Audience Profile of MixMag

The magazine MixMag is a dance genre magazine. Its name is a play on the word “remix.” This instantly establishes the music magazines genre and captivates the audience. We associate the word remix with dance and clubbing, and this further identifies the audience for the magazine.

We stereotypically often link clubbing and the younger generation. Clubbing is a relatively new establishment which is often primarily manipulated by a younger generation of 18-30’s. This age group are often recognised for their specified club orientated holidays and this is why this magazine targets this age group.

To go clubbing is a very social outing, which attracts both men and women. We would usually think that it is a place for men and women to meet. This means that this attracts both men and women to going out. Therefore we would assume the magazine is aimed at both genders. It is not specified to a certain sex as the music they represent symbolizes the interests of men and women of a certain age group.

Going out and going clubbing are usually associated with the weekend. The magazine itself offers a VIP trip for a weekend break. This would lead us to the assumption that the audience for this magazine are workers with the weekend being their only free time. We would assume that the targeted market are Monday-Friday, 9-5 workers with stable jobs. This is backed up by the price of the magazine. It is not overly cheap at £4.20. This suggests that the audience have money to spare and are not under money issues. We would gather this information from their lifestyle. If they are going out clubbing, they must have some money to spend.

The interests of this audience, I would assume are purely selfish. We can assume this information from the type of lifestyle expected from this target market. We know that they are frequent clubbers, aged 18-30, they are likely to travel to places such as Ibiza and Magaluf, places where 18-30’s holidays are very widely held. We also can presume that they are workers, earning money for them and spending it at weekends on themselves. This all leads us to believe that this audience to not have any responsibilities and are only submitted to taking care and looking after themselves. They would be classified as a lively, fun and careless market who stereotypically we would expect to be without children and not married. The magazine does not reflect a family vibe as it promotes quite the opposite. It is aimed at single people who have the ability to live freely without having anything to tie them down. Clubbing is widely associated with drinking clubs always contain a bar. This brings us to the assumption that they are heavy drinkers, or some might say “binge drinkers” which is a person who drinks heavily frequently but not on a regular basis e.g. at the weekends.







The audience are targeted in many ways through this magazine. MixMag manipulates its audience by offering escapism and personal relations in different formations. The magazine classifies its genre and specifies its brand without limitations. The magazine is highly associated with its genre and establishes itself through its medium. It advertises and attracts a precise audience which I have established previously. The content and expectations of the magazine are highly portrayed through the cover. The lively audience audience of this magazine are greeted with bright colours and party images to instantly attract the target market in a way which allows them to familiarise themselves with the magazine. The magazine portrays the lifestyles of its audience through the use of language and images.

An aspect which is fundamentally expected to accompany the magazine is a CD which is offered every month to readers. It has become a signified attribute to the magazine which has become one of its highest selling points. The CD produced by the magazine reflects highly the music interests of its readers. This has become an imperative enducement which is greatly recegnised with the magazine.

The magazine, unlike other music magazines does not rely heavily on celebrity interviews in order to attract their audience. While this is a key function used by the magazine, it is not a dominate feature which is present continuously throughout the magazine. Instead, MixMag prefer to review an analyse previous events and inform of the upcoming events. This notifies readers and keeps them up to date with any missed experience. The magazine prides itself on its knowledge of the things that interest its audience and this is portrayed throughout.

Photoshop Tutorial

Back in January when we first begun this task, we were given a tutorial lesson on how to use Photoshop effectively. For some students in the class this was the first time they had ever used Photoshop, however as I took Media Studies as a GCSE, I had some understaning of how the software worked.

In this lesson Mark, the schools ICT technicion went talked us through the basics of Photoshop. We were given a sample photo of chocolate and was then directed through the many aspects of Photoshop in developing this photograph. We were firstly told about layers and the reasoning for them. We then went on to the editing. Mark explained the different kinds of things we could do with Photoshop Elements and then taught us how to put this method into practice.

Some of the things we learnt about included; feathering, layering, resizing, spot healing brush, lasso tool, cookie cutter tool, filtering, modifying and enhancing. We were given an hour to use as many of these different elements as possible on our chocolate image.

School magazine & Evaluation

I was given the task of creating the front cover and contents page of a school magazine. Before designing this I took a look back over the previous years work for inspiration and as a way of gaining a better understanding of what was expected of this task. I was limited to using original photography only. After taking the pictures I then set up a plan which I could work from when it came to creating the magazine. To edit and prepare the cover and contents page, I used Photoshop Elements. I had previously been given a tutorial lesson in this software and so I had a basic understanding of how to cooporate with the software to benefit the presentation of my design.

Here is my finished work:

I wanted to use images which showed the school and its students. To make this appealing I wanted to capture the audience by using fun, interesting images on the cover which would hint at what was to be found inside the magazine. I felt the purpose of the cover is to persuade and inform, it aims to get the reade to pick up the magazine and to see what is inside. I felt that the contents page would not need to come accross so persuasive as I would have already captured the attention of the reader. I decided to use one main image of the school for this to keep the magazine simple and not overloaded ith images. The connotation of this main image of the school suggests pride enthusiasm for the school as it is shown big and bold. It reflects its importance.

The text was kept the same. The main titles and masthead were the same font, size and colour and other text such as caption and headings were also kept to the same font, size and colour. I chose to keep this consistancy to reflect organisation and to keep the magazine looking orderly. I used the school's signature maroon colouring for the text as I wanted to keep the magazine consistent in representing the school. I used text to link the magazine to what we already associate with our school. The font for the masthead and the page titles waas the same font that St. Marks use in the logo and on the school prospectus. this linked the magazine wit our preconceptions of St. Marks.

The logo was used on both pages to create a certain house style to the magazine. I used the original school logo to keep the regularity within the magazine. I feelthis also reflects a sense of pride within the school. To show the logo shows patriotism and loyaly for your school.

I felt the strangths of the magazine was its tidyness. I felt the magazine looked organised and not to overcrowded. I also like the science image as I felt this really showed an enjoyable side to learning and expressed gratification. I felt the weaknesses came with the lack of time I had to complete this tak. Due to commitments with the school dance production I was unfortunately left wth less time to complete this task. This meant that elements of my magazine had to be rushed.

If I was to redo this task now I would leave myself more time to complete this task. During this time I would concentrate on improving the layout so that I could fit more images on the front page without overcrowding it. I felt this was the main aspect which needed improvement as it appeared a little lacklustre.

From this preliminary task I have gained a better understanding in using Photoshop Elements. This experience has taught me how to use words and images effectively n creating an appealing magazine and I hope this will be useful when creating my music magazine in the future.

Analysis of NME and Kerrang! magazine

The two magazines; NME and Kerrang, both familiarise in their represented genre. However they both have a very different approach at targetting there market. NME classify themselves as a laid back and unpretentious magazine which differentiates from the impression we recieve from the front cover of Kerrang. Kerrang present a very busy/messy style which reflects the stereotypical unoraginsated lifestyle which we would expect of their target market.



I first looked at the cover of NME. I felt that their colour scheming and the consistency in their layout was very eyecatching and consumer grabbing. The red and the black contrast made every element of the magazine prominent. The artist featured on the front cover had noticably green eyes which stood out in comparison with the conistet red and black and captured your attention. NME placed the cover stories on the left hand side which I believe to have been another eyecatchiong effect, as naturally we all tend to notice things on the left hand side more efficiently. I felt the cover for this magazine reflected its genre well with use of image. The artist looked very serious and careless. I feel this impacts the confident message which NME represent themselves to be. NME are known to be a ruthless magazine who are unconcerned with the viewpoints of critics and those who do not wish to read the magazine. I felt this message was reflected well through the image.

I liked the cover of NME and felt that they expressed there genre well through th front page. However I was then asked to further analyse the contents of the magazine and I was disappointed. I felt that the inside of the magazine did not cooporate well with the cover. They seemed to be representing two very different music genres and I found this to be confusing. The cover showed a confiednt careless genre with its tidyness and consitent style, however the inside reflected a wreckless mess with no consistency or composure. I did not feel that two went well together. The inside however did offer the stories promised on the front page and I did like the fact that these articles were very detailed and effective. The inside o the magazine consisted of a lot of text on some articles and lot of images on others. I felt that this off balance technique replicated its ruthlessness.

My innitial impressions of Kerrang! primarily from their front cover were very different. I saw the same uncaring aspects I did prviously in NME, however it was approached in a more obvious manner. The cover was messy as text and images overlapped, sizes and styles of text differed and the colour scheme was not consistent. My original perception of Kerrang! magazine has since changed after my analysis of the front cover. I stereotypically assumed that harsh, dark colours would set the theme of the magazine. Nevertheless, bright blue's and pinks were used throughout the cover to pinpoint certain areas of the page and draw your attention to them. I felt that this colour scheming was so unexpected that it was used to represent the rebellious side of the magazine as they did not stick to the stereotype and followed there own rules. The images for this cover were all very posed for and had been designed for this specific magazine. The scruffy clothes tied in well with the genr and representation of the mgazine.

I found the contents of Kerrang! magazine to be more suited to its genre than I found with NME magazine. Kerrang! kept a consistent style thorughout the magazine which familiarised with the front cover. Images and text were used more equally and therefore there was more of a balance between the two, which set more of a neutral tone.