How did you attract/address your

audience?

Firstly I am going to be looking at how magazines in the market

address their audiences. I will be looking at what I think their magazines audiences are...

I am going to begin by commenting on existing magazines and how they attracted their audience and address this. I have looked into this magazine Smash Hits. Smash Hits was a major magazine in the 1990’s however as the magazine got older so did the audience and over time it faded out and then stopped being sold at high retail newsagents and supermarkets. Smash Hits is now a nationwide radio station. Throughout the planning and research part of the music magazine process I have been looking at the magazines and understanding what on their front cover attracted my attention. This magazine: from www.smashhits.com.

Smash Hits was a magazine aimed at young teens with all the latest gossip and songs from the ‘coolest’ bands. It was aimed at teenagers who didn’t have much money but would still love to purchase it once every fortnight. On this design is a large image of Avril Lagvine. She is taking up around 2/3’s of the cover. She is looking straight into the camera with a smiling face. Smash Hits uses the pale blues, pale pinks, whites and yellows. This instantly gives me the impression the magazine is aimed more towards girls. She is also smiling with her hair simple and neat. She isn’t expressed through fashion which gives me the impression the magazine is much cheaper. The main cover line quoting “Girls rule!” is in large curly font in pale blue with a white and bright pink outline. This again is expressing the feminine side to the magazine due to the colours chosen. The actual text is another indication that the magazine is aimed towards girls. In general the colours chosen are very feminine and link to the points above.

Next I have looked at Blender. www.blender.com is a magazine which is owned by a larger company which is aimed towards R&B genre of audience. However I think that Blender is aimed towards the female genre. I get this impression from the image on the front cover of Fergie. However I feel that her image will attract the more male market due to the outfit and the way she is expressing herself. The colours used are also expressing the male market. The colours are a green and bright blue and blacks. They are the only colours used on the magazine and these colours seem more masculine. However when I look at other magazines from Blender the colour and mise-en-scene on the front cover are different due to the image and how that relates to an audience. This gives me the impression that Blender changes the mise-en-

scene and colour of their magazines due to the image which also means that they change their market monthly. This widens the users and market for Blender as they are mixing between their target audiences each month. The white, plain background indicates that the is making the image stand out, it also gives the magazine a calm feminine feel to it in my opinion due to making each part stand out and not messy and busy. Compared to the Smash Hits magazine, Blender is much calmer which again gives me the impression Blender’s audience is older than Smash Hits. This is backed up again by the main cover story image with Fergie showing of much more skin compared to Avril Lagvine who is dressed in a plain t-shirt. Blender is also using the bright blue and blacks to stand out in front of the white background and this works very clearly. These colours are mixing between the feminine and masculine market.

I will now be addressing how my magazine addresses the target

audience from my point of view and also what other people think...

I got 5 people to vote if my magazine looks feminine or masculine or mixed

gender and these are the results. I showed my final front cover, contents

page and double page spread on the post and these are the results. This is showing that out of the five people they all agreed

within themselves that FTK looks like a mixed gender magazine. I disagree with this however these people who answer this are my target audience age range.

I also did another poll on my blog and this time I asked What age do you think

my target audience is? This is showing out of the 14 people, all

100% said that my magazine is aimed towards all 13-19 teenagers. I am

pleased with this result as this is what I was hoping for.

For my photos I did a photo shoot with Emily as well I took some pictures with Mason in the pictures as well. I chose Emily because she was the sort of person who could fit my target audience. She is a smiley, young seven teen years old that fits the criteria for my magazine. I decided to have her and Mason on the front cover because I could create an article around them. It is also linking to the target audience of male and female teenagers and both Emily and Mason are linking to this. I linked the two pictures to the contents and double p[age spread however those were single pictures of Emily. They are her laughing and smiling which again, will attract the teenage audience and hopefully get the audience to aspire to be like her.

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For the design of my front cover I wanted to create a colour scheme that will be used throughout the three designs and pages. I chose the colours: pink, black and white. I also chose the browns for Sophie Stone on the front cover which is then used again in the double page spread. I chose the choice of colours because I think that will attract both the male and female market. I feel I have addressed this thoroughly. Each colour makes the other colours stand out. For example the black background emphasise the pink on the front cover as I have shown. It also makes the mast head stand out due to the white and pinks on top of the black background. I wanted to use colours that worked together and make each colour stand out to users as they walk past. Using these colours I think will stand out to my specific audience and from the slide about the polls this is what I have achieved. I feel I have achieved this.

Throughout the magazine I magazine I used a number of fonts.

On the front cover, contents page and double page spread I used Bernard MT Conden, Elementary Light SF, Times New Roman, Ariel and Georgia. I chose to mix around on the fonts because I feel that they are all similar and it also makes the pages different and each part stand out. I used fonts such as Elementary Light SF and Bernard MT Conden because I think they look modern and stylish. I like the look each font has and it adds more character to the magazine. They are also well known and could stand out to the teenagers who my magazine is aimed at. I am hoping that this links to the mise-en-scene and colour scheme of my magazine and does attract the audience.