A​lex Newell-Media Studies

With multiple music magazines currently on the market that fit within the indie rock genre I had a lot of available references in terms of the typical look of the cover models, which then enabled me to capture the style of my target audience. As mentioned in my first evaluation question it was important that I completed research into my target audience to ensure the clothing of my cover model matched the style of the genre and was typical of the things they wear. The first piece of target audience research I carried out was through the use of a survey created with surveymonkey which is an online survey website. Before creating the survey I had to think of the most important questions to ask in order to get the right understanding of my target audience in relation to how I would construct my magazine based around their interests and preferences. I focused mainly on the artists they prefer as well as their favourite clothing brands as this would be important in the look of my cover artist and meeting my target audience’s expectations. Following the survey I discovered a number of things about my target audience; firstly, all ten responses were from males suggesting a higher interest for indie rock from men therefore this influenced the gender of my cover model. Additionally the most popular clothing brands for indie rock fans were revealed to be Hollister, Topman, Urban Outfitter and Superdry. With this information I was then able to move forwards in the creation of my front cover, I picked out an outfit that is representative of the typical clothing worn by indie rock fans. I ensured my cover model was wearing bright clothing as well as accessories to add to the overall look, indie rock fans wear bright or dark clothing which can be simple plain t-shirts or have patterns on so I chose the colourful clothes in order to be complimented by the white background. Unlike a rock magazine such as kerrang where the featured artists would be wearing makeup such as eye liner and have very dark clothing including leather as well as the possibility of tattoos, my cover model has a strong look to match the indie rock genre which is dissimilar to the look of a typical kerrang cover model. I designed my magazine and the look of the artist so if a random member of the public saw my magazine on a stand they would be able to instantly recognise it as an indie rock magazine.