Crowd controlRock magazine project by Sam Cowie

Crowd control magazine

AUDIENCECrowd control is a magazine that should appeal to the younger generation, and those that like to break the rules, live in the moment and live loud with a care free, rebellious, punk attitude. I have tried to create a magazine which appeals to both middle and working class as then my demographic is wider. This limits my target audience to a young group between the ages of approximately 13-23 of mostly male, enthusiastic and animated characters. However these people do exist in numbers in the huge number of punk rock fans across the globe and that is the music genre I have used to appeal to this audiencealong with various techniques I have used to attract and Address this audience.

Who Is the

For your medIa Product?

How did you attract/address the audience?

Considering this audience is alarge and energetic audience I had to appeal to them by using loud features such as vibrantcolours , sketchy layouts,exclamation marks as well as keeping the mode of address care free and informal. Themagazine is priced at £1.99 which leaves a reasonable profit margin and is affordable for my target audience. I address the audience in the magazine by being very informal in language and also using outrageous photos with abnormal facial expressions and also candid photos from live performances which is lessconventional than using shots from a photo shoot but I feel it suits my demographic more as it is more energetic and wild. Furthermore I think the title of my magazine ‘crowd control’ suits the demographic, as they are out of control.

GENRE

The genre of my magazine is rock and this is very important that I include only this genre as it is a unique genre that only my target audience will enjoy and they are not likely to enjoy any other genres of music. However it is a wide genre of music with lots of sub genres such as punk, metal, indie and alternative rock. The sub genre that I will focus most on my magazine is punk however I will try to cover many genres to keep my demographic as wide as possible. This genre is by far the most important aspect of attracting my target audience and keeping them interested. I know this as before creating the magazine I created a survey for people in my demographic and when asked what things interest them in a magazine approximately 70% said they were only interested in music. So it proves that my target audience is all about the music so I need to give them exactly that.

In what ways does your media product

use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

COMPETITOR MAGAZINES

After deciding my genre and who my target audience is, I had to find three competitor magazines within the same genre. I analysed them and focused on conventions used which I could follow or challenge. I chose NME, Kerrang and Metal Hammer as these are all rock magazines that I have heard of and are well known and successful so they will have a number of conventions that will be common and I should use these as well, as I am looking to attract a similar audience. I will now analyse these magazines and compare them in conventions with my final magazine.

CONVENTIONS - COVER PAGES

Above is the Kerrang front cover (left) and my finished Crowd Control magazine (right).

This Kerrang magazine uses a feature article photograph from a photoshoot and mine is a candid photo from a live performance, so this is a convention that I have already challenged Kerrang magazine on.

However, Kerrang and other rock magazines have previously used live photos for feature article photographs, and I aspired to be similar to those magazines. Also because in my target audience survey the majority of my demographic said they preferred a live candid feature article photograph. This made things difficult for me to get the right photo and it took several attempts but in order to attract and address my target audience I believe it was important that I used a live shot.

Candid photo (live concert)

CONVENTIONS - MASTHEADS NME is quite a

civilized magazine for middle class readers who probably enjoy rock music but don’t follow the trends and personalities of most rock fans.

Their masthead reflects that. in comparison it is not as sharp and loud as the others, it appeals to a wider audience because of this.

Square font, tidy.

Live candid photo

Metal Hammer is also more targeted at a certain audience, a more heavy rock music magazine and the masthead reflects that. The font is sharp but not untidy and broken like Kerrang, which suggests that is not aimed at the younger generation.

Sharp features

Kerrang is different as if a civilized middle class person saw the Kerrang masthead they would most likely be put off immediately because it is sharp, messy and loud in the exclamation of the word Kerrang, the sketchy font and black lines that run through and break the masthead. However we also have to respect the fact that a lot of the middle class will aspire to break free of their civilized lives so this adds to the aspirational aspect of my magazine.

My masthead is most similar to Kerrang as our audiences are most similar, we both target the younger generation so we similarly both have a broken font however mine has been given a slight glow to make it stand out more. Despite having quite a loud magazine I have not chosen to exclaim my masthead as I feel it is too tacky for my target audience. I have made the two capital Cs larger to emphasise the alliteration and to create an abbreviation of CC.

Lines break font, sketchy outline

Class is quite an issue when it comes to creating a magazine as you have to be able to address them in a way that is not offensive and appeals to them. I also had to look at suitable pricing for a monthly magazine in which a large part of the demographic is working class. I am appealing to the working class as I believe that working class people can see my magazine and the people it includes and see rock music as a route to wealth. They aspire to becoming a rock artist like they see in the magazine.

Whereas my magazine can also appeal to the middle class as although a lot of these may seem the opposite to out of control and punk but a lot of them want to break free from their civilized lives and Crowd Control can contribute to that.

CLASS

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

In the photos and articles that I have used I have chosen to represent those in my magazine, who are mostly middle class, in a different light in those that can become successful and put on a great rock show (left).

In the feature article photograph (far left) it could be argued that Mark looks like he is on drugs and although this may or may not be true it represents him in a light that is not what you would consider to be typical of middle class people so both middle and working class readers can aspire to live with this attitude.

In other photos the middle class bands show in suits which is very middle class but the poses and facial expressions they use are more rock and roll.

REPRESENTATION IN TEXT

I have also represented this group through the use of wording, I have chosen to use a pull quote shown below that uses language that the common man doesn’t use when being interviewed, but to emphasise his attitude and individuality I have chosen to pull out this quote and show it to all the readers. I have also referred to rock stars as crazy in places which can be seen as a compliment, but only by this social group as that is how they perceive words thatothers would see as negative.

Cover linesThere is a common convention in cover lines in rock magazines in

that they are often in the middle of the feature article photograph and

they are often larger than the masthead or the same size. The

main exception to this in the cover pages I analysed is NME, they are a more formal magazine and have a less ‘in your face’ style magazine

as the more hard core rock magazine covers have with the

Bring me the Horizon and Sleeping With Sirens pages being good

examples of this. They all have short mottos with their cover lines ‘take aim’ , ‘here to wake up your town’ etc. and mine shown above

is ‘from russia with love’. These are all energetic puffs to show you

what the bands are like, this is a convention I have chosen to follow

as it is very common in rock magazines and it gives the band

an image and I wanted to give Laika a loud image.

CONTENTS PAGE ANALYSIS

I analysed the contents pages of my competitor magazines and they showed a much more organised format to their cover pages, particularly NME and Crowd Control followed this convention as a contents page is there to inform the reader of what the magazine includes. However I tried to keep a chilled out tone by creating quirky captions for my images to keep the less civilized readers interested. Captions such as ‘Nice pose, Bro.’ have a humorous outlook on the celebrities in the photos which is quite unique but is similar in ways to Kerrang magazine which is a convention that I have developed and have used throughout my magazine. Other conventions such as page numbers and pull quotes I have kept similar to my competitors to follow conventions as we have similar demographics. A lot of the rock magazines have editors words and views on the magazine, I used this to outline the style of the magazine to the reader, and I included bands in my magazine that fit perfectly into my genre.

Metal Hammer’s contents is spread across three whole pages, with a lot of informative text giving the reader plenty to know about what the magazine includes. This is a convention that I have not chosen to follow as my survey showed that my target audience prefers pictures to text and not a great deal to read in a magazine, and although metal hammer’s demographic is rock fans, it is an older and therefore more mature/sophisticated audience.

Kerrang use a similar layout to my magazine. I have followed many of the conventions that they have used in captions, page numbering, titles and pull quotes. Their contents page is more organised than their cover page but still has a laid back feel to it and in places humorous. But all round the page is quite informative and lets the reader know what the magazine includes whilst keeping the tone loud and enthusiastic.

CONVENTIONS IN MAIN

FEATURES.My Double Page Spread (below) is quite different to Metal Hammer’s shown right. They have chosen to have a whole page with the band on similar to a cover page but I have spread my images all over the two pages with text on both pages.

I have made use of a title and running head which are key conventions used my all magazines. As well as a pull quote to give interesting information out from the main text. The pictures that I have used are very loud in comparison to Metal Hammer who are more hard-core, aggressive characters.

Kerrang have used one background picture for the whole of their double

page spread, which gives a very loud image and tone to the feature. Although I have used loud features

my magazine is more laid back than this. I have followed in the

footsteps of Kerrang in that we both have fillers on the sides of our page to keep the page fun and to remove negative space. This adds a comical

tone and keeps the reader entertained.

Kerrang have also used a pull quote ‘I don’t want to go hang out with the president and talk about

shit.’ This pull quote gives an ‘I don’t care’ feel to the magazine in

that they have clearly pointed out a swear word rather than a more

professional quote. My pull quote ‘we’ll have an EP out next year.

That’s right, four songs of orgasmic beauty for you all.’ is similar to this

but in a more humorous way instead of just swearing for the

sake of it.

SURVEY RESULTS

In order to learn more about my

target audience I created a survey to ask questions about

what their ideal magazine would

include and from this I could create

guidelines that I could follow to make

my magazine in accordance to my

demographics' needs. From my survey I created

graphs that would clearly show the

majority vote for the answers to the

questions.

MARKET RESEARCH

• My target audience prefer a red & white colour scheme on a magazine

• My target audience prefer candid photos from live concerts as a feature article photograph.

• Only music should be included in my magazine

• A front cover should be busy

• Interviews are the best features

• Crowd Control is the best magazine title.

PLANAbove is the original digital plan for my magazine. I made this to outline what I wanted to achieve and to have rough guidelines to follow. I made it digitally using photo shop to make it easier to follow and I wouldn’t lose it. In relation to the plan, my finished product is very similar, except I have changed the photo as the first one was blurred and I have added some plugs flush left of the cover. The cover line is also a lot larger than I planned but I had too much negative space and overall it looks better, I also added a few more puffs and plugs to fill negative space. I also used my competitor magazines as guidelines to take conventions from.

What have you learnt about technologies when creating your media product?

PRODUCTIONShown below is the gradual stages of progress that I made when creating my front cover. I had already taken my feature article photograph so I started by just placing that in photo shop and organising everything around it. I added the masthead that I created by adding glow and erasing lines out of it to break the text up and make it look scruffy. At first I also added lines to the background to add to the messy look but in the end I took them out to create more space. Once I had the masthead at the top of the page I began to add cover lines. Finally I filled in any negative space with additional puffs and plugs.

FRONT COVER

PRODUCTION CONTENTS

Above is the contents plan and final contents page for Crowd Control, overall the plan to production phase went very well and I didn’t have to change much. All I changed was adding an editor’s word instead of 4 images flush right. And this then created negative space so I added one image in the corner of the page. Other than this almost everything is the same and my contents page overall was a success.

PRODUCTION CONTENTS

There were a number of difficult tasks that I came across when creating my contents page, I followed the layout of Kerrang’s contents pages but some of the images I included had to be edited in order for them to look good. The first of which was the photo shown to the right. The background to this photo is quite dull and also clashed with a background of another picture on my contents page, so I had to remove the background using photo shop. However this created a scruffy outline in places which I had to erase using the polygon tool. Finally I put a border around the entire photo on the contents page to give it a shape.

The second issue I came across on my contents page was filling negative space. I had a lot of negative space in the bottom right corner of my contents page so I created a festival logos image to make the page more interesting and also show what would be included in the magazine. I created this using photo shop by copying and creating each of my own festival logos for download using various different fonts and adding bevels, strokes and shadows to the text to make it stand out. Download, T in the park and Reading & Leeds are the festivals I used. I gave it a background and organised the image leaving space for a page number in the corner and added the image to the contents page. Shown below is my finished contents page.

PRODUCTION CONTENTS

PRODUCTION FEATURE

Above is the plan and finished main feature for Crowd Control. With this I followed the plan very closely. I had already decided what picture I wanted on the first page, all I had to do was put a yellow border around it to make it contrast with the text. I then had to add drop caps as this is a common convention used but that is all I changed from plan to production.

In my double page spread I have interviewed a member of a local band laika. I have chosen an unstructured interview as it is more casual and has less structure which is similar to the theme of the magazine and the demographic in that they don’t like structure or intellectual conversations which my survey results show. The pictures I have used are very loud and energetic with Mark posing in one but with an unserious facial expression. The picture from the live show is of him standing on a drum kit which is unorthodox and very energetic and it works very well with the theme of the magazine.

PRODUCTION FEATURE

I have used photo shop on these photos to give them borders which make the pictures fit with the text well and also stand out but go with the colour scheme of red and black which my survey recipients suggested. I also used flash to incorporate drop caps to which is a common convention to show the start of an important part of text. I used different text boxes for the drop caps as I could change the text size and fit them around the main text.

PRODUCTION FEATURE

red border

Slight stroke on text

Slight shine on text

PRELIMINARY TASK DEVELOPMENT

Above is my preliminary task which was to create a school magazine and the cover to my final rock magazine. I will point out the things wrong with my preliminary task

and how I have improved upon them.

Jagged outline on head due to poor editing

Lots of negative

space here

Font quite difficult to read

Background colour dull and does not go well with text

Font all the same size. And boring masthead.

Feature article photograph not interesting.

Masthead is more creative and eye catching.

Negative space filled with cover lines and plugs.

Candid photo is more interesting and relevant.

Cover lines are all eligible but with interesting fonts.

Puff gives a tone to magazine.

Guitar adds to loud tone and also shows genre.

WHAT KIND OF INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

METAL HAMMER PUBLISHER

Metal Hammer is currently owned and distributed my Alex springer who is a German publisher who distributes hundreds of media products world wide, meaning that they already have many music magazines including rock magazines. Which means they may not be interested in publishing my magazine.

KERRANG PUBLISHER

Kerrang are currently being published by the Bauer Media Group, also from Germany. BMG also publish Q magazine, another popular magazine which is more cross genre than a rock magazine as it covers pop music aswell. But considering BMG already have two huge music magazines, they would probably not be interested in my magazine.

NME PUBLISHER

NME are currently being published by IPC Media which is a British publisher that also publishes rock magazine ‘Uncut’. However, Uncut is more of a classic rock genre magazine and NME is more cross genre with main stream bands. Therefore IPC Media would probably consider a magazine like Crowd Control as it is more ‘punk rock’ which on it’s own is an entirely different genre. So IPC Media would be one of the candidates to publish my magazine. Also as a British publisher they may be looking for a British magazine to publish.

CENTURY ONE PUBLISHING

Another candidate is century one publishing. These are a smaller publishing company that don’t publish as many magazines, they don’t have any big Music magazines and they may be looking for one so they could be a candidate. They are also a UK based company so might be interested in an up and coming British music magazine.

PROMETHEUS GLOBAL MEDIA

PGM is another example of an institution that may want to publish a magazine like mine, they currently publish a hug music magazine in billboard, and no rock magazines, so they be looking to publish a rock magazine to widen their audiences. This is an American company so as a global media company they may be looking for a British magazine.