Audience Research-Results and conclusions

Audience Research-Results and Conclusions on Prezi

Questionnaire copy and why I chose my questions

 

Reasons for choosing my question:

1. What gender are you?

I wanted to know this so that i could ensure I did not have a bias target audience. If I would have had, for example, only females filling in my questionnaires then it may have affected questions later on for example, question five, about the colours.

2.How old are you?

I knew what age I wanted to hand out my questionnaires to but I wanted to know which part of my target audience were filling them in to see if this affected other questions. Such as question eight, about the price.

3.Who is your favourite Indie Band/ Singer?

I wanted to know the responses to this open question because it would help me to decide what stories would intrest my target audience when it came to thinking of feature articles and also regular content.

4.What three single words would you associate with Indie Magazines?

I chose this question because I thought that it would help me to come up with a title. I also thought that if these kind of words were throughout the magazine, it would allow the reader to be sure of what magazine they were reading and these words would also attract the target audience.

5. What is your favourite colour from the list below? 

I thought this question was appropriate so that I could choose a colour scheme which would appeal to the target audience. I did not want to make this question an open question because I did not want to much variation in the answers, so I chose a list of colours which I would consider using for my magazine.

6.How often do you buy a music magazine?

This question would allow me to ensure that the frequency of my music magazine which I had originally planned suited my target audience.

7. If you do buy music magazine, which one(s) do you buy?

I added this question to my questionnaire because I thought that it would give me a good idea of which magazine to base my music magazine on. If the people who filled in my questionnaire read certain magazines they must enjoy them to buy them and read them therefor this is a good basis to build my ideas on.

8.What Price would you be prepared to pay for a music magazine?

This question would allow me to ensure that the price which I had originally planned for my magazine suited my target audience. If it did not then I would have had to change the price of my magazine so that it was suitable.

9.Do you have any dislikes of the music magazines that you read?
I thought that this question would allow me to understand which aspects of magazines that the readers don't like and I could ensure that my magazine did not follow similar formalities.

10. Would you like to be able to buy music magazines in corner shops as well as large supermarkets?
This question was not related to the production of my music magazine but I thought it would be interesting to find out, if I pursued my magazine where abouts I would retail it.

Analysis of double page spread articles

Analysis of a professional contents page

Below is a brief analysis of my contents page of NME in a video:

 

Analysis of professional magazine covers

Analysis of the front cover of a music magazine on Prezi

Initial plans for my magazine

Today I thought of the initial plans for my magazine. I know that the genre of my magazine is indie. I considered the target audience, price, frequency of publication, issue size, regular content and feature content when planning. To start I created spider diagrams of each of the possibilites for price, frequency of publication, average issue size and  target audience. My spider diagrams are shown in the image below:

Here are the intial plans for the articles in my magazine:

My final decisions for my initial plans for my magazine are:
Target Audience: 17-25
Price: £3.50
Frequency of publication: Monthly
Average Issue size: 100 pages
Content: I plan to use all of the content that I have initially thought of and I also intend to think of more.

I chose my price because this was the approximate average price of the music magazines that I had previously researched. I thought monthly was appropriate for the frequency of publication because, again, this was how often the majority of my researched magazines were published. I chose the issue size because if a magazine is only published monthly it is presumable that there will be a lot of content to keep you up to date throughout the whole month. Despite this, I wanted to ensure that my issue size was not so large that I could not think of enough interesting and exciting articles. I know that I still need to think of more content for my magazines but i think the things that I have so far are very exciting and I am going to build on this.

Researching the Market Place

Q-Published by Bauer
http://www.qthemusic.com/
http://www.bauer.co.uk/
Frequency-12 issues per year (Monthly)
Price-£3.99
Issue size-115-132
Feature Articles-Q magazine features: new releases, reissues, music compilations, film and live concert reviews, as well as radio and television reviews, using a star rating system from one to five stars. It also compiles a list of latest albums, which it classes as the best new releases of the last three months.
Regular content-Q magazine is laced with humour, with features such as 'The Top 10 Commandments According To...' which features a celebrity offering their 10 tips for life, and the magazine also invites the readers to get involved, with competitions, a letters page, and a feature called 'Cash For Questions' where you get to pose questions to celebrities, earning yourself some money if it gets published.


Clash-Published by Clash Magazine LTD

http://www.clashmusic.com/
http://www.clashmusic.com/
Frequency-12 issues per year (monthly)
Price-£3.80
Feature Articles-The Beastie Boys - Clash meets up with the legendary 'Boys to discuss past, present and future.
The Mars Volta - Clash meets the guys and delves to understand the method behind the madness.
Happy Birthday Warp: We start the celebrations for the 20th Birthday of Warp Records & give readers the chance to win a Warp20 Box Set!
Michael Jackson: Clash celebrates the 10 reasons that we'll miss this iconic artist....and 10 reasons why we won't.
Regular content-Clash Essential 15 - Find out what's been tickling the eardrums of the Clash Staff in the office this month...
Bowman's Blog - A month in the life of DJ & TV Presenter Edith Bowman.
Spotlight Album: Every month we revisit a Classic Album that will always have a place in our hearts. This Month: The Stooges self-titled debut Album.
Royal Academy Reviews ? We give our resident boffin from London's Royal Academy of Music five indelibly-linked tunes every month, unaware of the song's authors, he blindly merits the compositional qualities, judging the best of the bunch.
Clash Cross Section Download Album - This month Clash brings you 12 Free Downloads from artists featured in this month's issues to bring some new music into your life.



Mojo-Published by Bauer

http://www.mojo4music.com/blog/
http://www.bauer.co.uk/
Frequency- 12 issues per year (Monthly)
Price-£4.50
Feature articles-JOHN & YOKO: In a MOJO world exclusive, French journalist Henry Pessar unlocks his treasure trove of never-seen-before photos documenting John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s first days of marriage in 1969.

OMOU SANGARE: The voice of African freedom for the last 20

years, Omou Sangare has returned with her undisputed masterpiece. MOJO's David Hutcheon travels to Bamako to meet the grande dame of Malian song.
ANTONY HEGARTY: He spent 10 years as the toast of New York’s underground art scene before hit records and critical acclaim brought his mesmeric music into the public arena.

PEARL JAM: From the grungy streets of Seattle they came, armed to the teeth with a sound that could flatten a building.

Uncut-Published by IPC Media

http://www.uncut.co.uk/

http://www.ipcmedia.com/

Frequency-12 issues per year (monthly)

Price-£4.20

Issue Size-149

NME-Published by IPC media

http://www.nme.com/

http://www.ipcmedia.com/
Frequency- 51 Issues per year ( Mostly weekly) every wednesday
Price-£2.20
Issue Size-70
Feature Articles -Abraham-News, lyrics, pictures, reviews, biography, videos
                             -Coldplay album to top UK chart
                             -New John Peel memoirs to be published 

 

Initial Ideas

I intend to make an indie magazine with the target audience being 16-25 year olds. I chose this because my research shown that this is the most popular age range that listen to indie music, therefor this will increase my possible purchasers of my magazine. It would also be easier because the other magazines within the indie genre are aimed at a similar target audience.

Evaluation of School Magazine - Preliminary Task

I tried to ensure that my school front cover and contents page followed as many of the codes and conventions as it could. Some codes and conventions I adapted in my own ways, and some admittedly I did not conform to. Throughout this evaluation I plan to comment on many of the codes and conventions and I will compare my own work to that of other magazines. I will also write about the new skills that I have learnt throughout the task and new software that I have used. Also how these technologies allowed me to construct my work in teh way I did. Finally I will comment on  the strengths and weaknesses of my product and also my strenghts and weaknesses of new media technologies.
As previously stated I tried to ensure that my school front cover and contents page followed as many of the codes and conventions as it could. Some codes and conventions I adapted in my own ways, and some admittedly I did not conform to. I will now list the codes and convention of magazine front covers and contents pages and explain how I dealt with them individually.

Front Cover:

• A bold, eyecatching masthead- I believe that my masthead is bold, it is very eyecatching due to the use of two different colours and it contrasts with the banner behind it.
• A main image- I minipulated this in my own way because my main image became my background.
• A tagline- I think my tagline is very catchy and explains the magazine in a sentance
• A barcode- My barcode is clearly visable at the bottom of my magazine
• An issue number and date- I had an issue number on my magazine but I did not conform with the concept of an issue date
• I do have bold font on the front cover of my magazine
• Buzz Words-I do not have any buzz words on the front of my magazine and this is something that i must work on for my final product
• Promotions-I do not have a promotion in my magazine but I did not feel it was necessary
• Coverlines-My magazine did contain coverline
• Colour scheme for front cover- I did follow a colour scheme-apart from the mise-en-scene of my main image I kept to three colours- dark blue, light blue and red.

Contents Page

• Main Image which relates to story-I have a full body shot of the girl on the front of my magazine
• Page numbers on images-I have page numbers on all of my images
• Small text (no more than 11 pt) -I have 11pt text for the weekly stories but I used larger font to write the cover stories
• Columns-My contents page is in columns, mainly because that is the layout of quark
• Page numbers next to stories-I have each story labelled with a page number
• Main image reflects double page spread-In this case I do not have a double page spread, however if i did this would be my double page spread
• Most important stories first-In my contents page I have the cover stories first and the other stories below and they do not stand out as much

To construct my media product I used Adobe Photoshop to create my front cover and QuarkXpress. I have used the program before and I enjoy using the programme and I have a good understanding of the tools and effects. This allowed me to cut out my main image neatly and precisely. I also had better practice of using the text tool and I improved my knowledge of layering. For the contents page I was not familiar with the programme QuarkXPress. At first I was reluctant to use the programme but I soon got used to the tools. Some aspects of the programme I found frustrating, for example the layers and the fact that you have to set the layout of your page. I soon realised that the programme was a lot more accurate to create a contents page with and it looks a lot more professional than creating a contents page on Adobe Photoshop. I hope that this preliminary exercise has given me some more experience before I create my final piece, especially when it comes to creating a contents page.
The strengths of my final production are: I follow many of the codes and conventions, I think that my magazine looks good considering we had little time to create it, I used edited photos in my magazine and the editing of my pictures were to quite a high standard. The weakness' of my magazine were: I only had one image on my front cover, there was too much background showing on my contents page, the magazine was not up to professional standards because of the time we had to create it.
The strengths of my use of photoshop were the cutting out of the photos and my organized use of layers. My weakness' of photoshop are where I position things against the mise-en-scene of images. My strengths of QuarkXPress are that I got to grips with the programme fairly quickly. My weaknesses' are the positioning of the items of the page and my choice of colours on the programme.
If I was to redo the task I would have chose different colour schemes, better cover stories and a more interesting feature article.

Final production of front cover and contents page - Preliminary Task

 After creating the sketches for my Front cover and contents pages I had to create them. I tried to follow my original plans but there where a few aspects that I had to change. Below is my final product with the sketch underneath:

Whilst creating my front cover, the aspects that I changed from my plan were as follows:

• Where my issue number was placed changed-due to the colouring of the mise-en-scene
• There I positioned my tag line changed-Again, due to the colours of the mise-en-scene
• I made one of my cover stories anchor text because my original plans did not follow the codes and conventions of magazine front covers because I had no anchor text.
• The shape around the price bubble was more suitable and 'professional looking' with a circle shape instead of a spiked shape
• I repositioned where abouts my cover lines where positioned due to the mise-en-scene
• I added colour to my final product because although I did not plan colour in my sketch, I had already chosen a colour scheme of blue shades earlier in my planning

And here is the Final product and sketch of my contents page:

 

Whilst creating my contents page, the aspects that I changed from my plan were:

• I did not stretch my title and subheading of 'contents' all the way to the sides of the page
• I added an image of my front cover to the top right hand corner of teh contents page
• I left more spaces in between my main image and titles/headings which shown background colour
• I moved my image of my ID Tag to the bottom of the page because when it came to creating my piece this is where it fitted better
• I added colour to my final production, again-following my earlier plans with shades of blues

Production of school magazine contents page

Here are some screen shots my creating my contents page:

 To start I cut out the title from my front cover using Paint. This was to ensure that it was exactly the same title. I also created the word 'Contents' in photoshop so that I could have to same font and look on my contents page. I then added Images to my contents page. For the image of my ID tag, I had to cut out the image and add a cyan background to make the image look more professional. I was not sure where I wanted to place my images until I had added my text.

Next I added Mt text and headings to my contents page. At first I struggled to find good colours to use for the text of my headings but i chose a colour similar to my title. I thought this did not look too good and dealt with the issue later. To create my text I used the text tool on 'Quark XPress'. This had the same font as my title so I decided to keep the font constant throughout. I then moved my images to a suitable place.

Finally I added page numbers to my images which relate to the page numbers of the stories. I also added a black box behind my headings.

The changes that I made to the contents page from my plans are:

• I made the background of my contents page cyan
• I changed the positioning of my images due to how they fitted in with the text
• I left a small space at the edge of my contents page because in my plans i made it stretch to each side of the page.
• I added page numbers to teh smaller images in my contents page
• I added a coloured banner behind my headings

Production of school magazine front cover

During the last two lessons we have been creating our Front Covers and Contents Pages for our school magazine. To create our front covers we used Adobe Photoshop. I used the images that I have previously taken which are on the blog below. I cut out the image of the girl on the front of my magazine and placed her so that it looked like she was in the corridor. I then added by text and shaped along with my banner behind my title.
To create the contents page we used a program which I had never used before called 'Quark'. At first the program was unfamiliar and hard to use but i quickly came to terms with the shortcuts and tools. I created my contents page in three columns using one main image and two sub images. I followed all of the codes and conventions of a contents page and kept my colour scheme similar to the front cover.

Here are some shots of whilst I was creating my Front Cover:

Here is my title and background. I added a black banner behind my title so that it stood out. I also used blues in my title as this is my colour scheme. To get the background I used an image which I had previously taken and stretched it in proportion to make it a background for my magazine.

Next I added the barcode, the issue number, my tagline, my main image and my price box. For my issue number and tagline I continued to follow the colour scheme with a colour the same as in my title. For my barcode I used an image from the internet and added it to the bottom right hand corner. For my price box I created a circle shape as a star shape did not look professional to put the price of my magazine inside. For my main image I cut out the picture of the girl and put her onto my background. At first I was not happy with the neatness of the cut but when I added it to my background I made final touches using the lassoo tool.

Finally, I added my coverlines to my front cover. To do this I used the same font as my title and I followed the same colour scheme. I made one of my cover stories anchor text as in my plans I did not have anchor text. I also had to use red text because shades of blue did not go well with the mise-en-scene of the text.

The changes that I made to my front cover from my plans are :

• I made one of my cover lines anchor text because my plans did not follow the codes and conventions of anchor text.
• The star shape for the price tag i made a circle because it did not look very good as a star
• I added colour to the coverlines
• I added a barcode to teh front of my magazine because I did not have one in my plans.
• I changed the positioning of my tagline due to teh colourings of the mise-en-scene
• I also changed the positioning of my issue number because it looked out of place

Final Images for School Magazine

To start I brought up the two images of the corridor and the girl on a plain background

Next, I cut out the image of the girl using the polygon lassoo tool

Finally I copied the image onto the picture of the corridor and made a few finishing touches

Here Is the final image once i have made the finishing touches to my editing of my main image

This is how I edited my ID tag:
First I took the image of the ID Tag

Next I cut out the image using the polygon lassoo tool and used the fill bucket to add the same colour as on my contents page to the background of the image.