Google Mock Up- Double Page Spread

To construct my double page spread, again I needed both Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft. The finished product in on Publisher this time, 

Google Mock Up- Contents Page

For my contents page, I used both Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Publisher.

This is what I needed to do on Publisher.

Front Cover- Google Mock Up

This is my Google mock up of my front cover. I used Photoshop to do this and have explained each process. 

This is my finished mock up. I have done my best to include as many conventions of magazines as I could.
Language- I have used the colours white, black. dark red, yellow and grey. White is used in the text because the dominant colours are quite dark, white shows up quite well. Same idea with the use of yellow. I have also used yellow for the plug as well because yellow is an eye catching colour, it immediately shows my audience the opportunity to enter a competition and possibly win, it makes the magazine interactive. I have used grey for the background because connotations of grey include calmness and composure which is suitable for my genre of alternative rock because it isn't as crazy and energetic other rock sub-genres such as heavy metal and screamo. Alternative rock can be energetic but it seems more contained and controlled. I have used dark red because a lot of alternative rock bands perform songs about love and lust so I thought it would be quite suitable for the magazine in terms of genre and how my magazine looks. I have used black because it is commonly associated with rock bands in terms of fashion as you can see in the images of Fall Out Boy, Paramore, Linkin Park, All Time Low, Black Veil Brides and Evanescence, they all have black items of clothing and it represents mystery and elegeance. It could also represent the subject of the songs they sing and music videos because they cover quite dark and mysterious topics such as violence, drugs, sex and ambitions.
Ideology-
Institution- I constructed this magazine using the assistance of Photoshop. The images I found on Google Images so they are from different institutions.
Audience- The target audience of my magazine is teenagers to about 24 year olds because I have done researched other music magazines of the similar genre and took their statistics into consideration. The fashion style of Fall Out Boy could be relatable to my target audience because the majority of the people of in the age range are either students, part-time workers or both so there isn't a lot of income, therefore the fashion style of Fall Out Boy in this image is good as it is simple and looks good.
Representation-  

I took this image of Fall Out Boy from maguzz.com. Using Photoshop, I deleted the white background, using the 'magic wand tool', the 'polygonal lasso tool (to delete the little sections I don't need with more ease)the delete key,  so I could place them on a grey background (I created a rectangle, and placed it portrait on an A4 Photoshop file).

I came up with the masthead 'Night Light' because I was thinking of words and concepts associated with rock and I thought of 'night' because a lot of concerts and gigs take place at night and light because the concerts take place at night, a lot of lights are used so I put the words together and came up with 'Night Light'. Also you give children 'night lights' to help them sleep at night, alternative rock was made famous around the 90s and 'Rock and Roll' and heavy metal was became popular in the 50s and 60s and the difference in years between alternative rock and rock and roll/heavy metal is what I would think of as an appropriate age to be a parent so I consider alternative rock to be the child of  Rock and Roll.

Google Mock Ups (Completed)

Album Work

Paramore
The album work for Paramore varies in style.

The album work for the album titled 'Paramore' includes Hayley Williams, Taylor York and Jeremy Davies covered in neon paint. We immediately know that Hayley is the lead singer because she stands out the most due to the colour of her hair and blue denim jacket whereas taylor and Jeremy are wearing black and blend into the black background. The use of neon paint blacks up the stereotype. The use of neon paint backs up the stereotype of a messy rock star's life style.

The album work for the album 'Brand New Eyes' is quite interesting because the main image is the butterfly which has its wings seperated from the body. There is something quite cryptic about it but I'm not sure. It could have some relevence to the music from the album. The songs I like from the album include 'Ignorance', 'Brick By Boring Brick', 'Careful', 'The Only Exception' and 'Playing God'. Alternatively, it could have some links to the band around the time the album was produced.

The album work for the album 'Riot!' is quite artistic because the cover is covered in the word 'RIOT!' in a sort of graffiti style. I think this is appropriate because a riot is illegally disturbing the peace in an area with acts of crime such as violence and vandalism and graffiti is often seen as crime when not done in a designated area for graffiti, so it brings a sense of rebellion which reflects the persona of a rock star.

Avenged Sevenfold
The album 'Nightmare' is named after the song, of the same name, the features in the album.

The artwork for the album is quite gothic and dark which reflects their genre of heavy metal and suits the name 'Nightmare'.

The image takes place at night. There is a child clinging to their teddy in a bed with bed posts made of what looks like bones, surrounded by bushes with dead leaves, a gravestone behind and a figure looking over the child which could represent the Grim Reaper/Angel Of Death.

This album is also quite artistic because it looks as though it has been painted.





As something extra, I could design some album covers for the band that features on my front cover.

Possible Magazine Name Ideas

1. Rage
2. Night Vibes
3. Night Light
4. After Dark
5. Dysfunctional
6. Night Cry
7. Scream
8. Rebel
9. Trash
10. Night Shade

A lot of the names I have come up with include the word "Night" or related to "night". This is because a lot of rock concerts take place late at night.
I came up with "Rage", "Scream" and "Rebel" because these words are related to rock performances, particularly screamo and heavy metal where the bands' high energy performances involve "screaming" and death growling as if they were in a fit of "rage" about taboo subjects would could be seen as "rebellious".
I came up with "Dysfunctional" and "Trash" because they relate to the bands'/artists' image. Many bands have a distinct image which makes them stand out from the rest and to do this come up with some very "dysfunctional" and unconventional looking styles in fashion which is the reason for the name "Dysfunctional" and many rock bands are stereotyped for having a messy lifestyle which is why I came up with the name "Trash".

Iconography/Style- Font

Here I have chosen fonts that are associated with (alternative) rock music. I have taken current rock magazine mastheads to draw in some ideas as to what my masthead would look like. I have also taken some fonts from the website dafont.com I could maybe use as headings. From looking at the fonts I have found, I would describe them as rough, messy and artistic, which are words I would use to describe rock artists. I also typed alternative rock into google images to see what other fonts I can find and some of them follow the same pattern of being rough, messy and artistic.

Audience Survey

I used www.surveymonkey.com to generate and carry out this survey as it is more efficient, less time consuming and overall, easy to use. 

 From the results of my first question, I know that the gender who mostly answered this questionnaire are males but by only three, so you could say it's quite mixed. This also gives me an idea of who to aim the magazine at. So I should aim the magazine at both males and females.

From this question, I know that most of the people who answered the questionnaire are either full-time students and/or work part-time. This enables me to come up with an idea of the price for my magazine. So I need to give a reasonable price for part-time workers and full-time students (who may earn pocket money from their parents but not a lot).

 From the responses, I know that half of the people read music magazines and so I need to make my music magazine more enticing so that more people would read it.

 From the results, I know that the majority chose 'rock' as a genre that they like. This is good because I intend to make a rock magazine.

 For this question I then went to sub-genres of rock and at first I wanted to make an alternative rock magazine but judging from the results, I should make a rock magazine the covers many genres as the scores are very mixed between: indie, alternative, heavy metal, punk rock, pop rock and screamo.

 From the responses from this question, I can see many different bands of different sub-genres and styles so the fictional bands that feature on my magazine whether it be the main feature or feature story could have different styles of rock fashion and maybe I could uses the styles of these bands as inspiration for the style of my fictional bands.

 From these results, I can see that most of the answers are mixed so this allows me to understand what readers like about music magazines so I can include them within my music magazine to entice the reader.

 From the results of this question, I can see that many of the people who answered the question, answered honestly and were quite reasonable. Two people seem quite generous to be willing to pay more than £4.00 but the answer that received the highest score was '2.01-3.00'.

From the results of this question, I can see that mostly people would prefer getting the magazine at a discounted price and closely followed by wanting more free gifts and getting both a printed and digital copy. From this it gives me an idea of what to include for example on the contents page, I might show details of subscribing to the magazine and how they will get either more free gifts, the magazine at a discounted price or getting a printed copy and digital copy, alternatively they could maybe choose two of the offers.

Due to the fact that lots of people use smartphones and tablets etc. I thought it would be a good idea to create an app for the magazine and on there they can get a digital copy of the magazine (obviously I won't actually do it). From the results of this question I can see that mostly people would like it if the magazine was distributed digitally on an app and printed. This might because there are different advantages for having a digital copy and a printed copy. With a digital copy they can't be damaged easily unless they experience glitches from either the phone or the app but that doesn't happen often, whereas a printed magazine is more exposed so can be damaged easily but having a digital copy makes it hard to lend to people so for example if you finish reading the printed magazine and your sibling wants to read it you could easily hand it over, and you cant really share a magazine digitally unless you hand over your device to your sibling but the read might be quite long so you might not want to leave your device for a long amount of time.

Audience Research

Why is audience research important?

Audience research is important because we need to know what it is our target audience are interested in so our music magazines appeal to them which results in our audience buying the magazine. Without audience research, our product would not be as appealing as they could be.

When we are conducting a questionnaire/ focus group for a music magazine, what are we wanting/ needing to find out?

It helps us what exactly our target audience is interested in which gives us a more accurate insight on their lives which then enables us to create a music magazine that meets the criteria of the target audience.

Questionnaire

• You need to conduct a questionnaire on a minimum of 15 people.
• The questions must be open ended so the participant can voice their opinions.
• No yes or no questions

My questionnare questions generated on Survey Monkey

1. What is your gender?
2. What is your employment status?
3. Do you read music magazines? If yes, give an example(s) and how often.
4. What genre of music do you like?
5. Do you enjoy rock music? If yes, which sub-genre(s)?
6. What artists/bands do you listen to?
7. How much would you pay for a music magazine?
8. What is your main reason for reading a music magazine, the stories, general info or gossip, free gifts or other?
9. Would you subscribe to my music magazine if it meant... (You can choose more than one answer)
10. What platform do you think is good for my music magazine to be distributed?

Focus Groups

• Focus groups allows you to carry on developing the answers given. More informal and general discussion.
• Minimum of 3 people
• Film on phone or camera (Must be landscape)
• Five questions to ask the focus group. 
• Costume ideas, props, name ideas and suggestions

1. What do you expect to see in this genre of music magazine? If you don’t like the genre I have chosen, what other genre would you suggest doing? 
2. What type of clothes do you think are associated with this genre and what are your opinions on the ones I have chosen?
3. If you were to buy a music magazine, how much would you be willing to pay?
4. What artists would you like to see in my magazine?
5. What are your opinions on some of my name ideas? Could you maybe suggest some ideas of your own?

Social Demographic of my Magazine

To state which social class you will be aiming your magazine at and why.

I will aim my magazine at skilled working class and working class because from my research I found out that majority of the people that read magazines of my chosen genre (alternative rock) have an average age of 20 and are students so they might be working part time so their salary won't be very high or they might get pocket money from their parents or carers. 

To decide on the price of the magazine, and explain why you have chosen this price point.

The price of my magazine will be £1.99 because I have taken into consideration the age and the type of people that would read my magazine, students and/or part time workers with the average age of 20.

To state if you are having a monthly or weekly distribution and why you have made this choice.

I think a bi-weekly distribution would be good because the buyers won't be spending that much money on the magazines, a maximum of £3.98 per month if they were to religiously buy the magazine which isn't that much, and it gives them something to read in a relatively short amount of time and it would give me enough time to construct the magazine so it wont be rushed. 

State what free gifts/ prizes your target audience would like by reflecting on their social class.

I think my target audience would like free posters to maybe decorate their rooms with and competition to be in for a chance of winning a prize for example tickets to concerts, events and festivals. 

How the social class table has helped you targeting your audience. 

The social class table has helped me with my target audience because it lets me know what type of people fit into certain classes and has helped me decide a price. Also it might help me to decide what type of content to include in my magazine. 

State where your product will be distributed. 

I think it would be best if my magazine was distributed on smart phones and devices because a lot of students and people aged around 20 own and frequently use smart phones and other devices that give them access to the internet. I would also like to have a printed copy distributed because  some people would much rather read from paper. Maybe the readers could choose on my magazine's website weather they would like a digital copy and/or a printed copy or I could include something like a subscription thing, where a person could get a discount if they subscribed to the digital and/or the printed copy. 

Social Demographic Table