Risk Assessment

Social Media Research

Contents Page Mock up

Preliminary Front Cover and Contents Page

Evidence in Photoshop

Preliminary Hand Drawn Designs

Preliminary Evidence of Planning

This is the initial image of what I used on the Preliminary front cover before it was edited. The other images below show my progression to find the right picture I thought was best to use.

I also tampered with a few filters to see which seemed more matching to the look I wanted to go for in the preliminary.

Final Pitch

From the large volume of research we gathered involving music magazines, we found there was many useful factors that would be important to make ours a success. Firstly, as a group we considered what editions we would make for our magazine to give the audience a variety of topics, however we haven't yet made a final decision on three topics we have chosen.

The things we would like to take forward include:

Typography:

• Sans Serif Font (no flicks).
• Text and image spaced wisely.

Colour:

• Black, white, grey and red are the main colours that our research found to be the most associated with R&B.
• A simple and unique house style throughout the 3 editions we create will show how our magazines all link to the same.

Images:

• We all decided that a revealing and provocative image would attract buyers more, and that it is the most important aspect on a magazine, that needs to be thought about in the most detail.

Media Language:

• Colloquial language appears to be the language best suited to the R&B genre audiences as shown by the research we gathered.

Analysing Focus Group

In this task we set out to get more open responses to that of what we got in the questionnaire. Kyra, Oliver and I worked together to come up with a list of questions that we could ask our focus group, where we also came up with others that we thought of at the time. Overall, it was very successful because the students we asked were within our target audience, with the students being able to speak their mind, giving us unscripted, open responses they thought of on the spot.
The first question we asked was "What type of music magazine would you most likely buy?" interestingly, we didn't get any responses that were for R&B, however we did receive two responses that were of pop music because of the colours you could experiment with and the fact it is mainstream, with the other response for this question being an independent music magazine. His reason for this choice was because they're interested in new and upcoming artists, which is backed up by our questionnaire responses as we had a large proportion say they'd like to see new and upcoming artists on the front cover of a magazine.
We then asked "what price would you consider reasonable for the magazine?" and we got responses ranging from £1.50-£3.99, with reasons being because the price shouldn't be a put off for the audience, because the magazine wants to sell to all ages and needs to use a reasonable price so that all can afford it.
Following this question, we asked the interviewees "Baring that price in mind what would you expect to gain or receive from the magazine?", with responses being simply that there should be a lot of content within the magazine for it to be worth the money. The other responses were stories on new and upcoming artists that would benefit the audience.
The next question asks the students whether a male or female should be on the front cover and the female student thought that a male should be on the cover for the "eye candy" whilst the two males thought that it should be a female because it is unconventional and something different to seeing famous male artists on the front.
The next question, relating to the previous question, we asked "should they be attractive?" the responses were generally very similar, being that they should be attractive, however, not too attractive because it could pressurise younger audiences to try to look like them, leading to younger generations being less positive about their looks and be less motivated.
After this, we asked "what stories are you interested in and what would you expect to see in the magazine?" with the feedback we received on this question, it revealed that our target audience aren't too interested in gossip, but are interested on new and upcoming artists, music stories and upcoming events, assisting us in how we can produce our magazine.
Lastly, we asked "Which features would you consider most important?" This question was a very important one as we received some very helpful feedback. The first response was how the main image should be eye catching and colourful otherwise she would not likely buy it, the next response was that the contents page should be well structured and clear to follow, in order for the consumer of the magazine to not waste their time flicking through trying to find the relevant page. Finally, the last response was the structure of the front cover because a well structured front cover is very successful compared to a front cover with small letters in the corner of the page.

Focus Group

Final Questionnaire Analysed

Question 1:

The first question asks what age you would consider the main target audience to be for an R&B magazine, with the average response being 18, which backs up what we were initially saying when mentioning teenagers/young adults.

Question 2:

Question 2 asks for which type of house style is most expected for an R&B magazine, with dark colours being first, grayscale being second and bright colours being third, all on average, which shows that the typical stereotype of an R&B genre tend to be darker and more masculine than compared to a pop magazine for example, which is what we originally predicted.

Question 3:

The third question asks about whether the magazine being visual or textual is more appealing to the audience, with the results clearly still showing that the music magazines need to be well done visually.

Question 4:

This question asked which type of language would be most appropriate for the R&B genre of magazine, with the responses being colloquial, with standard English being second, showing that the language can use slang but would be wanted to be still understandable.

Question 5:

All applicants who filled out the question involving whether formal or informal information is preferred, displaying how informal language would be most appropriate to the target audience, as the younger generation aren’t as bothered about written communication and abbreviations.

Question 6:

Here, san-serif is still preferred, as the target audience are still ok with the normal style of language and communication that is being used to display the information.

Question 7:

According to our results, the male demographic is still seen as more appealing to the target audience, showing that there is a strong view on how genres display themselves to their specific target audience.

Question 8:

Although it is very close, the male is shown by the results as the best to include on the main image of the cover, with both genders still being ok to use with similar responses and feedback.

Question 9:

From this question, it is gathered that more popular artists would be best to be used on the main image of the cover rather than new and upcoming ones. I agree with this as more popular artist would be more recognisable, therefore, they will attract more people to buy the magazine.

Question 10:

The last question is in favour of provocative images having a strong influence on the target audience buying the magazine, as the R&B genre targeting teens and young adults tend to set examples and trends that are then normally followed/copied depending on the artist.

Final Questionnaire Summaries (Pictures)

 

Pilot Questionnaire Analysed

Question 1:

The first question asks about the colours expected in R&B magazines, where 75% of recipients said that they would expect to see black, white and grey. Which backs up our conventions research into R&B. The remaining 25% expected to see bright, flamboyant colours, which isn't typical of an R&B style of magazine, but it can offer unique aspects.

Question 2:

Question 2 asks for opinions on whether the magazine should include a lot of text and reading over visual aspects, which may include pictures and a lot less writing. 75% of the people who took the questionnaire chose visually appealing, again, backing up a typical music magazines style, to use visual aspects over written to attract the reader.

Question 3:

The third question asks about the language and typography used. How half of the people said slang is mainly used, where the other half expected to see abbreviations in R&B magazines because it is what is most expected from this type of genre of music magazine. The question could be worded differently and could include more specific and appropriate terms.

Question 4:

This question asked the participants if provocative images on the front cover would appeal to the younger audience. Everyone responded yes to this, which suggests that images are the unique aspect of the magazine and the cover, which is where the selling point is. This however may lead to inappropriate uses of images which may stereotype certain people and pressurize women.

Question 5:

All applicants who filled out the question about whether serif or san-serif would be most appropriate for an R&B magazine, decided san-serif, as this would be considered more modern for the target audience, and backs up our conventions research of R&B magazines.

Question 6:

Question 6 asked people if they thought the audience reading the magazine would include more males or females, and the majority said that they expected females to be reading R&B magazines more than males, which surprised us, as we expected males to be more into R&B, rap style of music.

Question 7:

According to our results, it was even between which gender would be more appealing to the target audience, showing that there is an even view between who should be on the cover of an R&B magazine, but shows that it doesn't make much of a difference, as both would have a similar impact, maybe just with more of the opposite gender being more attracted.

Question 8:

The majority of the people who answered this question agrees with how the title/masthead has a big impact on the reader, and is what stands out and catches their attention over most of the other things on the cover, probably excluding the main image. Instead of asking about just the title, any aspects of the cover can be asked if they have an impact on the target audience.

Question 9:

For the final question, we asked for feedback on the questionnaire itself and we received a lot of positive feedback and also some constructive criticism. Next time this isn't really needed, as this pilot questionnaire could use the feedback on how to improve for the final questionnaire, and work on it, also, an additional question could be added to gather even more useful information before production.

Pilot Questionnaire Summaries (Pictures)

Audience Research - Final Questionnaire

Completed by Alex Bowles Or complete the questionnaire on the SurveyMonkey website at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/HMMY73B

Audience Research - Pilot Questionnaire - Kyra

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Audience Profiling Mindmap - Kyra

Mind Map created by Kyra-Mai Green with GoConqr