final front cover, contents page and double page spread

These are my final drafts of a front cover, contents page and double page spread. 

I printed of these three images and gave them to a variety of people in my target audience to get a final opinion on my pieces.

I received very positive points and over 90% of the people guessed the correct genre that my magazine would belong. This immedietly was a good response as it meant I had used the correct features in order to appeal to the chosen genre. I also asked them if the magazine would be something they would buy and all said yes.

After looking back at these, there are slight changes I would make but overall I think I reached a professional looking music magazine which would suit my target audience successfully.

deciding double page spread

these are two of my double page spread drafts and although they are very similar there are slight differences
the logo of 'drink aware' is different
the colouring of the images is slightly altered
and the colour of the 'to survive the' banner is a different shade of purple

Although I made these changes i stuck to the intitial layout and theme as my target audience as i thought it worked successfully.

I decided to change the filter on the image as I felt that it did not match the overall feel of the other pieces and the bright slightly sepia effect reinforces the topic of the article- summer. Adding to this, I changed the colour of the purple text on the image to a more pastel purple as I again thought it would match the colour scheme as I geared toward many pale pastel colours on the front cover and contents page and it was crucial to keep a consistent house style throughout.

I will use this as my final draft for a double page spread as I and the people I surveyed preferred it.

Niche magazines

RESEARCHING A NICHE MAGAZINE


ABC : audit bureau of circulations


A NICHE magazine is a magazine about a sub-genre of a major genre which has a lot of depth to it. Niche magazines have many pros and cons which drive their publication and population.


PROS:

• the audience they are targeting will be far more loyal and committed to buying the magazine each week
• the magazine will have more specific content

CONS:

• niche magazines means their target audience will be smaller
• smaller audiences means smaller income
• can't include much variation

I am now going to look and study a niche magazine and look at its sales, marketing and publications. 

Cross Stitcher is an example of a niche magazine. It sells around 38,684 magazines every six months and last year, it's sales decreased by -18.7%. Sales most likely dropped because one; this is a very niche hobby and so will have a small target audience and two; because it is such a rare hobby. Another reason cross stitching magazines are going "out of fashion" is because people will be spending more money on the equipment they need and not wasting it on magazines when all the information people can pay for from the magazine they can get for free from the internet nowadays. 

However, although Cross Stitcher is decreasing in sales, two similar magazines; The World of Cross Stitching and Cross Stitch Crazy, both 
owned by Immediate Media Company, sales have increase. However,thesemagazines are associated with the BBC therefore although they are publishing a niche magazine, have a huge backing which will able to publicise the magazines more, making people more aware of them. This therefore explains their sale increases. Future Publishing, on the other hand, own Cross Stitcher who have decreased. Future Publishing owns a lot of computer and television based magazines and so wont be "showing off" and giving cross stitching as much recognition.

The magazine to the right is the cover of the magazine I have been discussing. Its typical niche target audience is going to be women and that is most probably the reason the colour theme is based around pink and yellow and is covered in flowers and girly fonts. There are  several sell lines and promotional images which they could be doing to bring in and interest new readers. 

NAME CHANGE

Recently, I have taken the chance and changed the name of my magazine. I have spoken about the decision on changing the name in a prior post and have finally come to the decision to change it.
Although i like the name 'PURE', after speaking to a range of people within my target audience I asked them what genre they think of when hearing the name PURE and the majority replied with a pop genre due to it connoting the ideology of this genre.
So, after hearing this I went back to the drawing board and came up with the name SIGNATURE. I like this name as I feel that it suits the genre alot more. My reasoning behind this name was the idea that every signature is unique- much like the indie genre and the idea of a 'time signature' im music. "The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, bar signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each bar"
I again went away after coming up with this name and surveyed my TA into what genre they would pair this name with and the majority came back with indie so i went ahead with it.
I also prefer this name as when it is on my front cover it is spread right across the top of the page. I think that this gives it a more professional look as the majority of magazines have a title which fills the top.

second draft CONTENTS PAGE