Iconography, My Genre, My artist

Iconography associated with the Country Genre:
- Guitars -Ukulele -Country Hats (Cowboy Hats) -Country Style Boots -Light Natural Colours

A typical member of my target audience would be:
Female, 15-24
Favourite Artists would include: Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Luke Bryan, Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill.
Male, 15-24
Favourite Artists would include: Luke Bryan, Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill

Music from smaller independent stores rather than big chain stores.

The main artist that will feature in my magazine will be:
Female, 16/17
Influential Artist: Carrie Underwood
Wears: Country style boots, ripped jeans,
Favourite place to play live: UK- Hyde Park
 Worldwide - Goode's Armadillo Palace.Housten, Texas. Toyota Centre. Houston, Texas. Sprint Center, Kansas City.













10 words to describe themself: young, fresh, upcoming, fun, rolemodel, compassionate, caring, talented,smart, ambitious.
Typical Headline: The freshest upcoming artist on the scene!

Word/Phrase that best captures the mood I am going to create with my front cover: youthful and fun.

Front Cover: Layout- Relaxed, Interesting, Not too busy and overcrowded.
Fonts: Masthead= Modern. Article= Traditional, Simple.
Title:Located top middle. Eye catching modern font.

My artist and their images:
Hair: Down, Curley/Wavy, Volume.
Make-Up: Natural, not too obvious. Mascara, Foundation, Lipgloss.

Images taken in an outdoors natural setting.
                                                                   

Country Fashion

This is my country fashion moodboard. I have chosen the sort of clothes I aim to dress my models in as I feel from my research that they are most closely linked to the genre. The backgrounds are also good base locations for my main image on my front cover and for the double page spread and contents page images also.

Conventions I Will Follow

Masthead - My masthead will be located at the top of my magazine in the middle like most music magazines. I haven't completely decided on a font yet but I plan for it to be modern and a serif font which goes against the usual masthead convention of the country music genre e.g  Country Weekly is a sans serif font - very traditional and simple. I am going to aim for my masthead font to be more modern and interesting e.g Country Music.

Slogan - I have decided not to include a slogan on my magazine because through my country genre research I have discovered that no Country magazines have included one.

Anchorage Text - All country music magazines include anchorage text. I will be including this on my front cover and possibly placing it to the left where the audiences eyes will first look due to the Z-rule.

Price - The price of my magazine will be located in the very bottom right - the last place the eyes look. I hope that people would have made up their minds about buying the magazine before they reach the price. If the price is slightly expensive I will make the font size smaller but if it's cheap then I will make the font size larger.

Main Image - I haven't decided fully on my location but have chosen my model. I have chosen my model because she is tall and has blonde hair - this seems to be the typical look of a country girl.

Barcode- My barcode will be located in the bottom right corner of the front page as this is the least important part of the magazine.

Sell Lines- My sell lines will be located down the left and right sides. The main titles will be in bold and slightly larger and the little info paragraphs will be in a smaller font. The style of font will be a more traditional simple as to make it easier for the readers to read.

Layout- The layout of my front page wont be very busy as I feel this will overwhelm people and steer them away from the magazine.

Puff- I wont be including a puff on my magazine as from my research I have noted that no country music magazines have a puff.

Colour Scheme- From my poll results I have decided to use the colour scheme pastel blue, pastel yellow and pastel pink.

Poll Results

These are the results from the poll I included on my blog. From this I have decided that my colour scheme will be pastel blue, pastel yellow, and pastel pink. 

I think people voted for these colours because there are very natural and fit in very well with the conventions of a Country Music magazine.

My Magazine

I have decided that my magazine is going to be within the Country genre. I have decided this because I have done a lot of research into country magazines and now know and understand the typical conventions and layouts of a country magazine. Also I have researched into country music artists and how they are represented through the magazines which you can find on my blog post named Which Genre Have I Chosen And Why?. My audience is going to be girls and boys aged 14+ because although music magazine's tend to have a target audience of mostly boys country magazines have a good target audience of girls due to the amount of females that read this genre of magazine. I was going to aim my magazine at an audience of mainly boys but after some more research into just country music magazines I have changed my mind and decided to aim it more at both genders now if not slightly more towards females. Due to my target audience being predominantly young people I have decided to make the price reasonable because at this age students don't have access to much extra money.

Locations I have considered

Back Garden - I have considered this location because through my research I have found that most photoshoots based in Country Music Magazines, which is the genre I am going for, are involving grass and an outdoor space e.g

Both pictures are from Country Music Magazine photoshoots and both have an outdoors background with a natural feel to it.

Park - Another location I have considered is the park because this is also outdoors and will get the grass and natural feel. This is a very typical location for the Country genre. 

Both of these magazines are from the Country genre. By looking at these both I have gotten idea's about what my Country magazine front cover should look like to fit in with the typical conventions.

Idea's for front cover

From my front cover magazine analysis I have learnt that the publishers don't really tend to focus on the mise en scéne with the front cover image and mostly on the artists clothing and facial expression. This has helped me decide that although the background that I choose is extremely important I should focus a bit more on my cover artist.

Grid Content Analysis

Country Weekly - Double Page Spread

This is a double page spread from Country Weekly magazine. It covers the style section of the magazine where double page spreads are usually for interviews with artists or photoshoots.
The double page spread is covered in images making it automatically more interesting. The images all link in with the double page spread article but each are different. Each image shows a country artist representing what the aticle is talking about. The font of the article is a typical plain sans serif font that makes the article easy to read. The way the page is layed out makes it draw you in as due to the z rule your eyes first look at the top left where you see a fancy heading in a nice font and is coloured also the image underneath makes you want to read on more. The colour scheme is lilac/purple/pink which is very girly - the double page spread it covering corsets and fashions so the target audience would be girls.

Poll

I have sent an email out to everyone asking them to complete my poll, once everyone has voted I will post the results.

My decisions

After completing all my research I have decided to do a country genre magazine and aim it towards both boys and girls between the ages of 14+ and anything up to about 40. First of all I was going to do a magazine aimed at only girls but after researching the target audience for Country Music magazines and music magazines in general it seems that boys are mainly buying the magazines so the target audience is mostly made up of the male gender. After completing all my research I am going to start planning and drafting for my actual magazine. I will start to think about the mise en scéne and decide what conventions I will include.

Questionnaire

 

This is my questionnaire that I plan on handing out to people outside of school as well of inside. From my research I have learnt that the target audience of country music covers all different ages starting from around 14+. There are young children that like it, to young adults and even people 60+ however these tend to not read the music magazienes and just stick to listening to the music on the radio. Music magazines tend to have a target audience of mainly boys so the majority gender I will hand it to will be boys but I have decided to also include some girls because I want there opinions too.

Music Magazine Industry

In recent months it has appeared that the music magazine industry has declined in it' sales. Magazines have been vastly replaced by the Internet online services. For example NME has its own website that allows the public to access what they would get in the magazine for free, and with today's technology such as mobile Internet people can read it on their phones out of their pockets on long journeys such as a train ride. It has also been said that the decline is due to the magazine front covers - people find that they are not 'standing out ' and 'grabbing their attention'. People would much rather watch a quick video lasting a few minuets to find out the latest music news or watch the latest interview with their new favourite artists than sit and read through pages of writing. Some find that they prefer to sit and read a magazine but with such a drastic change in the media industry many prefer to access the information for free, online, straight away. From this research I have learnt that I should make my magazine different and eye-catching as too catch the eye of the public like successful magazines such as Rolling Stone do. I have also learnt that the whole magazine needs to be like this the whole way through as to keep people wanting to read it and not wanting to watch video clips about the news inside instead.

MoodBoard

I have been working on my moodboard and including the sort of images I could use inside my magazine. These images have also given me inspiration as to what sort of images I could take for my front cover and double page spread.I have chosen images of guitars because through my research of country music magazines I found that guitars are involved a lot due to their big part in most country songs. The musical notes are just to fit in with the music magazine theme and the more background photo's (the daisy field and the country road) are there because I feel that both of these shots are very conventional with the country music genre. I watched a few country music video's and found that they are mostly set in surroundings such as these two. Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, Payton Rae, Taylor Swift and Keith Urban are some of my personal favourite artists from this genre and found that they cover many country music magazines such as Country Weekly. I have also included words that link in with the country theme and sell lines that can be used on the front cover and double page spread. The colours involved on this moodboard are mostly pastel light colours such as pink, blue, brown and green. These all connote the idea of nature and the country lifestyle so I aim to include these with my music magazine colour palette. The quotes are from country artists I can use as sell lines or as lines from an interview inside the magazine, these can be featured on any point of my magazine.From this moodboard I have learnt about the colour palette's of Country music magazines and the sorts of images involved with them. I know I have many idea's about the images I am going to take for my own magazine and the way I am going to take them e.g I know that I will aim for a light, natural feel and I have decided on a few artists that I can include in my magazine. By researching and going through the different conventions of Country music magazines I have found what I should include in my magazine to make it like the well selling country music magazines.

Which Genre Have I Chosen And Why?

The genre I have chosen for my music magazine is Country. I have chosen to do Country because I already have idea's about what i could do on and with my magazine and have researched into the different conventions of  a typical country magazine.
What seems to be the conventions of this genre? Who is the target audience?

A country music magazine like most will include a masthead, covergirl and coverline, article names and barcodes. The target audience for a country music magazine is going to be anyone who listens to country music, the covergirl/boy is also going to depend on the audience it attracts but most music magazine's are aimed at the male gender which is mostly right for music magazines but they are also made to attract a female audience as well.
Who are the main publishers for this magazine?
Country Weekly is published by American Media, Inc.

Are there particular conventions to this type of magazine?
The cover image is always related somehow to the genre of the magazine. Somebody with a guitar or in a calm, country background is most paticularly common for a country music magazine.

Name three artists associated with this genre and analyse how each ones star image has been created. How are they represented and how does the target audience relate with them?
Carrie Underwood - Represented through cover image and photo shoot inside of the magazine. The article surrounding her usually includes an interview with the star so the target audience can relate with them personally through this. Carrie's star image has been created by promoting her with almost flawless pictures and articles about all her success'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Underwood

Luke Bryan - Also represented through cover images and photoshoots. The interview helps the target audience relate with him, this would be different to how Carrie's audience relates to her because Luke and Carrie are both different so there fans would relate to different things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Bryan

Rascal Flatts - Represented through cover images, photoshoot and articles also. Most interviews will feature personal responces from each member of the band, this way to target audience can relate to each member of the band personally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rascal_Flatts

Who is your target audience?
The target audience for most music magazines is boys. Country music has a wide variety of artists both male and female. The target audience mainly for a country music magazine is going to be somebody who is interested in Country music so when the magazine offers a free Carrie Underwood CD or a free Luke Bryan Mixtape this is the people that they are going to attract. My target audience is going to be both male and female aged 14+.

Analysis Of Three Different Music Magazines

Billboard Magazine:

Inside Billboard you will find a contents page, and then pages of articles and photoshoots as well as interviews and the main cover story. Also included were adds such as this one:

The contents page had a basic list of what was in the magazine and the page number to left but on the right side of the page there are images and bigger bolder writing. This is a good contents page because it tells you everything you need to know easily as well as been fun and interesting.
The rest of the magazine was filled with articles and images, photoshoots and adds.





Rolling Stone:

Inside Rolling Stone you will find much the same as inside Billboard; A contents page, articles, photoshoots, interviews and the main cover story. The fonts are mainly sans - serif font but occasionally the bold writing and letters have serif font. Also included inside the magazine was adds for things such as concert dates/tickets which links in well with the rock genre of this magazine. The rolling stone contents page features text which is bold and bright, images which link in with the articles, page numbers and colour linked in with the red/white/black theme of rolling stone. This is a good contents page because it is clear to find out what you want straight away but is also an interesting page to see and read.

Country Weekly:

Country weekly is a country genre magazine aimed at those who like and listen to country music. Country weekly is also full of adds, photo shoots, interviews, images, the main cover story and a contents page. However the adds in country weekly are very different to that of Rolling Stone and Billboard as they are aimed at a different target audience. The fonts in country weekly stick to sans-serif and are all bold and coloured to stand out and catch attention. The contents page for country weekly is split into 2 sections the top is covered with images and page numbers but the bottom left has page numbers for each department E.G  Letters 4 New Music 56 and the right side has Features E.G Shania Twain 18 On The Road 36.