My first question as you can see on the right is "what first catches your eye when you look at a magazine?", out of 15 people the highest amount answered with the pictures, because that would be the first thing they look at, the reader would want to know what celebrities are involved in the magazine and what kind of gossip is affiliated with them. Especially if the reader considers that particular celebrity to be their idol, this I will apply to my magazine obviously, as I will make sure that my cover photo is bold and draws attention from the reader. This I will do using a reasonable of my model and edit it to a professional extent where it still looks natural but still looks unusual compared to other photos. The second was freebies; I have given this a great deal of thought but I decided against it sue to even though a lot of readers buy the magazine just because of the freebie., my magazine is directed to the older audience who maybe range from 30+ or anyone who has a interest in Country Western music and knows who Dolly Parton is, I highly doubt that a 35 year old would want a freebie. Compared to the other options of masthead, sell lines and information, I will have to pay extra attention to the detail I include into my cover photo as that will be the immediate thing that will engage the audience.
My second question was "what is your favourite genre of music?", I asked this because it would be helpful to know how wide my target audience is and how popular the Country Western genre actually is. Now obviously reggae was not that popular, however I was surprised by nobody taking an interest in the pop genre, as I thought it was a wide music genre compared to heavy metal and indie. I was not surprised by the lack of people taking an interest in Country but 1 person out of a total of 15 is just appalling and does not give me much indication as to how many people would actually buy my magazine. On the other hand, I was not surprised by the amount of people who had an interest in R&B as it does target the largest audience compared to country of Heavy Metal, and the genre includes subjects such as; rap, acoustic, electric, loud, bass and other such aspects that could gather a large audience by including different topics of music that everyone likes and adding them together all in one genre. Country music does sometimes do this especially Carrie Underwood, she does not rap but she changes her rhythm and tone through every song she does, making sure that each song is not the same. This I will apply to my magazine as I will include a theme into the magazine but each photo and page will be different and not specifically following a set trend. 
My third question was; "if I were to create a music magazine based on Country music would you read it?", Firstly I was surprised by the results I had achieved by this question, because more people responded in a positive tone than I thought there would be. As Country music has a limited audience, and they mostly leave in texas, you can see why I was surprised that 9 English people would be willing to read a Country Western music magazine. Overall this gives me more a positive outlook upon how my magazine will be perceived by my target audience whether they are active or passive readers.
"Do you prefer a cluttered page or and organised cover for a magazine?", in my opinion whenever you think of a cluttered magazine cover you socialise it with magazines such as Closer, Heat and other magazines that are based on gossip and fashion trends of celebrities instead of music and concert dates. I will institute this into my magazine because, even though I will not have my cover, contents page or double page spread completely cluttered, I will have some of my images overlapping the text and all pointing in different positions. However each piece of information will have their own formula in my magazine, still giving the illusion that even though some of the texts and images are in different positions, it will still look organised enough for the reader to separate the information from the images. Confusing them less and decrease the chance of them having to match the information to the picture that will be mentioned. 
"Which celebrities would you think of when it comes to Country music?". I was not surprised by the fact that barely anyone knew Dolly Parton as her music career was set from the 1950-1990, even though she is one of the most iconic Country Western singers of all time, I have learnt that I should not include her into my magazine, as barely anyone would know who she is and I could lose readership because of it. Of course when they mentioned Miley Cyrus, I am i guessing the meant when she was Hannah Montana or before she had that breakdown cut off her hair and changed her entire singing style. But she will not be included into my magazine because I want my magazine to original and that means using a singer who has remained consistent in their career, that is why I will be using Taylor Swift. As I know she is popular to all ages and will be instantly recognised on the cover of a magazine, whereas I never planned on using Billy Ray Cyrus as I have never heard his music. More importantly my magazine like many others will have a hint of the "male gaze", even if it is a female reader they will most likely by a Country Western music magazine if there is a female singer on the front than a man.
"Do you prefer bland natural colours in a magazine or bright and loud?", I asked this question because through all my research the magazines for Country Western music were quite bland, not much colour or text, and I wanted to see my audience's reaction if I were to create a music magazine following this particular trend. However with this type of results, I will not follow the bland type of trend if I wish to gain my target audience's interest. From this question I now know what type of changes I have to make to my magazine; need to add a few more sell lines, making my cover page less bland and bare, Make my masthead larger and change the font, making it less controversial, setting my own trend, and finally to edit all my photo's to make them look professional but not like the models have been airbrushed within an inch of their life. Unlike some other music magazines such as "Billboard" and "Q" who like to make their models look like their skin is just as perfect as their music, whereas I wish to create the illusion that my model is natural and original just like their music, giving a good representation of my magazine. 
"Which font do you prefer for a magazine headline?" I realised that I needed to change my overall font to gain the audience interest, but to also contrast with the theme of the magazine giving another clue as to the type of genre my magazine is advertising. While making up this question I scrolled down all the different options for font on Microsoft Word, looking at each one that could give off the impression of the Western look for my magazine, Rockwell Condell obviously gave off this particular impression due to the reaction from my questionnaire, and this will be the type of font I will use for my magazine masthead. However I am not sure whether or not to use it throughout my magazine for all the information I have included as it can be hard to read sometimes especially in a small font like size 12 or 11, which is the size I will be using in order to fit all my information down onto one page. The results to this question gives me another chance to improve the overall quality of my magazine, making it look more professional and attractive.
My final question was; "What them do you prefer in a music magazine?", this was the question I was unsure about because even though I said that I didn't want to follow tradition in Country music magazines, I can hardly imagine loud and bright colours surrounding my pictures and large bold fonts around the pages of my Country Western music magazine. That is why I am glad to receive these types of results as they fall exactly into how I want my magazine to be, Vintage and Retro, this means that the theme of the magazine is quite old and rustic with brown and oranges, colours you would associate with the West but also with shades of reds and blacks in order to contrast my two themes together.
In conclusion this questionnaire has helped me achieve an overall result into how my music magazine should look and gave an insight into the type of positive feedback it will receive from my target audience. If I make my changes according to results I have.
No comments:
Post a Comment