Magazine notes.

Magazines.

There are over 3000 different magazine titles in the uk, all if which have an audience and a target market.

There is a magazine for almost ever hobby, interest and social group.

List of magazines:

Sport

Computer games

Fashion

Real life

Music

Horse riding

For every broad genre of magazine there are usually many more sub genres.

Music:

Chart music  - smash hits

Heavy metal -

RnB -

Rock - kerrang

hip hop -

jazz -

indie – New musical express

opera –

each magazine will have its own identity which may on the surface closely resemble others. These broad similarities are then built on with design and content choices which tailor the magazine to the specific audience.

EXAMPLE.

most rock magazines tend to use similar colour palette. Often they will predominantly use red, black and white. They will also often feature photos of bands performing live. This appeals to their audience and reflects the codes and conventions of the music genre that they cover.

However, there are lots of differences within genres and each genre has its own style and its own codes and conventions.

Design choices.

·         Writing style

·         Layout

·         Features

·         Adverts

These all work together to create a style which is specific to that magazine, just like the clothes and hair styles form an image for a sub genre of rock music.

Choosing a genre.

Things you should think about:

·         Availability of reference material – is there a range existing products that you can look at and analyse?

·         Your own interests – if you have a strong intrest in a particular genre of music you may want to use this as a starting point for your project of you might want to investigate a completely different genre

·         Access to  the audience-will you beable to carry out research on the target audience of your magazine to help with your production.

·         Design style and aesthetics- are you interested in the design and look of a specific genre of magazine or specific magazine.

·         Copying- you must beable to take the structure of a magazine and copy it.

“ the best work had a clear sense of genre and audience and a clear grasp of conventions” – OCR examiner report 2010.

In order to gain a good understanding we would recommend that you look at a minimum of 3 existing products in depth.

RESEARCH NEEDED.

Colour scheme, photography, writing style, text/picture ratio, fonts, overall look, publisher.

Excellent analysis will:

Discuss  the different  elements of the magazine and give details reason for those design choices.

It will look at the magazine as a whole including the front cover, contents page and double page spreads and could also include advertising to build a picture of the audience.