Indie Pop Double Page Spread Mock

I also created a DPS layout which I plan to follow for my final product as it looks professional but still quirky so will attract my audience ;however I plan to change the article as a story on how an artist is dealing with hate is quite boring and negative so will not attract my audience. Perhaps for my final product I will do an exclusive interview on a love story between two artists as this will appeal to my audience far more.

Indie Pop Magazine Cover Mock

I created a mock-up of my magazine which allowed to construct an initial design for my product and allowed me to put down all my ideas and see how they looked in advance before making the real final product. I will get some audience feedback on this mock-up cover from my target audience to see what works well and what doesn’t.

Analysis Of Indie Pop Magazine Covers

Before the construction of my Indie pop Magazine I decided to look at a couple more covers within the genre so I could follow the conventions.

Masthead Design Drafts

I experimented with the appearance of my masthead on Photoshop, to find out what worked best for my magazine. I decided to go with the fourth one down as it represented Indie as being the dominant genre and pop being the secondary genre. I decided to go with the black and white colour scheme as it follows the conventions of traditional magazine to make it look professional and added a pale red as my main colour as it symbolises passion such as Q and NME. It is more of a pink than red as it will attract my target market as it is aimed towards females. The mast head is one of the most important features of a magazine cover as it is what will catch the viewers eye in a store and through doing this research I was able to find out what worked the best for my magazine. I decided to go with the name 'Indie-Pop' as it is straight to the point in representing the magazine genre without any confusing double meanings and is also fun to say.
HOWEVER in the end after consulting with my audience I discovered it sounded too much like a kids magazine so settled upon 'Indie etc.' instead as it is better fitting and more quirky.

Target Audience Research

I created a small focus group consisting of people within my target audience and asked some questions related to the construction of my own media product. This was a good method of market research as I got information directly from the people I will be targeting. The volunteers were from ages 16-18 (which is within my age group for my audience profile of 16-30) female (as I will be attracted a predominately female audience) besides one male who was there as part of a secondary audience and to provide a male gaze. This was extremely helpful as I learnt things like what price people will be willing to pay, what colours they like, which artists they enjoy. Overall the main thing which I took from this focus group is that people who enjoy Indie-pop music are all about up and coming artist so will be introducing a new artist for my cover and DPS, but overall everything which was said will influence my decisions when it comes to the creation of my real media product.

Initial Ideas & Institutions For My Indie-Pop Magazine

I created a brainstorm about some initial ideas for my media product such as colour schemes, magazine names and institutions which might distribute my product.

Analysis Of Indie-Pop Double Page Spreads

I took a look at three conventional Double page spreads of NME, Billoard and Q focusing in on the four main areas which they consist from:
-Main Image
-Font
-Layout
-Audience
which gave me an idea of what I am aiming to recreate when it comes to the construction of my own media product.

Analysis of Indie-Pop Contents pages

I chose to look at the contents pages of NME, Billboard and Q magazine and analysed what forms and conventions of magazines they oblige to. Overall I feel as though the layout of them all lack lustre and look too linear so when it comes to the construction of  my own media product I will try to give it more of a quirky layout and will probably do a double page contents.

Indie-Pop Moodboard

Here is a mood-board I created in which I could draw inspiration from as part of my Indie-pop audience, as I needed a stimulus due to it being a genre which I was new to. I also brainstormed some ideas together for my audience profile which was:
-Predominantly female
-Aged between 16-30 years old
-Into Indie-pop music and artists like Lana Del Ray, Ed Sheeran and The Arctic Monkeys
-Like to attend concerts, festivals and gigs
-Very into fashion
-Like art and anything unique
-Love nature and going camping
-Very into social media and following trends
-Not too rich but not too poor either

Analysyis Of Contrasting Genre Magazine Covers

As part of my research I looked at three different magazine covers: Q, Kerrang and Vibe so that I could analyse the conventions of music magazines looking at media language, Saussure, mise-en-scene, etc.  so that I could use and challenge traditions for when it comes to creating my own music magazine.

Preliminary Work - Evaluation

I evaluated the successes and failures of my preliminary work for the following criteria:
-The ways my media product uses, develops and challenges conventions of real media products.
-The ways in which my media product represents particular social groups.
-Target market for my media product.
-How I attracted my target audience.
-What I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing my product.

Overall I feel as though I was very successful with my preliminary work construction ;however there are many areas in which I could improve.

Existing Magazine Comparison

For research I decided to compare the way that celebrities are

represented in fashion magazines in comparison to music magazines

to see the differences in contrast, this is because the different genres

attract specific target audiences.

Preliminary Work - College Magazine Cover Draft

For the production of my college magazine cover draft I did some market research by looking at existent magazine covers so in which I could follow the conventions and apply them to my own media product, I added a masthead of 'studious' as it represents my target group and is short, snappy and recognizable. I decided to follow an orange colour scheme as it was an autumn edition, I found an image on the internet for the cover which was similar to the one I plan on taking for when I come to constructed my real college magazine. the model is holding books to make her appear intelligent, she is also wearing fashionable clothing so she is represented as being too stereotypically 'nerd' like as I wanted to target college students as a whole which is made obvious by my coverlines and choice of articles for example there is contrast from 'GET INVITED TO ALL THE PARTIES THIS TERM' attracting a more social group to 'students corner' attracting the more academic students as I made my magazine educational as well as entertaining. upon completion of my draft I decided to ask my peers what worked well and what could be improved so that I could edit it for when it comes to my official college magazine. some feedback I got was that it was rather neutral and boring with the colour scheme so I will take this constructive criticism and apply it by using a more vibrant or professional choice of colours so that it is more suitable for college students. another comment which I got was about the layout as the barcode was positioned top left which made the title area quite busy so when it comes to my genuine magazine I will have it on the bottom right corner like existing magazines so It looks more aesthetically pleasing and conventional. overall I feel as if I was successful in addressing my target market but there is lots of areas which require improvement.

Preliminary Work - College Magazine Contents

Here is the final draft for my college magazine (studious) contents page.

Preliminary Work - College Front Cover

Here is my final draft for my preliminary task which I redrafted after my first draft in an attempt to improve it.