1. Question 5: How did you
attract/address your audience?
By Estelle Naughton

2. Colour scheme
In my music magazine I attempted to attract my target audience by having
a bright and eye catching colour scheme, coincidently similar colours are
used within Vibe magazine which is a completely different genre but the
colour choices are effecting in attracting their audience, which has also
been demonstrated with my magazine. Although the colour scheme is
slightly unusual for my indie/acapella genre as one of my peers mentioned,
I believe it has worked well as though it’s unordinary for the genre but it
gives an insight on the music proving it can be upbeat and in your face,
shown by the colours. I think because the colours are unusual for my
magazine and it’s genre, it has done well in attracting my desired audience
because a few of my peers said it was really professional looking and they
would buy it. Some people also commented upon how I’d got the colour
scheme to stand out against the model’s clothing and how it really works,
creating a binary opposition between people’s preconceived ideas of
acapella music and how it is actually represented. To attract my desired
audience which is teenagers and younger people of both genders, I have
used stereotypical colours which represent genders as blue is for boys
whilst pink is for girls supposedly, I think this works as despite having all
female models and input it allows the male audience to know that the
magazine isn’t just designed for females and only targeted at females, it is
also available for males to read and enjoy.

3. Examples
A few members of the group commented
upon how the bold colour scheme stood
out against the model’s clothing on the
front cover, and are ‘upbeat’ which was
what I wanted to show about the acapella
and instrumental music through the use of
the colours.
I believe the colours are effective as
people are drawn to the bright colours but
don’t usually associate the bright colours
with acapella music. Despite this, people
still believe it to be a professional looking
magazine and would consider buying it if I
was to publish it.

4. Imagery
My imagery attracts my target audience as they’re high quality images
like all magazines used and due to editing, they look rather professional
and almost everyone commented upon the images and how professional
they look. Having female models attracts the target audience by having
an enticing female on the front cover who is making direct eye contact,
allows indie music followers to buy and read the magazine. By having
female models, it also encourages male audiences to read the magazine
as they will want to know who the attractive female is on the front of the
magazine and how they got to where they are in the music industry. To
entice the male audience more, I could’ve used male artists and this
would balance out the gender representations throughout the magazine
but I think it wouldn’t have made much of a difference in attracting my
target audience. I have used a series of camera shots throughout my
magazine, close up shot for the front cover magazine which I thought
would work well, and one participant commented upon the effectiveness
of this.

5. Layout
The layout I have adopted is based upon product research and applying the
Gutenberg principle which has shown to be affective in not just my magazine,
but other official magazines. Most people commented about how the layout
was simplistic yet effective as it was easy to read without it being too close
together, meaning the images and the text. I have attempted to follow the
Gutenberg design principle which most official magazines do, this is what I
think makes my magazine more professional in terms of how everything is
placed on the pages.
Most people enjoyed the
layout and how it made the
magazine look professional
and official.

6. I attracted my target audience by previously researching other magazines of
the similar genre such as Q and then using similar techniques to then attract
my desired audience for my magazine. By researching popular magazines
before constructing my own has allowed me to come up with multiple ideas
including layout which allowed me to plan how I was going to set everything out
before actually working on my pages.
Although
they’re not
identical, a few
traits of Q
magazine are
implemented in
my magazine.