My Target Audience

I hope to create a magazine that appeals to males and females.  The age of the people I will be looking to target are going to be 15 - 25 year old's.  The reason for this is because my magazine will include fun, upbeat indie rock music that can be listened to in gigs and concerts around the country.  My magazine will be quite shocking and I  would hope this would entice people who live on the edge and enjoy banter.  Many magazines from across the UK are aimed at males as we know and there are not many music magazines that both males and females can fully relate to and enjoy.  The people who read my magazine will love Indie Rock/Indie Alternative bands and artists, primarily including; The Vaccines, Crystal Fighters and Two Door Cinema Club.  In my magazines I will include all the latest albums being released, gossip and I will be advertising concerts, gigs and CD'S that will be helpful for many people.  

My Moodboard

Adobe: Photoshop

    Another piece of software we have been taught for the past few weeks is Adobe Photoshop. This is vital when adding pictures to your magazine, it enables you to edit the picture to your liking, playing a big part in making your magazine look professional and easy on the eye.  We were taught how to 'Colour Correct' a photo, this is basically when you give the photo a 'glow' to make the artist/model more presentable.  We also learnt how to use the 'Spot Healing Tool,' which allows you to remove any spots, marks or blemishes from a persons face, resulting in them looking a lot more attractive.  If the cover model had spots all over their face, this would 'put off' the reader, whereas if they had clear, smooth skin the target audience are instantly drawn in.  

    As we can all see, this is a picture that shows the transformation of a woman's' face which has been performed by using the spot healing tool.  The 'after' picture is obviously a lot more attractive and if this was on the front of a magazine, it would probably get a lot more readers instead of the first picture.  This is because of the amazing spot healing tool.  I am going to be using Photoshop in my project as it enables me to alter any image of my choice, until I am happy that it looks professional, attractive and presentable.

Adobe: InDesign

We have been taught to use Adobe: InDesign in order to create our magazines. This is an extremely important piece of software when producing a magazine as it allows us to correctly position, align and organise text and images. Before we open InDesign, we can decide whether to have guidelines on the page, including: gutters, borders, leaning and kerning. If you want your magazine to look as professional as it can, this is a very useful option to have. 

Feminism

Feminism

    Women have always fought for equality and rights from their male counterparts, after many years of narcissistic identification, women finally won 'equality' and earned the right to vote in the 19th/20th century after the supreme sacrifices made by the suffragettes.  As women got the vote they so desperately wanted for decades, the debate of feminism spread to a range of issues such as sexuality, family and the workplace.  Feminism, even today, is still a big issue as women are often being victimised at work or turned into sexual objects by the media, as you can see in the "Wrecking Ball" video below, by Miley Cyrus.

Laura Mulvey

She is a British feminist film theorist.  She worked at the British film institute for many years.  She believes that Hollywood cinema puts the spectator in a masculine subject position, with the women on the screen as the objects of desire.  This is also known as "The Male Gaze."

Semiotics

What is Semiotics?

Semiotics is the study of signs and their meaning;

• what they indicate
• what they symbolize
• who are they designed for
• how they make us feel
• what they are communicating to us

    Semiotics studies the linguistics in SIGNS and non-linguistic sign systems such as the use of colour and symbols.  There are many different signs that are used in a variety of ways.  For example, when someone puts their thumb up that means that everything is good, it is known as a very positive gesture. Semiotics is often used in magazines too.  If you were to read a magazine and there was a large exclamation mark after a title you'd immediately think that this is an important and shocking story. 
     The word 'Semiotics' was invented by the philosopher Saussure. 

Questionnaire

     I produced a questionnaire to find out how many people purchase music magazines and if not, why.  I think that these are an excellent way to find out information as anyone can answer them.  All questions I made applied to everyone so I have a good mix of answers. 

    Below is a link to my questionnaire, I would appreciate it if you filled it out. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1IGXUV5DG7g0YoTNdQIfKsc55D7xsOFfzWyHRALew9as/viewform