Fonts

Today I have been looking at fonts that I could use for the Strobe masthead, I don't have a particular preference, so let me know which one you like best

Circulation Figures

In 2010 it was announced from ABC figures that Mojo had become the top-selling music magazine. It emerged that Q had lost 8% of it's audience in the previous year, and NME magazine had lost 21% of it's audience in the same time period.

Since my magazine is targeting a niche market, particularly the electronic music genre, it may attract readers who have stopped reading the other magazines.

From the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/11/mojo-q-nme-kerrang-abcs

Mojo has overtaken its sister title Q to become the biggest-circulation paid-for music magazine, while there were big drops for music titles New Musical Express, Kerrang! and Metal Hammer in the latest circulation figures out today.

Bauer Media's classic rock magazine Mojo had an average monthly circulation of 98,484 in the second half of last year, down 2% year on year but up 0.8% on the previous six months.

It overtook fellow Bauer title Q, which fell 8% year on year and 5.4% on the first half of the year to 94,811. There was better news for Q's sister title, film magazine Empire, which was up 2.4% year on year to 194,239. It stretched its already substantial lead over Future Publishing's Total Film, which was down 5.8% year on year to 81,029. IPC Media's Uncut held onto third place among the paid-for rock music titles, despite a 13.3% fall year on year to 75,518. It was ahead of Classic Rock, which was up 1.5% year on year and 1.3% on the first half of 2009 to 71,242.

But there were big year on year drops for the other titles in the rock music sector. Future Publishing's Metal Hammer was down 16.9% year on year and 9.2% on the previous six months to 41,777. It was just ahead of Bauer's rock title Kerrang!, which tumbled 21.3% year on year and 4.9% on the first half of 2009 to 41,125, while IPC's NME fell 20.6% year on year, and 6% on the previous six months, to 38,486.

Dance title Mixmag, owned by Development Hell, was also down, falling 13.4% year on year to 26,116. Development Hell's sister title, Word, was down 22.5% year on yearto 26,555. Channelfly Enterprises' free music monthly The Fly remained the music sector leader with an average distribution of 107,771, up 7.5% year on year.

The British Film Institute's Sight and Sound was up 0.6% on the previous year to 19,842. Future Plus's free film title, Odeon Magazine, was top of the film sector, with an average distribution of 205,380.

Treatment

Magazine:   

       

Strobe

Target Readership:    

                     

Strobe covers all music under the electronic genre, including electronic rock, drum and bass, house and garage music. There is no particular gender that the magazine is aimed at but the target age group of the magazine is from 16 years to low 20s. The musical interests of the readers will include electronic music, by artists such as Pendulum, the Prodigy, Daft Punk, deadmau5, amongst others. The typical reader is someone who has a passion for generally fast-paced music or music with heavy beats.

Form and style:

Strobe is an A4-sized magazine that contains interviews with electronic-artists, news and reviews of albums, gig information, and it will be brightly coloured with contrasting colours rather than a neat and easy-on-the-eye colour scheme, for example the red/white/silver gradient of Q magazine. This will hopefully have the effect of showing Strobe as a vibrant and magnanimous magazine that is a fresh and bright face to electronic music that is often overlooked. Often, featured artists will feature in a photoshoot for the front cover, and the coverlines, masthead and any banners will be bright and bold to attract attention. There will be many coverlines to imply there is a lot of content in the magazine, and as it sells for a RRP of £3, it will show the magazine is good value for money.

Themes and typical features:

As mentioned the main theme of the magazine will be the genre of electronic music. There will be interviews with artists and reviews of gigs, new albums and singles released, and news. 

Potential advertisers:

The magazine will be able to feature adverts by manufacturers and businesses in the music industry. These could include retailers of music/band equipment, or retailers of music, for example Apple. Apple has made billions of dollars in selling their iPod music devices and in the iTunes online music store. There may be opportunities to advertise via means of competitions, such as offering their products as prizes. 

Textual Analysis

Cover

This October 2009 issue of Q Magazine has a prominent cover in that it shows Matt Bellamy from Muse smashing his guitar against the Q logo. It has a very strong and bold colour pallette, with a background of a grey gradient and overlays of red, white and black.

The strapline of Q, 'The UK's bigger music magazine' hints that the magazine features good quality and popular artists. The coverlines of 'Muse- Matt Bellamy is out of control', and 'Rock's Greatest Nutjobs' possibly reflects the mood of the main image on the cover.

Q is published by the Bauer Media Group, and was first issued in 1986. Originally it was to be called Cue (as in the sense of cueing a record, ready to play), but the name was changed so that it wouldn't be mistaken for a snooker magazine. Another reason, cited in Q's 200th edition, is that a single-letter title would be more prominent on newsstands.

The one strong image compounded by the simple and easy-on-the-eye yet bold colours gives an impression that the magazine is sophisticated yet will give a informative and entertaining read. The paper quality is very good, with glossy pages. This gives a collectable feel to it, a complete opposite to a cheaper magazine such as Kerrang! which doesn't have such a glossy and professional feel to it.

The small comment above the main coverline, "I bought 50 tins of beans and an axe", gives potential readers an insight into the featured article. In addition to the Muse banner/article there are many other artists featured, for example an article with 200 things you didn't know about the Beatles, which could attract the attention of any Beatles fans. The artists highlighted in the 'plus' coverline shows that Q has access to a wide variety of artists and the long list of artists there also implies you are getting a lot of content for your money.

Contents Page

The contents page shown is from the January 2010 issue

This is a typical Q contents page. It uses the same colour pallette as the cover page, and also includes an image of the front cover in the top right of the page.

This particular issue was dedicated to a main feature called 'Artists of the Century', and the importance of this feature gives it a very large space on the contents page.

It is divided into columns, with the aforementioned featured artists article contents on the left and other regular features on the right. A regular feature, the 'Q Review', has a large caption at the bottom of the page and is accompanied by a fairly large photo of a classic artist. This shows that Q will cater for a very wide range of artists, from many different eras.



Double Page Spread

This is the double page spread from an issue of Q featuring the Temper Trap band. It has a very simplistic layout and the background image takes on an almost sepia tone, making the serif font difficult to read in places however it gives the article a pleasant, soft read, it is easy on the eye and there are no clashing colours.

This particular article is very short in length and only gives basic information and facts, and very little in the form of interview and questions. In my article I will aim to create an authentic-looking interview feature that will be a lot longer and give a better insight into the workings and interests of the band.

Common features that this DPS has used that are typical of a lot of magazine features include;
- Drop cap at the start of the article
- Image captions
- Large long shot background image


 



Questionnaire

Please complete the questionnaire by posting a comment with your responses.
Many thanks

Magazine-related questions

1) How much money would you be willing to pay for a good quality music magazine?

Less than £1.50
£1.50 - £2.00
£2.00 - £2.50
£2.50 - £3.00
£3.00 - £4.00
More than £4

2) How often should the magazine be issued?

Weekly
Fortnightly
Monthly
Every other month
Other (please describe)

3) Which gender should the magazine be primarily targeted at?

Male
Female
Both

4) Which age bracket should the magazine be targeted at?

Less than 13 years
13-15
16-18
More than 18 years

5) Any other suggestions?

Music-related questions

6) What kind of music genre(s) do you like?

Rock/Alternative
Metal/Punk
Blues/Jazz
Electronic/House/Drum and Bass
R&B/Hip-hop
Pop
Classic
Other (please state)

7) Do you think a magazine should be dedicated to your selected genre or should have a mix of some/all?

8) Are there any artists/bands you particularly like?

9) Which of the following photo types would appeal to you in purchasing a music magazine?

Band/Artist photoshoot
Live performance
Equipment
Other (please describe)

Many thanks

Name ideas

At the moment I'm thinking up what kind of any particular music genre my magazine will focus on, and I will name my magazine to match the style. My main interest in music is the house/electronic/D&B genre so this is the most likely genre that my magazine will cover.

Here are some potential names

Mixed
Synth
Dub
Drum
Strobe
Laser
Thump

Let me know by commenting which one you prefer, cheers

Photoshoot

Due to the adverse weather conditions last week myself and Jake Vaughan went out into the snow like an expedition to the North Pole, took some photos that could be used and came back because it was too cold. We then went into the college music practice rooms and took more photos.
Here's a small sample. These photos may be too blurry or otherwise unsuitable for the final magazine feature so we will take more in the near future

The music industry is a cold and lonely place

Drums n' stuff.

Who the hell is our new guitarist?

New guitar hero.

Which one is it again?

Part II + Plan of Action

After the preliminary task I will now be starting the main task which will involve creating a magazine cover, contents page and double-page spread for a music-themed magazine.

Action Plan;

03/01/11 - 21/01/11 - Research and Planning

3/1 - Action Plan
10/1 - Magazine Comparison
17/1 - Textual Analysis
17/1 - Internet Research on Readership Figures


24/01/11 - 25/02/11 - Construction

24/1 - Photo shoot
7/2 - Layout designs
14/2 - Treatment Sheet
14/2 - Drafting

28/02/11 - 11/03/11 - Evaluation

28/2 - Final Pages
7/3 - Feedback
7/3 - Evaluation
11/3 - Deadline