How my research has informed my planning

How my research has informed planning –

Ideas for colour schemes:

Pink and yellow – Connotes femininity as they are very young colours, if I used these colours within my music magazine they would have to be muted, maybe even pastel colours. Strong bright colours such as this may not suit my target audience of young adults between the ages of 17-20 because they are stereotypically seen as childish colours.

Black, white and Red – Not a very unique choice of colours as they are used within existing Real Media Artefacts such as NME and Q. Although it attracts the right audience and genre, my music magazine would have a hard time competing and standing out against other existing music magazines.  

Purple and Blue – Could still be seen as youthful colours, especially purple as it is quite a feminine colour and could fail to attract male readers. These colours could target my target audience of young adults if they were used in subtle ways with other muted colours such as Grey and Cream.

Grey and Black – Plain colours such as this will be used within my music magazine as a base. However, I will need to make my music magazine stand out in order to grab my readers attention, it’s therefore important that I include the use of strong colours as well as Grey, white and black.

After assessing which colours will work best to suit my target audience and Indie/Alternative Genre of music I have chosen to use a range of pastel colours within my music magazine, as well as muted colours such as Grey, white and black. This way I will include bold colours which catch my audience’s attention whilst making my magazine look modern with the muted colours, suggesting a more sophisticated feel to the magazine.

Ideas for the use of Text within my magazine:

Language is an important factor as I need to ensure that my magazine is targeting the correct audience. In my magazine I need to avoid using any abbreviations such as “LOL” as these would attract a younger teenage audience. I therefore need to ensure that the language used is quite formal, but still entertaining so that young adults enjoy reading it.

Cover lines include an important role in attracting the reader to the magazine; it is a good idea to include pull quotes from my double page spread as a cover line on the front. As I learnt when researching Real Media Artefacts that this is commonly used to attract readers by making the page stand out.

On the contents page my use of language will be less formal as I will be using lots of pull quotes and short sentences to explain the different features in the magazine. I need to make sure my language is clear and to the point for this, as I will not have a lot of space to include long sentences. It’s also important that the language is entertaining; as the contents page will determine whether or not my audience will go on to read more of the magazine. To make the page more interesting I could include a new pull quote from the double page spread, as this  

For my double page spread my questionnaire results showed that including an interview from a new or up and coming artist would be the best way to attract my target audience of young adults. The language that will be used within my double page spread can be more formal although it is important that I include some humour within the interview in order to keep the reader entertained.

Ideas for the overall House style:

It’s important to keep the same colour scheme running throughout the entire magazine, as this continuity allows the magazine to look more professional to the reader. As well as keeping colours the same, text also needs to be repeated in certain ways as this makes the pages look neater and easier to read for the audience. It is important to always use a larger font for titles, sub-titles, headlines of pages and even having the first letters in capitals when there is a large amount of text as this draws the reader in and shows them where to start reading. It’s important to keep all of these things in mind, in order to make the reading experience as easy and enjoyable as possible for my target audience.

Ideas for Images:

The front cover must include a medium close up of the up and coming artist to clearly promote both him and the magazine. In existing Real Media Artefacts some front covers include more than one image in order to show features that are inside the magazine. I have found that the use of more than one image can look messy and unprofessional, as well as being typically found in magazines targeted at a younger audience. Therefore, for my target audience of young adults between the ages of 17-20 it may be best to have just one image on the front cover looking clear and simple as this suggests a cooler and more sophisticated style.

On the contents page several different images can be used in order to give the reader a real feel for what features in the magazine. This will also break up the text on the contents page and make the page more interesting and eye catching for the reader. It’s important that I include images from all different parts of the magazine in order to show more of a variety and make the page stand out, as it’s important that the contents page does not appear boring to the reader.

I have a good idea of what my double page spread should consist of from researching Real Media Artefacts. The main image that features on a double page spread usually bleeds through onto both pages, this is so that the readers eye travels across the page. The image used can also go behind text in order to guide the reader to the text. These features are commonly used and look professional within a double page spread, I therefore think my double page spread would look effective with this style.