Saturday, 29 January 2011

Basic Magazine Terminology And Conventions

Terminology:
Cover: the front page 
Folio: page number, date, and name of the periodical on each page or spread.
Contents Page: the page that lists all the articles and features and their location
Gutter: the margin of the page at the point of binding, or the inside
page margin
Logo: the magazine’s nameplate,appearing on the cover, masthead, etc.
Masthead: the area, often boxed or given special typographic treatment, where the logo, staff listings, date of publication and other information regarding the publication is listed. The masthead of a magazine is very large and can be observed from a far distance.
Exclusive: story is promoted to the audience as only available in this magazine. selling point
Main story: the story generally about the person on the cover (which is what people are buying the magazine for so very important story)
Puffs coverline: summaries of the most enticing features and articles which are inside a magazine. on the cover, somewhat like headlines 
Direct mode of address: when the dominant image of a magazine looks towards the audience
Conventions:
Image dominates the page. This attracts the customer. They should be able to straight away realize who the celebrity/artist is and this helps sell the magazine. Customers are attracted by their roll models, someone they admire, or someone they find talented and attractive. If there is a woman on the cover, this does not mean that the target audience is women. Men's magazines generally have women all throughout.
Colors are used to portray certain messages or moods and themes. They also help to tell the audience whether the magazine is aimed at males or females. If the page/text is predominantly pink it is likely that the magazine is made for females (pink is stereotypically a feminine color whereas blue is generally stereotypically a male color).

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

genres

Out of all of the music genres, I chose the ones that I know anything about really and took a look at different covers for different magazines for each music genre. 

Alternative--












hip hop--
 











rock--











Pop/rock--
 











 pop--












jazz--












ska/indie--











Basic Market Research

I did a bit of basic research on the music magazine industry. I started by trying to find what the top music magazines in the UK are. To try to find what magazines are the most popular I looked for circulation numbers.

Below are some 2009 UK circulation numbers. Figures and information found at:

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Press-Office/News/ABC-Circulation-Figures-January-June-2009/

Empire: 194,016.
Predominantly a film magazine but has music in it, leads market as a top contender
Q: 100,172
UK's biggest selling music monthly
Mojo: 97,722
Uk's second highest selling music monthly
KERRANG!: 43,353
UK’s best-selling music weekly

I researched into the publishers of the magazines. Bauer was a name that appeared more than once. Here's the like to Bauer's website as well as some information from the 'about' page and 'home' page:

Bauer
Bauer Media is a division of the Bauer Media Group, Europe’s largest privately owned publishing Group. The Group is a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations.
The Bauer Publishing Group was founded in Hamburg in 1875 by Johann Bauer. They have an annual turnover of 1.79 billion Euros.

All of the above listed top-selling magazines are published by Bauer. Bauer Media owns more than eighty influential media brands spanning a wide range of interests. The listed magazines are all listed under "Men's Entertainment". Gossip magazines like 'Heat' and 'Closer' are listed as "Womens Entertainment". Bauer Media reaches over nineteen million UK adults across multiple media channels.