Target audience

This table above shows statistics of a magazine that I am researching that is similar and in the same genre that I am basing my magazine around. It shows that Top Of The Pops magazine has a total of 169,000 readers, most of which are from the CD2DE class band with 107,000 this is 0.5% of their overall readers, showing that it is aimed to the lower class. The age of the readers are mainly 15-44, being 139,000 where as 45+ is 30,000 of their readers, also it is clear that they aim the magazine at as there is 122,000 women/girls, compared to the 47,000 men/boys that read it.

Another similar magazine that aim to this audience is Smash Hits, it has been running for 28 years, and sells around 120,063 copies a fortnight, meaning 60,000 a week. They attract an audience that use gadgets such as; laptops, MP3 players, mobile phones, TV or game consoles.

I will be aiming my magazine to a similar audience, a typical reader of this genre of magazine, would be girls aged around 13-17 that are interested in English pop music, celebrity gossip, soap operas, socializing with friends, socializing networks and may use gadgets such as mobile phones, laptops and Ipods or MP3 players, these are classified as mainstreamers as they go with the flow and don't want to stand out, and are also into popluar things, such as the things listed above. Also the readers that are in my targer audience are normally classed in the CD2DE socio-economic band and are considered to be part of the lower class, people in this band are normally considered to be from skilled manual workers such as carpenters and electricians, to semi and unskilled manual workers like drivers, post sorters and labourers, and also people subsisting on state benefits such as the unemployed and pensioners.

A target audience is important to consider when creating a magazine, this is because without knowing who the target audience is its hard to aim the magazine features and articles to certain readers, and it can also become very expensive.

Source for table above - http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html - National Readership Survey offers a table of statistics on a large sample of general magazines, this involves total number or readers, female or male, what socio economic band most readers are from and also the age of readers.

Main task - Introduction

My main Media AS coursework is to design and produce a front cover, contents page and a double page article for a new music magazine.This will include taking images and producing an article about a new fictional band or singer. I am focusing on pop as the genre for my music magazine.During this task I will interpret my skills and knowledge from my previous preliminary task into this new coursework. Here is the link for my preliminary coursework of a college magazine http://sdcmediaaslauracarnegie.blogspot.com/

Evaluation

This is a screen shot of my finished magazine, I think it is rather successful as it has ended up how I planned it to look. I believe it will attract my target audience as the features I have interpreted were based around the target audience. However I believe I could have spent more time on the image on the front cover, making it that little bit more eye catching and interesting, or even related to the articles in the magazine, this would of added a bit of extra appeal to my target audience. I am pleased with the contents page as I think it looks different and more interesting with the decorations, this was because I thought if it just included a bit of information about the articles inside the magazine it wouldn't make the reader interested to read on.

Photographs

Here are the two photos I took for the image on my front cover. I chose the medium close up, as it shows the full face rather than minimal coverage that the side shot does. I believe the medium close up will attract more people to my magazine. I had to consider the background of the photo, the lighting and the colours as I didn't want to take any attention away from the main feature of the image. I did it at that angle because it doesn't make him look small as it would if I took it from above, or tall if I took it from below. I think this photo will attract my target audience because he is the same age and has the current look/style. I chose to just use it without framing or any editing because I think the photo suits the magazine as it is.

Flatplans

These are the flat plans for my magazine, the front cover and the contents page.
For the masthead I chose to use the font Gill Sans Ultra Bold because its big, bold and eye catching, and it is rather modern looking which should appeal to my target audience of college students. For the rest of my magazine font I used, Gloucester MT Extra Condensed, this is a serif font. I chose to use this as it is different from the masthead so it won't be boring to look at. I also used the same fonts for the contents page. I designed the masthead to be large and overpowering compared to the rest of the features on the front cover, this is because I want people to notice the name more than the contents of the magazine. The language of the main flash isn't too complicated and it gets straight to the point. For one of the main sells I used a pun e.g. OI OI sailor, to make the reader become more interested in the article. Whereas on another I use more persuasive language to lure the reader. I also included the date, issue number of the magazine and the price on the bottom right of the front cover. The contents page entitles a more in depth storyline of the articles featured and also includes some decorative art. I have chosen the layout, fonts and images of my magazine to appeal to my target audience.

Introduction

For my preliminary task we have been asked to produce the front cover and contents page of a college magazine. This will include all the normal features of a magazine such as, main flash's, main sells and images. It will be aimed at students who attend the college and include articles that are related to them.