The document discusses how the author created a music magazine to target a specific audience based on research. Through surveys on Survey Monkey, the author found that most respondents were ages 17-25 and enjoyed a variety of music genres. This informed the content and design of the magazine to attract this demographic. Inspired by Billboard and NME magazines, the author chose a simple title and masthead design without bright colors that would distract from the content. The front cover features an attractive female model to attract both male and female readers through techniques like the male gaze. Overall, the magazine aims to attract its target audience through clean, easy-to-read design and content tailored to music-loving youth.

1. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?

2. Firstly, to get the right genre for my music magazine, I had to do quite a lot of research
on what kind of magazine I wanted to use as an example of what kind of magazine I
wanted mine to be. The magazines I chose, Billboard and NME, aren’t particularly
gender specific because both magazines explore every type of music on the charts
including pop, techno, indie rock etc.
I also had to research the age group music markets. To find my results, I used Survey
Monkey and made a questionnaire asking what age people answering the questions
were and what kind of music they mostly enjoy listening to and 25 out of 33 people
said they were 17-25 years old.
I then based my magazine around that age group and it was an advantage for me as
this is the age where people start to discover new music and different trends to what
they usually listen to which gives me more to write about in my magazine giving
people new and different bands and songs.
Using Survey Monkey, I then asked what the people mostly listen to and there was a
clear mix of answers. Some said pop, rock, techno, RnB, house etc. With this mix of
different type of genres of music, it gave me lots to write and include in my magazine
and with a popular magazine such as Billboard doing somewhat the same type of
magazine I plan to do, it gave me more ideas of how to target my specific audience.
With the age group and the genre of music my target audience listen to, I was able to
focus on what content to include in my music magazine to attract a specific audience
and hopefully it would grab the audiences attention when buying a magazine at a
store as an alternative to Billboard or NME.

3. As shown above, Billboard and NME magazine doesn’t attract a specific gender but
definitely has a age attraction with more mature celebrities on the covers and with the
design of the magazine and how it is bold and simplistic, it attracts the older readers.

4. How did you attract/address your
audience?

5. After lots of research on Billboard, NME and Q magazine, I saw what each individual
magazine had done to their magazines to attract the audiences of their choice.
The first thing I had to think of was the title of my magazine. It had to be something
the readers and audiences would remember and have stuck in their heads so they will
be more willing to buy my music magazine. I came up with 2 different names and with
the help of my classmates, I ended up naming my magazine ‘Traxx’. I liked the choice of
name because it is short and snappy so it will be easy to remember and it sticks to the
age of the audiences I want to attract with my magazine. On the front cover, I used
Photoshop to make the title big and bold and also used a website called ‘dafonts.com’
to help stylize the title font to make it look bolder and more attractive to readers. The
masthead is reasonably sized. I didn’t want to make it too big to cover the main image
nor too small people wouldn’t be able to see the name of the magazine.
Following Billboards style of their music magazine, my masthead was simple and I
didn’t add any colours to it to confuse the audience from the contents of the front
page. It is in bold letters to make it stand out in subtle way without the distraction of
fancy fonts and bright colours.
I think that this will attract my specific audience as not many teenagers/young adults
look for brightly coloured or luminous coloured magazines like children's magazines
have, they are more interested to find out what is in the actual magazine.

6. The image I have chosen for my front cover is a attractive female in simple but alluring
to attract both male and female readers. This attracts the male readers using the
technique of the male gaze. By putting an attractive model on the front cover, most
males would buy the magazine to find out more about the model on the front. For the
female readers, they would buy the magazine to find out more about how to look as
good as the model to attract men and it acts as an guide on what males look at in a
female.
I put the model right at the center of the page to make her the main subject of the
music magazine as a new upcoming artist in the music industry. I then used Photoshop
to make the background darker so it wouldn’t blend with the white shirt she was
wearing and it also helps her stand out from the grey background and it makes her
more engaging to the readers.
The fonts I used for the headlines around the image were simple and the colours I
used were almost always the same to keep it easy to read and not distracting and the
font is clear and clean. I used this technique after looking at Billboards magazine
where the texts were also simple to read and the fonts weren’t all in different colours
and it was easy on the eyes.

7. In all the magazines above, the main celebrity/subject is placed right in the center of the front
page to obviously show the readers what the latest magazine issue is about. The texts on the
Billboard are clear and they use the same fonts and colours to contrast the image and
background. On the NME front cover, there is very little words and so it some what attracts the
reader to buy the magazine to read on more about what the main story is. Like Billboard and
NME, my magazine is quite simple and interesting and makes the audience intrigued on what is
inside the magazine.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learnt in
progression from it to the full product?

9. Looking back at my preliminary task on making a college magazine, I’ve definitely learnt new
techniques on how to research specific things for my music magazine much clearer and my
Photoshop skills have definitely improved when working on my music magazine from working
on my college magazine.
I did a lot more research on my music magazine than my preliminary task so I could improve on
conventions and what is important in the music magazine industry to help with my magazine
and how to get it out there to the people.
On my college magazine, I didn’t put as much information in the magazine due to the lack of
research but as the time went on working on my music magazine, more detailed information
could be put in the text as it was properly researched and it makes my magazine look more
professional.
I have learnt different techniques to make my final magazine look more realistic I have learnt
what elements different music magazines need and how magazines are put together with the
front cover, contents page and double page spread.
I learnt the reasons behind the putting together of magazines and why certain colours or texts
should be put in a certain way as a way to attract the readers which is what I didn’t know when
creating my preliminary task.

10. I have learnt how to develop my ideas from extensive planning such as the
photography behind the pictures in the magazine such as different angles and different
types of shots and who to feature on the front cover to attract the audiences.
I have learnt how to target specific audiences which was different with my preliminary
task where my college magazine was dull and boring whereas my music magazine was
new, slick and interesting to look at.
I have also learnt that planning and research with everything is crucial to completing a
piece as I rushed through my preliminary task but for my final I took my time and it
was a much better outcome .
I hope I have researched enough and applied enough of my research into my music
magazine to achieve an eye catching and interesting piece for people to read.