2. As previously mentioned, my audience is most likely to have an
eye for creativity and have an interest in staying ahead of trends. I
discovered that my magazine would therefore need to be
aesthetically pleasing whilst introducing new and quirky designs
and page layouts. To achieve this aim, I decided to follow
conventions of other indie magazines and make the photograph of
the main feature artist, the focus of the magazine. The
appreciation for photographers for magazines is becoming much
bigger now. Thanks to photography sharing social media sites,
apps like Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr more and more young
people are becoming interested in the aesthetics of photography.
Not in every circumstance but creativity is generically associated
with having an appreciation for the visual aspects of life – in art,
paintings, photographs, scenery, etc. Therefore, having researched
my target audience and acknowledging that they would be
reasonably creative, I thought that a high quality photograph of a
beautiful model (someone that anyone would aspire to be) may
captivate my audience demographic. Therefore, I decided against
having too much cover line text on the cover page as I didn’t want
to distract the audience from the image. Not only does little cover
line text focus the audiences attention on the photograph, it also
makes the magazine seem simple. However, as I said before,
simplicity in indie music magazines is become increasingly more
popular.
3. As part of my research and planning, I completed an audience survey in which I
asked some questions about what my audience would like to see from my
magazine. One of the questions was to find out whether they would prefer to see
an article, interview or an advertisement on my double page spread. The over all
result was pretty tied between article and an interview but an interview had the
most votes. So, to conduct my interview I and to think of a topic that would be
engaging for my audience demographic. As mentioned in evaluation 4, Indie
musicians often sing about meaningful issues whether it be personal or global
issues. The majority of these personal issues often have some relevance to their life
and upbringing. I believe that if a song is sung well/with passion, there must be
some sort of emotion. Additionally, some artists use their music to teach lessons or
spread messages to their audiences. I wanted to keep this in mind when deciding
on a topic of the interview with my artist, that would interest my audience. Having
put a lot of thought into the social group that my artist would represent, I had an
idea of what her personality would be like. This aided me in the decision for the
topic of her interview. I chose mental disorders and self-belief as I know that it’s a
subject that is sparking the most unrest and controversial attitudes for the younger
generations and society in general. I thought my audience demographic would
show an interest in this because they may have some experience with it. A
reported 300,000 young people in the UK suffer from a mental disorder. Having
experience could make the magazine interview more personal and therefore
engaging. Additionally, because it is such a controversial subject and my audience
may be quite opinionated, it would give them opportunities to reflect on their own
individual attitudes. This is hopefully something they would enjoy.
4. When designing my contents page, I still wanted to maintain a simplistic theme to attract my audience through an
aesthetic perspective. At the same time, I wanted to include a lot of writing so that magazine didn’t look too basic and
empty. I did not have a pre-existing magazine inspiration for my contents design as I wanted it to be different than every
other magazine from my indie genre. I took to Pinterest for my inspiration and found so many amazing designs. I put
several different layouts together and came up with one design. This is where I came up with the idea to group my
individual articles into sections e.g: Festivals, Margot’s Space, etc. However, not only did the layout of the contents page
need to look attractive, it also needed to address the audience through advertising the context of the magazine. Before
producing my contents page, I researched other indie magazines such as Fader, Clash and Loud and Quiet to see what
common article/interview features they all shared. Similarly, based on my audience research and language register I
planned several ideas on paper of topics, articles and interviews that would attract my audience and maintain the chatty
and informal language choice.
Clash magazineFader magazine
5. As previously mentioned, the photograph on the cover page is to be the main focus. I also talked about my
intention to make the image aesthetically pleasing through the use of mise en scene, camera angles and
experimental lighting. So, the obvious aspect was to dress my model in a trendy and stylish manner. Due to
the fact, my target audience is very interested in fashion, this was deemed essential. I took more of a
relaxed approach when designing the theme of her costume so that her composure and style would appear
innate. She is wearing a loose fitting white top which could give the impression that her outfit didn’t take
too much thought. However, the white colour would connote a fresh and clean look. I also chose a black
lace bralette that would be visible over the shoulder. Bringing a bit of detail to the outfit and preventing it
from being so simple that it’s boring. Having put a lot of thought into the styling of my artist, I thought this
would attract my audience as they are passionate about styling.
