Evaluation Question 5 Draft

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I think that my front cover mainly attracted my target audience over my contents and double page spread because it expresses a lot about the magazine, it is informative and the model on the front is very glamorous and attractive. Due to having lots going on, and having lots of layers on top of each other, I was able to include more and more content with more use of my colour scheme. I feel this outlines my social group. My model has bright eyes and big hair, very glam, and the whole graphology of the cover is eye catching especially with the bold masthead in the ‘impact’ font at the top of the page. I think this is also my main attraction page for my magazine as it suits my audience profiles appropriately and works alongside their interests. This will be a contributing factor to my audience then wanting to purchase my media product and advertising it themselves to their friends and peers.

Front Page Mast Head:

The initial point of interest that is noticed straight away on my front page is the mast head. It is positioned in the centre at the top of my magazine in the largest size/font that could fit nicely (border left between masthead and edge of magazine). On other magazines like Bliss, Cosmopolitan or Dolly they have also used this technique of having their title at the top to engage their audience. On a magazine customers tend to read a page from the top down therefore placing the title at the top 1. It advertises my product and it’s branding and 2. It also makes the magazine more attractive and the layout neater. The font that I used is ‘Impact’ and this is what it says. It is bold and tall so therefore makes an impact when written in a large font size. I made my masthead black as this would further increase the attention of my magazine as the title wouldn’t blend in to the rest of the cover therefore gaining more customers. It would also be a lot more easily readable and harder to miss when on a shop shelf. Having this as a feature was inspired to me by the magazines previously mentioned as they have also used bold texts as their front page mastheads to engage the audience’s attention.

Main Model/Images:

The model that I have used as my girl wears similar types of clothing to what my target audience would where and be interested in. For example: the grey and black bodycon dress. This dress is similar to a dress you can buy from a high street shop called H&M therefore my target audience would have a similarity with my m0del. My artist/model is stood facing the camera looking straight down the lense. This draws my audience’s attention in as her eyes offer another feature of the cover to look at. Also her features make the image striking and more aesthetically pleasing to my magazines readers. This continues throughout my magazine as this same model is used and also my other models make contact with the audience through body language and through a powerful technique of photography. Having these pictures throughout my magazine is another part of why my magazine is going to attract the audience to buy it.

Cover Lines:

I have used lots of cover lines on my media product to ensure that my audience stay interested and there is enough for them to see. One cover line features my main artist ‘HUMAN’ of which I made a logo to make their band look slightly more official. I put this cover line in a coloured circle so that it stood out to the audience and it would be one of the first things that they see when looking at it. Having my feature of current artists and also ones that are upcoming is very important to my magazine as when analysing my audience research this is what they wanted from a magazine of this genre. It also gives my audience another reason to pick up my magazine if they see a name they don’t recognise because it could make them interested in them and therefore want to do further reading about them. A good example of having lots of different cover lines can be seen on the cover of Sugar magazine and also again, Bliss magazine. On the Bliss cover pages they have a lot of cover lines that are all different sizes but all a lot smaller than the mast head. The text is still all bold so it will still be attractive for the audience however being smaller ensures that the main attention will be on the image and masthead at the top of the cover. This convention has influenced my magazine as I have done something similar and ensured that all the text is still easy to read for my target audience.

Contents:

On my contents page I made sure that I have used the bands and solo artists that my audience will like so that their interest will be developed further for my magazine as a whole and not just on my cover page. Again, I kept my magazines contents page quite busy and full so that my audience know that there will be a lot of articles of their interest. Even though my contents page is so full I still made sure that it was neat and easy to read for my audience. This would be to ensure that my target audience know where to go to read the articles that gain their interest the most. I included 5 different images on my contents page; three small and two bigger. The three smaller images represent include ‘district line’, ‘HUMAN’ and also ‘Dan Collins’ who is a solo artist who also features on the cover. These images are to interest the audience on what else is on offer in my magazine and it makes it look more exciting rather than being a page with lists of numbers and text. The two other images are of ‘HUMAN’; on the left you have ‘Maddie’ (member of HUMAN) and also in the rectangular image above this you have both of the girls from HUMAN together. This will grasp the audience’s attention to the band due to the repetition of the girl’s faces. I included the image of ‘Maddie’ as I had used the other member of HUMAN on the cover page and felt this would make the audience more aware of who was in the band. To make this page look more effective, I used the same font as my cover masthead to write ‘contents’ at the top of the page. This makes my magazine more consistent rather than being confusing to my target audience so I am keeping some simple layout ideas in it. I have also used a box at the bottom and this is where all the text is. This keeps it separate to the images so locating what’s on what page will become easier. This will attract my audience as some of them will be quite young therefore could get bored of complicated layouts. Another reason why my contents page as a whole would suit and attract my audience is because there it has a lot of colour and this suits the general style and social group that my audience would fit into.

Double Page Spread:

I firstly had the band logo on the top left hand side of the double page spread; this reassured the audience about what they were about to read about. The page was covered in images and colour and this would be the initial attraction to the page. I made sure that the images I used were fun and relatable to my audience. The poses that were done weren’t too serious and this means that the young female readers could try it themselves and this could also have an impact on their interest to the magazine and artist on the double page spread. Another way that I attracted my audience was by using the line ‘IN THE HEART’; this attracted my audience as I am aware from the profiles on my target audience and also my fan girl research that they are interested in this type of text. I have included this type of language in my articles also so that my audience will find it interesting to read and also so that would engage with the interests that they have. I chose to layer the different bright colours on top of each other (including text colour) so it all stood out and was eye catching to the audience. I put in bubbles some small pieces of text and this means that the audience will be getting a small in site to what the articles will be about. This further means it will interest the audience in small steps. What I mean by this is that they will read the small pieces of writing and then their interest in the band/artist or topic will develop making them more interested in the longer articles. Another included layer that I have on my double page spread includes the central images at the top in the centre of the page; both of the images are mid shots of both members of HUMAN and it shows them styled in black clothing and with ‘perfect’ hair and makeup. I feel this would gain my audiences interest and attention as they could look up to these models and the models are wearing clothes related to the audience’s styles. On top of this I also photographed HUMAN more naturally when they were laughing at the camera and posing together. This again draws my audience in through the eye catching images and a feeling as if the models are laughing with the audience at the articles.