Research and Planning: Distribution

Between major and independent publishing and distributing companies, there are many differences in their audiences and distribution strategies.
Frontline, and through this Bauer Media, has produced many popular magazine titles, including Heat, Bella, Q and Kerrang; in being a major company, they have gathered enough of both a reputation and money to be able to successfully fund so many. Vice, a smaller independent publishing company is focused singly on the production of the magazine Vice, though also branches into film, dvds (e.g. "Heavy Metal in Baghdad"), books and art.
Most of the Bauer Media magazines are distributed through a large process, travelling between wholesalers and finally the shops themselves – places such as Tesco and Asda, competitive mainstream markets, where they are exposed to the largest possible audience on an almost constant basis and are priced based on such a wide audience. The multi-platform market is also exploited by the company, saturating it in all forms – radio, tv, magazine and also in live events (e.g. awards) Vice, however, distributes in a seemingly small-scale manner, but in fact does so on a worldwide scale, reaching far across Europe and the US. However, it is free for the reader and seems to get its money from advertising, being stocked in alternative and indie shops such as Urban Outfitters and Retro Bizarre. It also posts much of its contents online to leave itself open to as many people as possible.
The audiences differ greatly between those of Bauer and Vice – Bauer is exposed to a very mainstream audience and therefore can be marketed almost anywhere. However, it is able to attract a range of demographics depending on the presentation of the magazine, Q, for example, gaining an A-C1 audience with its high quality, more generalised magazine. Vice, though independent, also is able to target a large audience, anything from A – C2. It is sold worldwide, but through a more individual, niche market which is actually seemingly equally successful.
My own magazine will be for a similar niche market to that of Vice, the audience being aspirers from between A-C2. Because of its musical genre and the individuality of the bands and the concept of the magazine, it probably wouldn’t appeal to the mainstream, and its purpose means that I would charge little or make it free to buy, for it is for promotion and recognition of new and unsigned bands. To gain audiences for these bands, my magazine would have to be sold in a similar location to the target audience, and thus distribute it similarly to Vice, to shops frequented by such people. I would also need to expand into the multi-platform, perhaps giving it a website to host videos and stream music of the bands for an interested audience to sample.

Detailed Research into Forms and Conventions

Of the genres of music magazine, I've settled on rock/indie, which most interests me. Once decided on this, I focused on three magazines from this genre: Kerrang!, NME and Q, not necessarily directly similar, but each drawing on techniques (for instance colour schemes, more informative articles) I would like to consider in my own magazine, being hopefully a product of inspiration from these three magazines.

Even within a genre, the targeted audience are varied, as is seen in the selection of magazines, Kerrang and NME in a lower market than Q (Kerrang and NME much lower down Jicnars Scale, aimed probably from C1 - D than Q, which seems to be appealing to C1 to possibly even an A audience), apparent in both the price, and the textual quality and quantity, as well as the sort of paper printed on, NME and Kerrang being a simple paper throughout, whilst Q is attributed a "glossy" cover.

This audience target also explains the relevance of their titles. Whilst Q subtley references to musical "cueing" of a record in preparation to play, understood only by those who would take music more seriously, NME is simply an abbreviated version of the "New Music Express", shortened to become snappy and more memorable. Kerrang, however, is onomatopoeic, representing the sound of a power-chord, and quite obviously appealing to those who are very centred on the audio-responsive whilst not being technical, people who appreciate music through listening and playing rather than necessarily understanding its process. It is interesting that the title in itself is also a screamer, reinforcing the striking title.

In visual representation, there is a quite obvious similarity between all three magazines, all generally following a black, white and red theme, Kerrang, though, using the red more sparingly. It is evident that the use of three such contrasting colours is a noticable and attractive effect but the scheme isn't exhausted; generally sub-themes are brought in for individual articles or themed covers to strengthen the revelance between cover artists and their captions. The text and smaller photos are generally placed at angles on Kerrang, and hardly anything is aligned, lending an effect of liberation and non-conformity which isn't as strongly notable in the other two magazines, and in all three magazines, the font itself is bold and upper case, often accompanied by screamers, lending an urgency to read to the audience.

Generally the content of all these magazines are limited to three things: musical/gig review and critique, articles on the progress of a band and their lives, or interviews with band members. There isn't that much direct audience targeting, as the focus is mainly on the music itself and relies on this to draw the reader more than clever audience targeting, but there is some use of the personal pronouns "you" and "your". Particularly in NME and Kerrang, the language used is more simplistic and text is generally in smaller chunks, so as to not alienate any of their audience. Q, however, seems much more textual and often delves further into the music industry than the others. In being more informative, it is also more formal in its language, appealing to an older audience.

It is evident from the style of the photos that Q is the most commercial of the magazines - the photos taken, particularly for the cover, are simplistic but seemingly very carefully shot and posed studio pictures, with makeup carefully done and the artists dressed to a theme, not always looking at the camera in their pose, and likely to be Photoshopped. This conforms to the stereotype of a "glossy" magazine and shows psychographically that its audience is much closer to being mainsteamers than the other magazines. Kerrang and NME, however are much more casual, and although many of the pictures are obviously posed in studios, there is a more natural theme and a more individualist nature; the whole band is shown relaxed and looking at the camera, targeting the reader. Also, there are many actual live pictures from gigs and shows, often including the audience themselves, involving them in the magazine.

The presentation of the pages is very carefully considered. The contents pages of all three follow a systematic template, generally composed of: a column listing the articles (aligned either left or right), split into categories of regular features and specials, all of which having a heading and subheading and a dominating and large photo of a major feature, accompanied by a subheading. Whilst Q simply leaves this as it is, Kerrang and NME have extra features which supplement the template: NME provides an artist index column, helping a fan navigate to their favourite band. Kerrang always leaves a note from the editor, reinforcing an apparent magazine-reader communication and familiarity. The double page spreads, too, follow a basic template, generally being dominated by a large picture, keeping to a particular colour scheme. Quite often, the magazine still enforces its title by giving each article a top bar including the title of the magazine and the category of the article. Whilst Q is the most textual of the three, seeking to inform and educate the reader, Kerrang is most visual, adding to the largest picture by overlaying smaller ones and creating montages. What is interesting about this is how Kerrang can devote a double page spread to such small textual pieces (such as the article pictured). Q, being quite the opposite of this, seems generally to devote double page spreads to major articles, and photos are not used to the detriment of the article's size, as the purpose of this magazine is to inform to a much greater extent than magazines like Kerrang and NME, and needs not necessarily rely upon photos to add interest to the articles.

It's interesting that Kerrang and Q, seemingly at different ends of the scale, are in fact published by the same group - Bauer Consumer Media. However, they have their similarities in their favouring of more individual bands and thus reaching similar audiences. NME is owned my Time Inc., a massive company linked to many media outlets, and is more likely to favour bands closer to the mainstream.

In doing this research, it has become apparent that there are many necessary things to consider and include in my own magazine, such as colour and font themes, templates for contents pages etc. It has allowed me to see what is successful in each magazine and what is not, as well as noting a particular gap in the market: whilst all these magazines promote bands, they promote those bands who are already making their way up the music industry, signed to a label. I plan to create a music magazine with the purpose of promoting unsigned artists of the rock/indie genre.

Main Task: Initial Research into Forms and Conventions (and Key Dates)

Wanting to understand the range of musical genres I am able to choose from with the beginning of the final magazine project, I have chosen three very different music magazines to study: Kerrang!, Classic FM and The Wire.

In looking at their titles, it is only Classic FM that has a direct reference to its music genre, in this case classical music, being named after the radio station it is based on. The Wire has a less apparent link, whilst Kerrang, it appears, has a simple, onomatopoeic title to represent the sound of a power chord on a guitar, very obviously linked to the rock genre.

Of all three, Classic FM seems most upmarket, including CDs as freebies, and containing articles of serious critique on musicians, whilst being relatively informal in appearance, and also advertises CDs of many musicians at much higher prices than that of mainstream pop music. Kerrang! targets a completely different, younger audience, generally advertising and reviewing bands and gigs. It is much more visual and has a clear style. Its price is much less, suiting the income of the audience. The Wire, of the three, is most obscure, focusing more broadly on "modern" music. It is simplistic in style, lacking in article ads on the cover, and seemingly middle market.

Key Project Dates:

07/12/09 - Main Task Introduction and research into similar products and audience

14/12/09 - Research on audience and institution, research and planning commences (drafts etc.)

21/12/09, 28/12/09 Christmas

04/01/10 - Research and Planning deadline, start production work (photos, layout etc.)

11/01/10 - Production

15/01/10 - Production deadline

18/01/10, 1/02/10 - Post Production

8/02/10 - Post Production deadline

15/02/10, 22/01/10 - Evaluation

1/03/10 - Evaluation, coursework prep. for marking, files and blog onto DVD

5/03/10 - Final deadline

Three things I need to do to improve my practical work

In performing my preliminary task there were some areas open to improvement in the future:

1) Familiarize myself more with the publishing programmes such as QuarkExpress or any programme previously unknown to me to achieve a higher standard in the completed product with the ability to be much more versatile during its creation due to a greater understanding of said programme's abilities.

2) Do a greater research into genre and audience to find more niche markets and audiences to target in my work, matched by a better understanding of said audience to create an overall better product.

3) Keep better time on each project by planning what will be done when to ensure that each piece is produced to the best of my abilities without a need to rush and miss crucial elements or overlook error.

Evaluation: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In completing this project, I've had to use both photomanipulation and publishing programmes, in this case Adobe Photoshop and QuarkExpress for the front cover and contents page respectively.
I used Photoshop in creating my front cover. Using its painting and editing capabilities I was able to easily cut the model from the original background of the photo and edit it using the magic wand and paint tools, manipulate the different elements seperately using the "layers" function, create borders for my smaller images and insert shapes, before rotating them in the way I wanted. Being such a versatile programme, there was little to nothing which caused me a problem, and I was able to achieve everything I wanted to with it.
However, I found that it was very difficult to get the results I wanted on QuarkExpress. Although it offered the shapes and word processing that Photoshop did, I found it was not able to cope with detailed images and reduced their quality significantly, making both my font and pictures seem pixellated and fuzzy. As it didn't have a magic wand tool, its parallel capabilities of making areas transparent was much poorer, leaving a white outline behind which made layering the image on top of a coloured background look messy and unprofessional. Also, as it provided me with no seperate layers to work on, after a while of placing images and text in the work space I found that they were more and more difficult to select as they overlapped each other.

Evaluation: How did you attract/address your audience?

The targeted audience for StudentBeat would want to buy the magazine for both aesthetic and literary reasons.
The bold colours, accompanied by the unusual, stylized font would be striking to the eye and pleasing to look at. The brightness of the colour and scruffy font connotes to life and fun, as well as the teen image and embodies some of what the magazine is about. Furthermore, the model is of the same age as the targeted audience, and is smiling and looking straight at the camera and thus the reader, giving an air of familiarity which would make the magazine more approachable. The model is dressed informally and listening to an iPod, increasing the sense of familiarity and also referring to the musical slant of the magazine.
The name "StudentBeat" sums up the genre of the magazine and will immediately attract readers for this specific, "student" encompassing the student community, and "beat" connoting to music, and so the main topic of the magazine. Also, I've used the personal pronouns "you" and "your" to target the audience further, making them feel included and used colloquial language to reinforce the informal tone of the magazine.

Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your media product?

StudentBeat is targeted, psychographically speaking, at student aspirers and achievers, as it contains articles on revision and exam aid, helping a student get the best possible out of their courses, and offers an insight into the careers of those in the industry, referring the student to the universities offering the best music course choices in the country. It would appeal to individualists for its promotion of less mainstream music, but only between the ages of about 16-19, the age of a college student. The magazine is not intended to target one gender, but rather encompass both, to allow wider opportunities for all students.

Evalutation: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The magazine I have designed uses many of the conventions of a regular magazine. It has a unique logo, stylized and memorable, and is accompanied by a strapline to boost its importance. The articles are advertised in a column down the side of the main image and, as in most magazines, the model fills the page and is both relevant to the genre of the magazine, uses eye contact and smiles. There is a clear use of screamers both to advertise articles and other contents and there is a clear colour theme which is identifiable to the magazine. There is even the use of freebies. Inside, on the contents page, the colour theme is continual, and there are featured articles advertised with large images on one side, whilst the other is again dominated by text advertising the articles the magazine has to offer.
However, even through all of this, I feel there are subtle differences between this and a simple music magazine. In fact, StudentBeat is more like a teen life magazine with a musical slant, which promotes not just bands, but a student's own opportunities in life, aiding revision and exams, to finally getting auditions and jobs within the music industry. Thus, instead of being a simple recreational read, it is also a tool of learning reference and careers information.

Front Cover and Contents Page: Published

Contents Page

Researching further into magazines, I also looked into the design and layout of contents pages. Doing so, I noticed that all contents pages have certain shared traits. For instance, the pages are usually split in half, one side occupied with images and the other with aligned text advertising the articles the magazine supplies. The articles are usually in larger fonts than their subheadings below, and are explanations of the titles, and the photos themselves are generally dominated by one large picture, of the most importance, then smaller, lesser images. Each are made appealing by their generally simplistic use of colour and font size, as well as their varied image size. The house styles are clear to see, each page containing the same colour and font scheme as the front cover, as well as containing articles the same genre as advertised on the cover. Bearing this in mind, I feel I will be able to create a contents page inkeeping with these ideas.

Preliminary Task - Audience Research

The subject matter I have planned for my magazine idea will be on student life in general, and cover all aspects of a typical student from music and film, to university placements and revision. This means my magazine can encompass a wide range of readers, but particularly ones with musical interest but also dedication to their studies. The readers will be aged 16-19, the age of an average college student, and would rank from C1-A on the Jicnars scale. The magazine's content would psychographically appeal to achievers and also individualists.

The audience would be the sort of people who:
- listen to alternative music, rather than the mainstream hits
- revise with intention to do well
- be creative in their subject choices
- aspire for a university degree
- want a successful and well paid job
- would revise to music

So, to target my audience effectively, I need to:
- use a model at a similar age to my targeted audience (16-19)
- use bold colours
- colloquial language
- atricles that would appeal to the targeted audience's interests
- freebies and offers
- sociable
- individualist

Preliminary Task - Research

Looking further into the subject of magazine front covers, I searched the internet for three coveres which target a student audience to get inspiration for my own magazine front cover. Choosing three different magazines which covered different subtopics within student interest, it was still clear to see the similarities between the three magazines. All three shared similar subject matters, from choice of music, to the lives of young people in general. Each used bold, stylized fonts, with varying point size and colours relevant to the theme. On the subject of colour, all use bold colours, contrasting with blacks or whites, such as red, a theme prevalent in all three of the magazines I studied. Targeting the audience, the magazines all used models close to the ages of the students and also used articles relative to their interests, particularly music. They also included offers such as the opportunity to win a phone, ideal for the technological generation.

Preliminary Task

Moving on, I now have to complete a preliminary task: creating a student magazine front cover and contents page. I began by analysing some examples of the previous year's work to get an idea of what I would eventually have to do myself, in particular the cover of a magazine called "Squash". It stood out as a magazine front cover due to the stereotypical masthead and strapline, as well as advertising its range of articles and offers. The audience was for academic students aged 16-19 who took their studies seriously and planned to go to university. The audience is successfully targeted through many of the magazine's conventions. The masthead is colourful and bright, in an informal and stylized sans serif font, and the person photographed is of the same age as the targeted reader, and also is pulling a face, both this and the informality of the masthead removing some of the seriousness abotu the magazine's subject and making it more fun and approachable, thus appealing to a wider student audience. The articles are student related, for example "How 2 apply for student finances" and "Top Ten Revision Techniques", and also abbreviated text-messaging style language is used (e.g. "How 2 get...").

Initial Analysis

Having learnt the basics of magazine conventions, we then had to apply our knowledge in analysing our front covers, pointing out their features and their effects and their connotations by labelling each one on Photoshop.

Magazine Front Cover: Key Conventions

Starting off my course, our first task of the year was to understand the key conventions of magazines, from mastheads to the barcode. I began with finding a magazine front cover, Kerrang being the magazine of my choice, and labelled it up with the conventions we'd been taught to recognise.

Introduction

Hi, I'm Jess.
Now I've set up this blog for my AS Media Studies, I'm going to be regularly posting my research, planning and work towards it on here from now on.