The document discusses how the author addressed their audience when creating a music magazine called "Unplugged". For the front cover, they used bold colors like red, green, and black which are associated with pop punk music. Images on the cover showed the subject looking directly at the camera with an edgy expression. The contents page also used these colors and included intriguing images of bands and artists. Descriptions of articles were included to entice readers. For the double page spread, the author wrote in an informal yet simple style using short paragraphs and a pull quote to engage a target audience of 16-25 year olds.
1. How did you attract/address your audience?
Front cover:
When creating my front cover, contents page and double page spread for my music magazine 'Unplugged' I added
several certain features which I knew would attract the eye of the audience luring them into feeling the desire to purchase my
magazine and find out more. For my front cover I knew it was extremely important that at first glance it
looked interesting, visually appealing and creative as if otherwise customers wouldn’t give my magazine a second glance. I
followed majority of the codes and conventions which real media products show to ensure I didn’t face this struggle and my
front cover was vibrant and immediately screamed pop punk.
To begin with I came up with a color scheme which I knew would appear bold and without a doubt draw in potential
customers, I also wanted to draw in some data from the public to see what colors they associated with pop punk and the most
popular answers were red, green and black therefore this is the scheme I used throughout my magazine. When it came to
creating my magazine I changed the masthead and main cover line to bright red, the banner and splash to green and the cover
lines to white as this made them stand out meaning when somebody walked by the magazine stall it would catch their
attention making them pick up my magazine. Once a customer has been persuaded to pick up a magazine and they begin to
read the cover lines and competitions on the front cover it's more than likely that they will purchase it. Where as if it didn’t
stand out customers would walk straight past and be drawn towards a magazine which did.
Moreover, I spent a long time perfecting my main image as it could've ruined my entire front cover if it wasn’t conveying pop
punk and showing confidence and attitude. When taking the photograph I asked the subject to look directly into the
camera pulling an edgy facial expression as first of all I wanted there to be a direct address so the audience felt connected with
the subject. I took the images outside as I wanted to use natural lighting and have the wind blowing through the subjects hair
as it adds more detail to the picture which once again will help attract more customers as they will feel obliged to find out
more.
2. Contents page:
When I started creating my contents page for my music magazine Unplugged I once again followed several codes and
conventions which real media products follow to help draw my audience in even more. As content pages are typically just full of
words I wanted to ensure that mine had interesting images and a continuing color scheme to make it more interesting and
enjoyable for the audience. I did this by changing the font color to green and red and adding a striking headline which I put in a
large font which conveys pop punk, this will draw my audience in more as it wont look plain and boring making them want to
read.
Furthermore, when it came to taking the photographs for my contents page i wanted to make sure that they were intriguing as
otherwise customers wouldn’t bother looking. I added a variety of different images such as The 1975 a popular well known band
a new and upcoming band The violets and two solo artist who have different backgrounds and give different advice. The reason I
did this was because I didn’t want the images to get repetitive as this wouldn’t catch the audiences attention.
Finally, the last thing I did to attract customers on my contents page is add a few lines of information about each article to give
customers an inside glance of what happens in each article. I made sure that the information was kept vague but at the same
time I added little hints and interesting aspects of the article to work as a tease to the audience as by doing this it will
compel them to want to continue reading as they will want to know what happens next.
3. Double page spread:
When creating my double page spread I constructed it to attract the audience in several different ways to ensure that it
is appealing to my target audience. To begin with, as my target audience is aimed towards those ages 16-25 I made sure that I
wrote my article in short paragraphs which were written informally. I also added an insert of a pull quote in the middle of the
article to help break it up and give the appearance that the article isn't long, daunting and complex to read. The reason I did this
is because teenagers and young adults are stereotyped to not be interested in reading things which are long as they don’t find it
enjoyable and they find it boring.
During the writing process of my article I wanted to make it very informal as if otherwise my target audience would loose interest
as they are only young. Although despite this informality I didn’t use slang throughout as I still wanted it to hold a professional
vibe which is why I included traces of simple syntax throughout.