3 - HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?
04:11Attracting your audience is incredibly important, as if
devices you have used are not correct you could find yourself attracting completely different audience, who won’t be
the people you initially intended the magazine to be for. This can effect money
in particular. If the magazine design and writing style is not what the target
audience expect, then they are unlikely to repurchase. Also, advertisers will
purchase pages for advertisements based on what you initially say your target
audience will be in your magazines media pack. This can lead to unhappy
advertisers, who many not see any effects on sales from the ads placed in your magazine.
I think that my magazine is tailored to attract my target audience well, as I used
ideas for design from surveys that I conducted with my target audience.
VISUAL
Surveys showed that my target audience were interested in a
more minimalistic design scheme. I think that I encompassed this well in my
magazine. The pages of my magazine are simplistic due to a few things. The
amount of fonts I used was 3. I downloaded fonts from dafont, in order to make
sure that they complimented each other and were what my audience would like. I
used a bold, strong capital font for my masthead called ‘Red Velvet’ I chose
this as I though my target audience would like it because they like structure
and focus, so the stature that this font had was suitable. I also, magazines
that are seen as sophisticated, such as Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Tatler and GQ
all use strong capital fonts that aren’t too intricate. Therefore I decided to
mimic this, as that style of font is a convention for upper priced, classy, intellectual
magazines. The next font I used was called ‘Chapaza’ and was more san-serif
that the first font. I used this not only to show contrast in the fonts, but because
my target audience are also quirky and unique, and have an interest in the pop
and electronic cross over into classical music, so I though the secondary font
should be more flowing and less structured in comparison the Red Velvet font,
showing a more relaxed, fun loving side. The third font I used was Chapaza in
italic. This was to create variation to the other fonts used, but to enabled familiarity
with the audience due to its similarity to the non italic Chapaza font used.
In terms of colours, I kept the whole 3 pages looking clean
and vibrant, without looking warm. I wanted the audience’s love of minimalism
to be shown in the colourings too. Minimalism is usually shown as white and
very pale colours when seen in interior design, so I decided to use this an
influence. My images are shot in natural light because I decided that using
lights would make the images over exposed, and looking too perfect. Because of
this I also kept the editing of the images to a minimum, and only placed a low
level filter and upped the saturation whilst lowering the temperature. This
made the images of the model not seem like typical, flawless magazine images
that you may see in fashion magazines, and more like the images seen of musicians
on music magazine covers who are not made to look as perfect. I think that this
reinforces that the magazine is not a fashion style cover, and still has a
rough and realistic edge that the audience appreciate, and that makes it
suitable to the music magazine conventions. Font colour is also important. I
mainly used black and white, as monochrome is traditionally very sophisticated
and classy, so appeals to my audience. This also links to the name of my
magazine. Black and white are opposite tones at each end of the spectrum of ‘GREYSCALE’.
After I had produced the magazine, I had some people saying that due to the classical
crossover genre, they thought that black and white were good colours to use as
they represented piano keys! However, not all writing is in black and white, as
some parts are in a dusky, pastel pink. This is used as I wanted a way to link
the background image to the writing placed above it. The models shirt has
flowers on of the same colour, so I thought that my replicating that colour in
some of the fonts, it would be seen as a colour splash, due to the model wearing
mainly black, grey, and a little bit of white. This again represents the
structural, sophisticated nature of the magazine through the use of black and
white which are serious, down to business colours. By using the pink, it gives
the magazine that splash of uniqueness, modern-ness and fun, which are also
traits of my target audience’s personalities.
My magazine is for a type of person who has an interest in a
style of music, rather than aimed at a specific gender. This means that gaze of
the magazine will be men and women. I wanted to make sure that the photos I look
for the magazine were because they looked good, rather than because they were
made to make a certain gender want to buy the magazine. This mean creating
images that were desexualised so that they were universally seen for the model
and her musical work rather than being seen for her body as an object. I think
that this is important as it is a music magazine not a fashion magazine, and
the main interest should be her music rather then he body. Gaze suggests that
men look at women, and women look at women, and as my model was female it was
important that I made the images look good but not to an extent where her body
was desired more than her music. To do this I made the pictures not at all
provocative or promiscuous, for example the cover image is only head and
shoulders, and no cleavage or legs are shown. In the double page spread image,
it is desexualised by the models pose. She is seen crouching down in a closed
position with her hand and hair over her mouth, and looking at the camera. This
maintains an air of innocence, meaning the image is not overly sexualised.
WRITTEN
I used sophisticated language to make the written article on
the double page appeal to my audience. This is because my target audience are
ABC1 and highly educated, so need text that is suited to their education level.
However, they’re reading this magazine for fun, and because they are interested
in classical crossover music, so it needs to be light hearted too. My survey
shows that my audience are fun loving even though they are busy and have intellectual
jobs, and they love to go out and have a good time. I thought it was important
to show both sides of them in the article so that they have balance as they are
reading this for fun. I did this by using sophisticated humour in places. This
fits the ideology of the target audience, as they don’t want to be restrained to
one type of personality, and want to experience both.
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