This document provides details on the design, house style, target audience, and publishing plans for a proposed vinyl and R&B music magazine. The magazine will target 16-39 year old females and feature photos taken by the author alongside music news and gossip. It will have a sophisticated but subtle design with a left-aligned masthead and use of pastel colors and fonts like Cambria and Ariel to appear high-end. The monthly magazine plans to cost £2.99 per issue and be published by Time Inc., a company experienced in women's magazines that also enables digital and multimedia platforms.

1. Vinyl – Pop and R&B Magazine
Target Audience- 16 to 39 year olds
Treatment sheet
By Jess Brown

2. Design
My publication will be promoting music in the pop and R&B genre. I chose this
genre because the results of my survey came back that most people wanted to
read about pop music, but I wanted to add R&B to maybe attract a secondary
audience but to also get the primary target audience interested in another genre
of music. I will be including photos I took myself of bands and solo artist I am yet
to create for the purpose of the magazine. I want my masthead to be large but
subtle, I don’t want bright neon colours for the masthead as I want the cover
photo to be the main attraction point. Therefore I want to stick to pastel colours
and maybe one bright eye catching colour, as I am trying to create a high-end
magazine that’s full of features but doesn’t look to busy, making it more
appealing to the audience. I am looking to use pastel colours, but mainly a
combination of a light grey, soft blue, and subtle pink, this will be appealing to
the target audience. I like the font ‘aqua wax light’ for the masthead; an example
of this is at the top of the page that you can view. I think this looks subtle like I
intended but is still interesting enough to grab with audience’s attention. Due to
having a multimedia platform magazine there will be also a version of this
online, this version will maintain the same design.
Housestyle
I briefly mentioned the colour scheme in my first paragraph. I want to stick to
pastel colours as I think it will keep the attention on the features and the cover
photo, which is what I want to be the main attraction for the audience. The
colours I have in mind are a soft grey with either a subtle blue or pink. I’ve
chosen these colours because I’ve seen them being repeatedly used in high end
magazines that I researched before hand, ‘billboard’ was a magazine that used
subtle colours and I loved how it looked. However for important exclusive
stories I may you use a heavy bold colour for the font, something the contrast
against the lighter colours making it stand out more. I think using soft pastel
colours will do well at attracting the target audience of 16-35 year old females, as
these colours are stereotypically more pleasing to a female audience. Not only
that but many music magazines are bring red and yellow, their colour scheme
screams at the audience looking busy and to full. Therefore selling my magazine
on the shelf next to them is likely to be more appealing as the colour scheme is
softer and more relaxing, making it more tempting for the audience to pick up. I
want the masthead to be aliened to the left hand side, outlined in a grey and clear
or white in the inside. I chose this because I took inspiration from the ‘billboard’
magazine; unlike other publications they have their masthead vertical down the
right hand side. Therefore I decided to place my masthead to the left rather than
on the right like it traditionally is, making my magazine different. Through out
my magazine is insist on using the same font for the articles, either ‘Cambria
(body)’ or ‘Ariel’, this is because these fonts are mature which portrays to the
audience this magazine is high end and has quality information in. However for
the titles and subheadings I think I’ll change the font regularly, making it match
and contrast with the other fonts, I think this will make it look fun and grab the
audiences attention without a doubt. I want the page layout to be sophisticated

3. and organised well. I don’t want it to look like a bunch of images and features
have been thrown on to the page, I want it convey to the audience its high end
just by looking at the front cover. For the layout of the features I am going to take
inspiration from the ‘Rolling Stones’ magazines I analysed earlier, there placed
neatly down the left hand side with, but are sill large and very noticeable.
Target Audience
My target audience is going to me females aged 16-35 as the music and genre I
am writing about would be more suited to their age. The survey I carried out
was 50/50 when it came to the gender question (male or female?). However I
didn’t want a mixed target audience or just male, this is because when I carried
out my publishing houses research I discovered that one of the leading
companies ‘Time Inc’ sold more magazines that were aimed at women, such as
‘Women’s Weekly’. Personally I think is because women are more likely to buy
magazines than men, especially when the include the lifestyle of big celebrity’s
and gossip, therefore as well as talking about upcoming music my magazine will
be putting rumours to rest with big music artists. Also I think this target
audience would be highly interested in a high-end magazine as it looks very
appealing to the eye. There could be a secondary audience of male who are
interested by the lifestyle of music artist and such, therefore making my
magazine more diverse.
Cover information
My magazine is going to cost £2.99, as when I carried out my survey this option
was voted for the most. I think it is expensive for a magazine however for a high-
end publication full of exclusives I think the price is well suited. I am also going
to have a digital option for my magazine to, so the readers can buy I online and
keep it on their phone/tablet/computer. On my survey most people said they
would buy this magazine weekly but I don’t think that’s wise as it costs £2.99,
therefore I think it would be more suited to be published monthly, as it will be
more affordable and would have better information/articles if I was to be
created for over a month. Publishing it monthly also follows the style of how
other high-end magazines are published.
Publishing House
I would like to publish my magazine with Time Inc this is because this company
has the most experience publishing magazines catering to women. Not only that
but in 2014 the rebranded there company and ever since then their revenue has
been growing in size, therefore I think it would be wise to go with this company.
Lastly this company publishes a range of things over a range of digital platforms,
which is beneficial for my magazine, as I would like to make it digital.