Q3. What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?

The institution company I've chosen to distribute my magazine is one that doesn’t yet distribute a magazine that is the same genre or style of my magazine. I believe that this is mandatory so that it can enhance the magazine’s audience who read similar magazines. I would not choose a company such as IPC Media or Bauer Media, who distribute extremely successful magazines such as Kerrang!, NME and Q. This is because my magazine GRANITE is extremely alike to these magazines therefore it’s too similar to use, when the distributors would want something different and unique to produce to their readers. Then it wouldn't be in competition with the other magazines.

These distributors, Future PLC distributes magazines that fit within my genre therefore my magazine would appeal to their audience. This displays that there is consistency within their magazines that they choose to distribute, as all of the magazines follow the typical stereotypes and demographics of male and female audience 16-25 producing magazines about indie/rock music and guitars and drums which are hugely popular within the indie/rock genre, as well as brands such as TOPMAN and Apple – which is generally the same target audience that I aim to reach out to. I feel like this is the most appropriate distributor to go for as they would do a successful job of publishing my magazine – it wouldn’t go unnoticed. Future PLC has great experience in publishing and distributing music magazines as well as involving itself with brands appropriate to the target audience, so it is almost guaranteed that my magazine will be successful with this distributor.

Future PLC have published many different magazines such as: Total Guitar, Musicradar an online magazine, Rhythm and Guitarist. Some of these magazines are not necessarily well-known to most readers; Guitarist is aimed at a different target audience to my magazine, males who are are in there 40's. They all fit within the same genre of my magazine therefore this would enhance my magazine’s readership and circulation as even just mentioning the genre of ‘indie’ or 'rock' would interest a lot more readers of whom read the other magazines as they all have similar attributes and qualities; this would interest future PLC as they would feel intrigued to try out my magazine as they are aware of the previous success from the other magazines that they have published; would like to have a magazine that is open to a wider ranged audience like GRANITE.

I have also decided to use Future PLC as my distributor is because they were named ‘Best Digital Publisher’ at the AOP awards in 2011. Although having a print magazine is very significant, my magazine is going to be a hit online as well therefore a distributor that can maximise the success of my online magazine is essential, especially to beat other successful magazines such as Q. As the new media is currently taking over the traditional, print media, it is necessary that I create both of these types of magazines as I want my magazine to appeal to as much of the audience that I can. I believe that Future PLC will be able to take advantage of my magazine with combined efforts, my magazine will be able to become highly successful.

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

My magazine suits the age range of 16-25 and both genders, I believe younger readers are more interested in new music and artists and finding out about them. My research and audience data also suggests this as it shows that young people are more willing to research and find out about new artists whereas older readers know who they like, and know their styles. I think the social class and gender of my readers is a lot wider my results highlighted, females and males were both interested in new media to keep up to date and to engage with their favourite artists. This was useful as it meant that I knew it could add more features using social media into my magazine, which I have done with  Twitter and Instagram, and also decided to create a website to watch exclusive videos and to enter competitions to win big prices such as; Glastonbury tickets, meeting a band/artist. Because my audience aren’t too old they would be computer literate so things like android phone apps and viewing my website would be extremely easy for them.

I also worked out that my target audience enjoy going to festival, gigs, and buying music off ITunes. This emphasis that most of the people who are buying my magazine are from a middle class background; they will have to be able to afford festivals, gigs, buying online music and also buying my magazine what is priced at £4.50 monthly what is an affordable price for a monthly magazine. This helped me create the other features in my magazine including ‘100 greatest gigs ever’ and ‘Win tickets to Glastonbury’. I also have included QR scanners because in my research I saw that nearly all of my target audience had smart phones which have access to the internet so therefore I wanted to use this to my advantage so my audience can scan through and automatically open my magazines web page.

I also had a think about the style of bands and artists in my magazine. All of them are from the indie and rock genre. I decided to have my magazine focusing on two genres because then it opens a wider readership. However both of the genres fit in extremely well together and most of my audience will enjoy listening to both.

At the moment these two genres seem to have a very popular following online and mainly from young people. Because my target audience enjoy listening to new up and coming bands. They like to have their own taste and their not scared of what others think of their music choice. The indie-rock following is full of people who want to find new exciting bands and buy their albums, go to their concerts and support them online. A great way to get my audience to buy my magazine is to advertise a free ITunes song from either the rock or indie genre in each monthly issue. This would be a fantastic way for my magazine to be known; people would be wanting to buy it just to get the free song. However they will also have to read through some of my magazine. This could get them into liking my magazine so then they will carry on buying each issue. When thinking about the styles of the artists I also had to think about the way I would present these bands. I had to make sure the bands had attention grabbing headlines, and that the images were sharp, unique and interesting. I needed to make sure that my target audience would wanted to pick the magazine up and read it. It needed to be different from all of the others on the shelf it need to be bold and appeal to both gender and most ages.

The audience for my music magazine are 16-25 teenagers and young adults, interested in the genre and want to engage in new ways with my music. The social class for my magazine will be grade A, B and sometimes grade C1. A and B will be main grade of social class for my magazine; my target audience will mainly be, class A upper middle class, working as a higher managerial, administrative or professional. class B upper middle class, would be intermediate managerial, administrative or professional. Class C1 lower middle class, supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional.

These job types will impact on my magazine because the majority of my target audience will be earning a good quantity of money and will be extremely willing to pay the price of £4.50 for my magazine. The psychographics of my magazine will apply to lovers of music festivals, gigs and those who enjoy reading and being kept up to date with the latest news and information about music and their favourite artists. I believe that my target audience will fit within the 'mainstreamer' and 'reformers'; they are very individual and independent people who do not like to follow the crowd. Their social habits will be consumption via hard copies from shops such as WHSmith and newsagents, as well as reading online or on apps as they enjoy to be on the go.

Class presentation and feedback

When presenting my music magazine to the rest of the class it allowed me to confidently sell my magazine and identify all the reasoning behind all the features of my magazine. It also allowed me to find out feed back from my peers to see what they thought of my magazine overall. I took this opportunity to ask my peers to fill out a five sheeted questionnaire that helped me with improving my magazine. From receiving feedback from my target audience will allow to me identity the improvements needed for my magazine to make it the best it could be. My main concerns I decided to address to my peers were issues with my contents page and third double page spread.

Improvements for my third double page spread:. Add more images to the right hand side of the page
. Not have a full bleed image. As they've been used frequently.
. Use other colours than black.

 Improvements for my content page:
 . Include images of artists/bands performing live. E.g. Reading Festival or Camden Round  House
. Fill in gaps at underneath 'On the cover' with a subscription box.
. Write more headings for 'On the cover'.

I have listened to what my peers have sign from my feedback forms, however I disagree with some of the improvements, such as: not using black so often. This colour fits into my music genre of Indie/rock. It's a popular colour that is used in many well known magazines such as NME and Kerrang. I have listened to some of the improvements from my peers; I agree parts of it needed improving.

I have now changed my contents page by adding in some photographs I took at Reading Festival this Summer, I also took some more photographs of different models, to look like they where in a band. This filled in the space down the middle of my page. I also added a subscription box underneath 'On the cover' I decided this would be popular with my target audience because they're in the Class A,B and C1 and also working as most of them are at an older age they can afford to pay a little extra each month to have GRANITE my magazine delivered to their doors. I also double checked all of my sell-lines on my front cover to make sure I had included them on my contents page. I realised that I hadn't included them all so I added one that I miss in to fill the space.

I personally didn't want to change my third double spread because I really love all of the full bleed images. I also think it's really appropriate for my target audience because they have the money to spend and my magazine is priced at £4.00 a month, what is quite pricey for a new magazine coming out. Printing full bleed images in colour is quite expensive, but I love it. Because it's something different and unique.

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The main way in which I attracted my target audience was by the cover image and content featured inside the magazine. The main attention-grabbing feature is the mid shot image I used on the front cover which appeals to the audience and intrigues the audience to purchase my magazine. The colour scheme, of which follows my popular house style of red, white, black and purple attracts the audience as it's big, bright and bold which stands out and makes the magazine look attractive for the buyer. It's a very popular house style within rock music magazines such as: NME and The Rolling Stones. It also is suitable for both genders.

I decided to create a small competition with my magazine, by including quotes of song lyrics from the indie/rock genre, on the top of each double page. To enter the competition you have to tweet my magazines Twitter account, with the name of the song and the artist/band. The winner will then receive a free ticket to Reading Festival. I think this works very well with my magazine; my target audience enjoy going to festivals. From seeing this competition they would be more interested in my magazine. The front cover features the model giving direct eye contact whilst looking bare face but having a striking unique hair colour - this makes the model appeal to both genders as she can be seen as an idol to women and attractive and just a good performer to males therefore engaging both of the sexes to purchase the magazine to find out more about her as she lures them in.

When you first look inside my magazine, the reader will be automatically glued to all of the hot topics I have chosen to include in the contents page and they won't know where to look first. The list along the left hand side of the contents page is 'The band index' with a list of all of the artists in the Indie/rock genre, some that are well known and also some that would be up and coming artists. However my target audience are very open at exploring unheard of artists and like being unique and different listening to new artists and not following the crowds.

My article is very long and interesting. It's  packed with exciting stories and news which keeps the reader interested. However towards the end some of my article uses taboo language and turns quite aggressive. This is appropriate for my target audience; the Indie/rock genre tend to have this in their magazine articles. My article is aimed at both genders and late teens/young adults. This has been made clear because of the choice of topic is appropriate for both genders and the, text is acceptable for the age range.
My article goes over 2 and a half double page spreads, that all have full bleed images. These images inside creates an personal relationships between the magazine and the buyer. By having a interview of Charlotte Young's gig inside GRANITE, allows the reader to find out everyone's opinion on Young and not just GRANITE. It also gives the readers something to laugh at and some factual information.

For the appearance of my magazine, I decided to make my GRANITE have a very unique, professional, grungy and edgy look. The house-style of my magazine is red, white, purple and black - colours which connote power, royalty, love and passion - all of which I believe my magazine has. Red is also a very gender neutral colour and highlights the beauty and loyalty of the magazine. Red appeals greatly to the audience therefore making it look professional and attractive to the buyer. This gives the magazine a style that people will remember and look for in the future, especially on shelves as it is very eye-catching. I decided to add some purple into my magazine so that it was a little more unique then all of the other Indie/rock magazine out there today.

I mainly have attracted my audience into my magazine by advertising well known bands and artists as sell-lines on the front cover. This will make my reader want to pick up my magazine and want to have a look inside.

 By using all of my own images, It really gave the magazine a real and genuine look. Using photographs I took myself at Reading Festival this year. These images immediately inform the reader of the sort of concerts which will be discussed, whilst also indicating that the magazine interacts with the audience and credits the gig-goers by using their images - a lot of people are interested in being featured on GRANITE'S instagram account for their own personal taken images therefore using this feature has created a unique selling point for my magazine which attracts my audience.

In earlier blog posts, I mentioned using new media to attract my specific target audience as through research I discovered that my target audience are thoroughly engaged with spending the majoirty of their time online on social networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. I have taken to these social networking websites by creating accounts with them to promote the magazine further. This enables the audience to stay involved constantly with the magazine and increase personal relationships with GRANITE and help them to gain more information. I have advertised GRANITE'S website on each double page spread in my magazine and also included their Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook account.

 

Penultimate Draft

Process of change throughout my contents page



Left hand side is a close up of a part of my contents page, on the right hand side i have displayed the changes.

I decided to make some small changes within the layout of my contents page, firstly I've added some images of some artists i have talked about on the front cover and the band index. This has mainly been done to attract the audience into buying my magazine more. I needed to add a range of different images with different models to make my magazine more realistic and professional. There was too much space on my first contents page that needed to be filled up. If you're paying £4.50 for my magazine it has to be at a high professional standard with good quality images and layout. From my audience feed back of my first draft the audience picked up on my contents page not having a subscription box, I have now created one on my final contents page. This will appeal to my target audience because, they'll be paying £1.50 extra but the magazine will be delivered directly to their front door. So they will have to receive it every month. This is extremely beneficial for GRANITE; we'll receive more money and have people having to receive our magazine for at least one year through a subscription.

Another change that has been made on my contents page is adding one more sell line on the 'On the cover' this has been done because it was something that i had displayed to the audience on the front of my magazine but I had forgotten to include it underneath this heading.

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

During the creation of my product I used a range of different technologies in order to produce a professional magazine. The first technology I used was InDesign, which I was new to, to create a basic template of what my magazine would look like. After gathering ideas from several other music magazines I decided to go with three columns of writing on my first double page spread. InDesign made this decision an easy one for me to carry out, as they feature a tool which enables you to carry text on across columns. As my article was already written, this made it a quick and efficient start, as I simply copied and pasted the text in. I drew out boxes on my contents page, ready for text and images to be inserted later, and did the same on my front cover. I used the master page to create professional details such as the Twitter account featured at the top of each page and my magazines website at the bottom of each page. The master page allows you to add any text or images you would like to feature in the same place on every page, which makes the magazine overall look more professional as everything is in its place. I used the master page to also create banners on the top and bottom of each page along with page numbers. Although when I started, I was not familiar with all of the tools however now I feel like I have learnt about the programme and feel much more confident with using it.

 I carried out two photo-shoots using my Cannon SLR because this is my own camera I know exactly how to use it and felt very confident that my images where going to turn out how I wanted. The fact this my camera is digital is another helpful factor as I was able to take hundreds of photos and also check over them, deleting those I did not feel where appropriate for my magazine genre. I used this camera when taking photos of my model up in Camden and Shoreditch; most of my images where taken in good lighting as I when out at around midday, I decided that I didn’t need to take any photos in the end on an white back drop. Because my magazine is aimed at people who enjoy indie/rock music I wanted the backgrounds all to be bright, bold and patterned. My photographs still looked extremely professional even though I didn’t use any trigger lighting, where bright lights flashed in sync to when I took a photograph.

I was then able to transfer the photos from the camera to my computer by inserting the memory card into a USB, which allowed me to save them onto my computer very quickly.
After taking a range of photos I then edited them, so they were appropriate for use in my magazine. To remove the background from the photos, I used the colour range tool in Photoshop, which I feel I am rather experienced with as I’ve used this tool several times before in previous coursework. After doing so, I adjusted lighting levels on the photos so that they were either brighter or darker, depending on my preference which varied from photo to photo. On my front cover I kept the whole image behind the title apart from my models head, this was tricky to do as I had never edited a photograph like this before. All I had to do was copy the image, then rub out all of it apart from the head and then paste it back on top.

 I have also used other forms of technologies to construct my product, mainly the internet, by making use of many sites available to me. Blogger, however, has been one of the largest contributors to the production of my magazine as it allowed me to document every stage of the production process and also let me constantly update my ideas, in my draft posts, before publishing them. Survey Monkey allowed me to create surveys to hand out to my target audience in order to gain information on what they would enjoy reading in my magazine, whilst Google supplied me with images and information about previous music magazines and their distributors. Google has also allowed me to collect images that inspired my photo shoot, or magazine in general, and post these to my blog in the form of a mood board.