After I had finished my questionnaire, I spell checked it and checked that all the questions were okay to ask people. I then printed off fifteen copies, and handed them too various people who were in the common room and asked them to complete them for me. After they had filled them out, I comprised a set of results tables to show my findings.

This table shows the ratio of boys too girls i asked. The ratio in its lowest form is 3:2.

For ‘what makes a good music magazine’ I received a number of good answers for this question.

A few responses too my questions are the quotes that follow on.

‘A simple, yet bold design’ 

‘A magazine that is different, and stands out from the rest of the crowd’ 

‘Features good bands and good music, with reviews which are truthful and nicely written’

 The prices that people said they would pay for a magazine, and is a good price for one is between £2.99 too £4.99. Most people then said this is a good price as it is just enough money that people wont mind spending on a good bit of reading matieral once, twice or even four times a month.

 

Questionaire

For more research into magazine, and what magazine genre I would pursue; I decided too crate a survey, this would help me get the general opinion. In i included basic questions like ‘what is your name?’ and ‘How old are you?’ There were also several specific questions that would help me decide on my magazine’s genre. For instance ‘What is your favourite genre of music’ or ‘what are your favourite articles in a magazine?’

I set my questionnaire out so that it would give me the best results. By this i mean it would give me results for some that i could use in a table and others that i could select quotes from. For a simple answer, I decided to use a simple tick box. However for answers where I wanted more than just a simple tick, I created a box with adequate room for a written response.

My questionnaire is shown in picture form below.

Research into magazine genres

When I was deciding on what music genre i was going to pursue for my music magazine. I did a lot of research on what magazines I would be interested in, and the conventions I would need to follow too make my magazine successful. One of the Magazine genres i look at in my research was Hip-Hop magazines.

An example of a hip-hop magazine is RWD. Rewind magazine is a British based music magazine which features news, interviews and charts on genres across the board. For instance: hip hop; RnB; UK garage; Drum and bass and US house.

In this cover of Rewind magazine Tinie Tempah is the featured model. It is a mid close up shot with a simple design theme. The designs feature is a simple white and blue theme which makes the cover very effective in my opinion. It has many conventions that an urban magazine tends too include. For instance the House style is simple consisting of basic colours; white and blue. Also there is an effective masthead of RWD magazine. Also is very little text as the image is very effective.

For my research I also looked into genres such as dance and rave styles. One magazine I found was Mixmag magazine. Mixmag is a British music magazine which features predominately dance music and club music. It is the worlds biggest selling dance magazine with a huge audience of readers.

On this front cover of Mixmag, the DJ Kissy Sell Out graces the cover. He is posing in a way which shows the magazine in a fun, and interesting light. The cover features a mid long shot size where the model is jumping in the air, this shows the wacky attitude that the picture is aiming for. The Cover also features a bold colour scheme, with a lot of bright colours and an electric style backdrop. Although I think this cover works in attracting the audience’s eye, I believe it is too packed as a magazine and the colours too bright to one another.

Whilst researching magazine genres, I also looked into indie genres of magazines. One of the magazines I looked at was NME. NME stands for New Musical Express; it is a British magazine which mainly focuses on the Indie music scene. Its audience is more of a genre based than age range, writing for fans of the indie genre.

This image is taken from an NME cover, featuring M.I.A. The cover is a Medium Close up of the artist. The model is showing an edgy pose which is a recurring theme. The house style is also simple and effective, which makes the bold image stand out. The backdrop of a simple tinted colour is also a convention of a indie magazine. I personally think that this cover works and is effective as an indie magazine should be.

There are also many conventions I found out that you need to include in an indie magazine. As i was researching this topic, i found an image which clearly points out a number of them.

A deconstruction of my school magazine

This is the banner for my magazine. I think that it works well as the House Style for my magazine is a mixture of light blues and dark blues, with the text staying white or black. For the text itself I made it bold and put it in italics so that it would stand out more and to show that it was a special magazine.

This is the masthead for my magazine and the title of the magazine. When I was coming up with ideas I was looking for a word that would stand out against a lot of other words. To do this I decided to randomly select my title; so what I did was press shuffle on my iPod and pick a word that way. The first song was a track called next hype that is where the name for my name derived from. However i believe that Hype! Is a very good title as it is bold and can connect with my target audience of sixth form students.

My Lead cover shot is a picture of Kane Gibbons turning to the side. I didn’t want my magazine to be a conventional school magazine, so I decided that was front cover will be bold and different. That is why he is turned to the side. I think that the idea was successful and it worked but the graphic wasn’t the best. I can see why most magazines don’t have their front cover graphic model, turned a different way. However although my idea did not fully work I believe that is shows the edgy side that my magazine was aiming for.

These stories are my strap lines that draw the attention of the buyer of the magazine into reading them. I chose the colours as they are my house style and also the white background on blue white background is a contrast to the rest of my magazine style.

For my contents page I chose to use a word art picture, as to contrast from the bold ‘HYPE!’ font. My personal opinion is that it didn’t work as well as I had hoped it would. However, on the plus side though it does keep in with my house style of mainly different shades of blue.

This image is an example of the stories that feature in my contents page. On my magazine they have a transparent background however they don’t come out well as clear on a white background, like this blog because the white text does not come out as well. This works well I feel because the white text stands out on my magazine, I am pleased with this aspect of my magazine.