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.