This document contains the planning and research for Elizabeth Plumb's music magazine project. It includes summaries of her preliminary front cover and contents page designs, research on music magazines and her target audiences, and research on the publishers of her magazines of inspiration, Q Magazine and We Love Pop. The document provides details on her design iterations based on feedback, research on magazine production processes and music magazine sales declines, and profiles of the target readers of Q Magazine and We Love Pop.

1. OCR Media Studies – AS Level
Unit G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media
Planning & Research
Name: Elizabeth Plumb
Candidate Number: 2049
Center Name: St. Andrew’s Catholic School
Center Number: 64135
Set Brief - Print
Music Magazine – Production
Preliminary Task Progression and
Planning & Research

2. Section 1) –
Preliminary Task

3. Front Cover

4. First I made gridlines around the
border so I knew where I wanted
to put the masthead and strapline.
I added a border to the top and
also the strapline
I added my masthead from
‘Dafont.com’ and the school logo
I added 3 squares to the side as
this is where my cover stories will
go
I added a main image to the front
cover, I also added a shadow to the
image to make it stand out

5. I added social media networking
links, the barcode and the school
magazines website address
I added the cover stories and the
photos with the school logo on
each one
I added the main headline to
attract readers, I also added a
stroke to the writing
I added another cover story as I felt
that this was ‘dead space’

6. I added another cover story as I felt
that this was ‘dead space’

7. Final Design
From the feedback I obtained about my first
final design of my front cover, I have added the
strokes around the text and star shapes.
I also added a stroke to the main cover photo
as it makes it stand out. I also added a
‘WHSmith logo’ and the school email address
as I felt that this would have been dead space.

8. Contents Page

9. First I made gridlines around the
border so I knew where I wanted
to put the masthead and strapline.
I added a border to the top and
also the strapline
I added the logo and boxes for the
cover stories
I added the photos to the puff
I added the masthead and social
media

10. I added the pictures to the cover
stories and the contents page
numbers
I added the numbers to the cover
stories and the comments
I added the editorial
I added the comments to the cover
stories
I added the house competitions
cover story

11. Final Design
From the feedback I obtained about my first
final design of my contents page, I have added
the strokes around the text and star shapes, I
also changed spelling and punctuation
corrections. I also edited the cover and
editorial photos, editing the brightness,
contrast and size.
Finally, I ensured (through using the pen tool)
that the editorial was carefully positioned
around the image of the editor.

12. Section 2) – Log Book

13. Music Magazine Genre Research
• Music magazines normally include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record
reviews, concert reviews and top charts in that genre.
• In the UK NME has been leading sales since 1952, selling 27,650 magazines in the UK
• Music magazine sales are declining due to an increase in people going to their online websites.
• Magazine: Average circulation, year-on-year change:
-Mojo: 79,345, down 6.8 per cent
-The Fly: 70,866, down 34.9 per cent
-Q: 58,980, down 8.7 per cent
-Uncut: 56,894, down 9.7 per cent
-Kerrang!: 37,603, down 6.5 per cent
-New Musical Express (NME): 20,011, down 16.4 per cent
• Setting up a magazine:
-Date of publication – set a date where the magazine will be released
-Managing the schedule – manage the production
-Editorial and budgetary decision – editing team decide what goes in
each section of the magazine
-Content Acquisition – gathering the content for the magazine
-Sub-editing – quality control
-Page Layout – special team are responsible for the layout
-Proofreading – the editor proofreads the magazine
-File emailed to printer – final magazine printed
-Distribution – Magazine ready to sell.
Source:
www.hosbeg.com/the-magazine-production-process/
Sales of The Music
Magazines
Mojo
Q
Kerrang
NME

15. Target Audience
The target audience for Q magazine can be denoted as teens/young adults who enjoy the rock and role culture, with 68.3% of males reading
the magazine. Therefore they are mainly aged 15-25, the dominant readership for the magazine is A,B and C1 because Q is released every
month for £3.99, which people could find expensive. Q magazine readers would have no specific ethnicity because Q pride themselves on
putting all different types of celebrities from the rock genre. (Hartley)
Readers of Q magazine may have a ‘personal relationship’ (Katz)
with the magazine’s choice of celebrity, this is because the magazine includes their personal stories which the reader may relate to. The
readers may also experience ‘diversion’ (Katz), which may be because they like the clothes that the celebrity is wearing so they proceed to
buy the magazine. Q also have many readers known as ‘survivors’ (Maslow), which connotes that the readers feel they must pick up the
magazines as they know that they will find something that they will enjoy reading about. This is because Q cover a broad range of the genre
rock. (Maslow)
http://www.bauermedia.co.uk
What is the USP of this magazine?
From the research completed into this media product, the USP is that Q is the only rock
magazine which mainly focuses on up and coming artists instead of popular artists,
whose role is to entertain people who enjoy the whole genre of rock. This can be seen
on many of their front covers of the magazine and also on their website. The USP for the
front cover I have analysed is that at the time that the magazine was published when
‘Cheryl’ was very popular and ‘We love Pop’ was the only magazine to publish a story on
them, therefore this magazine was a success with the target audience.
http://www.qthemusic.com

16. Publisher research
Q is published by Bauer Media, a media company that manages a portfolio of magazines,
digital products, radio and TV stations in local markets across the world.
Q mainly focuses on up and coming/well known rock and roll artists . Therefore their target
audience are people who enjoy reading about rock music. Readers are mainly teens/young
adults aged 15-25, and have enough money to buy the magazine each month.
Q magazine has a circulation of 48,353 copies distributed in January-July 2014. The magazine
also has 339,000 readers.
http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/brands/q
Reader Profile:

18. Target Audience
The target audience for We love pop magazine can be denoted as young girls aged 13-15 who enjoy reading about pop artists. The
dominant readership for the magazine is group E because We love pop is released every month for around £2.99 however the parent would
normally buy the magazine for their daughter. The magazine readers would have no specific ethnicity because We love pop pride themselves
on putting all different types of celebrities in the magazine. (Hartley)
Readers of We love pop magazine may have a ‘personal relationship’ (Katz) with the magazine’s choice of celebrity, this is because the
magazine includes their personal stories which the reader may relate to. The readers may also experience ‘diversion’ (Katz), which may be
because they like the clothes that the celebrity is wearing so they proceed to buy the magazine. The readers may also experience ‘personal
identification’ (Katz) because the magazine includes so many different artists people could recognize the celebrity and buy the magazine. We
love pop also have many readers known as ‘survivors’ (Maslow) , which connotes that the readers feel they must pick up the magazines as
they know that they will find something that they will enjoy reading about.
What is the USP of this magazine?
From the research completed into this media product, the USP is that the magazine always puts a
celebrity on the front cover who is either in the pop music charts or has an interesting story. Their
main genre is pop music. This can be seen on many of their magazine front covers and their
website, this is because every month the magazine focuses on a celebrity who sings pop music. The
USP for the front cover I have analysed is that at the time that the magazine was published when
‘One Direction’ were very popular and ‘We love Pop’ was the only magazine to publish a story on
them, therefore this magazine was a success with the target audience.
http://www.welovepopmag.co.uk/

19. Publisher
Research
My chosen magazine of inspiration is We Love Pop.
• We Love Pop is published by Egmont, a media institution that manages a portfolio of
magazines across the UK.
• We Love Pop focuses on the popular pop artists of the world. Therefore their target
audience are people who enjoy the latest pop hits. Readers are mainly young girls
aged 13-15, and have enough money to buy the magazine each month.
• We Love Pop magazine has a circulation of 115,000 copies distributed in July-
December 2013.
http://www.egmont.co.uk/magazines.asp?pane=teen&mag=welovepop