.  

 

 

 

 

 It has also shown me that many people listen to multiple genres this shows me that even if the reader is not fully intrigued by the genre they may still read a magazine as they could have some interest in the music or artist of the genre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q3) when creating survey I wanted to make sure I put a mixture of question in to do with sales and marketing. I asked this question to get a better understanding of what draws people into buying a magazine, was it the cover, content or something else?

 

 

From this I found that for some people appearance and content played a part in them choosing to buy a magazine but for 50% of people it was solely appearance, this shows me that when creating the magazine I must make sure the cover is immaculate and has a eye-catching astatic .

For the people who value content over appearance it I shall insure to create a artist who interest them and add good information and page ideas in the contents page.

 

 

 

 Someone who took the survey also commented on how the artists included in the magazine also play a part in the buying of the magazine, from this I will make sure to involve big names in the indie music genre into my magazine to get more people to look at it.  

 

 

 

Q4) I put this question in the survey to see how much people would be willing to pay for a music magazine, this will help me decide what the price of my music magazine should be.  

I found that 68.75% of the people who took the survey would pay £1-£3 and that nobody would pay more than £6 for a music magazine.

 

Q5) This was the final question in the survey, I put this question in to get an in depth look into what people specifically wanted to see in a music magazine, this will help me when I create my magazine to know what people want to include in it.

From this  I can see that people want the appetence to be striking and it is important that the colour scheme is thought through, it must also look "modern" and include extra information such as "music hakes". It is also important that the model looks "up to date" so creating the front cover image and making sure its suitable for the magazine genre of indie.

 

there was also comments about making sure the magazine was not "overcrowded" I will make sure to keep this in mind when creating the magazine. content wise people wanted to see "new and old" artist and also involving "tour" dates and "interviews".

 

all in all this survey has helped me a lot in seeing what people like and dislike in a music magazine and how to market and set up my magazine to make it desirable.     

What Draws Me To A Music magazines

This video is of some music magazines and what draws me into buying a music magazine. I look at three magazines in this, one Indie, Rock and Pop .

Indie Fashion

This is video is a look book of Indie/alternative fashion and my responses to indie fashion I did this to get an understanding of how the genre of Indie/Alternative is carried through to fashion. This will also help me later when I am looking at creating an artist as I will be able to dress them in an "indie" style. 

 

My model:

 

Indie Artist Branding

This is a slideshow on two indie artist and how they brand themselves and who they are. This research has helped me to understand how the artist is linked to their genre and why they make the music they do.

Indie artist branding from hibah24

Indie music videos

In this post I will be looking at indie music videos and how they link to the genre.

Lisa Mitchell - Coin Laundry

Lisa Mitchell is a Australian singer–songwriter who creates Indie pop (ect.) music, one of her most popular songs in "Coin Laundry" from her first studio album "Wonder" (2009) it charted inside the top thirty in Australia and was nominated for an ARIA Award in late 2009. The music video was directed by Ness Casswill and features Johnny Flynn who plays the love interest.

 

This video has a colourful vintage look to it that works with the lyrics to create a whimsical feeling. Lisa Michell wears natural makeup and a plain vintage looking dress, her hair is down and messy, this all creates a element of innocence and purity. the setting is decorated with delicate vintage ornaments like birdcages, this video links to the genre of Indie as the vintage themes are commonly linked to the genre and the fashion used could also be described as being indie.    

 

The xx - VCR

The xx produces Indie pop and Indie Rock (etc.) music. VCR is the fourth single by The xx, their debut album. This video has a more edgy, grunge like vibe to it, the video itself is mostly in black and white and features a young couple in an abandoned desolate house. The video itself uses a grunge "Tumblr" style that is commonly linked to the bands style. The dark tones and all around dark themes of this video show the different sides of indie, it is a genre that involves many styles of music.

The boy and girl wear dark jumpers and skinny jeans this also links to the subgenre of indie grunge and indie rock.      

 

Melanie Martinez - Soap 

Melanie Martinez makes Indie pop music. Soap is featured on her debut studio album, Cry Baby. The music video was filmed in Melanie's hotel bathroom and was filmed and directed by her close friends. As an artist she has a vey strong sense of style that is projected in her music, fashion and music videos. The video is rather dark and grungy and has a eerie vibe to it. The video shoe Melanie in a bathtub with projection on her creating dramatic shadows. Overall the video has a trippy style to it.

The video represents the genre of Indie as it differs from everyday music videos, it challenges the generic videos by offering an alternative look in the fashion, camera shots and editing,

Indie Music

This is a poster made on Glogster of the genre of Indie, it includes indie music subgenres, artist and the impact of indie music has had on the modern world.  

Music Magazines Fonts

This is a collage of different fonts from music magazine front covers. This really helped me to understand how different fonts can create different emotions and feeling. The boldness, colour and actual font give the audience an idea of what the magazine content is about. I really like the thin tall fonts that look as if they are handwritten, this kind of font is used a lot in indie and grunge magazines so it is something I may want to use in my magazine. 

  

Music magazine deconstruction

This is a Music magazine deconstruction of Wire magazine

Artist Inspiration

This is a video in which I go through artist who inspired my choice in genre and how their CD's and vinyl art can help me think about what goes into the genre of indie alternative.

Research Rationale

Upon receiving my brief many ideas were circulating my head, such as the genre of my music magazine. I have decided to make my target audience 14-25 year old's as I know many people in this age range and feel they suit the genre of indie/alternative well. As I am a sixth form student in a high school I have access to a large group of students aged 11-18. This will benefit me greatly as I conduct my research. Some examples of the primary research that I will be carrying out include surveys, interviews and questionnaires. This will give me a better understanding of what it is that my audience would like to see in an indie/ alternative music magazine. 

 

In addition to this I will select a group of people to create a focus group. This should present various views on indie music magazines that I will later analyse and apply to the production of my magazine. I will be asking things such as, what are the most important aspects of a music magazine to you? What colour schemes do you feel work best with this genre? And so on. The only disadvantage to a focus group is that some people may be influenced by the views of others. To overcome this I will ensure that they do a survey before the discussion starts and then they can talk about their views with confidence.

Prior to this I will deconstruct several indie music magazines to get a detailed view of the genre and what elements they use that I may decide to recreate when forming my magazine. Previously in my prelim I deconstructed music magazines. As I already have firsthand experience of deconstruction this should prove to be a straightforward task.

To research the genre further I intend to visit stores or websites to see what indie magazines have to offer, which ones stand out to me, and my target audience. Through this I will achieve a better understanding of what my target audience look for in an indie magazine and what attracts people to a front cover. Furthermore I will create a video in which I will explore indie sub genera’s and indie artists that I personally enjoy listening to.

To conclude, I feel confident with the going ahead of my research and am looking forward to gaining a better understanding of what my music genre (indie) has to offer. 

Thought on the Music Magazine Project

This is a audio of me talking about my feeling on the project and where I want to go with it.

Prelim Task:Audience Feedback

This shows the audience feedback i received from my magazine target audience(ages 13-14).

if video does not come up please select "show all content", if this does not work here is th link to the website:
http://www.wideo.co/en/view/11147101443543719473-untitled

Prelim Task:Finished Product

This is my final Magazine front cover, I decided to change my main colour to green as from feedback I received it said the red text was a bit overwhelming. I really like the image but think the masthead and text could be improved.

I used lined paper to link the front cover and contents page together so the flow from page to page would be smoother. I opted for less writing on the page as I did not want to take away from the main image.

I think the cover lines(etc.) link well to the image and the target audience

This is my final contents page. I also changed the colour of the text from red to green so the pages linked. I really like the ink splatters on this page along with the picture frames as they give a playful element to the page. 

If I was going to change anything about this page it would be the amount of text, I may of added some more to make the page more busy.  

Prelim Task:Contents Page Layout and Photoshop manipulation

This is a video of how I used Photoshop for my magazine contents page.  

Prelim Task:Cover Layout Decisions/Photoshop manipulation

Photoshop process text size from hibahjan12

Prelim Task:Masthead and Font decisions

I used my magazine title "Chalkboard" to influence the way laid out the Masthead, as i crated a chalkboard on Photoshop using shapes and texturing it with a wooden pattern. The font I decided to use is called 'DK Cool Crayon' from Fontspace, I used this to create a text that resembled chalkboard writing.

Prelim Task:Photoshop Front Cover

Prelim Task:Final Shots

This is a video of my final shots I decided to use, it also discusses why i choice these shot. 

Prelim Task:Flat Plan

Prelim Task:Shot list

These are some rough sketches of the shots  I plan to take for my magazine title and contents page.

Prelim Task:Reader Profile

Reader Profile

This is a reader profile suited to my collage magazine concept...

Prelim Task:Magazine Deconstruction

Magazine Deconstruction

 



Prelim Task:Introduction

welcome!

Hello and welcome to my Media Studies blog, I’ll be posting all my year twelve media work onto this blog so keep an eye out for new content. Our first project is the produce the front page and content page of a collage magazine. Before we create the magazine we must think about the colour schemes, target audience, content and some other themes. I have decided to target my magazine at year eight and nine students. I was also exploring titles that I could use (the title has to link somewhat to the “collage” brief) the tile I am considering is ‘Chalkboard’ as it is an object commonly used in schools. The colour Scheme I am considering is red, white and black as this will match the school uniform well. All in all I am looking forward to this project and hope to expand my ideas to reach a final product.