Targeted Audience Research

This questionnaire has been set up in order to ensure that my magazine matches the targeted audience that is intended for. This is done through comparing my views of the targeted audience and to whom other people think the magazine is aimed at. This would be useful in the aspect that afterwards if the results do not match up to who I have designed it for then changes would have to be made to my magazine.

The questions that I am going to be comparing the answers are as followed:

1, What age would you expect to read this magazine?

2, Do you think that there is a specific gender that this magazine is intended for, if so what gender?

3, What social class do you expect to read this magazine?

4, What interests do you think the reader would posses?

5, What sort of income do you think they would have?

6, What do you think this person would do in their spare time?

7, How often do you think lifestyle of the imaginary entity would involve classic music?

I feel as if these questions cover the majority of aspects of my imaginary entity that are important to reflect in my magazine. The answers are in the table below:

	Your Answer	Respondent 1	Respondent 2	Respondent 3	Encoding /Decoding Reading
1	Elderly	Middle aged	Elderly	Middle Age +	Preferred
2	No, mixed gender	Male	Mixed gender	Mixed gender	Preferred
3	A/B	A/B	A	A/B	Preferred
4	Classical Music	Music and leisure	Classical Music	Music	Preferred
5	£40,000 +	£30,000 - £60,000	£30,000+	Roughly £40,000	Preferred
6	Holidays and general leisure activities	Golf	Cards and Golf	Holidays	Negotiation
7	On a daily basis, e.g. through listening to the music	3-4 times a week, so often	Regularly, more or less everyday	Twice a week	Negotiation

This shows how the audience have responded to my front page. This demonstrates how I have given a good representation of my targeted audience as these respondents have given more or less what I have intended the response to be. All though some results end up being negotiation (slightly of what I intended the response to be), it has happened on the questions that can have a wide range of answers. Non of these questions have opposed (dramatically gone against what I intended), this means that no dramatic changes have to be made to my magazine.

Rate Card

I have made a few vital changes to my final design of my front page to help it become more eye-catching and appealing to my target audience, the upper class. I have created a banner that highlights the title; this was seen as an important improvement as it is now bolder and makes it stand out. As well as that the banner sets a recurring theme throughout the rest of the text, as you will see that both the double page spread and the contents page posses these qualities in a similar style (a maroon border, which fades of towards the end, whilst highlighting the topic or title of the page). Another addition I have added is the issue date of this magazine. This results in the magazine appearing more personable and up to date. It also follows the trend of the rest of the magazine market (normally I wish to be original with the design of my music magazine, but this proves to be a vital piece of information that is required). The images have also been improved; the images on the front page have to be eye-catching as this is often the first thing that draws the audience in. The photo on the left hand side has been edited to make the main focus of it the musical instrument (the piano), this ensures that the theme of the magazine is known right from the beginning (that the magazine has a classical music theme). The image on the right has also been edited to give it a more professional finish. The changes made give the front page more of a consistent style, as before the changes the image had a brutal finish, now it flows into the banner of the title; this improves the whole overall appearance. With these changes that have been made to the front page, it can now be seen as a more sophisticated magazine, as the manner in which it has been edited has been done with precision and thought of the social class in which the magazine is intended for throughout the making of it.

Mock up, Contents Page and Double Page Spread

Idea Layout of the Music Magazine

 This sketch of the front page has been done in order to ensure that specific qualities of the front page are included and positioned in a place that looks well suited. Within this plan I have ensured that the front page will provide simple things such as: barcode, price, title etc... As well as that I have included things such as images; this will help to make it more eye-catching. Also feature article names are a vital thing to be incorporated, this shall also help to draw the audience in, as this shall make them interested in what the magazine has to offer. The overall layout is a simple factor that will help improve the sophistication of the magazine, as through keeping it simple and classy; the magazine will appear better fitted for my target audience, the upper class.

Photoshoot Explained

Photo Shoot…

These photos are taken in preparation for the making of my Final: front page, double page spread, and my contents page. These photos will help enhance the representation that is going to be in my magazine; this will be the representation of talented young musicians. They will also help to back up my main feature article on a young girl, Sarah Chang (these are photos of the girl who the article is based around).

I have chosen have the representation of young people for my magazine with the social class of A and B as people of this stature are fond of hearing about success stories in the younger generations, and that is what my feature article is based on. This helps to tie my magazine together and helps to keep the focal point of it the feature article. This representation of the younger generation that I am choosing to include has to be done in a way that is still linked to the upper class. This should be achieved through the use of sophisticated clothing and the use of classic instruments that are in good condition. This perception of the generation is a formal view on this class, and you can often assume that they are of the higher class themselves. The manner in which the photos were taken was done with the social class in mind and also the image that I wanted the younger generations to appear as.

The photos that haven’t got a person within them are just as important, as these photos won’t be used for a focal image, but more for the intention that they will back up the overall theme of the magazine, classical music. These are images that would also be useful just to include when there is an empty space which would require an image.

A few of the images taken during the photo shoot:



These photos below demonstrate how with the use of the programme ‘Photoshop’ I have managed to edit and improve my photos to help them become more suited for the magazine. Through the development of these photos I have gone through a series of steps, these include things such as: cropping the image, changing the darkness/lightness, enhancing the colour contrast, changing the colour background, etc… The process in which these images have taken help to advance the level of sophistication and overall neatness of the image, this will help to improve the image of the magazine.

Original:

After Editing:

Orignal:

After Editing:

My Audience Lifestyle….

Detail about the audience that my magazine is targeted towards.

The music magazine in which I am designing is aimed towards the older generation who are in the social class of A or B. Due to this high social stature that I am aiming towards, I can afford to make my magazine more expensive, as these classes would tend to have more money and wouldn’t mind paying more for this kind of extra luxury item. With this extra payment I would be able to provide more within the magazine such as quality freebees or a finer quality of magazine, e.g. better quality paper or literature. This kind of extra service would make the magazine worth the extra money. Although the average price of a magazine is around £2 - £3, the social class that I am aiming for allows me to exceed this.

The personality of the elder generation would be someone who enjoys listening and spending time studying the art of classical music. This is something that I hope to aim throughout the magazine. This would be achieved through provide plenty of information throughout the content of the magazine. It will contain such information about the most popular classical musician, how to get hold of tickets to see performances, and an in-depth interview with some world class musicians. This is all in aim of the audience, as it will provide them with information that they would be interested in.

My audience’s life style may also revolve around what there living accommodations are like and where they go on holidays. It is proven that people of this sort of ages and social stature tend to go on holiday more than the others, so from this I can learn what kind of advertising I can aim for. This is important as it will help draw the targeted audience in for them to buy this classical music magazine. This can work in the same way as their living accommodations and their hobbies, by simply advertising to suite the audience’s personalities. This would help to accommodate towards my target audience, through giving them what they want out of the magazine and providing them with information and things that involve them.

Overall my audience’s lifestyle must be suited to the magazine; this is achieved by adapting certain qualities to make it right for them. The fact that it is aimed at the older upper classes citizens means that I will have to ensure that the magazine is set in the right at the tone that is appropriate for them. It also means that my type of advertising and articles shall be aimed at the type of things my audience would wish to read and learn about as is will be fixed around what they enjoy.

Research

This work has been a shared project, and therefore there has been an equal contribution from both me and my partner in this work.

Timetable / schedule for the music magazine

Date	Task
9th November 2010	Preliminary task complete (school magazine).
10th November 2010	Plan music magazine (targeted audience, genre, and generally who it is aimed at).
11th November 2010	Study of signs and semiotics (explanation of the theory media the media).
16th November 2010	Ready to scan in mock of front cover, double page spread and contents page (sketch/design).
23rd November 2010	Study of encoding and decoding model (explanation of the theory media the media).
10th December 2010	Original photos taken and uploaded (explain the process as well).
11th December 2010	Mock up of front cover completed (to the extent that it needs improvements, but is complete).
15th December 2010	Mock up of double page spread completed (to the extent that it needs improvements, but is complete).
4th January 2011	Front cover & Double page spread completed (finished and post on blog).
10th January 2011	Contents page completed (finished and post on blog).
18th January 2011	Questions 1-3 of evaluation completed (post on blog).
21st January 2011	Questions 4-7 of evaluation completed (post on blog).
28th January 2011	Catch up on work that has not been completed.

This timetable outlines the organisation of how I intend to do my work. It also helps ensure that I do not fall behind on the work and that I keep to the deadline set.