When creating a music magazine, a specific target audience has to be designed for it to aim at. Each part of the magazine has to integrate all the features of the target audience, hopefully making it successful and well maintained magazine for years to come.
Before I could dive straight into designing a front cover, I had to find a small group of magazines and investigate and analyse them with regards to general layout. With me already having an idea of my target audience, this allowed me to understand the general layout for this and know what I need to include. I had to take note of all key features including, masterhead’s, snippets, plug lines and a price. Knowing what designs sell well and what designs don’t, I can incorporate these ‘selling’ features into mine and make my magazine successful. An example of me analysing a successful magazine can be seen here.
When taking on the encoder of a magazine, the language between you and the decoder has to represent a comfortable dialect between the two. With this in mind, a ‘mode of address’ has to be incorporated. A mode of address can be defined as the relationship between the encoder and decoder, with regards to reflections made within magazine.
To make my magazine successful, I had to establish this bond and carry it out in a positive manor.
With me aiming at an 18-25 middle class male, a feeling of casual awareness is seen within this age group, and is therefore created as the mode of address. To achieve a successful magazine, this mode of address has to be seen throughout and include didactic language that the target audience decoder can understand and feel comfortable reading.
However to achieve this plan, I had to test my front cover on a small group to check I was getting the decoded response I wanted. This is regarded as Stuart Hall’s encoding decoding model, where there are 4 possibly responses I could obtain from my magazine. These are dominant reading, negotiated reading, oppositional reading and aberrant reading. Dominant reading defines that the reader fully understands the text and accepts the code for what it is.
Negotiated reading is similar to dominant reading as it signifies that the majority of the texts code is accepted, however it can be modified and edited in a way the reflects the decoders past experiences and interests.
Oppositional reading is when in a social situation places the reader in front of the dominant response. The reader understands the information however rejects it and brings to earth an alternative aim and indication.
Aberrant reading is when the reader is unable to take the meaning that the encoder has introduced in the text. This unlocks dissonance between both the intellectual assumption of the encoder and the cultural understanding on the decoder, which means the decoder just doesn’t understand.
With regards to my magazine, negotiated reading was the response present. It contained many dominant responses in comparison to the target audience questionnaire however 6 of the questions have incorporated different answers. The responses that have been demonstrated differently can be regarded as open questions, which mean they can be answered based on their cultural surrounding and past experiences.
Price was another factor that needed to be looked at when attracting people to my magazine. From analysing the ‘Golf Weekly’ magazine, ‘NME’ and concentrating on ‘Tatler’, I took into mind the amount paid with regards to the contents present within. I then needed to find a price that reflected a potential amount paid by my target audience, a middle aged male. I found this to be £1.60 /$ 4.50.
Once a target audience and imaginary entity had been established, features associated with the front cover can now be introduced. These again have to interest the target audience, being related to the chosen music genre.
When buying a magazine, one of the first things people look at is the masterhead. When establishing a successful masterhead, colour and boldness are two of the main features that need to be incorporated. Containing a strong eye catching colour on a comprising background will always catch the consumer’s judgment.
vCity incorporates a bold ‘sky blue’ colour with a black background drop, including an underline to entice the name at hand. Deeper connotation suggests an aggressive feel to the name, which wants the consumer to come across and see ‘drum and bass’ for its hard hitting music!
To the side of the masterhead elaborates the features report. It’s located at the top right hand side of the page overlooking the potential features. Its location can connotate a meaning of superiority over the features underneath, which allows this more detailed report to be one of the mains selling points of the page for consumers to see and effectively read.
Colour is again another important aspect when introducing a magazine, especially with regards to vCity. Green was selected as one of the main colours due to its welcoming and friendly feel; deeper connotation suggests that if the fronts cover makes the decoder feel comfortable and enticed, they’ll be more likely to look in at more detail and hopefully buy.
The next main colour available is orange. Polysemic denotation suggests a colour that only works well with the previous colour green, however connotation could argue that it’s vibrant and contracting feel with the background signifies an eye-catching colour made for the consumer to be drawn too. If easily noticeable colours weren’t used, vCity would have a very slim chance of selling.
The picture is the main centre piece of the magazine. The picture signifies ‘Davey Sparks’ as the main person within the magazines main piece. With the articles tag line being held under the picture with a bigger font, this is open to didactic interpretation meaning the reader can get the understanding of the magazines through denotation. If this is the case, the reader should easily understand the magazine and shouldn’t be put off buying it.
Main picture identifies Davey Sparks
A plug line is another way the reader is attracted to vCity. The use of adding a ‘Free!’ plug line at the bottom makes the reader think their getting a good deal for the money their paying, allowing them to trust the magazine and hopefully buy again.
When releasing a magazine, providing quality content which has made so many music magazines successful is a main objective. Providing pieces like, reports, features, plug lines, competitions and reviews, are the real expectations consumers want and I feel vCity has accomplished this.
