New draft of my music magazine front cover.

A new, improved and more detailed drafted version of my music magazine front cover.

Front cover drafts.

Initial images for my music magazine front cover.

Initial images on Prezi

Market research on Prezi

Annotations of front cover drafts.

Target audience, cost and publishing of my music magazine

Demographics & Psycho graphics:

The target audience for my music magazine will be as follows; aged between 16-30 both males and females. Looking at the S.E.G (socio-economic group) scale, this is based upon the estimated income of people living in the U.K. I feel most comfortable with aiming my magazine at people who fall into the C1, C2, D & E bands they take up 82% of the U.K’s population and most if not all administrative workers, semi-skilled workers or unemployed. Now looking at the VAL scale (value of lives) my target audience will all hopefully come from each category therefore it’s easier to please everybody when creating my magazine rather than focusing on one particular group e.g. groups who are inner-directed (experimentalists and I-am-me’s) then I would therefore have to make the magazine’s house style less consistent and make it more scattered and dispersed.

Pricing/publishing:

Considering the demographics and psycho graphics of my magazine, they’ve helped me to make a decision for the price and publishing of my magazine too. It will be priced at £2.50, and published every month, I’ve chosen to do this because I believe that even if you’re unemployed or on a low income, you can still afford £2.50 each month on a treat, in this case my music magazine! After looking at the prices of other music magazines that are published monthly such as; ‘Q’ and ‘Clash’ they’re priced at around £3.50, therefore I believe there’s a gap in the market for the price range of my magazine.

LIIAR analysis iDJ magazine

The masthead is in the left hand corner and stands out above the red background, also because it’s in blocked letters it stands out above the rest of the writing/ headlines. The background colouring, which is red gives connotations of death, therefore it cleverly assists the main image as it looks like they’re dying. There are 10 cover lines on the front cover, proving that there’s a lot of content within the magazine itself. There’s a sky line along the top running from left to right which immediately becomes eye-catching for the audience. The way in which the bar-code and price are embedded within the awards that the magazine has won is clever, because it’s obvious the reader will look for the price, so will therefore see the awards too. At the bottom, there’s also a banner that promotes the magazine even more, it also suggests that it connotes ‘Bible’ qualities. I like the use of different fonts and their sizes; therefore they’re all individually striking. The house style that ‘iDJ’ has chosen to follow is; red and black. I’ve now noticed that by looking at the two previous music magazines that red is a very popular colour to follow for a house style, this could maybe connote a love and passion for music? Or just simply that it will stand out above any other magazine on a shop shelf. Looking at the layout of the magazine and where certain things are situated has to be taken into consideration when analysing any magazine, considering ‘iDJ’s’ layout it appears that most of the information, including the strap lines (which sum up what’s in the magazine) and synergy are promoted upon the left hand side below the masthead, I believe this is a cunning way to draw the reader in even more because it’s obvious that once they’ve seen the masthead they will want to know what is inside the magazine. Comparing ‘iDJ’ to ‘Mojo’ magazine and also exploring the way in which they both use teasing contents there is quite a varying difference, ‘iDJ’ has 3 teasing headlines which are on the opposing side to the strap lines and above the bar-code, using more than one teasing headline, again is certainly clever because the reader has three reasons to open the magazine up, yet upon ‘Mojo’ magazine, there’s not a single teasing headline! IDJ magazine is its own institution just like ‘Clash’ magazine, I believe they’ve taken their layout style ideas from ‘Mojo’ magazine and ‘NME’ too, I guess because they’re their own manager they can choose what they do and how they do it, and therefore there will be a most definite gap in the market for them. The message and moral issues that this magazine front cover gives off is that just like them, you can be an individual that’s interested in dance music and RnB too. The audience for ‘iDJ’ magazine, is stated in the logo of the magazine ‘DJ’s’, it’s not only aimed at those, but people who are interested in dance music too and of course anyone else who wishes to read it, the S.E.G banding group that the audience are from, is; from C1-E, they’ll probably be mostly students aged between 16-30, who are taking up DJ’ing as a part time job. They will be driven by needs (wanting to earn a living) yet as well they will be inner and outer directed because many students are experimental yet do want to achieve in life. The representation of ‘iDJ’ comes from the denotation ‘DJ’ DJ’s are represented in a positive light from this front cover.

Firstly looking at the layout of the contents page, it appears that the thumbnail images are the most important feature, then the headlines and strap lines which connote each other with the page number used as a caption in this case. The house style has followed on from the front cover (black and red) which just like ‘Clash’ and ‘Mojo’ magazine proves a professional flare and edge to the magazine and it’s institution. A different take upon the music magazine genre that ‘iDJ’ has taken upon itself is that instead of the editorial team and address being featured near the end or on the back page, it’s on the contents therefore it makes it more personal for the reader, almost as if they can interact with the team and see who has written what article before they read it. The way in there’s a section for ‘regulars’ again proves that the readers will be buying the magazine on a regular basis. One thing that’s clear though is the fact that the thumbnail images are all of males, I believe that this could be interpreted in two ways, the first being; sexism and subsequently going against their target audience, or simply a huge coincidence that each feature in the magazine has no need to reach out to a female audience. Upon the contents page the background is white therefore giving their other house style colour to appear upon the captions, outlining the contents ‘masthead’ and when giving information about the editorial team, again this is another devious tactic because the red helps to lure the reader into the subject matter that needs to be focused on.

Looking at the language on ‘iDJ’s’ double page spread it appears that the main word they want to stand out is ‘HEX’, a double entendre