Colours

Colours are a vital part of the design of any magazine. It is important that the magazine looks neat and professional and also easy for the readers to follow. Colour continuity is essential throughout a magazine to link the pages together. The readers of the magazine should be able to recognise the genre of music the magazine is about by the colours on the front page for example on a rock magazine such as Q and MOJO the traditional colours are red and black to portray rock and roll.

As my genre is EDM i looked at the colours that Mixmag magazine use to portray the genre. Mixmag's uses bright colours such as greens and blues to represent strobe lights and individuality.

For example this issue of Mixmag shows us the use of bright colours to portray the clubbing and dance music genre. They use the bright colours to attract the young and exciting target audience they are reaching out to. Mixmag often have a contrast between black and bright colours. The black connotes the night time where most of the house events take place. This has taught me to take the colours I use into consideration so that they link to my genre and target audience.
 

 

Electronic Dance Music Popularity

 

EDM is an electronic dance music magazine which is published in Australia and Spain and America. This is what EDM say on their magazine website 'With Electronic Dance Music (EDM) having its own unique culture and arguably being the fastest growing genre in music today, fans need a media source to be informed of what is happening in the EDM scene' http://www.edmmagazine.com/about

 

 

Mixmag had 160,797 followers on twitter

1452 likes on their facebook page

1,196,957 +1s on Goggle+

Mixmag is the 2nd highest ranking music magazine with the most amount of social media interactions worldwide which tells me that EDM is increasing popularity as a genre.
 MixMag: readership 190,00, ABC audited circulation 20,817.

Mixmag has many different ways of promoting their magazine and EDMusic. They can do this through social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. They also have their own website http://www.mixmag.net/ and podcasts. This is a way of connecting with all their target audience through different ways.

EDMusic can be found everywhere. A popular app on the iphone used by EDM fans is soundcloud. This is an app where they can find all the newest tracks that haven't been released yet. Soundcloud was established in 2007 and since then has had over 200 million listeners.

Soundcloud can be used by all there target audience even if they don't have an Iphone as they have there own website.

 

 

Photos for my contents page

This photo will appear on the contents page as a photo a fan has sent in of their favourite acts at a festival. This image was a photo I took of the main stage at a festival in south west London called SW4. The artist playing is Steve Aoki who has appeared on the front cover of mixmag magazine and is a well down electronic dance music DJ.

 

 

I have chosen to use this photo because it shows a group of friends enjoying their selves while at SW4 festival. I took this picture of the people I went with. They all stood in a line in front a the west bar to show the atmosphere that was there. I took this photo at a long shot to fit their whole outfits in the picture so you could see their wellies to show the fashion that is worn at festivals.They are also all wearing sunglasses to show the weather surrounding and the time of year festivals take place.

Target Audience

The statics of the readers of Mixmag magazine is that the median age is 26 - 72% male and 28% female. They have a high disposable income to spend it on things such as nights out, festival tickets, new clothes and new technology. They spend little time watching TV especially on the weekends because they are out most of the time. 

My target audience is similar to those of Mixmag. The ages range from 17 - 29 and is more of an equal spilt from 67% male and 33% women. They will be social people who enjoy going out and have a passionate love for this genre of music. They will love finding out about all the new artists and upcoming events which is why they will buy my magazine. My target audience will range all over Europe and they love the dance music scene especially places such as Belgium and Amsterdam where worldwide festivals such as tomorrowland are held. My target audience will reach out to places such as Barcelona where festivals such as innovation in the sun are held.

The pictures below show the vast amount of people who attend these worldwide festivals who my magazine will be aimed at:

 

Tomorrowland festival Belgium 2012

 

Innovation in the dam 2011

 

This has taught me that my genre is listened to world wide and my magazine will have to relate to events and dj's from all over the world to reach the target audience.

 

 

My Genre

'Genre' is a way of categorising a particular type of media according to its contents. For example the different genres within music magazines are Electronic Dance music within mixmag, Rock music within Kerrang, Classic Rock and Q and finally Indie/Indie Rock within NME and Mojo.

My chosen genre of music for my music magazine is house/electronic dance music. I have chosen this genre because its the one I listen to the most and have the most interest in.
The magazine that relates closely to my genre is Mixmag. NME have a variety of artist in there magazine and some house/electronic dance artist have featured in there before.

Who can I include?  

• Marc Kinchen
• Kove
• Huxley
• Shenoda
• Hardwell
• Dusky

What can I include?

• Interviews with the artists
• Reviews on albums/singles
• Up coming festivals
• House events
• New artists
• Fan page

In cooperating 'star image'

These kind of artists don't have a very distinctive look about them however indie artists do. House artists dress very casual for example this is a picture of London due disclosure:

They are wearing casual clothing such as t-shirts or jumpers and the man on the left is wearing a woolly hat which has become popular which young teenagers. The example below is of American DJ MK: 

Marc Kinchen is wearing a black t-shirt and a black cap. his outfit is very plain and casual just left the photo above. This is something that these artist seem to have in common. 
The artist that are on the front covers of the mixmag magazines that I analysed are also dressed in very simple, casual clothes.

An extreme example of 'star image' is Lady GaGa. She purposely wears certain outifts to gain media attention to be able to sell more music. A famous dress she wore is the meat dress which gained a lot of press. However Lady GaGa does not create music of my chosen genre so I will not include her style in my photos. 

Double page spread research

I am also designing and creating a double page spread to have in my music magazine, so I did research on existing double page spreads in mixmag and NME so I had an idea on how to make mine successful.

Contents page research

As I am also including a contents page within my music magazine it is important that i know what a professional contents page looks like and what I will need to include within mine. The contents pages I have analysed vary between NME magazine and Mixmag magazine because they are the closest magazines so my chosen genre.

Front cover research

To understand what the common conventions for a music magazine is I researched into three of the magazine which is to a similar genre of my choice and one other which could be related to the artists' within my magazine. Each magazine that has been annotated focus' on a certain point which i think is vital for a music magazine to be successful.

 

 

Introduction

My name is Chelsea Shand and I will creating a music magazine for a part of my media A-level. To help me understand how to do this, I had the task of making a school magazine and here is where you can find it.

http://chelseashandas.blogspot.co.uk/

I will be creating a front cover, contents page and a double page spread for a music magazine on my chosen genre. All material will be my own such as research and photos I use within the magazine. To understand the key features of a music magazine I am going to do some research into existing media.

Once I have an idea of what I will need to include for a music magazine, I will need to take into consideration my target audience and what they would like to see and read about in my magazine. To do this I will create questionnaires and with my results I will create a music magazine to my target audiences taste.

To complete a magazine I will need to have my own photos so I will need to plan and complete a number of photo shoots for images to be on my front page, contents page and double page spread. I will need to take into consideration my genre, my audience and technical issues such as camera angles and lighting.

Next is planning my magazine. As I did on my school magazine I will do sketch's of how I wish to layout my articles and pictures to make sure it all fits on the page and looks professional. This will also include choosing a colour scheme for the magazine so that it cooperates with my genre.

I will then complete my magazine and ask for feed back from my peers and also my target audience to see if they think it has been successful or not. To make a successful magazine I will be uploading my research and plans onto my blog.  

 

My genre.

 

The genre of music I have chosen to do my music magazine one is Electronic Dance Music. I have chosen to do this because it is my favourite genre of music which I listen to the most. This music magazine which is the most closely related to this Genre is Mixmag, so therefore I will be concentrating on Mixmag as an example for mine.

Institutions.

Development Hell Ltd Brought clubbing magazine Mixmag from Emap in November 2005. The Guardian Media Group took a 14% share in the company in July 2004. This institution was first launched in 2003.

IPC media is a well known institution which doesn't just produce magazines but all kinds of media. The music magazines they produce are NME and Guitar and Bass International media company.

Bauer media group is a German institution which produces the music magazines Q, Mojo and Kerrang. This company was launched in 1875 and operates in 15 different countries. It is also a family buisness.