Introduction and aims

The target audience for my music magazine will be female and male young adults. I plan to make my magazine appeal to students who like to go clubbing and are interested in the dance/electronic genre and its current, most popular and up and coming artists. Therefore, in terms of an age group, I would say my magazine is targeted at 16-24 year olds. If I were to discuss this in terms of psychographics, I would say I am aiming to appeal to aspirers who like designer goods and are motivated by how others see them as the dance/clubbing genre is not necessarily mainstream and this particular genre is able to be portrayed as a glamorous and sophisticated. I therefore plan for the overall style of my magazine to be clean, stylish and professional, with a slight urban edge. I would like my magazine to be glossy as I think it will suit the genre and appeal to the demographic of my magazine being mainly aspirers (people motivated by how others see them). I think this professional style should also reflect slightly in the price, yet I do not want to exclude students on a budget from my target audience and therefore I will be choosing a mid-range price, something between £2.50 and £4.

The inspiration for my magazine mainly came from two current music magazines on the market, ‘Q’ and ‘Mixmag’. Although Q magazine was not related to my chosen genre, it reflected the polished style I wanted for my magazine, and Mixmag helped me understand how the dance/clubbing genre can be portrayed in a music magazine. I would say I was also inspired by the information I gathered from my questionnaire, as it helped me form a clearer idea of what would appeal to my target audience and what features I should include in order to make my magazine successful. From what I understood from analysing Mixmag magazine and asking my target audience, features of my magazine should focus on reviews of popular gigs, clubs and festivals, interviews with current and up and coming DJs and artists from the dance/electronic genre, and articles on inside info/gossip from the industry that will keep readers interested and engaged. The artist I will be focusing on in this issue of my magazine will be an up and coming female singer whose music and interest is in the dance/electronic genre. This will affect my magazine in terms of the main cover line on the front cover, the main article inside the magazine, and the main images. I will need to promote and mention this artist frequently throughout the magazine so they become the main point of focus for the reader. 

I plan on the images I use throughout my magazine to reflect the energy and movement of dance music as a genre. On the front I will most likely just have one single main image relating to the artist featured in the magazine. On the contents page I plan on having a few images that anchor to certain articles I want to attract attention to. This may involve having professional shots of artists featured and more snapshot type photos from gigs/festivals. On the double page spread article all images will relate to the artist featured. I am going to have a main image taking up most of the space, which needs to look professional and so taken in a studio. Further images could be of the artist performing etc so could have a more casual style. The main model I will be using for these images will be the featured young adult female artist. I want to create an image of a person that males can be attracted to and and females can aspire to be like so I will appeal to both genders, such as current Pop/Dance artist Rita Ora. I plan on using different lighting throughout my main shoot so I have a variety of images to choose from when it comes to creating my magazine, such as a mixture of harsh artificial lighting (low key) and softer high key studio lighting. This will be in order to create a professional feel to my images. The clothing my model will be wearing will be casual party-wear, something plain but sexy. I plan on creating a dramatic make up look possibly using glitter in order to catch the light. I will select my favourite shots from the shoots to edit in Photoshop by creating a contact sheet and circling the most successful photos.

The double page spread article is going to be an interview with my magazine’s featured artist. Questions will be separated in some way in order to create structure and break up large amounts of text. In terms of the general layout of my magazine, I plan for it to be quite structured. I don’t want the layout of my magazine to look too busy, so my focus will be on using smaller amounts of text and small font sizes to increase free space. I will need to follow certain codes & conventions of music magazines such as having a recognisable masthead that can feature throughout the magazine, a consistent colour scheme, a main image relating to the featured article, other smaller images relating to further articles, boxing devices to feature important information and break up text, and columns for large amounts of text (usually 2 or 3). The colour palette of my magazine will focus on quite muted colours such as greys and purples (which have connotations of elegance, innovation and fashion) with one bright colour, reflecting the results of my questionnaire and chosen genre. I want to incorporate lots of white text as I think it also helps the magazine look stylish and modern.

I have chosen the title of my magazine to be ‘Electric’ because I think it relates to the connotations of dance/electronic music and clubbing. It is not too long so will easily fit as a masthead, and it is easy to read and recognisable.