Research rationale

My target group is teenagers from the ages 13-18 as I have easy access to these people as I am 16 years old and I attend a sixth form with a lower school, with people of the ages 15-18. From my understanding the type if research available for me to do is market research and audience research, with market research I will analyse and deconstruct magazine covers. I will also conduct a survey and distribute it to 15-18 year olds and analyse the results. For my audience research I conduct a survey on survey monkey as it will be easy for my peers to access and I will be more likely to receive the amount of results I need. This survey will include basic questions just so I can gather an understanding on what the age group is interested, for example one of the questions may be “what do you think is an important feature on a magazine cover” this could be a multiple answer question and the results will benefit me during my process of the overall task. The survey will include both qualities and quantities research based on the question as some will be open ended and others closed. I will also conduct a focus group, this will include two peers within my target age group, discussing a magazine front cover for a music magazine, I will ask them in depth questions so that they can explain their answers. I will hopefully go on to ask them questions like “what do you think about the covers color scheme” or “do you like the covers layout and why?” I plan on doing research into the genre’s history, how it came up, artists that are included in this genre, etc I’ll then go onto doing research into one artist or band with this genre. To help me understand themes, trends and traditions within the genre I’ll also research some music videos. I’m hoping that my audience and market research help me during my journey in creating a music magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. Hopefully my research within my target audience will also help in creating this as it is very important that I take on their opinions to create a successful magazine.

Magazine Typography

I took screenshots of music magazine mastheads, to gain a wider understanding of the type of fonts and colors used on a music magazine masthead.
The majority of the mastheads are written in sans serif as it makes the title look bold and stand out, the exception of 'Billboard' magazine, this could be because the masthead doesn't need to be bold and large as the lettering features the primary colors that are bold and stand out.
the older magazines have used serif, this gives the masthead more personality and has most likely been done to give the vintage effect, for example, 'rolling stones' was established in 1962 and it is presented in a style that was popular during that time, it matches the theme of old school rock and the look of the 1960s.
The masthead for 'Hammer metal' also matches the magazines theme, the letters are sharply pointed, this gives it a dark, scary and dangerous look which is related to metal frequently. The masthead for 'Hammer metal' and 'Kerrang!' represent their music genres very well, unlike 'spin', the typography and color scheme for the masthead makes it almost impossible to know what what genre the magazine is.

Magazine deconstruction

Magazine deconstruction from bgngbg

Introduction and initial thoughts