Audience research

Question 1: sixteen people answered my survey and exactly half of them were male and half were fe-male. this means that i have to include content that would interest both genders.

Question 2: 68.8% of people who answered my questionnaire were aged between 16-19; 18.8% were aged between 20-24; and 6.3% were aged between 12-15 and also 25-29. This means i have to have content which is best suited to old teenagers between 16-19 and include articles that might interest people of this age bracket.

Question 3: 31.3% of people questioned fovourite genre is metal; this is the highest percentage. 18.8% liked indie, 12.5% liked rock, 12.5% liked R n B, 6.3% liked techno, 6.3% liked pop and no one liked hip hop. this means that my magazine will be based on the genre of heavy metal because it is 12.5% more popular than the second highest genre.

Question 4: the answers for peoples favourite bands do vary but there are 2 bands that are most popular, metallica and paramore. they are only up twice though. Pantera, Parkway drive and as i laying dying which are all metal bands are in aswell. Most of peoples favourite bands fall under the metal or rock category so therefore my magazine should include mostly metal bands but possibly some rock bands aswell.

Question 5: 68.8% of people visit gigs less than once a month, 25% visit gigs between once and three times a month, 18.8% go to gigs over 7 times a month and 12.5% go between four and six times a month. This shows that people are not interested in gigs that happen all the time. But that some people are interested in a lot of gigs, to solve this problem, in my magazine i would write about festivals as they are big events but not about small gigs. However i would include adverts that advertise bands touring scheldules.

Question 6: 56.3% of people questioned would spend £3-4 on a monthly magazine, 25% would spend between £1-2 and 18.8% would spend £5 or more. This means that the magazine has to be a better quality magazine; for example it would have to include better paper like magazines such as Q or Metalhammer where as cheaper magazines such as Kerrang have thinner paper. Also the articles have to be a lot better aswell; Metalhammer articles are always highly edited and have been thought about a lot where as Kerrang its not edited and all the articles are similar in layout and content.

Question 7: 43.8% of people questionned favourite magazine is Kerrang, 25% said NME, 18.8% said Metal Hammer, 6.3% said Mojo, 6.3% said Mix Mag and no one said Q. This shows that people like reading a magazine which is simple and cheap. It also shows that they don't want a big magazine they want a small compact magazine.

Question 8: 56.3% of people watch music videos on youtube, 31.3% of people watch music videos on tv, 12.5% voted they don't watch them and no one voted for band websites. This shows that online is by far the most popular place to watch music videos, this could be taken advantage of making a youtube page and uploading band videos could be good publicity for the magazine.

Question 9: 87.5% voted that they buy a magazine because it features bands they like, 43.8% said interesting pictures, 37.5% voted for interesting articles, 37.5% voted for an eye catching front cover and 18.8% voted for competitions. This very clearly shows that people will most likely only buy a magazine if it features band that they like in it, this means that my magazine will feature a wide variety of bands, spanning through diferent sub-genres and also big bands and small bands alike. Interesting pictures are also looked for in a magazine because it grabs peoples attention and determines or not if they want to read the article.

Question 10: 56.3% of people wanted bright colours on a front cover, 50% wanted a natural image, 43.8% wanted an edited image, 37.5% wanted very little text, 12.5% wanted dull colours and 6.3% wanted lots of text. This shows the front cover needs to be brightly coloured to grab peoples attention, I think with the use of and edited image instead of a natural image because you can make it more colourful. People would rather look at an image and little text on a front cover instead of lots of text because that makes it too crowded.

Reader profile

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My reader profile shows pictures of popular bands of the genre and also were the favourites in my research. there is also pictures of instruments because a lot of people who listen to metal music do play instruments. also there are pictures of gigs which my research shows that people like going to. there is also pictures of alcohol because the target audience can be firmly asscioated with alcohol

analysis of 3 magazine front covers, contents pages and double page spreads

Screenshots of magazines

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College Magazine Project

                                                  My College Magazine Project

1. I set up my google mail account. my google mail address is: dalebarber23@gmail.com

2. I set up my blogger account. my blogger address is:

3. I set up my surveymonkey account. my surveymonkey account is: DBarber23

4. I set up my issuu account. my issuu acount is: DBarber23

5. This magazine front cover is very conventional and follows most of the generic conventions of a magazine front cover. It is a simple design and is easy to look at because it is not overcrowded with articles; i think the simplicity makes it more eye catching because you are drawn to the picture and lead article and don't get distracted by anything else. Having the image on the right is unusual because the main image is usually in the center to follow the rule of 3. The colour scheme is very eye catching because all the colours are bright. There is also not too many colours too make it look tacky but there are the right amount of colours to make it interesting. There are three different fonts on the front cover; all of them are very similar and the colour is the most visible change to any of the text. This magazine would appeal to students who are studying or are interested in sports. If this magazine was to be sold at a college which is specifically sports, it would be more successful than if it was at a college which had no specific type of course, it would be less successful because sports aren't something everyone likes. Overall I think this front cover is successful and eye catching because of its simplicity. i also like the way that it follows most of the generic conventions of a magazine front cover but also has changed some like the image being on the right and going against the rule of 3.



6. This is my flatplan sketch of my front cover. it shows what kind of shot that i wanted to use and the direction that the model should look. i included a simple font for my masthead because i wanted a relatively simple font for my masthead. this was my first sketched ideas of my magazine and how i wanted it to look. The colours involved would be a black jumper on the model and a grey back round and then a black masthead. The articles i will include are: new college bands albums, a tutor retiring after 35 years and the main article would be about a new front man, the model in the photo.   

7. These are the fonts that i could have used on my front cover as a masthead. The one in the middle is the one that i used on my finished front cover. I used this font because it was eye catching and easy to look at unlike some others that i looked at, like the mad scientist font, above on the right on my final font. It was also like a standard font but with enough variation to make it interesting but not too much to make it un readable. My final font also doesnt follow a specific genre, unlike the one on the top right which is clearly a font belonging to the metal genre, i didnt want a font which followed a genre because my magazine is aimed at a whole college not a specific type of person who likes a certain genre.

 8. This is the original photo that i took for both my contents page and my front cover.

   - To make the image that is on the front cover from this original, i cut out the model and slightly changed the lighting to make it a little bit lighter but not too bright.

   - In the image for the contents page, i again cut the model out of the picture but with this picture i made it darker so that you could read the font easier over the image and didnt want it to be a fully focussed clear image.

9.

Open publication - Free publishing - More screenshots

10. This is my finished Magazine front cover and my finished contents page:

Evaluation of my college magazine- My front cover's image i think is a strong image because the model is not looking directly at the camera which is different from most other magazine front covers because the model generally looks at the camera. I also think the masthead is good because it doesnt follow a certain genre and is still not a boring standard font; its also a instantly recognisable font. I dont like how poorly the image has been cut out, it doesnt look right because you can see white bits around the image; to cover this up i would change the backround colour to white. i dont like the yellow box that i added for colour because it stands out too much and doesnt match a colour system. To conclude there are a few things that i would change on my magazine front cover to make it look a lot better like the colour system, but i also do like the masthead and the main image.

Evaluation of my college magazine- My Contents page is not a very colourful contents page because it followed the same colour scheme as the front cover. The image is too similar to the one on the front cover but is still a good image. There is also a massive blank space where the models head can be seen but it still looks strange with a big space. The text is also a little hard to read but is not unreadable. To conclude, my contents page is a simple design and easy to find the information but does not look good because of the dull colours.

My First Photoshop



In my first photoshop lesson i created this mock magazine cover. There are four layers, one of the coloured backround, the main image, the lead article and the masthead. i have used various effects on the photo including a mosaic tile filter and changed the colour contrasts.

analysis of a front cover

Metal Hammer front cover


genre: music mainly around heavy metal

audience: age 15-30, mainly males, not specific location

colours: black, white, red

styling: gothic, old metal, front cover shows the anger and agression of the band

text and writing: the skyline is 2 band logos and 3 other standard font band names. the mast head is the metal hammer logo which consists of white writing and gun shots and glass shardes