My title blocks

1.Smudgers

2.Riesling

3.Heretica

4.EightOne

5.CFB

Title block analysis

"Q" is a music magazine. Their original target audience are people from the male demographic whose ages range between 24-44. Although it is a male magazine, like other magazines of course others from the opposite will also read it. Q magazine is a magazine that is not soft, but quite hard so features more hard rock artists such as Madonna and Muse magazine has a lot of in-depth articles due to their target audience, they will not feature artists like Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers due to the demographic being quite older. The word “Q” sounds like homonyms. Q sounds like queue which could refer to the fact that many different artists are queuing up to be featured in their magazine. Q also sounds like cue which is a musical term, telling the artist that it’s their time to begin, possibly highlighting that this magazine boosts many different artists’ careers. The colour this logo has are red and white, red to possibly highlight the passion off the magazine, as well as possibly danger, while the white highlights the simplicity and calmness of the magazine. People from the English readership will recognize these colours as colours for the national flag. The style of this letter is very formal, and looks like a classic Times New Roman font. This magazine is published monthly.

NME is a music magazine which is an acronym for 'New Musical Express'. The acronym is done so that the name of the magazine is easier to remember. Most times the audience do not know what the acronym stands for. The original target audience are people from the male demographic whose ages range between 15-24, so mainly teenagers. They use the colour red to show their passion and love for music, whilst they use capital letters to make a bold statement that they are a powerful company. They use a selection of three colours to make the magazine stand out so that many connotations can be gathered from it, such as they cater for different ages. The word NME said fast and casually sounds as if your saying "enemy", possibly as if the magazine are an enemy to normal society, so they co in the complete opposite of what stereotypes say. The use of the black background makes the text stand out more, its almost as if the text is three dimensional. The font seems to be Arial.

Kerrang is a music magazine which is suited for the rock genre. The original target audience are people from the male demographic aged 15-24, but the main readership of this magazine is actually 15-44. The title is actually very bold and consists of visible cracks to show that the magazine is hardcore, and a powerful magazine to an extent it even cracks words. The word kerrang sounds like an instrument struck violently, and the text kerrang shows this. The cracks show deformation and violence, it is only in black which shows that it believes in one statement and it does not believe in any others. It only uses one colour which shows that they only cater to one genre audience and that is the rock audience. The black text fits in to the stereotype that the only people that read these magazines are emo's, Goths and scene people.

Vibe is a music magazine. Their original target audience are people from the female demographic aged between 15-24. The title is very standard yet bold and in your face. It is written in red font which stands out to show passion and independence of the magazine, carrying the R&B genre. Vibe varies the colours it chooses for each issue, although the red in this issue could possibly highlight the passion and emotion of the person covering the front cover. The font seems to be a bold and large sans serif font. It seems to use a mixture of capital and lowercase letters within the title. The title looks very professional, but the V is slanted which seems to give the title as well as the magazine an edgier feel to it.

The source is a music magazine. This magazine title block seems to be more tedious and less appealing, even though it uses a bright colour such as yellow; the black background deflects the spirit of the title. The font seems to be sans serif. The word "The" is at the side of the word "Source" in a smaller font to highlight the importance that this magazine is not just any magazine but it is a huge source of information.

Mojo is a music magazine. The original intended target audience are males. The word originally means a charm or a spell. But now its more commonly said meaning sex appeal or talent, an example would be "I can get any girl if I just use a bit of the old mojo". The font is written in plain text to highlight its plain simplicity, whilst it has shadows to highlight that there is more than meets the eye than just the front cover, inviting the audience to read more. It uses two colours which are black and white which suggest that it is a rock magazine, due to it being the traditional colours of the genre. The font seems to be sans serif and bold, which highlights that it is not too much of a sophisticated magazine but a laid back one.

Mixmag is a music magazine. It seems to create its title from the use of two words mix and magazine, this is probably foretelling that the magazine is a different magazine and will consist of various different types of music and tastes. The title block uses bright colours, which is different from the previous magazines title blocks that I have analysed, this is probably done to highlight the genre of the magazine which may be pop. The font seems to be sans serif due to it not having any flickers on the end, this is probably done to show the flexibility of the magazine which is a dance magazine.

Ideal reader profile

My ideal reader is named Levi Cruz; he is based in London and is 18 years old. Levi currently attends a Sixth form college, and is in his second year completing his A2 courses. In his spare time he enjoys singing, watching x-factor and is a DJ at his local radio station. He comes from East London which is an area which boasts of a variety of music tastes ranging from R&B to rock. His mother is a social care worker, whilst his father is a graphic designer. He is the eldest of his siblings, as he has two brothers and two sisters, which pits himself as well as his family in the c2 socio economic scale. My magazine is going to contain a lot of detailed articles, this is suitable for Levi because during his GCSE's he acquired A for English literature and B for English language, his target grades for his A2 all reside within the A*-C boundary. Levi enjoys playing basketball as well as partying. He also helps out with charity, but also enjoys doing graffiti. When Levi advances in his education he would like to go university, possibly a film school and major in film school and become a scriptwriter and director. On my front cover I will choose a stylish black male on my front cover, to appeal to people like Levi. Levi will like it because he can relate with the people

Results

I created my questionnaire and then handed it out to 20 people, when I received my results I calculated them so that I could plan my work further. Within my survey I noticed that 40% of my survey takers preferred R&B music to other genre which made me decide that my magazine’s main genre was going to be R&B, but I also reviewed the situation and saw that pop and saw that hip-hop came second, then dub-step then hip-hop, and many artists who come from the R&B genre also do music for the rap and hip hop genre so I will use a combination on R&B, rap and hip hop in my magazine, and a multitude of other genre’s on the side. In my survey 60% of the people said that they would like the magazine to be released fortnightly, and I decided it was best because it gave us more time to give them what they want and pack more information into the magazine. I came to a conclusion that I would have both an popular artist as well as an up and coming artist on my front cover because of the fact that we are all about helping the reputations of up and coming artists, my survey showed that 85% preferred a popular artist so my main person on my front cover will be a famous artist to help the promotion of my artist. I have chosen the price of my magazine to be £2.00 because it is a reasonable and good price, also because 50% of people on my survey have said they pay £1.60-£2.00, whilst the rest either pay lower or higher. I have decided that my magazine will have freebies due to 55% of people saying that they would prefer a freebie in the magazine. I have decided in every issue I will give posters because 30% said that they would like posters, 25% want CD’s, 25% stickers and 20% vouchers. So occasionally I would put stickers, CD’s and vouchers in my magazine. My magazine will contain detailed articles because it gives the audience more information about the artists, as well as 75% of people like detailed articles. Yet again my article will involve up and coming artists because 67% of people care about up and coming artists in the music industry. Many people collect magazines and the magazine they collect the most is VIBE, so I would look at vibe when creating my magazine front cover.

Results

Survey:PLEASE DO MY SURVEY

I have created a survey, and I would like to get your responses. Link:

http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=HCLNGH_21635c14

Questionnaire

QUESTIONAIRE.

What kinds of music are you interested in the most?
R&B: POP: HIP-HOP: ROCK: DUB-STEP:
How often do you want the magazine to be released?
Weekly: Monthly: Fortnightly:
Would you prefer a popular artist or a new coming artist to be on the front cover?
Popular artist: New coming artist:
How much do you like paying for magazines?
0.99-1.50: 1.60-2.00: 2.50-5.00
Would you like freebies in your magazine?
Yes: No:

What kind of freebies would you like most to come with a magazine?
Stickers: CD’s: Posters: Vouchers:
Do you enjoy reading detailed articles?
Yes: No:
Do you care about artists that are coming up in the industry?
Yes: No:
Do you collect magazines?
Yes: No:
If yes, which ones:

____________________________________________________________________

Researching Magazine Publishing Companies

Bauer

The Bauer Media Group (Bauer Verlagsgruppe), better known as Bauer is a German media publishing company. They are based in Hamburg, and operate in 15 different countries.

Websites: http://www.bauer.co.uk/ , http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/ , http://www.bauermedia.com/ , http://www.bauerverlag.de/

They are a private publishing company, which operates in many first world countries such as the United Kingdom & the United States. Bauer is the largest privately owned publishing company in Europe. Bauer produces magazines such as Bella, Take a Break, TV Choice and puzzle magazines. These types of magazines are targeted at middle classed women, because of the femininity in the magazine. So this company’s target audience are middle classed women. Bauer are a mainstream company due to their magazines being very much popular. The brand image is basically calm and warm because people from the feminine demographic are usually stereotypically calm and loving. Q and Kerrang are part of Bauer media brands which are a completely different theme from the common magazines they publish, as well as having a completely different target audience. There are links between production of magazines and other media, they have various different types of media such as Bauer radio, and they also have 50% stake in the British television company Box Television, the other half owned by Channel 4.

IPC Media

IPC Media is a British media production company. They were previously known as International Publishing Corporation. They are owned by a subsidiary of Time Inc.

Websites: http://www.ipcmedia.com/

IPC media is commonly known as a mainstream publisher. IPC Media produce over 85 iconic media brands. IPC Media's print based media reaches roughly two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men. That is almost 27 million of the United Kingdom’s adult demographic, whilst IPC media’s digital based media reaches over 20 million users. IPC Media groups its current titles under five magazine divisions: Connect (women's weeklies such as Now Magazine and Look), Inspire (leisure and specialist), Ignite! (Men’s lifestyle and entertainment), Southbank (women's lifestyle and home interest), and TX (portfolio of television titles). In addition there are: Ideal Home; and Market force, the UK's leading magazine distribution business.
IPC Media's magazines are multi-demographical so they publish for many social societies and both genders. Magazines aimed at men are ones such as Rugby world, nuts and NME. Whilst their magazines targeted at the female demographic are magazines such as Look and Now magazines.IPC Media own TV entertainment brands such as what’s on TV& TV times which are targeted at both demographics.

BBC Magazines

BBC Magazines is the magazine publishing division of BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Websites: http://www.bbcmagazines.com/

The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) produces several mainstream magazines due to the fact that they produce several successful programmes which are then given magazines such as Top Gear and Top of the pops. They cater to both genders, so there is no specific target audience for the companies, but there may be target audiences for individual magazines. The trend or style of these magazines are that they all use a variety of colours which are done to attract the eyes of the audience, as well as making the magazines stand out. BBC has a variety of radio stations, which cater to various people from various different tastes of music. BBC also has many channels which show many Soap Operas about Working Class people but they also show televisions shows for people of various tastes.

Development Hell

Websites: http://developmenthell.co.uk/

Development hell is a magazine publishing company, they are a Niche company as and they target the underground, so the magazines they sell will not be sold in many shops, and will be hard to find. If you want magazines produced by development hell you may have to go to specialist shops such as in Soho who cater to people who work in media would buy the magazine. There target audience would be for both genders, so they cater to both demographics. They have a habit of constantly using black and bold font.