Circulation figures for my genre magazines

ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations UK) audited circulation of:

- 30,159 for Mixmag
-20,018 for DJ Magazine

this shows there is a big damand in the market for my product.

Analysis of the jouralitic style and structure of an artical.

These are some examples of recent MixMag Articals:

These articals are around 75% photos. This allows people to follow it without reading every word, pictures also attract attention to the article aswell as moving them along. In the article above 7 out of ten photos of people in clubs having fun which is what the article is about and people may read the article to see where the people where in these photos because they want to experience what they're missing.

Articles are set out in coloums so we can fit more on one page and it is easier to read and split up into sections, as we see in the article top right. Different parts of the article are grouped in colours and are under subheadings. This makes it more visually interesting, adding to this is the way the writing curves around images (in this cause big nimber bubbles). Also important bits such as the first letter of the article, interesting quotes, subtitles and titles are in interesting fonts and are different sizes to the usual house style too catch are eye. The title is in a funky fun font big and a bright red colour too fit with its target audience of fun loving young adults.

Although you cannot read the articles with these images I found becuase the text is too small I weny on the online magazine to read the articles on there. I found that they used a laid back direct address attitude towards the reader, I think this is to engage the reader and they use a laid back approch to make the reader feel more intouch with the article because its not all formal, it's how we speak usually.

existing magazines with the same target audience/genre as me

http://www.getdarker.com/home/ -GetDarker online magaizne (dubstep) : for Djs and listeners of the music.
http://www.kmag.co.uk/ -Knowlege online magazine (drum and base and dubstep) :for Listeners of the music.
http://pitchfork.com/features/grime-dubstep/6568-grime-dubstep/ -Pitchfork online magazine (dubstep and grime) : for Dj's and people who study it and it's history.
http://brrrap.com/blog/- Brrrap! online magazine (Dutch dubstep) : Dutch listeners of the music.
http://www.mixmag.net/- MixMag I belive this is a published magazine and a online one. (The Worlds Biggest Selling Dance Magazine)

I have only found one pubished magazine in all of my searches only magazines online. This shows there is an opening in the market for my product.

Ideas for my magazine and how it will forfill the conventions of magazine.

My Magazine

-Genre: Dubstep/Trance/Dance music.

-Target Audience
-Age: 16-20
-Gender: Male and Female
-Social Class: All

-Aim:Our aim is too spread the news about new artist and the newest and greatest dub/trance/dance songs out and about up coming gigs and nights out. WARNING: this is not for DJ's this is for us!

Ideas for names: Dub, Mixed, Raave, R, Bouncee, DTD...this will be placed at the top of my magazine in a large font that fits in with my theme and attracts my target audience. 

I shall have a original picture of a artist that preforms the music genre of my magazine large with direct address to arract intial attention and intise people. The leading caption will be about my main article and about the artist on the front of my magazine.  

I shall have staplines and subheadings of the smaller stories and repeat articals (such as cartoons...) in my magazine.

Idealy my magazine would be published once a week, so it would not be as expencie as a monthly magazine such as Kerrang!. 

Magazine Conventions.(front cover, contents pages and articals)

All magazines follow the same conventions/rules:

Front Cover

1. Style and content of the magazine must fit the target audience and both style and content must link.

2. The header (name) of the magazine must link in too.

3. The 'house style' must appeal to the audience including a colour scheme and a font. Although a 'house style' is not essencial many magazines use it becuase it becomes familiar to the reader.(this refers to article and contents page too.)

4. The main picture must be striking and interest your target audience. In music magazines the main picture is a big star looking strieght into the camera (direct mde of adderess), this catches the buyers eye. (This mode of address can also be used in articals and other writing in the magazine-usually in a friendly informal way, making the reader feel involoved and catered for. Indirect address can and has been used but is not as effective. The only way I would use indircet address would be if it wasn't a big star (in my case a girl with headphones on dancing) or on my contents page and have the star doing something.

5. STARS SELL. the main thing that sells the magazine is a big star or famous musician.

6.The front cover is the main advertisment, it must be:

-Bright

-Eye catching

-Interesting

-Reflect the magazine (such as colours and fonts to establish the style).

It must have:

-Title/Header (The name of the magazine usually situated at the top of the page, in this case 'Rolling Stones')
-Slogan (Usually witty and placed under the header)
-One main star/model photographed (close up or medium shot usually, this should be the most dominat thing on the magazine)

-The Leading Caption (this should 'anchor' your main article, in this case 'The new KISS' face Paul McCartney')
-Subheadings(a taster of the smaller articles in the mag, such as 'Ozzy Yesterday, today and tomorrow') -Straplines(placed at the top and bottom o

f the mag usually advertising the artiles that are in every week, I've found they usually advertise things such as horoscopes and posters)
-Date and barcode and a web address is becoming increasngly popular ( situated at the left had bottom of the page).

Contents Page

-On a contents page you must have more image than words, maybe another image of the person on a front cover. You also have smaller picture relating to different stories usually near the writing saying what page the story is on(or even have the number on the picture) allowing 'grazing'. (eg. Q review)

-The contents page should be bright and colourfull, for example this has red headings.

-You must stick to your 'housestyle'. for example this magazine is black red and gold which connotes it is a rock magazine.

-The list of pages must be in a legable size font and logical order to make it easier to consume.

-The title of the magazine should (even if small)be on every page.

-There should be a list of contents, usually under sections sush as features and every month, as seen here with 'features' and 'every month'.

Artical

-Aricals have many small pictures around to illutrate what they are talking about and one main picture.

-There must be a headline and subheading (GEISHA, Geisha 1985).

-The artists are usually selling something or prmoting themselves.

-The writing should be legable and easy to follow and directed to the reader. In this magazine thay have put certain things under sub-subheadings.

-To give people tasters of what is in the artical they text grab interesting quotes...they are usually controversial, funny or rude (i.e. The only time Peter was interested in ant experimentation...).

Initial ideas.

The initial ideas for my main tasks are either a Dub step/Trance/Dance music magazine or a Indie/Rock/Pop magazine exclusively for music artists based in or from the UK. To choose I researched into both of these. The first thing I did was to go into my local newspaper shop and see what I could find there. To my surprise none of the magazines specialised in either of my ideas. All of the indie, rock and pop magazines included or where based on American artists and the closest I got too a dub step, trance or dance magazine was only for DJ's and not the normal music listener. This made me think maybe I'm looking at a niche market-meaning my ideas wouldn't sell. So I went on the Internet and search for music and artists that where either dub step artists or British indie/pop/rock artists. To my surprise many. In fact, on one website alone I found six dub step mags, many dub step artists and information on dub step nights at clubs. So this proves there is an audience for this subject. I also found a lot of British indie/pop/rock mags. I have decided to pursue the dub step route because there would be more space on the market for it.

Evalutation of preliminary task

The cover of the magazine is very basic but covers the main needs of a magazine front page. The image used is with a direct mode of address, catching the buyers eye. The colors stand out against the white background and photo drawing attention to the subheadings. The colours and taglines are approriate and thought about for the subject and target audience of the magazine. The photo is alittle bit out of focus, on my main magazine I shall make sure all my photos are focused and better cut out on photoshop. The fonst used are quite plain although this makes it easy to read it is not very interesting, for my main magazine I will try a range of fonts to find a font which is both visually peasing and easy to read. All the tag lines are the same size, this looks neat but boring I will have more than ones size of text for my taglines-maybe the ones i find most popular in a bigger size to what would be the every week articals. This magize is missing straplines and a leading capion on my main task I shall use these because I think the first thing that interests you in a magazine is the leading capion and that the more information you can get on the magazine the better because you feel your getting more for your money.  By doing this task i have developed my skills in using Photoshop (too cut out the image) and InDesign (to put it all together), I intend to use these skills in my main task.