According to Wikipedia, my main target audience are those from ages 14-35 who listen to bands such as The Stone Roses, who are big in the indie rock industry. In order to find a formula that gets a lot of attention from this target audience, I searched on google for magazines that made articles regarding the Stone Roses in a positive light. The first result to come back was NME, showing that it is the most popular magazine searched for on the internet in association with The Stone Roses. I have selected my basis to be upon this band in particular as they have a wide reach amongst multiple generations. As I could not find any specific target audience group on the UK Tribes website, I have decided to target all subcultures included in the "Alternatives" category, which includes Emos, Hardcores, Young Alts and Skaters as each of these subcultures listen to a wide range of music in the rock/indie genres. On the UK Tribes website, they are described as "Taking inspiration from the indie band culture", with keywords associated with them being "Independent" and "Rock".
Emos
As Emos are associated with teen angst, taking inspiration from the 80s punk rock scene, it is key that the writing within the magazine article withstands a certain amount of anger and perhaps even hatred towards the mainstream music scenes. Based upon this, it may be a good idea to involve some form of rivalry between my main artist and a real life artist from the pop scene.
Skaters
As skaters are viewed to be the current major influence on music culture and fashion across the world it is important that my magazine appears to be influential and almost ahead of its time in the views that it throws out, in order to attract the like minded Skater scene to read it.
Hardcores
On the UK Tribes website, punks are mainly associated with the heavier forms of punk rock, which when conducting my research into a brief history of indie rock, I had found to be one of the key routes in the formation of modern day indie rock. Therefore, it is key that this demographic of my target audience is not ignored. Whilst they are associated with being angry and depressive people, punks and hardcores actually tend to be quite joyful people with strong views on the class systems. It is for this reason that I maintain that my magazine is best to have a light hearted tone to most, if not all of the article.
Young Alts
UK Tribes' idea of Young Alts is that they want to avoid the mainstream and continue to listen to songs by independent artists. It is for this reason that within my magazine I am choosing to avoid any interviews or exclusives with artists that may be considered of the pop genre as it is the most mainstream genre of music in the eyes of many.
Summary
From what I have read on each of these demographics, it is key that I avoid writing too much about mainstream acts, that are dominant in the music industry and focus more of my writing on being about music having deeper meanings but most of all about having a good time in general. It is for this reason that I wish to have bright colours throughout my magazine, however it is acceptable to have a contrast to darkness at some point. I think that, if I choose to have a darker page, this will be on the double page spread.
Title and Font Ideas
This font is called 'bombing!' and it was originally my intent to use this font with the 'IND' title as it gave an interesting city graffiti twist to the magazine masthead. My target audience research however showed that IND was not a suitable name as it was too obvious and simple for the complex indie market. The graffiti style of 'bombing' was also more commonly associated with hip hop magazines and would drive away my intended audience.
This font is entitled 'Bandung Hardcore GP' and I chose it due to the american college style. My reasoning for this is that Indie Rock music originated from college rock bands such as R.E.M. This, along with the strong boldness of the letters creates a clearly visible and attractive theme for the target audience to approach. My reasoning for choosing the name 'PICK' is that the main instrument used in Indie Rock is a guitar and a pick is used to play it.
I liked this font for similar reasons to the 'Bombing!' font. 'Planet Benson' shares the graffiti style of 'Bombing!' but again lacks the correct style for an indie magazine, although the serif style indicates a sense of intrigue about the font, which links with a feeling many fans of Indie music have that suggests it is in some way 'mysterious' or 'unique'.
This font called 'Friday Night Lights' is similar to the 'Bandung Hardcore GP' font as it is similar to the design of the typical american college font. However, this font has a larger feeling of showbiz about it and therefore makes the magazine more glamorous and attractive to the eye. It is for this reason that this is the font I have chosen to be on my front cover.
The 'Road Movie' font is very basic and easy on the eye, but I did not feel it was impressive enough to be used as the title font for my magazine so instead I decided to use it as the font for my headings of each sub article.
Pricing and Page Number Research
I am now taking a brief look at the page numbers and prices of several popular rock music magazines that would be associated with a target audience similar to my own. This is to get a firm understanding of the price range that competitors use compared to the quantity of material they provide for their clients.
In Kerrang! magazine, there are around 63 pages in each issue. As the magazine comes out weekly, we can see that this is an acceptable number of pages for their audience and this is also reflected in the price of the magazine, which stands at £2.20 per issue or per week for subscriptions.
Q magazine on the other hand is a monthly magazine, which is why it costs £3.90, ranking in at a considerably higher price than Kerrang!. This can also be shown by the larger quantity of pages, of which Q has 166.
Similarly to Kerrang!, NME is a weekly magazine and only costs the consumer £2.20, however NME has a total of 70 pages. This means that NME offers more content to their clients for the same price as Kerrang! which shows the competitive market between these two magazines.
In Kerrang! magazine, there are around 63 pages in each issue. As the magazine comes out weekly, we can see that this is an acceptable number of pages for their audience and this is also reflected in the price of the magazine, which stands at £2.20 per issue or per week for subscriptions.
Q magazine on the other hand is a monthly magazine, which is why it costs £3.90, ranking in at a considerably higher price than Kerrang!. This can also be shown by the larger quantity of pages, of which Q has 166.
Similarly to Kerrang!, NME is a weekly magazine and only costs the consumer £2.20, however NME has a total of 70 pages. This means that NME offers more content to their clients for the same price as Kerrang! which shows the competitive market between these two magazines.
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