Production Log 1

This is a screen shot of my magazine cover in production:

I have stuck fairly closley to my plan however I have changed some of the fonts such as the "Dizee Rascal" font. The puff is below the title which is similar to hip-hop magazine The Source.

Audience Research

I showed my moodboard and a recent issue of american hip-hop magazine "The Source" and asked him a series of questions to help understand what a member of my target audience would expect and hope for from a new Grime music magazine. The person I interviewed is also a fan of american hip-hop music. The questions I asked him were:

1. Which elements shown in my moodboard do you feel are most important for the production of a Grime/urban music magazine, and what pictures interest you most?
2. Does this magazine appeal to you?
3. What things do you like, and which things don't you like?
4. Is the price acceptable?

These were his answers:

1. "I'm most interested to hear about the artists I hadn't heard of because I didn't recognise some of them and I really like to hear new and original music. I also was interested by the picture of Kidulthood because I really like that film and I would like to hear about new similar movies. The flag and picture of the streets are important too as they represent culture which really interesting."
2. "Yes but it seems some parts are more catered to an american audience so I'm not really interested in those parts."
3. "I like the parts about the music but the other stuff about art and politics and stuff doesn't really interest me. I like the fact that it talks about stuff like games and stuff too, though."
4. " £3.75 is a bit too expensive but it's probably because it's imported from America."

More Audience Research

I showed my sketches to a member of my target audience and asked him the following questions:

1. Does this magazine appeal to you?
2. Would you purchase this magazine and why?
3. How much would you pay?
4. What would you want it to include?
5. What changes would you make; what are the things you didn't like?
6. Do you like the layout, fonts, colours etc?
7. What do you think of the magazine in general so far?

1. Yes
2. Yes because it's eye-catching and unique; there aren't any other magazine that deal only with urban music from the UK.
3. £2.50 - £3.00
4. Interviews with well-known artists, reviews and information about new and unkown artists.
5. I would add some more pictures to the front cover to make it more exciting, like above the Dizzee Rascal story could be a small picture of Dizee Rascal.
6. Yes they suit the style of the magazine especially the logo which captures the underground feel of grime and r'n'b and stuff like that.
7. I like it and I'd like to see the finished product to know how it turns out.

Time Plan

16th Jan - Take photographs for cover and double page spread
18th Jan - Edit pictures and begin cover
22th Jan - Finish cover
23th Jan - Collect other pictures needed
25th Jan - Begin contents page
1st Feb - Finish contents page
2nd Feb - Write article for double page spread
3/4th Feb - Begin putting together double page spread
11th Feb - Finish double page spread
12th Feb - Check all work and tweak any errors

Initial Planning

I named my magazine "Grime Nation" as grime is a genre specific to England and a large part of Grime culture is closely linked with British culture. I used the bold, thick sans serif font because it reflects the heavy, bassy and loud style of the music. I used a font with cracks in it as this is a popular font used by grime artists and connotes the magazine being "underground". I will use the same orange colour which will contrast with the other dark colours. The sketch of the artists face is only to give a vague idea of the final prduct as in my final draft it will be an extreme close up from a high angle, with part of the artist's face hidden by his cap. The tagline underneath the headline "WILEY" says "the new face of grime" which worls well with the extreme close up of his face. The will only be a small part of the background visible so it will be a dark grey colour. I will use white and red for the text around the main sell as they will stand out well on the grey background the text will only slightly overlap on the artist's face.


I will use a similar font for the word "Contents" but slightly thinner, the rest of the fonts will be a standard sans serif font such as Arial. The background in the text box will black with white text. To the left of this will be boxes which contain pictures relating to the stories in the magazine with page numbers and the what the story is so the reader can quickly skip to this part.

My double page spread will be the cover story about rapper "Wiley" featured on the front page. The large picture will take up the whole front page and overlap onto the second page. Like the image on the front cover it will be a close up taken from a high angle with part of the model's face covered by his cap. The model will be smoking so as to give an atmosphere of relaxation, so that it seems like a very personal and revealing interview. At the bottom end of the first page will be a quote from the interview that says something quite unexpected so that the reader is compelled to read the rest of the article to hear the interviewee expand on this. The model will be shown to look wealthy in the way that he dresses and his body language. The font for the headline will be serif to connote the artist's success, beneath this an introduction to the article, e.g. a summarry of The artist's career so far. Below this will be 3 columns of text which are the main text of the article, equal in size.

Summarry of research into existing magazines

My research has made me realise that American hip-hop magazines tend to focus more on the wealthy side of hip-hop and appeal to materialists, both in the style (fonts, layouts etc.) and in the content (lists of best new products; video games, gadgets, clothes). My magazine will be unique as I will take a different approach, seeing as my magazine is based mostly on "Grime" my magazine will have a more raw urban style and will seem like it is an "underground" magazine. The magazines I have studied have used slang language to appeal to their audience so I will do the same in my magazine however I will use more slang specific to grime music and british culture. I have learned that for my magazine to be engaging to my audience I will have to include articles on other things than music such as movies and clothing specific to my audience. I will also make my magazine cheaper about £2.50-£3.00 so it will be easier to afford to my audience who may have a low income or no income at all.

Audience Profile

My main target audience are 15-22 year old males. The genre of music in my magazine is Grime which as a lesser known genre that is mostly listened to by youth and young adults. They dress casually wearing Nike and Fred Perry clothing with jeans or tracksuit trousers and will have short hair. They will be quite concerned with keeping up with the latest fashions and keen to show of they're new Nike trainers. Most of them will be students at high school or college, if not they may be unemployed or be D or E on the Jicnar scale (lowest grade workers, semi/unskilled manual workers) as they will be very young and new to the world of work. The psychographics of my audience is Underacheivers and Radicals. They're social values are Materialists. They will enjoy mostly grime and american hip-hop however they will also enjoy R&B and some pop artists. They will spend a lot of spare time on facebook and playing video games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. They will enjoy mostly action movies and comedies such as The Bourne Identity and Pineapple Express, they will also enjoy urban movies such as Kidulthood and 8 Mile as they will feel that they can relate. They will like to socialise, go out on the weekend drinking and partying, putting fun before work. They will have an open mind to things such as drugs.

The video below displays the girtty, urban style of grime music. It glamourises crime and danger in a way similar to a thriller film.

Grime Moodboard

Institution/Publisher research

The publishers of a magazine are the people that make the magazine available to the public for example making sure that it is available to purchase at stores. They also control marketing and advertising of the magazine.The concentration of media ownership is very apparent in the magazine industry as many magazines are owned by the same publisher for example IPC Media own a vast range of magazines ranging from the "indie" rock magazine "NME" to women's magazine such as "Look" and men's magazines such as "Nuts". The fact that NME is owned by a massive coorperation shows that it probably does not have the integrity it claims to as it designed to appeal to a large audience and it's key function is to make money. The NME is the same formula used for every other music magazine, but disguised to seem original, independant and exciting. Organising the company in this way ensures that IPC Media has all areas of msinstream media covered. Independant publishers distribute there magazines on a much smaller scale but appeal to their non-mainstream audiences by selling their magazines in "cooler" places such as music shops, independant book shops etc.

The publisher of XXL Magazine is Harris Publications, a smaller publisher that publishes only a few other magazines that could appeal to the same target audience of young men, an automative mmagazine, basketball magazine etc. Harris Publications strategy is to appeal to a specific target audience and be the leader in that market.

I would have my magazine be published by an independant magazine publisher and sell it in shops such as HMV and Face the music so that the music fans will see it as something real and cool.