Target Audience

Initially, I intended to aim my magazine at those in the 15 - 20 years of age catagory, however, I then broadened the age range to 15 - 25 as it suited the style of magazine. I widened the age of the target audience because today's music generation doesn't stop at 20 therefore making the age range wider would suit many more audience groups.

I aimed to make my magazine aimed at those breaking out into the music business and wanting tips on how to be succcesful. At the same time I wanted it to feature interviews and information about the music industry. With the given criteria specfication, I have tried to get as much appropriate information on the pages as possible. My magazine is oriented around the alternative scene and rock/indie music.

Developments and Research

My first preliminary task, to design a magazine aimed at school students, gave me the basis of how to design a magazine cover on an Apple Mac. This helped me when designed my foundation production because I already had some of the skills needed. The progression made from my preliminary task and my foundation production was large as I was able to carry out in depth research into what kind of magazine I would like to produce and how I would like it to be percieved by the public/test audience. Much of the research gone into the foundation production helped me make the decision of what type of magazine to design. Essentially I researched front covers as a starting point to try and group together ideas of the specifics needed to represent a music magazine on the super-market shelves. My findings showed that the most popular idea for a front cover was to have a feature artist as the main image. They were often placed in the centre with writing overlapping the photograph.

As seen in my foundation production, much of the research carried out helped dramatically when deciding how to design my front cover. As I don't read music magazine myself, I was clueless as to what a front cover of a music magazine would look like. Research was key as it enabled me to get an idea of what they do look like. This is shown in my own work.

When doing research into what layout a contents page usually takes, I looked at film AND music magazines to try and make it a little different. The most helpful piece of research I found was looking through Empire and Film magazines to collect knowlegde on how a contents page is presented.

Audience Feedback

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AdgW0m96ZIS6ZHI5cTIza18zZ2dqZnM0Zjk&hl=en

A link to my Google Docs account showing a chart of feedback when I showed my magazine cover to an audience of 40 people.

Overall the audience feedback I recieved was very positive. The main criticism I found was with people who weren't particularly interested in my type of magazine mainly aged from 41 to50. The main theme of the criticism was that the magazine seemed to be aged at a too young audience and isn't something that this age of people are interested in.